Before Electronic Arts goes private in a groundbreaking sale, some US lawmakers are pleading for some federal oversight. Democratic members of the US Congress, as part of the Congressional Labor Caucus, penned a letter asking the Federal Trade Commission to "thoroughly review" the $55 billion acquisition of EA.

EA confirmed the sale to the Public Investment Fund, or the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners in September, but the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. Before the official change of ownership, the 46 House Democrats who signed the letter to the FTC are calling for more scrutiny into the impacts of the deal. 

The letter noted some of the most consequential effects, including the worsening of an unstable industry, the potential for more layoffs and increased market dominance for EA. "We respectfully urge the Commission to conduct a thorough investigation into the labor market consequences of this proposed acquisition, including EA’s existing wage-setting power, the likelihood of post-transaction layoffs, the degree of labor-market concentration in relevant geographic and occupational markets, and the role of cross-ownership in shaping labor outcomes," the letter read.

The letter already earned support from the Communications Workers of America union, who also supported a petition from the United Video Games union. As spotted by Eurogamer, the petition calls on regulators and elected officials to "scrutinize this deal and ensure that any path forward protects jobs and preserves creative freedom."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/us-congress-members-call-for-thorough-review-of-eas-55-billion-sale-175851429.html?src=rss

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© REUTERS / Reuters

Waymo has caught the attention of the National Transportation Safety Board as the federal agency launched an official investigation into the company for its robotaxis improperly passing school buses in Austin, Texas. The NTSB said on X that it would "examine the interaction between Waymo vehicles and school buses stopped for loading and unloading students."

The latest federal probe stems from a preliminary evaluation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that looked into how Waymo reacts to stopped school buses in the Texas city. That report led to Waymo's voluntary software recall in December. However, the school district said in a memo that the robotaxis were seen repeating the same offense days after the software update.

As for the NTSB investigation, an agency spokesperson told the Austin American-Statesman that its "investigators will travel to Austin to gather information on a series of incidents in which the automated vehicles failed to stop for loading or unloading students." According to an NTSB spokesperson, a preliminary report will be out within 30 days, but the final report will take anywhere between 12 and 24 months.

In response, Mauricio Peña, chief safety officer for Waymo, said in a statement to multiple news outlets that "there have been no collisions in the events in question, and we are confident that our safety performance around school buses is superior to human drivers," adding that the investigation will be "an opportunity to provide the NTSB with transparent insights into our safety-first approach."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/ntsb-will-investigate-why-waymos-robotaxis-are-illegally-passing-school-buses-160943613.html?src=rss

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California became the first U.S. state to join the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), one day after the U.S. formally exited the WHO. The Hill reports: This announcement comes just one day after the U.S.'s withdrawal from the WHO became official after nearly 80 years of membership, having been a founding member of the organization. "The Trump administration's withdrawal from WHO is a reckless decision that will hurt all Californians and Americans," [California Governor Gavin Newsom] said in a statement. "California will not bear witness to the chaos this decision will bring. We will continue to foster partnerships across the globe and remain at the forefront of public health preparedness, including through our membership as the only state in WHO's Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The White House doubled down after posting a digitally altered photo of Minnesota protester Nekima Levy Armstrong, dismissing it as a "meme" despite objections from her attorney and comparisons to reality-distorting propaganda. "YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter," White House spokesperson Kaelan Dorr wrote in a post on X. The Hill reports: The statement came after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo of Armstrong's arrest Thursday showing Armstrong with what appears to be a blank facial expression. However, the White House later posted an altered version of the same photo that shows Armstrong crying. Armstrong's attorney Jordan Kushner said in an interview with CNN that an agent was recording Armstrong's arrest on their cellphone. "I've never seen anything like it. It's so unprofessional," Kushner said. "He was ordered to do it because the government was looking to make a spectacle of this case. I observed the whole thing. She was dignified, calm, rational the whole time." Kushner went on to call the move to alter the photo "a hallmark of a fascist regime where they actually alter reality."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton You’ve published some interesting analysis lately. You looked at stock closing prices from January 21st to November 25th for the 100 largest publicly traded federal vendors. Why? What were you looking for?

Paul Murphy Well, what we wanted to do was get an indication of whether all the procurement changes and budget turmoil that occurred during President Trump’s first year affected the attractiveness of the large publicly traded vendors as investments. So what I did was I used Bloomberg’s contracts database, which I’m in every day, I use it to rank all the vendors by their fiscal 2024 obligations, and then I merged this list with Bloomberg’s terminal data. To assign company tickers and pull the historic trading price data to compare closing stock prices in January and December. Then we assign each company to their GICS market. GICs is an acronym for Global Industry Classification Standard. It’s not like the government to define markets like category management or product service code. Wall Street uses its own market definitions. And that’s how we analyze the price differences. We included stocks traded domestically and overseas, and we used the terminal data to convert prices into US dollars. It’s been a crazy year, as you know, for companies. And the last year, we’ve seen spending pauses, agency closures, contract terminations, clawbacks and consolidations, big markets like consulting targeted for reductions, various efficiency initiatives, particularly at GSA and DOD. There’s been an year-long CR and an extended shutdown, even tariffs. So we wondered, you know what’s the impact of all these events on investors?

Terry Gerton Pretty hard to do market planning and business modeling with that kind of turmoil. What’s the big headline? What were the big trends that you found as you looked at the data?

Paul Murphy Well, among the top companies, as you read, the average stock price went up, but let me back up a second and say, even though we have all this data, it’s important to keep in mind that federal contracts are just one indicator of a company’s financial health and its desirability as an investment. Many factors, as you know, contribute to stock price fluctuations, such as state and local contracts, commercial sales, earnings, profitability, debt load, interest rates. So the trend we wrote about broadly aligns with the Trump administration’s prioritization of big defense contracts and cuts to certain civilian agencies. And so what we’re seeing from our year end data, which we have in hand now, and we’re about to come out with a new year end analysis, is despite all of this financial turmoil, fiscal 2025 will go down as a strong year for contract spending. Certain parts of professional and IT services have taken hits, but there’s been steady spending, let me say, across a broad range of sectors, including defense aircraft, shipbuilding, missiles, satellites and surveillance, as well as strong spending by the VA, DOE, NASA, and DHS. So, we don’t want to go into too much detail to give away what we’re about to come out with, but, yeah, it’s been a strong spending year, and it’s not surprising to me that stock prices reflect that.

Terry Gerton It looked like about two-thirds of the vendors that you analyzed averaged returns of 23%, which is significantly higher than the broader market. When you look at the details, kind of, who came out on top as the big winners?

Paul Murphy Well, I think the companies that did the best, kind of looking at it from a broad lens, the companies that did the best were the ones that benefited from these numerous executive orders and directives that we’ve seen, as well as through actual contract spending. I mean, there is multi-year spending that sustains companies year to year without having to endure the ups and downs of the annual appropriations process. But the Trump administration has sent numerous signals to industry, which companies might be attractive as investment targets. For instance, January’s executive order to remove barriers to the deployment of AI, a June executive order to relax cyber mandates, the July triple directive AI action plan to remove regulatory barriers all send signals that companies like Palantir, Oracle, and Microsoft are in the mix for having a strong year. The April executive order about restoring America’s maritime dominance. And the recently successful review of the AUKUS security agreement with Australia and the UK sends signals that companies like General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls, and even Fincantieri, although that’s an interesting company, are, you know, in the mix again for strong spending. But again, it’s important to keep in mind that contract revenue is just one indicator of a company’s investment attractiveness. And a government spending fundamentally is a political decision. So, you know, there’s risks, even as companies are doing well, there’re risks there that, you know, the seats in Congress or the presidency can change, policy and spending priorities can change as a result. So, these equity returns can change quickly, but this has been the snapshot since from January to December.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Paul Murphy. He’s a senior contracts analyst with Bloomberg Government. Paul, you mentioned Fincantieri. Talk to us a little bit more about the shipbuilding sector broadly and what’s going on particularly with that company.

Paul Murphy I think what’s happening broadly in the shipbuilding sector is that there’s a kind of a fundamental shift going on in national security strategy from one focused on land-based war fighting in Europe and the Middle East to a more naval focus covering the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean in order to counter especially China and the Far East. And so you see the U.S. building relationships with countries like Australia and strengthening alliances with Japan and the Philippines. And there’s been big buildouts of base infrastructure at Guam. So companies in the shipbuilding sector, in the sectors that support shipbuilding, you know satellite surveillance, C2, uncrewed drones, there’s a big shift going on in the Navy’s dependence on heavy ships, you know, which can be disabled through the swarms of drones. I mean, there’s a real fundamental shift going on in their thinking. And, so I think companies in these sectors are — you’re seeing spending going there.

Terry Gerton You talked a little bit about the upside, companies that did really, really well. What’s your takeaway from folks who may be underperformed?

Paul Murphy Well, it’s interesting, even in periods of spending growth, and even when you have big companies, you can have, you know, underperforming contracts. I think it helps to be able to dig deep into, you know, company financials and, you know, descriptions of contract performance. And one company, obviously, that stands out as Lockheed. Their stock was down 10.5 percent from January to December. After flagging sales and lower profits mid-year, they were working on the big upgrade, what’s called the F-35, their big fighter contract, the big F- 35 Block 4 upgrade. And they were years behind schedule. They were experiencing difficulties upgrading and integrating the software. And so a pause was initiated in April and Lockheed attributed the decline in stock in part to this pause in F-35 spending. And they worked out a phased modernization approach with DoD and F-35 spending has picked back up as of December. So we may see a reversal of this trend. But even in periods of growth, you can see big companies struggle. And again, you know, with Fincantieri, similar kind of a story, except in shipbuilding. They had four of the six planned Constellation class frigates canceled after they experienced up to three years of delay. And they were three years behind on the second frigate in this six-boat contract. And so the Navy announced it was pulling the plug on the remaining four boats. And so Fincantieri’s stock late in the year plunged in double digits. And interestingly, they blamed their delays and problems in part in the inability to hire enough trained shipyard workers. So I think that’s actually an area, I think, of potential growth, training the workforce in advanced technology, both in shipbuilding but also in other technologies as well.

Terry Gerton Well, your analysis of 2025 is pretty deep as you turn your eyes toward 2026. What will you be watching for?

Paul Murphy Well, of course, we’re going to be watching defense and national security. I think shipbuilding, shipyard infrastructure, related training services, command and control modernization, drones, uncoupled vehicles, satellite communications, you know, they’re trying to build an integrated defense capability that will span  particularly the Pacific — but we’re not going to end relations with Europe, but it’s, it’s going to change fundamentally and I think they’re going try and rely on a lot more advanced technology to interconnect the services and tie more closely to the allies. President Trump just announced he was seeking a big increase in the fiscal 2027 budget, so we’ll see if he’s able to implement that if Congress goes along. Enterprise IT, and cybersecurity, still very resilient. Big emphasis on AI, zero trust, and secure cloud. Expect continued consolidation, I think, in the software licensing under OneGov, and GSA has this big OneGove initiative, and they’re one by one, they’re negotiating enterprise agreements with the big IT companies. And that will, you know, spread their software across the government. And civilian agencies, I think watch for Veterans Health Services, continued strong spending with Veterans Health Service. The VA has reinitiated the electronic health records deployment, Oracle’s big software contract. Space commercialization, we’re seeing in our top 20 every couple of weeks, you know, new elements of NASA’s commercialization of near space and deep space. Moving ahead, there’s, you know, energy plants, mobile energy plants going to be deployed on the moon. So that’s going to involve not only space companies, but energy companies and so there’s a lot of prototyping going on. There’s the national big national airspace modernization initiative by FAA. Right now they’re involved in a huge procurement to replace 600 radars across the country to better protect towers and airports. Border security, obviously a big area of spending. There’s a lot going on, not just in defense. I think it’s important to emphasize that the civilian sector continues to show strong spend signals.

The post Market data shows surprising winners and losers among top federal contractors after a year of turmoil first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton There’s a lot to talk about, but it strikes me as strange that here we are two weeks before all of the continuing resolutions expire. The Senate is out this week. The House is planning to be out next week. Are they going to finish in time?

Loren Duggan There’s a path for them to do so and unlike other deadlines, when they’re approaching, everyone’s hair on fire — we haven’t felt that dynamic on this one. The House and Senate appropriators, they’re reaching deals, releasing packages, processing them through the House in the Senate, and there’s a way to get this all done by Jan. 30, or if they need a week or something, appropriators are already saying we could do another short-term. But there’s not a panic about this deadline that’s only two weeks away or so.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s recap, which bills are through and who would you say are the big winners in those bills?

Loren Duggan So we had the three bills go through last year. We’ve had another three-bill package get through both chambers this year. The House sent another two-bill package over to the Senate, who can deal with that when they come back. And then there’s this four-bill package, the remaining outstanding ones that they still need to tackle and get through both chambers. So there’s a lot of progress there. The last one’s big — Defense, Labor, HHS — and thorny in the case of the Homeland Security Department, given everything that’s going on there with ICE in Minnesota and concerns about lawmaker oversight there.

Terry Gerton Well, Homeland and Defense both got big chunks of money in the summer that they’re continuing to operate. So does it feel like maybe there’s a little less urgency around those bills?

Loren Duggan A little less urgency on the Defense side, where I think if you put that together with the reconciliation bill, it’s like $1 trillion. Of course, the president wants to take that to $1.5 trillion next year. We can deal with that another time. And Homeland, that extra pool of money has helped. They’ve used that to hire staff, to open centers. But there was a little controversy because DHS said if an ICE facility is funded with the reconciliation dollars, some of the oversight is different there than if it was regular appropriations. So we’ve seen a distinction made there. But definitely having that money earlier, locking that in for the administration, was really key to their plans for the year.

Terry Gerton What are the big controversies that are still on the table that are going to have to be hashed out before that last bill package gets through?

Loren Duggan DHS has been the sticking point. That was initially supposed to be in the last package; it ended up only being two bills instead of three as they worked through some of these discussions. And you could see a deal being made there and getting that through, maybe both chambers. But there could be a fight on that one in either chamber, depending on what you need. What we have seen are very bipartisan packages where the votes have been widespread, some opposition obviously, but they’ve gotten through very comfortably after all the fights that we went through ahead of this point in time.

Terry Gerton It does also seem, at least on the bills that have gotten through so far, that Congress has largely rejected the cuts that the administration proposed for 50% reductions are higher. Most of the reductions are very minor. So since agencies have already been downsized in many cases, what does this mean? How will relative increases, I guess, compared to where they’re operating today — how will that come into effect?

Loren Duggan In some cases, it’s less than they had last year, but still more than the administration wanted and more than House Republicans wanted in their initial versions. So we’re seeing a classic compromise being hashed out here between the House and the Senate, enough money for Democrats to support these bills, not the drastic cuts. And they’ve hastened to say “no poison pills” when they’ve released these different packages. But we’ll see how the agencies respond to more money. That’s been a fight over the course of the administration, where they’ve wanted to impound funds, rescind them, but if you put them back out there the agencies can use them. And even something like foreign aid is going to the State Department now, rather than USAID, after USAID was disestablished by the administration.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan. He’s deputy news director for Bloomberg Government. Loren, outside of the appropriations, what other sorts of legislative discussions are taking place on the Hill these days? ACA subsidies still on top?

Loren Duggan ACA subsidies has been a big driver of discussion. We are now at the end of open enrollment without an answer to what to do with these credits, if they’ll be extended. I assume the senators are still talking this week and when they come back. Donald Trump’s proposal last week didn’t necessarily change the dynamic too much. But one thing that might: We’re going to see insurance company executives brought to the Hill before two different House committees this week. They’ll have to answer some tough questions. Probably get a little beaten up by both sides in this case, because both parties have some concerns with them. So we’ll see how that plays out. The ACA, that’s now a deadline that’s passed; they’re still trying to figure out how to resolve that debate.

Terry Gerton There was also a lot of news last week about the crypto bill in the Senate. Tell us what’s going on there.

Loren Duggan There were markups that had been scheduled in two committees, and then they got pulled back as they continue to work through the issues and deal with the industry feedback. I think it was the Coinbase CEO who was up there weighing in pretty directly with lawmakers. So they pulled back, didn’t move forward, and they’re going to recalibrate the bill. This is the market structure bill, not to be confused with the stablecoin legislation, which is part of the crypto universe. This is a broader market structure bill, who has regulatory authority. I assume they’ll rejoin that debate when they return next week, if they’re not working up while they’re gone. But there’s big interest, big money, big stakes in this legislation.

Terry Gerton All of the things we’ve talked about so far are sort of normal order: appropriations bills, although late, getting through other sorts of legislative activities. Let’s talk about Greenland for a minute, because it seems like it has the potential to really upend all kinds of conversations and agreements that are going on. President Trump made tariff threats over the weekend. We have a congressional delegation on the ground in Denmark. What does this all mean when it comes back to domestic politics?

Loren Duggan We’ll have to see, there hasn’t been a ground swell against this. There are some members of Congress who concede it might be a good idea if Greenland was part of the United States, given its geostrategic importance. But then there’s other members of Congress who have said, maybe we’ll have to impeach Trump if he goes too far on this, so there’s not a consensus. There’s definitely a lot of range of opinions on this one. And it’s something that Donald Trump’s going to hear directly from other world leaders when he goes to Davos, Switzerland, this week and he’ll be side-by-side with some of the people who he’s threatened to tariff or have strong opinions on this, given their proximity to Denmark.

Terry Gerton We usually focus here on domestic politics, but this seems like it will flow over into lots of conversations. What are you expecting to hear out of Davos as that conversation gets started?

Loren Duggan Well, we had expected a domestic announcement with the president talking about his home ownership plan, maybe taking money from 401(k)s to make a down payment, part of his broader affordability discussion, home ownership discussion. So that’s a domestic thing, but we’re definitely going to hear the global things. Not just Greenland, but his “Board of Peace” that he’s talked about, where he wants world leaders to chip in money and be part of this arrangement. I’m sure those discussions will continue and there’ll be lots of feedback, given the compact nature of Davos and everyone who will be there. There’s a little bit of domestic, but it’s more of a foreign play given who’s there. It is the World Economic Forum after all, and the world will be there and talking to Donald Trump directly.

Terry Gerton When everybody gets back, what will you be watching for on the Hill?

Loren Duggan We’ll see if they can wrap up the spending debate and then they’ll be turning to February and eventually the fiscal ’27 process is right there. We’ll just get done with this one and really have to turn the page pretty quickly.

The post Crypto overhaul, Greenland, ACA subsidies, spending bills: Lawmakers’ January juggling acts first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Under the new rules, measures for 5G cybersecurity would become mandatory.

The post EU Plans Phase Out of High Risk Telecom Suppliers, in Proposals Seen as Targeting China appeared first on SecurityWeek.

ICE has been verified on Bluesky, and quickly becomes one of the top most-blocked accounts.

Nicholas Moore, a 24-year-old Tennessee man, pleaded guilty to using stolen credentials of authorized users to hack into computer systems of the Supreme Court, VA, and AmeriCorps, obtaining sensitive information and then posting it online to his Instagram account.

The post Hacker Pleads Guilty to Access Supreme Court, AmeriCorps, VA Systems appeared first on Security Boulevard.

US officials told The New York Times that cyberattacks were used to turn off the lights in Caracas and disrupt air defense radars.

The post New Reports Reinforce Cyberattack’s Role in Maduro Capture Blackout appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Washington state residents may soon be forced to produce IDs before getting onto websites with pornographic content. Within the state's House of Representatives, Rep. Mari Leavitt introduced House Bill 2112, which is informally known as the Keep Our Children Safe Act. Similar to the initiatives seen in other states, the bill proposes to restrict access to "online sexual material harmful" to anyone under 18.

In practical terms, those living in Washington state could see websites asking for digital identification or demanding the user go through an age verification system that requests a government-issued ID. If a website that has more than one-third of its content being "sexual material harmful to minors" is found not following these rules, the state's attorney general can pursue steep civil penalties.

If those restrictions sound familiar, it's because many other states have also passed similar constraints. Washington state's proposed bill is very similar to Texas' age verification law that went into effect in September 2023 and was recently upheld by the US Supreme Court. Like the Texas law, several groups expressed disapproval of the bill during the public hearing at the House committee level. As reported by The Seattle Times, groups including the ACLU, Lavender Rights Project and the Northwest Progressive Institute warned of privacy risks related to potential data breaches and the loose definition of "sexual material harmful to minors" in the bill's language.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/washington-is-the-latest-state-pursuing-an-age-verification-law-for-porn-sites-174423529.html?src=rss

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© Washington State House Democrats

Canada has agreed to drastically reduce its tariffs on imported Chinese EVs from 100 percent to 6.1 percent as part of a

between the two countries. In return, China will be reducing tariffs on Canadian canola seeds from 84 percent to about 15 percent.

The move is a break from the United States, which maintains a 100 percent tariff on EVs from China, effectively banning them in the country. Mexico currently tariffs the vehicles at 50 percent after

last year.

Under the agreement, which Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

"preliminary," Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs into the country, with that number rising to 70,000 after five years. Until now the three major North American trading partners had been aligned in trying to protect their domestic electric vehicle manufacturing. Chinese EV companies benefit from

, and as such can often be priced at a far better value than domestic alternatives.

“Our relationship has progressed in recent months with China. It is more predictable and you see results coming from that,” Carney

. A warmer relationship may be forming in response to the Trump administration's

, with China hoping that alienated nations may

with the Eastern power.

As to concerns that cheaper electric vehicles from China could hurt the Canadian auto market, the prime minister was unconcerned, saying "it’s still in low, single-digit proportion of the size of the Canadian auto sector," Carney added, “Canadians buy about 1.8 million autos a year.” China remains Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the United States.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/canada-cuts-tariffs-on-chinese-evs-as-part-of-new-deal-174241990.html?src=rss

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China has more than 5,000 cybersecurity companies and all the top 20 firms are working with the government. 

The post Cybersecurity Firms React to China’s Reported Software Ban appeared first on SecurityWeek.

After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate passed an appropriations bill funding NASA, alongside the National Science Foundation and a handful of other federal agencies. 

Going into the appropriations process, the president called for a 24 percent year over year reduction to NASA's total operating budget. As part of that plan, the White House wanted to reduce the Science Mission Directorate's funding by nearly half, a move that would have forced NASA to cancel 55 ongoing and planned missions, including efforts like OSIRIS-APEX. The bill effectively rejects President Trump's plan, reducing NASA's total operating budget by just 1.6 percent year over year to $24.4 billion. 

Per the new appropriations, NASA's science budget will stand at $7.25 billion, 1.1 percent less relative to fiscal 2024, while shuffling the remaining funds to focus on different priorities. For instance, the House and Senate allocated $874 million (+8.7 percent) for the agency's heliophysics work; planetary sciences, which oversees missions like New Horizons, was cut to $2.5 billion (-6.5 percent) compared to 2024. At the same time, NASA's STEM engagement office, which the president proposed eliminating, escaped unscathed with its funding maintained at parity.

"It's almost everything we had been asking for, and it's very encouraging to see a House and Senate run by the president's own party agreeing that we need to keep investing in things like NASA science," says Casey Dreier, chief of policy at the Planetary Society, a nonprofit founded by Carl Sagan that advocates for the exploration and study of space. "It contains very clear and direct language that not only is this funding made available to these projects, but that it will be spent on the initiatives that Congress states."

Lawmakers also rejected Trump's effort to scuttle the Space Launch System after its third flight. NASA's heavy-lift rocket is billions of dollars over budget, but remains — as of now — the only spacecraft ready to ferry astronauts to the Moon. Compared to the rest of NASA, the fate of the SLS was never really in doubt. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) secured funding for the rocket as part of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. "I've been saying for a long time you should never underestimate the political coalition behind the SLS, and I think that was very much validated this year," says Dreier. 

More importantly, it appears the Goddard Space Flight Center will be safe from further damage. Over the summer, the future of the facility, known for its work on projects like the James Webb Space Telescope, was put in jeopardy. By some estimates, the campus has lost a third of its staff due to workforce cuts, and dozens of buildings, including some 100 laboratories, have been shut down by management. One of the casualties was NASA's largest library, which houses irreplaceable documents chronicling the history of the space race. As part of a "consolidation" effort, many of those documents will be thrown out.

Under the appropriations bill, the Senate has directed NASA to “preserve all the technical and scientific world-class capabilities at Goddard.” It has also instructed the agency to ensure employees of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies are able to continue their work with "minimal disruption." The New York-based office, one of America's leading climate labs, was sent into limbo last spring after the Trump administration moved to shut it down. 

The bill also provides a lifeline for NASA's to bring back samples of Martian dirt collected by the Perseverance rover. Congress has effectively cancelled the official program tied to that ambition, the Mars Sample Return (MSR), but has set aside $110 million for the agency to continue developing technologies for future science missions to the Red Planet. MSR advocates have argued the mission could lead to significant scientific discoveries, but Dreier notes the program was "ripe for cancellation" after it became mired in mismanagement. 

"I worry MSR now has this stink of bloat, excess cost and threat of overruns that are really going to make it challenging to restart this without having a dramatically different approach," says Dreier, adding that deciding what to do with mission will likely be top of mind for the agency's new administrator, Jared Isaacman. 

The 2026 budget leaves NASA with fewer resources. Even in areas where Congress allocated the same amount of funds as it did in 2024, the agency will need to do more with less due to inflation. Compared to the absolute blood bath that would have been Trump's proposed budget, a marginal funding cut is the best case scenario given the circumstances, but the circumstances remain less than ideal. 

"There will be another presidential budget request coming out in the next couple of months," Dreier said. "They could do this all over again if they wanted to."

In the immediate future, NASA and its employees are at least protected from the potential fallout of another impending government shutdown. Congress has until January 30 to fully fund the federal government, and as of earlier this week, it has yet to find a way forward on appropriations for agencies like the Department of Labor.  

Correction 9:05PM ET: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Casey Dreier’s surename as Drier. We regret the error.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/senate-passes-minibus-bill-funding-nasa-rejecting-trumps-proposed-cuts-231605536.html?src=rss

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President Trump has signed a proclamation imposing a 25 percent tariff on “certain advanced computing chips,” the White House has announced. As The New York Times notes, the administration previously threatened much bigger and broader tariffs for chips. Trump even said that he was going to impose a 100 percent tariff on companies unless they invest on semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.

The new tariff will only affect advanced chips imported into the US and are meant to be re-exported to other countries to sell. In its announcement, the White House specifically named AMD MI325X and NVIDIA H200 as two products that will be affected by the tariff. The president recently approved H200 for export to China, saying that it isn’t NVIDIA’s most advanced AI chip anyway and that the company now has newer and more powerful products, such as its Blackwell semiconductors. “[W]e're going to be making 25 percent on the sale of those chips, basically,” Trump said.

Semiconductors imported into the US for use in products to be sold in America or for use in data centers in the country, will not be affected by the new tariff. “This tariff will not apply to chips that are imported to support the buildout of the US technology supply chain and the strengthening of domestic manufacturing capacity for derivatives of semiconductors,” the White House wrote. But that could still change: The administration said that it may still impose broader tariffs on semiconductor imports and the products that use them in the near future.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/trump-administration-imposes-a-25-percent-tariff-on-high-end-chips-140000138.html?src=rss

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The US House of Representatives, that glorious and efficient gathering of We the People, has been hit with yet another scandal.

Like most (non-sexual) House scandals, the allegations here involve personal enrichment. Unlike most (non-sexual) House scandals, though, this one involved hundreds of government cell phones being sold on eBay—and some rando member of We the People calling the US House IT help desk, which blew the lid on the whole scheme.

Only sell "in parts"

According to the government's version of events, 43-year-old Christopher Southerland was working in 2023 as a sysadmin for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. In his role, Southerland had the authority to order cell phones for committee staffers, of which there are around 80.

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FBI agents searched the home of a Washington Post reporter on Wednesday morning as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.

The Post reported that federal agents seized a phone, two laptops — one work and one personal — and a Garmin watch from reporter Hannah Natanson, who was at her home in Virginia at the time.

The government’s action raised questions about whether Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who bought the Post in 2013, will step in in any way.

CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote in his Reliable Sources newsletter Wednesday morning that several staffers told him “they’re wondering what, if anything, Bezos will do to defend Natanson and the Post from this aggressive government action.”

Natanson covers the federal workforce and has been a part of Post’s “most high-profile and sensitive coverage during the first year of the second Trump administration,” according to the newspaper. But she is not the focus of the probe.

A warrant said that law enforcement is investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement, according to an FBI affidavit.

Natanson wrote a compelling first-person account in December of her time covering the Trump administration and the hundreds of government workers she’d been in contact with as sources.

Bezos’ influence at the Post has come into focus in recent years. In February he shook up the newspaper’s opinion pages by refocusing the section on supporting and defending what he called “two pillars” — personal liberties and free markets.

That action came in the wake of his decision in 2024 to end the newspaper’s tradition of endorsing candidates for president — including a reported spiking of the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. The action cost the Post more than 200,000 digital subscribers and a wave of backlash during the contentious run-up to Trump’s re-election.

After Trump’s re-election, Bezos joined other tech leaders in expressing a willingness to work with the administration. Bezos was among those who attended the presidential inauguration.

The UK government has backtracked on a plan to require all workers to have a digital ID following a backlash. It will no longer be mandatory to register with the digital ID program to prove one has the right to work in the country, as the BBC reports.

The government announced the now-scrapped digital ID requirement in September. "You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID," Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said at the time. "It's as simple as that." 

The government still plans to fully transition to digital right-to-work checks by 2029, using the likes of biometric passports, as it seeks to do away with paper-based systems. Those are "open to fraud and abuse," a government spokesperson said. 

Officials have still not explained exactly how the digital ID program will work. The government originally framed digital IDs as a way to make it easier to identify immigrants who are working in the country without having the legal right to do so. It is now said to be focusing more on pressing home the message that digital IDs will help people access public services. 

A service called One Login will be part of the digital ID system — this currently can be used for things like applying for a veteran card and canceling a lost passport. More than 12 million people have signed up so far. Another service called Wallet will let people store their digital ID on their phone. This would contain their name, date of birth, nationality, residence status and a photo.

Almost 3 million people signed an official parliamentary petition to protest the introduction of digital IDs. "We think this would be a step towards mass surveillance and digital control, and that no one should be forced to register with a state-controlled ID system," the petition states. "We oppose the creation of any national ID system."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/uk-scraps-digital-id-requirement-for-workers-105740207.html?src=rss

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"Since the United States reopened its embassy in Cuba in 2015, a number of personnel have reported a series of debilitating medical ailments which include dizziness, fatigue, problems with memory, and impaired vision," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "For ten years, these sudden and unexplained onsets have been studied with no conclusive evidence one way or the other. Now comes word that a device, purchased by the Pentagon, has been tested which may be linked to what is known as Havana Syndrome." From a report: A division of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, purchased the device for millions of dollars in the waning days of the Biden administration, using funding provided by the Defense Department, according to two of the sources. Officials paid âoeeight figuresâ for the device, these people said, declining to offer a more specific number. [...] The device acquired by HSI produces pulsed radio waves, one of the sources said, which some officials and academics have speculated for years could be the cause of the incidents. Although the device is not entirely Russian in origin, it contains Russian components, this person added. Officials have long struggled to understand how a device powerful enough to cause the kind of damage some victims have reported could be made portable; that remains a core question, according to one of the sources briefed on the device. The device could fit in a backpack, this person said. [...] One key concern now for some officials is that if the technology proves viable it may have proliferated, several of the sources said, meaning that more than one country could now have access to a device that may be capable of causing career-ending injuries to US officials. Further reading: 'Havana Syndrome' Debate Rises Again in US Government

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The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act (DEFIANCE Act), giving victims of sexually explicit AI deepfakes the right to sue the individuals who created them. The Verge reports: The bill passed with unanimous consent -- meaning there was no roll-call vote, and no Senator objected to its passage on the floor Tuesday. It's meant to build on the work of the Take It Down Act, a law that criminalizes the distribution of nonconsensual intimate images (NCII) and requires social media platforms to promptly remove them. [...] Now the ball is again in the House leadership's court; if they decide to bring the bill to the floor, it will have to pass in order to reach the president's desk.

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