Noncompetes Are Dead—and Tech Workers Are Free to Roam

More US workers will soon be free to leave their employers to work for rivals, thanks to a new federal rule that will block the longstanding practice of locking in workers with noncompete agreements. The US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a final rule that bans most noncompetes nationwide. The agency estimated that by … Read more

US Infrastructure Is Broken. Here’s an $830 Million Plan to Fix It

There’s one word that will get any American fuming, regardless of their political inclination: infrastructure. Pothole-pocked roads, creaky bridges, and half-baked public transportation bind us nationally like little else can. And that was before climate change’s coastal flooding, extreme heat, and supercharged wildfires came around to make things even worse. US infrastructure was designed for … Read more

The White House Puts New Guardrails on Government Use of AI

The US government issued new rules Thursday requiring more caution and transparency from federal agencies using artificial intelligence, saying they are needed to protect the public as AI rapidly advances. But the new policy also has provisions to encourage AI innovation in government agencies when the technology can be used for public good. The US … Read more

Here Comes the Flood of Plug-In Hybrids

Last week, the Biden administration made it official: American cars are really going electric. The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule, long in the works, that will require automakers selling in the United States to dramatically boost the number of battery-powered vehicles sold this decade, putting a serious dent in the country’s carbon emissions … Read more

States Are Lining Up to Outlaw Lab-Grown Meat

The pushback from legislators sympathetic to ranchers and the broader meat industry puts cultivated meat companies in a difficult situation. Major meat producers Cargill and Tyson have both invested in cultivated meat companies, while Brazil’s JBS is working on a cultivated research site in Brazil. “We see ourselves as an ‘and’ solution, not an ‘or.’ … Read more

Inside Registered Agents Inc., the Shadowy Firm Pushing the Limits of Business Privacy

Since 2008, Dan Keen has grown his business from a small company serving customers in the Pacific Northwest to a major national player in what’s known as the corporate formation industry. The company and its competitors offer the ability to incorporate a business in the state of a customer’s choosing and receive mail and legal … Read more

Good Climate Solutions Need Good Policy—and AI Can Help With That

To achieve real climate solutions, changing behavior and developing technology is not enough, says Michal Nachmany, founder and CEO of the environmental nonprofit Climate Policy Radar. “A lot of this is policy,” she says. We need better laws, policies, and regulations, as well as needing to hold policymakers and corporates to account, because they’re not … Read more

US Lawmakers Tell DOJ to Quit Blindly Funding ‘Predictive’ Police Tools

The United States Department of Justice has failed to convince a group of US lawmakers that state and local police agencies aren’t awarded federal grants to buy AI-based “policing” tools known to be inaccurate, if not prone to exacerbating biases long observed in US police forces. Seven members of Congress wrote in a letter to … Read more

The danger of the shopping docket and other common items that could be putting your health at risk

When a cashier asks if you want a receipt, it’s likely that cancers, infertility, or developmental, reproductive and neurological disorders don’t cross your mind. But the seemingly harmless shopping docket has been linked to these chronic health issues — because of the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) used in the thermal printing process. And it’s far from … Read more