The Federal Communications Commission is making up to $200 million available to help schools and libraries make their computer systems more secure. From a report: The Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program will be used to evaluate whether to fund this kind of program on a more permanent basis. The funding will come through a pool of money called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which is made up of contributions from telecommunications companies. Schools and libraries participating in the program will be able to reimburse things like advanced firewalls, identity protection and authentication services, malware protection, and VPNs.

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey advocated for a "warrior class" and autonomous weapons during a talk at Pepperdine University. The defense tech entrepreneur, known for his Hawaiian shirts and mullet, argued that societies need people "excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims."

Luckey revealed that Anduril supplied weapons to Ukraine two weeks into the Russian invasion, lamenting that earlier involvement could have made "a really big difference." He criticized Western hesitancy on AI development, claiming adversaries are waging a "shadow campaign" against it in the United Nations. Contradicting his co-founder's stance, Luckey endorsed fully autonomous weapons, comparing them favorably to indiscriminate landmines.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit accusing eBay of violating environmental laws by allowing the sale of hundreds of thousands of harmful products on its platform, including pesticides and devices to evade motor vehicle pollution controls. U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant in Brooklyn ruled on Monday that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over user content, shielded eBay from liability in the civil lawsuit.

The judge said eBay's administrative and technical support to sellers "does not materially contribute to the products' alleged unlawfulness" and does not make the San Jose, California, company a "publisher or speaker" on sellers' behalf. Merchant also said eBay was not a "seller" of some of the challenged products, because it did not physically possess them or hold title. She rejected the government's argument that eBay was a seller because it exchanged the products for money. The U.S. government argued eBay violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the sale of harmful products, including more than 343,000 aftermarket "defeat" devices that help vehicles generate more power and get better fuel economy by evading emissions controls. The company also was accused of allowing sales of 23,000 unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use pesticides, as well as distributing more than 5,600 paint and coating removal products that contained methylene chloride, a chemical linked to brain and liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Jimmy Carter reached his 100th birthday Tuesday, the first time an American president has lived a full century and the latest milestone in a life that took the son of a Depression-era farmer to the White House and across the world as a Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian and advocate for democracy. Associated Press: Living the last 19 months in home hospice care in Plains, the Georgia Democrat and 39th president has continued to defy expectations, just as he did through a remarkable rise from his family peanut farming and warehouse business to the world stage. He served one presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and then worked more than four decades leading The Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 to "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope."

"Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it's worth celebrating," Jason Carter, the former president's grandson and chair of The Carter Center governing board, said in an interview. "These last few months, 19 months, now that he's been in hospice, it's been a chance for our family to reflect," he continued, "and then for the rest of the country and the world to really reflect on him. That's been a really gratifying time."

James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924 in Plains, where he has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. He is expected to mark his birthday in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the early 1960s -- before his first election to the Georgia state Senate. The former first lady, who was also born in Plains, died last November at 96. President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's 1976 campaign, praised his longtime friend for an "unwavering belief in the power of human goodness." "You've always been a moral force for our nation and the world (and) a beloved friend to Jill and me and our family," the 81-year-old president tells Carter in a tribute video filmed in front of Carter's presidential portrait at the White House.

DirecTV has agreed to acquire struggling rival Dish Network, creating a satellite TV behemoth with nearly 20 million subscribers. The complex transaction, announced Monday, involves private equity firm TPG acquiring a majority stake in DirecTV from AT&T for $7.6 billion. DirecTV will then purchase Dish for $1 and assume its debt.

The deal provides a lifeline for Dish, which faces $2 billion in debt due November with only $500 million in available cash. EchoStar, Dish's parent company, will retain its wireless spectrum investments and operate independently. Subject to regulatory approval and creditor agreement, the merger is expected to close in late 2025. DirecTV and TPG will provide $2.5 billion to cover Dish's immediate financial needs. The deal's fate remains uncertain, as a similar 2002 merger attempt was blocked on antitrust grounds.

The Energy Department said on Monday that it had finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help a company restart a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan -- the latest sign of rising government support for nuclear power. From a report: Two rural electricity providers that planned to buy power from the reactor would also receive $1.3 billion in federal grants [Editor's note: the link is likely paywalled; alternative source] under a program approved by Congress to help rural communities tackle climate change. The moves will help Holtec International reopen the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert Township, Mich., which ceased operating in 2022. The company plans to inspect and refurbish the plant's reactor and seek regulatory approval to restart the plant by October 2025.

After years of stagnation, America's nuclear industry is seeing a resurgence of interest. Both Congress and the Biden administration have offered billions of dollars in subsidies to prevent older nuclear plants from closing and to build new reactors. Despite concerns about high costs and hazardous waste, nuclear plants can generate electricity at all hours without emitting the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. David Turk, the deputy secretary of energy, said he expected U.S. electricity demand would grow by 15 percent over the next few years, driven by an increase in electric vehicles, a boom in battery and solar factories as well as a surge of new data centers for artificial intelligence. That meant the nation needs new low-carbon sources of power that could run 24/7 and complement wind and solar plants.

Thousands of Verizon users across the United States reported having little or no cellphone service on Monday morning in major cities, including in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, New York and Phoenix. From a report: According to the website Downdetector, which tracks user reports of internet disruptions, more than 104,000 cases of Verizon outages were reported across the country as of 11:20 a.m. Eastern, more than an hour after the first issues were reported.

A map posted on the site showed cities with the most reports. On the site, many users said their cellphones were intermittently displaying SOS mode and that they could not place calls or send or receive text messages. "We're aware of the issue affecting service for some customers," a spokesman for Verizon, Ilya Hemlin, said in a telephone interview at 11:30 a.m. "Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to solve the issue," he added.

As the Vice President of the United States travelled in a motorcade Saturday to a San Francisco hotel, they ended up stopped behind "a Waymo vehicle that had to be driven away from the motorcade route by police," according to a local newscast (which called it an "only in San Francisco moment").

And that's not all. One local reporter following the vice president's motorcade said "we saw not one but two driverless cars get stuck."

The San Francisco Standard adds that on Friday, California's governor "signed a bill that allows law enforcement to cite driverless car companies for traffic violations."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge in California has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen regulations for fluoride in drinking water, saying the compound poses an unreasonable potential risk to children at levels that are currently typical nationwide. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco on Tuesday sided (PDF) with several advocacy groups, finding the current practice of adding fluoride to drinking water supplies to fight cavities presented unreasonable risks for children's developing brains.

Chen said the advocacy groups had established during a non-jury trial that fluoride posed an unreasonable risk of harm sufficient to require a regulatory response by the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act. "The scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present; fluoride is associated with reduced IQ," wrote Chen, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama. But the judge stressed he was not concluding with certainty that fluoridated water endangered public health. [...] The EPA said it was reviewing the decision. "The court's historic decision should help pave the way towards better and safer fluoride standards for all," Michael Connett, a lawyer for the advocacy groups, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The United Nations is set to vote on a treaty later this year intended to create norms for fighting cybercrime -- and the Biden administration is fretting over whether to sign on. Politico: The uncertainty over the treaty stems from fears that countries including Russia, Iran and China could use the text as a guise for U.N. approval of their widespread surveillance measures and suppression of the digital rights of their citizens. If the United States chooses not to vote in favor of the treaty, it could become easier for these adversarial nations -- named by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as the biggest state sponsors of cybercrime -- to take the lead on cyber issues in the future. And if the U.S. walks away from the negotiating table now, it could upset other nations that spent several years trying to nail down the global treaty with competing interests in mind.

While the treaty is not set for a vote during the U.N. General Assembly this week, it's a key topic of debate on the sidelines, following meetings in New York City last week, and committee meetings set for next month once the world's leaders depart. The treaty was troubled from its inception. A cybercrime convention was originally proposed by Russia, and the U.N. voted in late 2019 to start the process to draft it -- overruling objections by the U.S. and other Western nations. Those countries were worried Russia would use the agreement as an alternative to the Budapest Convention -- an existing accord on cybercrime administered by the Council of Europe, which Russia, China and Iran have not joined.

The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Friday against three Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trump's presidential campaign and disseminating stolen information to media organizations. From a report: The three accused hackers were employed by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and their operation also targeted a broad swath of targets, including government officials, members of the media and non-governmental organizations, the Justice Department said.

The Trump campaign disclosed on Aug. 10 that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. Multiple major news organizations that said they were leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign, including Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post, declined to publish it.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law (AB 2426) to combat "disappearing" purchases of digital games, movies, music, and ebooks. The legislation will force digital storefronts to tell customers they're just getting a license to use the digital media, rather than suggesting they actually own it. From a report: When the law comes into effect next year, it will ban digital storefronts from using terms like "buy" or "purchase," unless they inform customers that they're not getting unrestricted access to whatever they're buying. Storefronts will have to tell customers they're getting a license that can be revoked as well as provide a list of all the restrictions that come along with it. Companies that break the rule could be fined for false advertising.

The FAA's air traffic control systems are significantly out of date and won't be updated until the 2030s, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Register reports: In a report released Monday, the GAO said that 51 of the FAA's 138 ATC systems -- more than a third -- were unsustainable due to a lack of parts, shortfalls in funding to sustain them, or a lack of technology refresh funding to replace them. A further 54 systems were described as "potentially unsustainable" for similar reasons, with the added caveat that tech refresh funding was available to them. "FAA has 64 ongoing investments aimed at modernizing 90 of the 105 unsustainable and potentially unsustainable systems," the GAO said in its report. "However, the agency has been slow to modernize the most critical and at-risk systems."

The report said the seemingly perilous status of 17 systems was "especially concerning" as these are deemed to have critical operational impact at the same time as being unsustainable and having extended completion dates -- the first of them won't be modernized until 2030 at the earliest. Others aren't planned to be complete until 2035, and four of the 17 "most critical and at-risk FAA ATC systems" have no modernization plans at all. Of the systems on the list, two are more than 40 years old, and a further seven have been in service for more than 30 years.

The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services firm has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has attempted to unlawfully crush competitors, including fintech companies like PayPal and Square. From a report: The lawsuit follows a multiyear investigation of Visa which the company disclosed in 2021. "We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa's unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing -- but the price of nearly everything."

Visa makes more than $7 billion a year in payment processing fees alone, and more than 60 percent of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa's network, the complaint claims. The government alleges that Visa's market dominance is partly due to the "web of exclusionary agreements" it imposes on businesses and banks. Visa has also attempted to "smother" competitors -- including smaller debit networks and newer fintech companies -- the complaint alleges. Visa executives allegedly feel particularly threatened by Apple, which the company has described as an "existential threat," the DOJ claims.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The alleged Iranian hack of Donald Trump's orbit continued at least until mid-September and may be ongoing, a document the hackers shared with a progressive publication reveals. Iranian authorities have denied any involvement in the efforts to leak internal documents from Trump's campaign, which have reportedly been sent to major US publications including Politico and The New York Times, and to the Biden campaign. But the campaign and outside analysts have blamed the hack on the Iranians, who have ample reasons for hostility to the former president and also allegedly plotted his assassination.

The publisher of the newsletter Popular Information, Judd Legum, writes this morning that a source under the name "Robert" shared a set of documents with him. Those included a research dossier on JD Vance matching other publications' descriptions of the hacked material. But the leak also included a legal letter to The New York Times complaining about an article that raised questions about the validity of Trump's image as a successful businessman.

Speaking of California, its governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a a bill that requires schools to limit or ban the use of smartphones, amid a growing consensus that excess usage can increase the risk of mental illness and impair learning. From a report: Thirteen other states this year have banned or restricted cellphones in school or recommended local educators do so, after Florida led the way by banning phones in class in 2023, according to Education Week. California, with nearly 5.9 million public school students, has followed the lead of its own Los Angeles County, whose school board banned smartphones for its 429,000 students in June.

That same month U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a warning label on social media platforms, akin to those on cigarette packages, likening the problem to a mental health emergency. Murthy cited a study in the medical journal JAMA showing adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media may be at heightened risk of mental illness, while referring to a Gallup poll showing the average teen spends 4.8 hours per day on social media. California's bill, which passed 76-0 in the state assembly and 38-1 in the senate, requires school boards or other governing bodies to develop a policy to limit or prohibit student use of smartphones on campus by July 1, 2026, and update the policy every five years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Paper or paper? In California, shoppers will have only one bag option at the checkout line starting in 2026. A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, the flimsy sacks that regularly blew into waterways, littered streets and collected in landfills. The prohibition, in the nation's most populous state, was considered a turning point in the effort to reduce plastic waste. But the move backfired in a way that few supporters expected. Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California's recycling agency. A loophole in the initial ban allowed retailers to provide thick-walled plastic bags and charge 10 cents a piece for them. Though technically reusable and recyclable, the heavier-duty sacks still ended up in many trash cans after a shopping trip.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), regardless of thickness. The only option for customers who lack their own reusable shopping bags will be buying paper bags for 10 cents each. "We deserve a cleaner future for our communities, our children and our earth," said Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democratic assemblywoman and co-author of the bill, in a statement. "It's time for us to get rid of these plastic bags and continue to move forward with a more pollution-free environment." Plastic bags are typically used for 12 minutes before being discarded, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy group. But those bags live in oceans and landfills for hundreds of years, and can contaminate drinking water and food in the form of microplastics. SB 1053 will go into effect on January 1st, 2026. It also changes the definition of a "recycled paper bag," requiring all bags with that label to be made of at least 50% post-consumer recycled materials starting January 1st, 2028.

Amazon, Meta, and Tesla were named by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) as some of the worst corporate underminers of democracy . These companies were accused of union busting, monopolizing media and technology, violating human rights, contributing to climate change, and fostering political movements that threaten democratic institutions. The full list of "corporate underminers of democracy for 2024" is Amazon, Blackstone Group, ExxonMobil, Glencore, Meta, Tesla and the Vanguard Group. The Register reports: The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) today published a list of seven companies it said were "emblematic" of the ways large international corporations have begun tossing their weight around to influence global affairs. Those businesses, ITUC noted, violate trade union and alleged human rights, monopolize media and technology, exacerbate the climate catastrophe and try to privatize public services in a way that "protects and expands [their] own profits by undermining democracy." "These companies deploy complex lobbying operations to undermine popular will and disrupt existing or nascent global policy that could hold them accountable," ITUC wrote. The desire for greater corporate power, the Confederation added, invariably puts corporate interests in bed with anti-democratic political movements like the modern far-right. Right-wing politicians, ITUC noted, tend to lower taxes, undercut higher wages for workers, crack down on trade unions, and the like - all things sure to please the likes of corporations like Amazon, Tesla, and Meta as evidenced by plenty of prior reporting and research. For Amazon, the ITUC criticized the company for becoming "notorious for its union busting and low wages, monopoly in e-commerce, egregious carbon emissions through its AWS [datacenters], corporate tax evasion and lobbying."

Meta was accused of exploiting user data, undermining privacy laws, manipulating global information, and failing to regulate harmful content on its platforms. "Meta's algorithms can quite literally alter humanity's perceptions of reality," ITUC said. "Its revenue model exploits trillions of personalized data points to deliver highly effective advertising." Some have referred to the company as "a foreign state, populated by people without sovereignty, ruled by a leader with absolute power."

As for Tesla, it was condemned for poor labor practices, anti-union politics, unsafe working conditions, human rights violations, and environmental damage in its supply chain. "The world's most highly-valued automaker has quickly become known as one of its most belligerent employers. Tesla's rapid market success has been outpaced only by the descent of its corporate leaders into anti-democratic, anti-union politics."

The US Commerce Department on Monday will propose a ban on the sale or import of smart vehicles that use specific Chinese or Russian technology because of national security concerns, according to US officials. From a report: A US government investigation that began in February found a range of national security risks from embedded software and hardware from China and Russia in US vehicles, including the possibility of remote sabotage by hacking and the collection of personal data on drivers, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters Sunday in a conference call.

"In extreme situations, a foreign adversary could shut down or take control of all their vehicles operating in the United States, all at the same time, causing crashes (or) blocking roads," she said. The rule would not apply to cars already on the road in the US that already have Chinese software installed, a senior administration official told CNN. The software ban would take effect for vehicles for "model year" 2027 and the hardware ban for "model year" 2030, according to the Commerce Department. The proposed regulatory action is part of a much broader struggle between the United States and China, the world's two biggest economies, to secure the supply chains of the key computing technology of the future, from semiconductors to AI software. China, in particular, has invested heavily in the connected car market, and inroads made by Chinese manufacturers in Europe have worried US officials.

Salon looks closer at a new $51,744-per-violation AI regulation officially approved one month ago by America's FTC — calling it a financial blow "If you're a digital media company whose revenue comes from publishing AI-generated articles and fake product reviews.

But they point out the rules also ban "product review suppression." Per the ruling, that means it's a violation for "anyone to use an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation in response to a consumer review... to (1) prevent a review or any portion thereof from being written or created, or (2) cause a review or any portion thereof to be removed, whether or not that review or a portion thereof is replaced with other content."

Finally... The rule makes it a violation for a business to "provide compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, the writing or creation of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative, regarding the product, service or business...." [T]he new rule also prevents secretly advertising for yourself while pretending to be an independent outlet or company. It bars "the creation or operation of websites, organizations or entities that purportedly provide independent reviews or opinions of products or services but are, in fact, created and controlled by the companies offering the products or services."

In an earlier statement, FTC Consumer Protection Bureau head Sam Levine, said the new rule "should help level the playing field for honest companies. We're using all available means to attack deceptive advertising in the digital age," he said.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.