Federal

The Trump administration further embraced the theory that the deadly Covid-19 pandemic emanated from a lab in China, updating the government’s main websites about the virus to detail that argument.

To protect kids online, Mark Zuckerberg says Congress should focus on Apple and Google — not Facebook and Instagram. The Meta CEO, owner of the two social media sites, is flooding Washington with ads aimed at convincing lawmakers to require his rivals’ app stores to verify shoppers’ ages and require parental consent for kids to download social media apps. In 2024, Zuckerberg was able to convince House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to shelve a bill that would have required Facebook and Instagram to make design changes to protect kids from bullying, sexual exploitation and other online ills.

When Elon Musk and President Donald Trump commanded all federal workers to submit weekly emails listing five accomplishments, they warned of harsh consequences: Failure to comply would count as a resignation.

For the past six years, Gavin Wax has held court as the president of the New York Young Republican Club, a group he helped turn from a small, stodgy establishment outfit into “a vanguard of the Trump movement.” Under his leadership, the club has moved far to the right.

Tariff confusion is through the roof right now, but fiber broadband operators and their equipment suppliers probably don’t have much to worry about, according to Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen.

OpenAI wasn't mentioned once in a judge's 115-page decision against Google over its dominance of the online ad market—but the Chat

It looks like there are lots and lots (and lots) of federal regulations that US telecommunications industry players want to end. Some of the rules are relatively major, like a requirement that companies disclose network outages or security breaches. Others are very minor, such as a requirement to use the Federal Communications Commission's aging and complex spectrum-management database. Some rules touch on hot-button issues in the current political climate—for example, rules about tracking workforce diversity and others focusing on TV broadcaster ownership.

The U.S. Commerce Department appears to be shooting for mid-May to announce anticipated reforms to the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment rural broadband funding program, according to Washington insider Blair Levin. In a research note, Levin said the four options under consideration include:

I’ve been thinking about something that Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said in a post-election interview: “The president has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years.” What we’re seeing now is that this was a false choice. There is no way to cleave the policy of the next decade from the outcome of the next election.

A concerning development from the Trump administration has privacy advocates sounding alarm bells nationwide: a plan to consolidate data from dozens of government agencies into what would amount to a comprehensive “master file” on all American citizens.