Enlarge (credit: Jose A. Bernat Bacete )

Today, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced a suite of rules that target pollution from fossil fuel power plants. In addition to limits on carbon emissions and a tightening of existing regulations on mercury releases, additional rules target coal ash waste left over from power generation and contaminants in the water used during the operation of power plants. While some of these regulations will affect the operation of plants powered by natural gas, most directly target the use of coal and will likely be the final nail in the coffin for the already dying industry.

The decision to release all four rules at the same time goes beyond simply getting the pain over with at once. Rules governing carbon emissions are expected to influence the emissions of other pollutants like mercury, and vice versa. As a result, the EPA expects that creating a single plan for compliance with all the rules will be more cost-effective.

Targeting carbon

The regulations that target carbon dioxide emissions have been in the works for roughly a year. The rules came in response to a Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA , which ruled that Clean Air Act regulations had to target individual power plants rather than giving states flexibility regarding how to meet broader standards. As a result, the new rules target carbon dioxide the only way they can: Plants can either switch to burning non-fossil fuels such as green hydrogen, or they can capture their carbon emissions.

Enlarge (credit: FT/Getty Images)

TikTok’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance tightened its grip over its US operations over the past two years, according to company insiders, even as momentum to ban the short-video app grew in Washington.

The US government passed legislation this week aimed at forcing TikTok to divest from its parent or face a countrywide ban, but prising the viral video app from its $268 billion parent company would present a formidable challenge.

More than two dozen current and former employees told the Financial Times that TikTok has only become more deeply interwoven with ByteDance as tensions over the app’s ownership escalated.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images )

On Friday, a federal judicial panel convened in Washington, DC, to discuss the challenges of policing AI-generated evidence in court trials, according to a Reuters report . The US Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules , an eight-member panel responsible for drafting evidence-related amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence , heard from computer scientists and academics about the potential risks of AI being used to manipulate images and videos or create deepfakes that could disrupt a trial.

The meeting took place amid broader efforts by federal and state courts nationwide to address the rise of generative AI models (such as those that power OpenAI's ChatGPT or Stability AI's Stable Diffusion ), which can be trained on large datasets with the aim of producing realistic text, images, audio, or videos.

In the published 358-page agenda for the meeting, the committee offers up this definition of a deepfake and the problems AI-generated media may pose in legal trials:

(credit: Getty Images | eccolo74)

The US Chamber of Commerce and other business groups sued the Federal Trade Commission and FTC Chair Lina Khan today in an attempt to block a newly issued ban on noncompete clauses.

The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The US Chamber of Commerce was joined in the suit by Business Roundtable, the Texas Association of Business, and the Longview Chamber of Commerce. The suit seeks a court order that would vacate the rule in its entirety.

The lawsuit claimed that noncompete clauses "benefit employers and workers alike—the employer protects its workforce investments and sensitive information, and the worker benefits from increased training, access to more information, and an opportunity to bargain for higher pay."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chesnot )

The Senate last night approved a bill that orders TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the company within 270 days or lose access to the US market. The House had already passed the bill, and President Biden signed it into law today.

The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It passed in a 79-18 vote . Biden last night issued a statement saying he will sign the appropriations bill into law "as soon as it reaches my desk." He signed the bill into law today, according to news reports .

The bill classifies TikTok as a "foreign adversary controlled application" and gives the Chinese company ByteDance 270 days to sell it to another entity. Biden can extend the deadline by up to 90 days if a sale is in progress.

Enlarge / Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan talks with guests during an event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 03, 2024 (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla )

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced that it has issued a final rule banning noncompete clauses. The rule will render the vast majority of current noncompete clauses unenforceable, according to the agency.

"In the final rule, the Commission has determined that it is an unfair method of competition and therefore a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, for employers to enter into noncompetes with workers and to enforce certain noncompetes," the FTC said.

The US Chamber of Commerce said it will sue the FTC in an effort to block the rule, claiming the ban is "a blatant power grab that will undermine American businesses' ability to remain competitive."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Thomas Trutschel)

Grindr is facing a class action lawsuit from hundreds of users over the sharing of HIV statuses and other sensitive personal information with third-party firms.

UK law firm Austen Hays filed the claim in the High Court in London yesterday, the firm announced . The class action "alleges the misuse of private information of thousands of affected UK Grindr users, including highly sensitive information about their HIV status and latest tested date," the law firm said.

The law firm said it has signed up over 670 potential class members and "is in discussions with thousands of other individuals who are interested in joining the claim." Austen Hays said that "claimants could receive thousands in damages" from Grindr, a gay dating app, if the case is successful.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

For almost a decade, Nick Roy has been scanning North Korea’s tiny Internet presence , spotting new websites coming online and providing a glimpse of the Hermit Kingdoms’ digital life. However, at the end of last year, the cybersecurity researcher and DPRK blogger stumbled across something new: signs North Koreans are working on major international TV shows.

In December, Roy discovered a misconfigured cloud server on a North Korean IP address containing thousands of animation files. Included in the cache were animation cells, videos, and notes discussing the work, plus changes that needed to be made to ongoing projects. Some images appeared to be from an Amazon Prime Video superhero show and an upcoming Max (aka HBO Max) children’s anime.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino)

Congress passed and President Biden signed a reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), approving a bill that opponents say includes a "major expansion of warrantless surveillance" under Section 702 of FISA.

Over the weekend, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act was approved by the Senate in a 60-34 vote . The yes votes included 30 Republicans, 28 Democrats, and two independents who caucus with Democrats. The bill, which was previously passed by the House and reauthorizes Section 702 of FISA for two years, was signed by President Biden on Saturday.

"Thousands and thousands of Americans could be forced into spying for the government by this new bill and with no warrant or direct court oversight whatsoever," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Friday . "Forcing ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying is what authoritarian countries do, not democracies."