The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected to impose limits on the way President Joe Biden's administration may communicate with social media platforms, overturning a lower court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Louisiana, and five individuals. In a 6-3 ruling, the court found plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue, unable to show a "concrete link" between officials' conduct and harm suffered. The case centered on whether the administration coerced platforms to censor disfavored speech when alerting them to content violating their policies, particularly regarding elections and COVID-19. The administration argued it sought to mitigate online misinformation hazards. Plaintiffs claimed platforms suppressed conservative-leaning speech under government pressure. The Justice Department contended that government officials have long used their platform to express views on public matters.

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It's been a 1,000 years since there was a significant volcanic eruption from Mount Rainier, CNN reminds readers. It's a full 60 miles from Tacoma, Washington — and 90 miles from Seattle. Yet "more than Hawaii's bubbling lava fields or Yellowstone's sprawling supervolcano, it's Mount Rainier that has many U.S. volcanologists worried." "Mount Rainier keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities, said Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists, on an episode of CNN's series "Violent Earth With Liv Schreiber." The sleeping giant's destructive potential lies not with fiery flows of lava, which, in the event of an eruption, would be unlikely to extend more than a few miles beyond the boundary of Mount Rainier National Park in the Pacific Northwest. And the majority of volcanic ash would likely dissipate downwind to the east away from population centers, according to the US Geological Survey. Instead, many scientists fear the prospect of a lahar — a swiftly moving slurry of water and volcanic rock originating from ice or snow rapidly melted by an eruption that picks up debris as it flows through valleys and drainage channels. "The thing that makes Mount Rainier tough is that it is so tall, and it's covered with ice and snow, and so if there is any kind of eruptive activity, hot stuff ... will melt the cold stuff and a lot of water will start coming down," said Seth Moran, a research seismologist at USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. "And there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who live in areas that potentially could be impacted by a large lahar, and it could happen quite quickly." The deadliest lahar in recent memory was in November 1985 when Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Just a couple hours after the eruption started, a river of mud, rocks, lava and icy water swept over the town of Armero, killing over 23,000 people in a matter of minutes... Bradley Pitcher, a volcanologist and lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University, said in an episode of CNN's "Violent Earth"... said that Mount Rainier has about eight times the amount of glaciers and snow as Nevado del Ruiz had when it erupted. "There's the potential to have a much more catastrophic mudflow...." Lahars typically occur during volcanic eruptions but also can be caused by landslides and earthquakes. Geologists have found evidence that at least 11 large lahars from Mount Rainier have reached into the surrounding area, known as the Puget Lowlands, in the past 6,000 years, Moran said. Two major U.S. cities — Tacoma and South Seattle — "are built on 100-foot-thick (30.5-meter) ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier," the volcanologist said on CNN's "Violent Earth" series. CNN's article adds that the US Geological Survey already set up a lahar detection system at Mount Rainier in 1998, "which since 2017 has been upgraded and expanded. About 20 sites on the volcano's slopes and the two paths identified as most at risk of a lahar now feature broadband seismometers that transmit real-time data and other sensors including trip wires, infrasound sensors, web cameras and GPS receivers."

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The Kremlin said on Friday that a U.S. decision to ban sales of Kaspersky's software was a typical move by Washington to stifle foreign competition with American products. From a report: The Biden administration on Thursday said it would ban the sale of antivirus software made by Russia's Kaspersky Lab in the United States, citing what it said was the Kremlin's influence over the company which poses a significant security risk. [...] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kaspersky was a "very competitive" company on international markets and that Washington's decision to restrict its sales was a "favourite technique of unfair competition from the United States."

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) signed two bills into law on Thursday that aim to protect kids and teens from social media harms, making it the latest state to take action as federal proposals still await votes. From a report: One of the bills, the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, will require parental consent for social media companies to use "addictive feeds" powered by recommendation algorithms on kids and teens under 18. The other, the New York Child Data Protection Act, would limit data collection on minors without consent and restrict the sale of such information but does not require age verification. That law will take effect in a year. States across the country have taken the lead on enacting legislation to protect kids on the internet -- and it's one area where both Republicans and Democrats seem to agree. While the approaches differ somewhat by party, policymakers on both sides have signaled urgent interest in similar regulations to protect kids on the internet. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), for example, signed into law in March a bill requiring parents' consent for kids under 16 to hold social media accounts. And in May, Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) signed a broad privacy bill into law, as well as the Maryland Kids Code banning the use of features meant to keep minors on social media for extended periods, like autoplay or spammy notifications.

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The Biden administration on Thursday will announce plans to bar the sale of Kaspersky Lab's antivirus software in the United States, citing the firm's large U.S. customers including critical infrastructure providers and state and local governments, according to Reuters. From the report: The company's close ties to the Russian government were found to pose a critical risk, the person said, adding that the software's privileged access to a computer's systems could allow it to steal sensitive information from American computers, install malware or withhold critical updates. The sweeping new rule, using broad powers created by the Trump administration, will be coupled with another move to add the company to a trade restriction list, according to two other people familiar with the matter, dealing a blow to the firm's reputation that could hammer its overseas sales. The plan to add the cybersecurity company to the entity list, which effectively bars a company's U.S. suppliers from selling to it, and the timing and details of the software sales curb, have not been previously reported. Previously, Kaspersky has said that it is a privately managed company with no ties to the Russian government. The moves show the administration is trying to stamp out any risks of Russian cyberattacks stemming from Kaspersky software and keep squeezing Moscow as its war effort in Ukraine has regained momentum and as the United States has run low on fresh sanctions it can impose on Russia.

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The U.S. Senate has passed a bill to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy capacity, including by speeding permitting and creating new incentives for advanced nuclear reactor technologies. From a report: Expanding nuclear power has broad bipartisan support, with Democrats seeing it as critical to decarbonizing the power sector to fight climate change and Republicans viewing it as a way to ensure reliable electricity supply and create jobs. A version of the bill had already passed in the House of Representatives and it will now go to President Joe Biden for a signature to become law. It passed the Senate 88-2 votes. "In a major victory for our climate and American energy security, the U.S. Senate has passed the ADVANCE Act with overwhelming, bipartisan support," said Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat, who is Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Today, we sent the ADVANCE Act to the president's desk because Congress worked together to recognize the importance of nuclear energy to America's future and got the job done," said Republican Shelley Moore Capito, a ranking member of the committee.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Texas A&M University held the largest engineering research portfolio of any academic institution in the country last year, nearing half a billion dollars and surpassing Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the top spot, according to U.S. News & World Report. The state flagship's College of Engineering recorded $444.7 million in research expenditures in the 2023 fiscal year, university officials said. A mix of federal, state and private grants funds those efforts, so more expenditures means more partnerships and a larger engineering footprint than ever, Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said. "An awful lot of people in Washington, a lot of people in Austin, a lot of people in the private sector now rely on Texas A&M to do their engineering research," Sharp said. "Of all the places in the country now, the No. 1 place people go to research engineering problems is Texas A&M University."

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The U.S. government on Monday sued Adobe, accusing the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat of harming consumers by enrolling them in its most lucrative subscription plans without clearly disclosing important terms. From a report: In a complaint filed in the San Jose, California, federal court, the government said Adobe failed to adequately disclose hefty early termination fees, sometimes reaching hundreds of dollars, when customers sign up for "annual, paid monthly" subscription plans. The government said Adobe hides important terms in fine print and behind textboxes and hyperlinks, clearly discloses the fees only when subscribers try to cancel, and makes canceling an onerous and complicated process.

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"At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines..." reports Reuters. "It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found." Reuters interviewed "more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers," and also reviewed posts on social media, technical data and documents about "a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military" — some active for more than five years. Friday they reported the results of their investigation: Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military's propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines — China's Sinovac inoculation. Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus — Tagalog for China is the virus. "COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!" one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: "From China — PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real." After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data. The U.S. military's anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China's vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China's shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law... A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the U.S. military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China's vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details. A Pentagon spokeswoman... also noted that China had started a "disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19." A senior U.S. military officer directly involved in the campaign told Reuters that "We didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners. So what was left to us was to throw shade on China's." At least six senior State Department officials for the region objected, according to the article. But in 2019 U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper signed "a secret order" that "elevated the Pentagon's competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the StateDepartment when conducting psyops against those adversaries." [A senior defense official] said the Pentagon has rescinded parts of Esper's 2019 order that allowed military commanders to bypass the approval of U.S. ambassadors when waging psychological operations. The rules now mandate that military commanders work closely with U.S. diplomats in the country where they seek to have an impact. The policy also restricts psychological operations aimed at "broad population messaging," such as those used to promote vaccine hesitancy during COVID... Nevertheless, the Pentagon's clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using "disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government." And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign — General Dynamics IT — won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.

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New submitter wgoodman writes: A Boeing 737 Max 8 jet experienced a rare but potentially serious problem recently known as a Dutch roll before landing safely. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the incident during a Southwest Airlines flight last month. Less than an hour after taking off from Phoenix on May 25th, the plane experienced an uncontrolled side-to-side yawing motion known as a Dutch roll while cruising at 32,000 feet. The pilots of Southwest flight 746 were able to regain control and the plane landed safely in Oakland, according to a preliminary report from the FAA. [...] The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet involved in the Dutch roll incident is less than two years old. According to the FAA, a post-flight inspection revealed damage to a backup power control unit, known as a PCU. That system controls rudder movements on the plane's tail. The plane remained in Oakland until June 6th, when it flew to Everett, Wash., where one of Southwest's maintenance vendors is based. Boeing has been working to rebuild the trust of federal regulators and the flying public since a pair of Boeing 737 Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. Earlier versions of the 737 were involved in several accidents and crashes during the 1990s that were ultimately blamed on problems with the tail rudder.

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is prioritizing enforcement actions against major technology companies that cause the most harm, FTC Chair Lina Khan said at an event. Khan emphasized the importance of targeting "mob bosses" rather than lower-level offenders to effectively address illegal behaviors in the industry. The FTC has recently launched antitrust probes into Microsoft, Open AI, and Nvidia, and has taken legal action against Meta, Amazon, Google, and Apple in recent years. TechCrunch adds: Khan said that in any given year, the FTC sees up to 3,000 merger filings reported to the agency and that around 2% of those deals get a second look by the government. "So you have 98% of deals that, for the most part, are going through," she said. "If you are a startup or a founder that is eager for an acquisition as an exit, a world in which you have five or six or seven or eight potential suitors, I would think, is a better world in which you just have one or two, right? And so, actually promoting more competition at that level to ensure that startups have you know more of a fair chance of getting a better valuation, I think would be beneficial as well."

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New York has launched its mobile ID program, "giving residents the option to digitize their driver's license or non-driver ID," reports The Verge. From the report: Beginning today, the New York Mobile ID app is available from Apple's App Store and Google Play. The app can be used for identity verification at airports. A physical license, permit, or non-driver ID is required to activate a mobile ID; you'll need to take a photo of the front and back with your phone during the enrollment process. The news was announced during a media briefing at LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday that included New York's and Transportation Security Administration federal security director Robert Duffy, among other speakers. Their pitch is that mobile IDs "will revolutionize the way New Yorkers protect their identities and will significantly enhance the way they get through security at airports across the nation." State officials are also emphasizing that it's a voluntary option meant for convenience. "When you offer your mobile ID to TSA or anyone else who accepts it, you are in full control of sharing that information. They can only see the information they request to see," Schroeder said. "If you only need to prove your age, you can withhold other information that a verifier doesn't need to see." The app is designed so that your phone remains in your possession at all times -- you should never freely hand a device over to law enforcement -- and shows a QR code that can be scanned to verify your identity. Any changes to your license status such as renewals or suspensions are automatically pushed to the mobile version, and the digital ID also mirrors data like whether you're an organ donor. For now, acceptance of mobile IDs by businesses (and the police) is completely voluntary -- and there's no deadline in place for compliance -- so it's definitely too soon to start leaving your physical one at home. But bars and other small businesses can start accepting them immediately if they install the state's verifier app. The New York Mobile ID app can be used "at nearly 30 participating airports across the country including all terminals at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports," according to a press release from Governor Kathy Hochul. New York joins a small list of states that have rolled out mobile driver's licenses, including Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, and Utah.

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Four more U.S. states on Tuesday joined the Justice Department's lawsuit against Apple alleging the iPhone maker is monopolizing smartphone markets, the department said in a statement. From a report: The four states are Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington, the Justice Department said. The original lawsuit was filed in March, and 15 states and the District of Columbia joined the lawsuit at the time. The lawsuit alleges that Apple uses its market power to get more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses and merchants. The civil lawsuit accuses Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones, maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers. The Justice Department has previously said Apple charges as much as $1,599 for an iPhone and makes a larger profit than any rival. Officials also said Apple imposes hidden charges on various business partners - from software developers to credit card companies and even rivals such as Alphabet's, Google, in ways that ultimately raise prices for consumers.

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Last week America's energy secretary cheered the startup of a fourth nuclear reactor at a Georgia power plant, calling it "the largest producer of clean energy, and the largest producer of electricity in the United States" after a third reactor was started up there in December. From the U.S. Energy Department's transcript of the speech: Each year, Units 3 and 4 are going to produce enough clean power to power 1 million homes and businesses, enough energy to power roughly 1 in 4 homes in Georgia. Preventing 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution annually. That, by the way, is like planting more than 165 million trees every year! And that's not to mention the historic investments that [electric utility] Southern has made on the safety front, to ensure this facility meets — and exceeds — the highest operating standards in the world.... To reach our goal of net zero by 2050, we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country. That means we've got to add 200 more gigawatts by 2050. Okay, two down, 198 to go! In building [Unit] 4, we've solved our greatest design challenges. We've stood up entire supply chains.... And so it's time to cash in on our investments by building more. More of these facilities. The Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office stands ready to help, with hundreds of billions of dollars in what we call Title 17 loans... Since the President signed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, companies across the nation have announced 29 new or expanded nuclear facilities — across 16 states — representing about 1,600 potential new jobs. And the majority of those projects will expand the domestic uranium production and fuel fabrication, strengthening these critical supply chains... Bottom line is, in short, we are determined to build a world-class nuclear industry in the United States, and we're putting our money where our mouth is. America's Energy Secretary told the Washington Post that "Whether it happens through small modular reactors, or AP1000s, or maybe another design out there worthy of consideration, we want to see nuclear built." The Post notes the Energy department gave a $1.5 billion loan to restart a Michigan power plant which was decommissioned in 2022. "It would mark the first time a shuttered U.S. nuclear plant has been reactivated." "But in this country with 54 nuclear plants across 28 states, restarting existing reactors and delaying their closure is a lot less complicated than building new ones." When the final [Georgia] reactor went online at the end of April, the expansion was seven years behind schedule and nearly $20 billion over budget. It ultimately cost more than twice as much as promised, with ratepayers footing much of the bill through surcharges and rate hikes... Administration officials say the country has no choice but to make nuclear power a workable option again. The country is fast running short on electricity, demand for power is surging amid a boom in construction of data centers and manufacturing plants, and a neglected power grid is struggling to accommodate enough new wind and solar power to meet the nation's needs... As the administration frames the narrative of the plant as one of perseverance and innovation that clears a path for restoring U.S. nuclear energy dominance, even some longtime boosters of the industry question whether this country will ever again have a vibrant nuclear energy sector. "It is hard for me to envision state energy regulators signing off on another one of these, given how badly the last ones went," said Matt Bowen, a nuclear scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who was an adviser on nuclear energy issues in the Obama administration. The article notes there are 19 AP1000 reactors (the design used at the Georgia plant) in development around the world. "None of them are being built in the United States."

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Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "Great news, Louisiana!" tech-backed Code.org exclaimed Wednesday in celebratory LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter posts. Louisiana is "officially the 10th state to make computer science a [high school] graduation requirement. Huge thanks to Governor Jeff Landry for signing the bill and to our legislative champions, Rep. Jason Hughes and Sen. Thomas Pressly, for making it happen! This means every Louisiana student gets a chance to learn coding and other tech skills that are super important these days. These skills can help them solve problems, think critically, and open doors to awesome careers!" Representative Hughes, the sponsor of HB264 — which calls for each public high school student to successfully complete a one credit CS course as a requirement for graduation and also permits students to take two units of CS instead of studying a Foreign Language — tweeted back: "HUGE thanks @codeorg for their partnership in this effort every step of the way! Couldn't have done it without [Code.org Senior Director of State Government Affairs] Anthony [Owen] and the Code.org team!" Code.org also on Wednesday announced the release of its 2023 Impact Report, which touted its efforts "to include a requirement for every student to take computer science to receive a high school diploma." Since its 2013 launch, Code.org reports it's spent $219.8 million to push coding into K-12 classrooms, including $19 million on Government Affairs (Achievements: "Policies changed in 50 states. More than $343M in state budgets allocated to computer science."). In Code.org by the Numbers, the nonprofit boasts that 254,683 students started Code.org's AP CS Principles course in the academic year (2025 Goal: 400K), while 21,425 have started Code.org's new Amazon-bankrolled AP CS A course. Estimates peg U.S. public high school enrollment at 15.5M students, annual K-12 public school spending at $16,080 per pupil, and an annual high school student course load at 6-8 credits...

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The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a deal that allows them to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry, Reuters reported Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter. From the report: Under the deal, the U.S. Department of Justice will take the lead in investigating whether Nvidia violated antitrust laws, while the FTC will examine the conduct of OpenAI and Microsoft. While OpenAI's parent is a nonprofit, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary, for what would be a 49% stake. The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership is also under informal scrutiny in other regions. The regulators struck the deal over the past week and it is expected to be completed in the coming days, the person said. The FTC is also looking into Microsoft's $650 million deal with AI startup Inflection AI, a person familiar with the matter said.

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US lawmakers accused Nigeria of taking a Binance executive "hostage" and urged President Joe Biden to help secure his release. From a report: Sixteen Republican congressman including Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul wrote to Biden to have the case of Tigran Gambaryan referred to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. A US citizen, Gambaryan is head of financial crime compliance at Binance and has been held at a prison in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, since April. "The charges against Mr. Gambaryan are baseless and constitute a coercion tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer, Binance," the lawmakers wrote in the June 4 letter, a copy of which has been seen by Bloomberg. "Following these charges, Mr. Gambaryan qualifies as a 'U.S. Citizen wrongfully detained by a foreign government,'" they said. The faceoff between Africa's most-populous nation and the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange burst into view in February, when Nigerian authorities detained Gambaryan and a colleague -- who subsequently escaped -- during a visit to discuss the company's compliance issues with the country.

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Google Maps has introduced a new layer to help individuals find public restrooms in New York City. The Verge reports: As part of a new program called "Ur in Luck," the city has introduced a Maps view dotted with 1,000 public restrooms across the five boroughs. Users can view the map on their phones and locate the closest restroom that's accessible to the public. "Everyone -- seniors, parents with kids, anyone enjoying the day outdoors, needs access to a public bathroom without having to buy anything or beg for a code," Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said in a press release. The city will also build 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 existing locations over the next five years.

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The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, plans to introduce a bill banning smartphones in schools, the latest in a series of legislative moves aimed at online child safety by New York's top official. From a report: "I have seen these addictive algorithms pull in young people, literally capture them and make them prisoners in a space where they are cut off from human connection, social interaction and normal classroom activity," she said. Hochul said she would launch the bill later this year and take it up in New York's next legislative session, which begins in January 2025. If passed, schoolchildren will be allowed to carry simple phones that cannot access the internet but do have the capability to send texts, which has been a sticking point for parents. She did not offer specifics on enforcing the prohibition. "Parents are very anxious about mass shootings in school," she said. "Parents want the ability to have some form of connection in an emergency situation." The smartphone-ban bill will follow two others Hochul is pushing that outline measures to safeguard children's privacy online and limit their access to certain features of social networks.

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