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CDC Half-Steps RFK Jr.’s New COVID Vaccine Guidance As Top Scientist Resigns

7 hours 38 minutes ago
It’s time for yet another reminder that HHS Secretary RFK Jr. is an incapable leader at odds with the scientists who actually know what they’re talking about. At the CDC specifically, we recently discussed the government’s decision to do away with the team that was helping to identify, track, and remediate elevated levels of lead […]
Dark Helmet

Texas Will Soon Be The 9th State To Pass A Popular ‘Right To Repair’ Law

11 hours 49 minutes ago
While U.S. consumer protection is generally an historic hot mess right now, the “right to repair” movement — making it easier and cheaper to repair the things you own — continues to make steady inroads thanks to widespread, bipartisan annoyance at giant companies trying to monopolize repair in creative and obnoxious ways. Washington State just became […]
Karl Bode

When Even Trump-Friendly Companies Won’t Work With Law Firms That Caved To Trump

16 hours 38 minutes ago
If asked, do you think corporate America would prefer to hire (1) lawyers who fight, or (2) lawyers who immediately surrender, I think you’d know the answer. And now we have some fairly unambiguous empirical data to support what the answer is. Oracle’s Larry Ellison loves Trump. Morgan Stanley contributed one of their top execs […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: The Courses Digest, Labs Digest, and Exams Digest Bundle

16 hours 43 minutes ago
The Courses Digest, Labs Digest, and Exams Digest Bundle gives you unlimited access to expertly crafted online courses, interactive labs and study tools. Whether you’re aiming for industry-recognized certifications or expanding your tech expertise, this bundle will help you get there with courses on CompTIA, AWS, Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, and more. It’s on sale for […]
Daily Deal

Another Book Ban Bill Makes Its Way To The Texas Governor’s Desk

18 hours 11 minutes ago
Never give up. That’s the unofficial motto of the Republican party pretty much everywhere in the nation. No matter how many rights you violate, court decisions you lose, and public criticism you receive, always remember, you’re in the for the long haul. It is your (allegedly) God-given right to take away other people’s rights and […]
Tim Cushing

Big Telecom Covertly Funded Smear Campaign To Derail Affordable Fiber Broadband Deployments In Utah

22 hours 11 minutes ago
We’ve noted for years how U.S. regional telecom monopolies have effectively crushed competition in many U.S. markets and utterly defanged our regulators. This one-two punch of muted competition and no oversight routinely results in expensive, slow, spotty broadband access. Frustrated by this, communities all over the U.S. have responded to this market and regulatory failure […]
Karl Bode

Illinois Lawmakers Ban Police From Ticketing And Fining Students For Minor Infractions In School

1 day 12 hours ago
This story was originally published by ProPublica & the Chicago Tribune. Republished under ProPublica’s CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Illinois legislators on Wednesday passed a law to explicitly prevent police from ticketing and fining students for minor misbehavior at school, ending a practice that harmed students across the state. The new law would apply to all public schools, including charters. It […]
Mike Masnick

Techdirt Podcast Episode 420: The FTC’s Quixotic Social Media Inquiry

1 day 14 hours ago
Support us on Patreon » We’ve got a cross-post episode for you this week, courtesy of the Tech Policy Podcast by TechFreedom, hosted by Corbin Barthold. Both TechFreedom and The Copia Institute submitted comments on the FTC’s inquiry into social media censorship, Corbin invited Mike and TechFreedom’s Santana Boulton for a discussion all about what’s going […]
Leigh Beadon

How I Built A Task Management Tool For Almost Nothing

1 day 16 hours ago
This is part two of my series on using AI tools to fight back against tech company control. Part one explained why we can get beyond just begging billionaires to fix our tools. This part shows exactly how I built my own tool — with zero coding skills and almost no money. A few weeks […]
Mike Masnick

Stop Begging Billionaires To Fix Software — Build Your Own

1 day 16 hours ago
This is part one of a two-part series on using AI tools as one piece to fight back against tech company control of our lives. Part two shares the details of how I built my own task management tool in a few days for next to no money and without any coding skills. But first, […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: iOS UX & UI Design Course

1 day 17 hours ago
User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design are two very different fields that work toward the same goal: create a functional product that’s a breeze for users to use and interact with. The iOS UX & UI Design Course breaks down the differences between both and helps you apply this knowledge to your app-building […]
Daily Deal

State Dept. Says Any Foreigner Seeking To Visit Harvard Must Be Vetted For ‘Hostile Attitudes Towards US Culture’

1 day 18 hours ago
Here are your options as a foreigner, whether you live in the US already or are just seeking a chance to enter the country: support Israel’s actions against Palestine or GTFO. The Trump Administration continues to pretend supporting Palestine is the same thing as being racist against Israel. And it’s using this false dichotomy to […]
Tim Cushing

What’s Left Of CBS Just Can’t Stop Kissing Donald Trump’s Ass

1 day 22 hours ago
Let’s be clear: CBS/Paramount, like many corporate U.S. media outlets, initially responded to the threat of authoritarian rule by kissing Republican ass in a bid to curry favor. CBS management has long made it clear that access and ad engagement are significantly more important than the truth. But the company’s looming acquisition by Skydance has […]
Karl Bode

CDC Decides America’s Children Could Do With More Lead In Their Blood

2 days 7 hours ago
With all the conversations we’ve had in the past few months about the decline of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the leadership, or lack thereof, of RFK Jr. and Donald Trump, you might have been left with the impression that everything at HHS is broken beyond repair. But that’s not entirely […]
Dark Helmet

Appeals Court: Yeah, Of Course Ken Paxton’s Investigation Into Media Matters Was Bullshit

2 days 12 hours ago
A federal appeals court just delivered yet another reality check to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s transparently retaliatory investigation into Media Matters — and the timing couldn’t be better, given that the FTC just opened its own bullshit investigation into the same organization for the same supposed “crime”: reporting factual information that made Elon Musk […]
Mike Masnick

Governments Continue Losing Efforts To Gain Backdoor Access To Secure Communications

2 days 14 hours ago
Reports that prominent American national security officials used a freely available encrypted messaging app, coupled with the rise of authoritarian policies around the world, have led to a surge in interest in encrypted apps like Signal and WhatsApp. These apps prevent anyone, including the government and the app companies themselves, from reading messages they intercept. The spotlight on encrypted […]
Mike Masnick

Texas Cop Used Flock ALPR Cameras To Track A Woman Who Had An Abortion

2 days 16 hours ago
Here’s yet another worrying development in the world of privately-owned security cameras. Flock Safety has made aggressive in-roads in both the private and public sector, something aided greatly by the company’s ability to blend the two. Much like Ring before it, Flock is pitching cheap cameras with local law enforcement buy-in, nudging residents towards leaving […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The Modern Tech Skills Bundle

2 days 16 hours ago
Bring your tech skills up to 21st-century snuff with the Modern Tech Skills Bundle. This 2,000+ class series combines subject areas that every aspiring tech pro needs to know to get ahead and stay ahead. Broken out into cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, and information technology and cloud computing, you’ll be able to zero in […]
Daily Deal