An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Californians are getting a new, supercharged way to stop data brokers from hoarding and selling their personal information, as a recently enacted law that's among the strictest in the nation took effect at the beginning of the year. [...] Two years ago, California's Delete Act took effect. It required data brokers to provide residents with a means to obtain a copy of all data pertaining to them and to demand that such information be deleted. Unfortunately, Consumer Watchdog found that only 1 percent of Californians exercised these rights in the first 12 months after the law went into effect. A chief reason: Residents were required to file a separate demand with each broker. With hundreds of companies selling data, the burden was too onerous for most residents to take on.

On January 1, a new law known as DROP (Delete Request and Opt-out Platform) took effect. DROP allows California residents to register a single demand for their data to be deleted and no longer collected in the future. CalPrivacy then forwards it to all brokers. Starting in August, brokers will have 45 days after receiving the notice to report the status of each deletion request. If any of the brokers' records match the information in the demand, all associated data -- including inferences -- must be deleted unless legal exemptions such as information provided during one-to-one interactions between the individual and the broker apply. To use DROP, individuals must first prove they're a California resident.

America's tech companies and data center developers "are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don't want to live next to them, or even near them," reports the Associated Press: Communities across the United States are reading about — and learning from — each other's battles against data center proposals that are fast multiplying in number and size to meet steep demand as developers branch out in search of faster connections to power sources... [A]s more people hear about a data center coming to their community, once-sleepy municipal board meetings in farming towns and growing suburbs now feature crowded rooms of angry residents pressuring local officials to reject the requests...

A growing number of proposals are going down in defeat, sounding alarms across the data center constellation of Big Tech firms, real estate developers, electric utilities, labor unions and more. Andy Cvengros, who helps lead the data center practice at commercial real estate giant JLL, counted seven or eight deals he'd worked on in recent months that saw opponents going door-to-door, handing out shirts or putting signs in people's yards. "It's becoming a huge problem," Cvengros said. Data Center Watch, a project of 10a Labs, an AI security consultancy, said it is seeing a sharp escalation in community, political and regulatory disruptions to data center development. Between April and June alone, its latest reporting period, it counted 20 proposals valued at $98 billion in 11 states that were blocked or delayed amid local opposition and state-level pushback. That amounts to two-thirds of the projects it was tracking...

For some people angry over steep increases in electric bills, their patience is thin for data centers that could bring still-higher increases. Losing open space, farmland, forest or rural character is a big concern. So is the damage to quality of life, property values or health by on-site diesel generators kicking on or the constant hum of servers. Others worry that wells and aquifers could run dry...

North Dakota passed a law last May to promote development of rare earth minerals in the state. But the law's language apparently also includes two fake mineral names, according to the Bismarck Tribune, "that appear to be inspired by coal company lawyers who worked on the bill." The inclusion of fictional substances is being called an embarrassment by one state official, a possible practical joke by coal industry leaders and mystifying by the lawmakers who worked on the bill, the North Dakota Monitor reported.

The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. Straley said they were not responsible for adding the fake names. "I assume it was put in to embarrass us, or to make light of it, or have a practical joke," Straley said, adding it could have been a clerical error.

Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring questioned the two substances listed in state law during a recent meeting of the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which is poised to adopt rules based on the legislation... Friezium and stralium first appeared in the bill on the last afternoon of the legislative session as lawmakers hurried to pass several final bills... The amended bill is labeled as prepared by Legislative Council for Rep. Dick Anderson, R-Willow City, the prime sponsor and chair of the conference committee. Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and legislators, including representatives from the coal industry...

Jonathan Fortner, president of the Lignite Energy Council that represents the coal industry, said it's unfortunate this happened in such an important bill. "From the president on down, everyone's interested in developing domestic critical minerals for national security reasons," Fortner said. "While this may have been a legislative joke between some people that somehow got through, the bigger picture is one that is important and is a very serious matter."

Last June the Trump organization announced sales of a $499 "T1" smartphone with a gold-colored case. But though they originally were scheduled for release in August, this week a customer service representative for the wireless carrier told CBS News the device will be pushed back again, now until the end of January, "attributing the delay to the recent U.S. government shutdown."

Some context from The Independent: Shortly after the phone was first announced, language describing it as "Made in the USA" was removed from its official website with the vague claim that the devices are "brought to life" in the United States posted in its place... Other information about the phone has also changed or been removed since its first unveiling, The Verge has reported. Trump Mobile initially indicated the T1's screen measured 6.78 inches, but now claims it is 6.25 inches. It also said the phone had 12GB of RAM; however, that claim has now also disappeared.

As the wait for the T1 continues, Trump Mobile has begun offering refurbished Samsung S23s, S24s, and Apple iPhone 15s and 16s for sale on its site, which appear to have no specific Trump branding and are priced considerably higher than customers might pay elsewhere.

CNBC reports that U.S. airlines have "canceled hundreds of flights to airports in Puerto Rico and Aruba, according to flight tallies from FlightAware and carriers' sites."

JetBlue, Southwest, and American Airlines were among the multiple airlines showing cancelled flights, which "included close to 300 flights to and from San Juan, Puerto Rico's Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, more than 40% of the day's schedule, according to FlightAware." Airlines canceled flights throughout the Caribbean on Saturday following U.S. strikes on Venezuela after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered commercial aircraft to avoid airspace in parts of the region.... It wasn't immediately clear how long the disruptions would last, though such broad restrictions are often temporary. Airlines said they would waive change fees and fare differences for customers affected by the airspace closures who could fly later in the month.
CNN cites a U.S. official who says more than 150 U.S. aircraft (including helicopters) launched from 20 different bases "on land and sea" during Friday's attack.

The U.S. has said the lights were out in Caracas during the attack, presumably because of a targeted strike on their power grid. "Videos filmed by Caracas residents showed parts of the city in the dark," reports the Miami Herald.

United Nations secretary-general António Guterres issued a statement via his spokesman saying he was "deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected," (according to a Reuters report cited by the Guardian). The Guardian adds that "a number of nations have called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, in New York, today, as a result of the U.S.'s unilateral action."

86 aircraft were affected by an incident in Denver ,and 256 more in Dallas-Fort Worth, America's Federal Aviation Admistrationtold the Washington Post: The pilots flying into Denver International Airport could tell something was wrong. In urgent calls to air traffic controllers, they reported that the Global Positioning System was going haywire, forcing them to rely on backup navigation systems for more than a day. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning to air traffic in the area. Eight months later, in October 2022, it happened again — this time at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which shut down a runway as pilots and air traffic controllers scrambled over two days without GPS to guide them. Federal officials have not said who was responsible for interfering with the systems or why it took so long to get them back online, though they've said the Denver incident was unintentional. But the disruptions stoked fear about the security vulnerabilities of GPS, a satellite network relied on daily by 6 billion people, businesses and governments.

Over the past two years, interference with the U.S. Global Positioning System has grown dramatically, threatening a network that is highly vulnerable to attack in a conflict. The danger could be posed by enemy or rogue nation-states — or even just hobbyists with commercially available equipment. Efforts by the Pentagon to upgrade GPS have been delayed by years and have cost billions, as adversaries are developing increasingly sophisticated ways to jam and trick the system with false signals that make it think it is somewhere it isn't. And it's not just civilian airline traffic at risk. The underpinnings of modern life and entire economies could be disrupted by a broad attack on the fragile satellite system — power grids, financial systems, cellphone networks — raising the prospect of catastrophe in an era of increasing electronic warfare...

A report last year by the OpsGroup, an organization of international airline operators, found that in January 2024, about 300 flights per day were affected by GPS interference. By late last year, that number had grown to 1,500 flights per day as conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East continued. And in a one-month period, between July and August last year, some 41,000 flights were affected. "While GPS interference is not a new phenomenon, the scale and effects of the current wave of spoofing are unprecedented," the report found...

The Pentagon has launched eight of its next-generation GPS III satellites, which broadcast the military-grade signal that is more resistant to jamming and spoofing. Lockheed Martin, the contractor building the satellites, is also developing a next-generation spacecraft, which would have the ability to emit an even stronger "spot beam" directly to areas used by U.S. forces, making it even more difficult to jam.

New York City's statewide smartphone ban that went into effect this fall has been largely successful at getting students to focus in class and socialize at lunch, but teachers across the city have discovered an unexpected side effect: many teenagers cannot read analog clocks. "The constant refrain is 'Miss, what time is it?'" said Madi Mornhinweg, a high school English teacher in Manhattan, who eventually started responding by asking students to identify the big hand and little hand themselves.

Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said the ban has helped move foot traffic more swiftly through hallways and gotten more students to class on time -- they just don't know it because they can't read the wall clocks. The city's education department says students learn clock-reading in first and second grade. A 2017 Oklahoma study found only one in five children ages 6-12 could read analog clocks, and England began replacing classroom analog clocks with digital ones in 2018.

President Donald Trump signed into law this month a measure that prohibits anyone based in China and other adversarial countries from accessing the Pentagon's cloud computing systems. From a report: The ban, which is tucked inside the $900 billion defense policy law, was enacted in response to a ProPublica investigation this year that exposed how Microsoft used China-based engineers to service the Defense Department's computer systems for nearly a decade -- a practice that left some of the country's most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary.

U.S.-based supervisors, known as "digital escorts," were supposed to serve as a check on these foreign employees, but we found they often lacked the expertise needed to effectively supervise engineers with far more advanced technical skills. In the wake of the reporting, leading members of Congress called on the Defense Department to strengthen its security requirements while blasting Microsoft for what some Republicans called "a national betrayal." Cybersecurity and intelligence experts have told ProPublica that the arrangement posed major risks to national security, given that laws in China grant the country's officials broad authority to collect data.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Only the government could spend 20 years creating a national ID that no one wanted and that apparently doesn't even work as a national ID. But that's what the federal government has accomplished with the REAL ID, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now considers unreliable, even though getting one requires providing proof of citizenship or lawful status in the country.

In a December 11 court filing [PDF], Philip Lavoie, the acting assistant special agent in charge of DHS' Mobile, Alabama, office, stated that, "REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship." Lavoie's declaration was in response to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in October by the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm, on behalf of Leo Garcia Venegas, an Alabama construction worker. Venegas was detained twice in May and June during immigration raids on private construction sites, despite being a U.S. citizen. In both instances, Venegas' lawsuit says, masked federal immigration officers entered the private sites without a warrant and began detaining workers based solely on their apparent ethnicity.

And in both instances officers allegedly retrieved Venegas' Alabama-issued REAL ID from his pocket but claimed it could be fake. Venegas was kept handcuffed and detained for an hour the first time and "between 20 and 30 minutes" the second time before officers ran his information and released him.

As the calendar flips to January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 are entering the US public domain alongside sound recordings from 1925, making them free to copy, share, remix and build upon without permission or licensing fees. The literary haul includes William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Dashiell Hammett's full novel The Maltese Falcon, Agatha Christie's first Miss Marple mystery The Murder at the Vicarage, and the first four Nancy Drew books. The popular illustrated version of The Little Engine That Could also joins the commons. Betty Boop makes her public domain debut through her first appearance in the Fleischer Studios cartoon Dizzy Dishes.

The original iteration of Disney's Pluto -- then named Rover -- enters as well. Nine additional Mickey Mouse cartoons and ten Silly Symphonies from 1930 are now available for reuse. Films entering the public domain include the Academy Award-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, and John Wayne's first leading role in The Big Trail. Musical compositions going public include George and Ira Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind," and "Dream a Little Dream of Me."

Sound recordings from 1925 now available include Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong's "The St. Louis Blues" and Marian Anderson's "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." Piet Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow rounds out the artistic entries.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For a while, it seemed the notion that light drinking was good for the heart had gone by the wayside, debunked by new studies and overshadowed by warnings that alcohol causes cancer. Now the American Heart Association has revived the idea in a scientific review that is drawing intense criticism, setting off a new round of debate about alcohol consumption. The paper, which sought to summarize the latest research and was aimed at practicing cardiologists, concluded that light drinking -- one to two drinks a day -- posed no risk for coronary disease, stroke, sudden death and possibly heart failure, and may even reduce the risk of developing these conditions.

Controversy over the influential organization's review has been simmering since it was published in the association's journal Circulation in July. Public health groups and many doctors have warned on the basis of recent studies that alcohol can be harmful even in small amounts. Groups like the European Heart Network and the World Heart Federation have stressed that even modest drinking increases the odds of cardiovascular disease. "It says in all our guidelines right now, 'If you don't drink, don't start.' There's not enough evidence to suggest conclusively that it prevents heart disease," said Dr. Mariell Jessup, the chief science and medical officer at the heart association, adding that the review was not meant to serve as a guideline and that the group's advice to patients has not changed.

Critics argue that suggesting any heart-health benefits from alcohol is dangerous given its well-documented risks, and they accuse the heart association of selectively weighing studies. They also say a past tie to the alcohol industry by one author should have disqualified him from participating.

"The cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking are questionable at best," said Dr. Elizabeth Farkouh, an internist and alcohol researcher. "But even if there was a benefit, there are so many other ways to reduce cardiovascular risk that don't come with an associated cancer risk."

The new review's conclusion is also at odds with the CDC's guidance on alcohol, which notes that "even moderate drinking may increase your risk of death and other alcohol-related harms, compared to not drinking." It also seems to diverge from the heart association's diet and lifestyle recommendation to consume "limited or preferably no alcohol," along with its 2023 statement that recent research suggests there is "no safe level of alcohol use."

New Jersey has found its answer to the relentless flooding that has plagued the state's coastal and inland communities for decades: buy the homes, demolish them and turn the land back into open space permanently. The state's Blue Acres program has acquired some 1,200 properties since 1995, spending more than $234 million in federal and state funds to pay fair market value to homeowners exhausted by repeated floods from tropical storms, nor'easters, and heavy rain.

A Georgetown Climate Center report this month called the program a national model, crediting its success to faster processing than federal buyout programs, stable state funding and case managers who guide each homeowner through the process. The demolished homes become grass lots that absorb rainwater far better than concrete and asphalt.

Manville, a borough of 11,000 at the confluence of two rivers about 25 miles southwest of Newark, has sold 120 homes to the state for roughly $22 million between 2015 and 2024. Another 53 buyouts are underway there. The need for such programs is only growing. Sea levels along the New Jersey coast rose about 1.5 feet over the past century -- more than double the global rate -- and a Rutgers study predicts a further increase of 2.2 to 3.8 feet by 2100.

A November report from the Natural Resources Defense Council noted that billions in previously approved FEMA resilience grants have already been cancelled, making state-run initiatives like Blue Acres increasingly essential.

The U.S. has surpassed 2,000 measles cases for the first time in more than 30 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From a report: As of Dec. 23, a total of 2,012 cases have been reported in the U.S. Of those cases, 24 were reported among international visitors to the U.S.

In an opinion piece for Computerworld, columnist Steven Vaughan-Nichols argues that restrictive visa policies and a hostile border climate under the Trump administration are driving foreign tech workers, researchers, and conference speakers away from the U.S. The result, he says, is a gradual shift of talent, events, and long-term innovation toward more welcoming regions such as Europe, Canada, and Asia. From the report: I go to a lot of tech conferences -- 13 in 2025 -- and many of those I attend are outside the U.S.; several are in London, one is in Amsterdam, another in Paris, and two in Tokyo. Wherever I went this past year, when we weren't talking about AI, Linux, the cloud, or open-source software, the top non-tech topic for non-Americans involved the sweeping changes that have occurred since President Donald J. Trump returned to office last January. The conversations generally ended with something like this: "I'm not taking a job or going to a conference in the United States."

Honestly, who can blame them? Under Trump, America now has large "Keep Out!" and "No Trespassing!" signs effectively posted. I've known several top tech people who tried to come to the U.S. for technology shows with proper visas and paperwork, but were still turned away at the border. Who wants to fly for 8+ hours for a conference, only to be refused entry at the last minute, and be forced to fly back? I know many of the leading trade show organizers, and it's not just me who's seeing this. They universally agree that getting people from outside the States to agree to come to the U.S. is increasingly difficult. Many refuse even to try to come. As a result, show managers have begun to close U.S.-based events and are seeking to replace them with shows in Europe, Canada, and Asia. [...]

Once upon a time, everyone who was anyone in tech was willing to uproot their lives to come to the U.S. Here, they could make a good living. They could collaborate, publish, and build companies in jurisdictions that welcome them, and meet their peers at conferences. Now, they must run a gauntlet at the U.S. border and neither a green card nor U.S. citizenship guarantees they won't be abused by the federal government. Trump's America seems bound and determined to become a second-rate tech power. His administration can loosen all the restrictions it wants on AI, but without top global talent, U.S. tech prowess will decline. That's not good for America, the tech industry or the larger world.

After more than three decades of service, New York City's iconic MetroCard is about to retire, as December 31, 2025 marks the final day commuters can purchase or refill the gold-hued plastic cards that replaced subway tokens back in 1994. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been transitioning to OMNY, a contactless payment system introduced in 2019 that lets riders tap a credit card, phone or smart device at turnstiles.

More than 90% of subway and bus trips are now paid using the tap-and-go system, and the agency says the changeover saves at least $20 million annually in MetroCard-related costs. The new system also introduces automatic fare capping: riders get unlimited travel within a seven-day period after 12 paid rides, maxing out at $35 a week once fares rise to $3 in January. Riders who prefer not to link a credit card or phone can purchase reloadable OMNY cards.

Existing MetroCards will continue to work into 2026, allowing riders time to use up remaining balances. The MetroCard's arrival in 1994 was itself a significant shift from the brass tokens that had been in use since 1953. London and Singapore have long operated similar contactless systems; San Francisco launched its own tap-to-pay system earlier this year, joining Chicago and other U.S. cities.

The six-decade flow of highly skilled Indian immigrants to the United States -- a migration pattern that produced some of the country's highest-earning households, several Nobel laureates, and the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, and Pepsi -- appears to be grinding to a halt amid rising anti-Indian rhetoric from Republican officials and chaos in the visa system, according to New York Times.

Indian student arrivals at American universities fell 44% this year, even as Indians had just become the largest contingent of foreign students the previous year. The decline comes as top Trump administration officials have publicly accused Indian immigrants of gaming the system. Stephen Miller, the architect of the president's immigration crackdown, declared on Fox News that Indians "engage in a lot of cheating on immigration policies that is very harmful to American workers." Governor Ron DeSantis called the H-1B visa program "chain migration run amok."

The hostility extends beyond policy circles. At a Hindu temple in Sugar Land, Texas, conservative Christian protesters gathered during the dedication of a 90-foot Hanuman statue, calling the deity "a demon god." A U.S. Senate candidate wrote on social media: "Why are we allowing a false statue of a false Hindu God to be here in Texas? We are a CHRISTIAN nation." Indian Americans' median household income significantly outstrips that of white Americans, and about three-quarters hold at least a college degree. Foreign students have earned more engineering and computer science doctorates than American citizens and permanent residents for over two decades, according to the National Science Foundation. American tech giants have announced $67.5 billion in new investments in India in just the past few months.

Toll roads are expanding across the U.S. as the traditional gas tax funding model for highways collapses. Indiana became the first state to authorize tolls on all of its existing interstate highways when Governor Mike Braun signed legislation in June.

The federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993. In fiscal 2024, the federal government spent $27 billion more on road maintenance than it collected from fuel taxes, and at state and local levels, fuel taxes covered barely a quarter of road spending. Drivers currently pay to access just 6,300 miles of America's roughly 160,000 miles of highway.

Most tolling projects have enjoyed bipartisan support -- Florida has more toll roads by distance than any other state, and Texas is second. But as Republicans embrace populism, the politics are shifting. In New York, almost all state Republicans fought congestion pricing, and President Donald Trump attempted to shut it down after taking office. Some Republicans now want to buy back pay-to-drive roads and make them free.

Social media platforms with infinite scrolling, auto-play and algorithmic feeds will be required to display warning labels about their potential harm to young users' mental health under a new law, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday. From a report: "Keeping New Yorkers safe has been my top priority since taking office, and that includes protecting our kids from the potential harms of social media features that encourage excessive use," Hochul said in a statement.

This month Australia imposed a social media ban for children under 16. New York joins states like California and Minnesota that have similar social media laws. The New York law includes platforms that offer "addictive feeds," auto play or infinite scroll, according to the legislation. The law applies to conduct occurring partly or wholly in New York but not when the platform is accessed by users physically outside the state.

While America's largest corporations are riding a wave of surging profits and AI-fueled stock market enthusiasm to record highs, small businesses across the country are cutting staff and scaling back operations as years of high inflation, cautious consumers and tariff confusion take their toll.

Private firms with fewer than 50 workers have steadily shed jobs over the past six months, according to payroll processor ADP, cutting 120,000 positions in November alone. Midsize and large firms continued adding jobs during the same period. The divergence mirrors what's happening among American consumers.

The Federal Reserve's latest beige book noted that overall consumer spending declined further even as higher-end retail spending remained resilient. Workers at small businesses tend to earn less than those at large companies, and stock market gains from large public company shares flow mostly to wealthier Americans. Small businesses -- those with up to 500 workers -- employ nearly half the American workforce and represent more than 40% of GDP, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But their profits are slightly lower than a year ago, per a Bank of America Institute analysis. Net income at S&P 500 companies rose 12.9% from a year earlier in the third quarter.

The Trump administration has announced it would replace the lottery programme used to grant H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers with a system that prioritises higher-paid individuals. From a report: The Department of Homeland Security said it would begin to implement a "weighted" selection process to give an advantage to higher-skilled and higher-paid applicants from February, according to a statement posted on its website. Matthew Tragesser, Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson, said: "The existing random selection process of H-1B registrations was exploited and abused by US employers who were primarily seeking to import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers."

The move is the latest in a broad crackdown on US immigration by President Donald Trump, who has dramatically stepped up deportations of immigrants and sent enforcement agents into cities across the country to carry out arrests. The change also follows moves earlier this year to curb the number of applicants for the H-1B visa, which is popular among technology and professional services companies, including charging an additional $100,000 fee.

Beryl Howell, a federal judge on the US District Court for the District of Columbia, late on Tuesday ruled the White House could move forward with the application charge after the US Chamber of Commerce had sued in October to block the six-figure fee.