Three Democrats are seeking information from tech firms about the growing energy use of data centers and the utility bills of individuals and other businesses.

© Nathan Howard for The New York Times

Ford Motor said the costs came from its decision to make fewer electric vehicles than it had planned and more hybrids that use both gasoline engines and batteries.

© Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

The U.S. Tech Force is aiming to hire about 1,000 top-level technical employees and supervisors to join federal agencies and work on projects related to artificial intelligence and modernization.

© Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

ServiceNow Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Armis in a deal that could reach $7 billion, its largest ever, according to reports. Bloomberg News first reported the discussions over the weekend, noting that an announcement could come within days. However, sources cautioned that the deal could still collapse or attract competing bidders...

The post ServiceNow in Advanced Talks to Acquire Armis for $7 Billion: Reports appeared first on Security Boulevard.

Technology professionals hoping to come and work in the US face a new privacy concern. Starting December 15, skilled workers on H-1B visas and their families must flip their social media profiles to public before their consular interviews. It’s a deeply risky move from a security and privacy perspective.

According to a missive from the US State Department, immigration officers use all available information to vet newcomers for signs that they pose a threat to national security. That includes an “online presence review.” That review now requires not just H-1B applicants but also H-4 applicants (their dependents who want to move with them to the US) to “adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public.'”

An internal State Department cable obtained by CBS had sharper language: it instructs officers to screen for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.” What that means is unclear, but if your friends like posting strong political opinions, you should be worried.

This isn’t the first time that the government has forced people to lift the curtain on their private digital lives. The US State Department forced student visa applicants to make their social media profiles public in June this year.

This is a big deal for a lot of people. The H-1B program allows companies to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty jobs. The US processed around 400,000 visas under the H-1B program last year, most of which were applications to renew employment, according to the Pew Research Center. When you factor in those workers’ dependents, we’re talking well over a million people. This decision forces them into long-term digital exposure that threatens not just them, but the US too.

Why forced public exposure is a security disaster

A lot of these H-1B workers work for defense contractors, chip makers, AI labs, and big tech companies. These are organizations that foreign powers (especially those hostile to the US) care a lot about, and that makes those H-1B employees primary targets for them.

Making H-1B holders’ real names, faces, and daily routines public is a form of digital doxxing. The policy exposes far more personal information than is safe, creating significant new risks.

This information gives these actors a free organizational chart, complete with up-to-date information on who’s likely to be working on chip designs and sensitive software.

It also gives the same people all they need to target people on that chart. They have information on H-1B holders and their dependents, including intelligence about their friends and family, their interests, their regular locations, and even what kinds of technology they use. They become more exposed to risks like SIM swapping and swatting.

This public information also turns employees into organizational attack vectors. Adversaries can use personal and professional data to enhance spear-phishing and business email compromise techniques that cost organizations dearly. Public social media content becomes training data for fraud, serving up audio and video that threat actors can use to create lifelike impersonations of company employees.

Social media profiles also give adversaries an ideal way to approach people. They have a nasty habit of exploiting social media to target assets for recruitment. The head of MI5 warned two years ago that Chinese state actors had approached an estimated 20,000 Britons via LinkedIn to steal industrial or technological secrets.

Armed with a deep, intimate understanding of what makes their targets tick, attackers stand a much better chance of co-opting them. One person might need money because of a gambling problem or a sick relative. Another might be lonely and a perfect target for a romance scam.

Or how about basic extortion? LGBTQ+ individuals from countries where homosexuality is criminalized risk exposure to regimes that could harm them when they return. Family in hostile countries become bargaining chips. In some regions, families of high-value employees could face increased exposure if this information becomes accessible. Foreign nation states are good at exploiting pain points. This policy means that they won’t have to look far for them.

Visa applications might assume they can simply make an account private again once officials have evaluated them. But adversary states to the US are actively seeking such information. They have vast online surveillance operations that scrape public social media accounts. As soon as they notice someone showing up in the US with H-1B visa status, they’ll be ready to mine account data that they’ve already scraped.

So what is an H-1B applicant to do? Deleting accounts is a bad idea, because sudden disappearance can trigger suspicion and officers may detect forensic traces. A safer approach is to pause new posting and carefully review older content before making profiles public. Removing or hiding posts that reveal personal routines, locations, or sensitive opinions reduces what can be taken out of context or used for targeting once accounts are exposed.

The irony is that spies are likely using fake social media accounts honed for years to slip under the radar. That means they’ll keep operating in the dark while legitimate H-1B applicants are the ones who become vulnerable. So this policy may unintentionally create the very risks it aims to prevent. And it also normalizes mandatory public exposure as a condition of government interaction.

We’re at a crossroads. Today, visa applicants, their families, and their employers are at risk. The infrastructure exists to expand this approach in the future. Or officials could stop now and rethink, before these risks become more deeply entrenched.

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Backed by White House officials, the tech billionaire has lashed out at the European Union after his social media platform X was fined last week.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

St. Lawrence College has announced its continued participation in the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant (OLSG) for the 2026-27 academic year — a program that was developed to address critical health-care worker shortages in eastern Ontario communities. Read More

Harold Hamm, an Oklahoma oil tycoon, has played a central role in reshaping energy policy by allying himself with President Trump.

© Loren Elliott for The New York Times

Announcement draws anger from Labour MP over refusal to remove tonnes of rubbish dumped near school in Wigan

The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.

But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.

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© Photograph: Jacob King/PA

© Photograph: Jacob King/PA

© Photograph: Jacob King/PA

A federal lawsuit argues that proposed work by ConocoPhillips could threaten delicate ecosystems in the largest tract of public land in the U.S.

© Erin Schaff/The New York Times

President Trump signed an executive order establishing a single federal AI regulatory framework that preempts state-level rules, aiming to centralize oversight of the rapidly growing AI industry. "The Trump administration, with the aid of AI and crypto czar David Sacks, has been pursuing a path that would allow federal rules to preempt state regulations on AI, a move meant to keep big Democratic-led states like California and New York from exerting their control over the growing industry," notes CNBC. Developing...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The order would create one federal regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

The group’s report had been expected to provide a road map for change after months of upheaval at the agency.

© Jon Cherry/Reuters

Warwickshire board says maximum 5% tax rise needed for financial viability despite election promise to cut costs

Reform UK council leaders have been accused of making “rash promises” after a local authority led by the party has been told it will have to increase council tax by the maximum amount, despite its election promises to cut costs.

Warwickshire county council has been warned by its executives that anything less than a 5% maximum council tax increase will put its financial viability at risk.

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© Photograph: Colin Underhill/Alamy

© Photograph: Colin Underhill/Alamy

© Photograph: Colin Underhill/Alamy

American officials joined Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran in objecting to language on fossils fuels, biodiversity and plastics in a report that was three years in the making.

© Monicah Mwangi/Reuters

Andy Burnham unveils next step in transport system, allowing contactless travel with fares capped across trains, buses and trams

The first passenger trains in the Bee Network will join by the end of 2026, after Greater Manchester disclosed the next steps in its ambitious transport system.

Unveiling a yellow-branded Northern train, the regional mayor, Andy Burnham, said two lines from central Manchester – to Glossop and Stalybridge – would join the network in a year, allowing contactless travel with fares capped across trains, buses and trams.

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© Photograph: Transport for Greater Manchester

© Photograph: Transport for Greater Manchester

© Photograph: Transport for Greater Manchester

Jenny Carlson Donnelly traveled to malaria-affected countries to test mosquitoes and save lives. Then she lost her job at U.S.A.I.D.

© Cheriss May for The New York Times

President Trump’s unusual decision to involve himself in the government’s review of the deal puts pressure on his antitrust chief.

© Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

Gregg Phillips, who spread unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud in the 2016 election, will join the agency’s leadership, the Trump administration confirmed.

© Bridget Bennett/Reuters

Roy Marsh, 86, says the penalty from enforcement officers was ‘unnecessary and all out of proportion’

A man has claimed he was fined £250 for spitting after a leaf blew into his mouth in Lincolnshire.

Roy Marsh, 86, was given the financial penalty after the incident in Skegness earlier this year. He is now calling for “responsible” litter enforcement.

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© Photograph: Jane Marsh Fitzpatrick

© Photograph: Jane Marsh Fitzpatrick

© Photograph: Jane Marsh Fitzpatrick

The young plaintiffs, who won a major case over climate change policy in 2023, argue that legislators are illegally ignoring the effects of fossil fuels.

© Janie Osborne for The New York Times

An executive left TSMC for Intel. Taiwan’s government says that could threaten its national security.

© Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. The department under Blinken in early January 2023 had switched to Calibri, a modern sans-serif font, saying this was a more accessible font for people with disabilities because it did not have the decorative angular features and was the default in Microsoft products. A cable dated December 9 sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces. "To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department's written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface," the cable said. "This formatting standard aligns with the President's One Voice for America's Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department's responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications," it added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As three immigrants claim Nobel Prizes in science for the United States this year, experts warn that immigration crackdowns could undo American innovation.

© Sophie Park for The New York Times

Lip-Bu Tan, who was appointed chief executive of Intel in March, is also a longtime venture capitalist. His dual roles have caused some consternation.

© Laure Andrillon/Reuters

As three immigrants claim Nobel Prizes in science for the United States this year, experts warn that immigration crackdowns could undo American innovation.

© Sophie Park for The New York Times

Congress quietly removed provisions that would have let the U.S. military fix its own equipment without relying on contractors, despite bipartisan and Pentagon support. The Register reports: The House and Senate versions of the NDAA passed earlier both included provisions that would have extended common right-to-repair rules to US military branches, requiring defense contractors to provide access to technical data, information, and components that enabled military customers to quickly repair essential equipment. Both of those provisions were stripped from the final joint-chamber reconciled version of the bill, published Monday, right-to-repair advocates at the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) pointed out in a press release. [...] According to PIRG's press release on the matter, elected officials have been targeted by an "intensive lobbying push" in recent weeks against the provisions. House Armed Services Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL) and ranking Democrat Adam Smith (D-WA), responsible for much of the final version of the bill, have received significant contributions from defense contractors in recent years, and while correlation doesn't equal causation, it sure looks fishy. [Isaac Bowers, PIRG's federal legislative director] did tell us that he was glad that the defense sector's preferred solution to the military right to repair fight -- a "data as a service" solution -- was also excluded, so the 2026 NDAA isn't a total loss for the repairability fight. "That provision would have mandated the Pentagon access repair data through separate vendor contracts rather than receiving it upfront at the time of procurement, maintaining the defense industry's near monopoly over essential repair information and keeping troops waiting for repairs they could do quicker and cheaper themselves," Bowers said in an email. An aide to the Democratic side of the Committee told The Register the House and Senate committees did negotiate a degree of right-to-repair permissions in the NDAA. According to the aide and a review of the final version of the bill, measures were included that require the Defense Department to identify any instances where a lack of technical data hinders operation or maintenance of weapon systems, as well as aviation systems. The bill also includes a provision that would establish a "technical data system" that would "track, manage, and enable the assessment" of data related to system maintenance and repair. Unfortunately, the technical data system portion of the NDAA mentions "authorized repair contractors" as the parties carrying out repair work, and there's also no mention of parts availability or other repairability provisions in the sections the staffer flagged -- just access to technical data. That means the provisions are unlikely to move the armed forces toward a new repairability paradigm.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Trump’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell its chips to China has raised questions about whether he is prioritizing short-term economic gain over long-term American security interests.

© Pete Marovich for The New York Times

Worcestershire council leader Jo Monk sent city councillor Ed Kimberley a cease and desist letter over his criticism of her

The leader of a Reform UK-run local authority has been criticised for an “authoritarian” attempt to silence opposition after sending a legal threat to a Labour councillor, demanding he stops mentioning her name in public.

Ed Kimberley, a Worcester city councillor, said he received the cease and desist letter from the leader of Worcestershire county council, Jo Monk, in late November.

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© Photograph: Reform UK

© Photograph: Reform UK

© Photograph: Reform UK

Andrew Ferguson has used the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection mandate to investigate issues important to President Trump and his base.

© Al Drago for The New York Times

The developer of ICEBlock, which notifies users of ICE agent sightings, said Attorney General Pam Bondi censored his free speech.

© Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

People who have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act will face higher deductibles and higher premiums.

© Alex Welsh for The New York Times

Mr. Trump is pushing to approve their production in the United States.

© Edgar Su/Reuters

As head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin has weakened protections against toxic chemicals, say members of the MAHA movement.

© Eric Lee for The New York Times

In cybersecurity today, regulation is everywhere, but resilience isn’t keeping pace.

In this episode of Experts on Experts: Commanding Perspectives, Craig Adams chats with Sabeen Malik, VP of Public Policy & Government Affairs at Rapid7, about what’s broken (and what’s promising) in today’s regulatory landscape.

Sabeen pulls from her experience across diplomacy, operations, and government relations to highlight where policy too often fails to account for how risk actually works. From insider threats to government shutdowns, it’s a sharp, timely look at how security leaders should approach strategy, structure, and compliance going into 2026.

Key themes:

• The growing trust gap between public, private, and institutional actors

• Why insider threats are a cultural problem, not just a controls one

• Where UK and US guidance is falling short on resilience

• What small and midsized businesses are still missing

• Why AI, exposure, and threat governance need to be connected

Whether you're thinking about AI use cases or modern regulation fatigue, this episode offers a much-needed reset.

Watch the full video.

The health secretary has walled himself off from government scientists and empowered fellow activists to pursue his vaccine agenda.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The president said he would weaken Biden-era mileage standards, which were designed to increase electric-vehicle sales, calling them a “scam.”

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

The president withdrew Jared Isaacman’s nomination to lead the space agency in June, but senators of both parties appeared willing to give him a second shot at confirmation.

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Bitcoin has plunged more than 30 percent and Ether is down around 40 percent in recent months, as gains from President Trump’s pro-crypto policies evaporated.

© The New York Times

Executives from top automakers were invited to attend the announcement at the White House on Wednesday.

© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: The Trump administration has agreed to inject up to $150 million into a startup (source paywalled; alternative source) trying to develop more advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques in the U.S., its latest bid to support strategically important domestic industries with government incentives. Under the arrangement, the Commerce Department would give the incentives to xLight, a startup trying to improve the critical chip-making process known as extreme ultraviolet lithography, the agency said in a Monday release. In return, the government would get an equity stake that would likely make it xLight's largest shareholder. The Dutch firm ASML is currently the only global producer of EUV machines, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. XLight is seeking to improve on just one component of the EUV process: the crucially important lasers that etch complex microscopic patterns onto chemical-treated silicon wafers. The startup is hoping to integrate its light sources into ASML's machines. XLight represents a second act for Pat Gelsinger, the former chief executive of Intel who was fired by the board late last year after the chip maker suffered from weak financial performance and a stalled manufacturing expansion. Gelsinger serves as executive chairman of xLight's board. [...] The xLight deal uses funding from the 2022 Chips and Science Act allocated for earlier stage companies with promising technologies. It is the first Chips Act award in President Trump's second term and is a preliminary agreement, meaning it isn't finalized and could change. "This partnership would back a technology that can fundamentally rewrite the limits of chipmaking," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in the release.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While the president said he had an M.R.I. exam, a physician’s memo released by the White House was less specific.

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

David Sacks, the Trump administration’s A.I. and crypto czar, has helped formulate policies that aid his Silicon Valley friends and many of his own tech investments.

© Mark Harris

Shifting politics, intensive lobbying and surging disinformation online have undermined international efforts to respond to the threat.

© Andre Penner/Associated Press

The agency’s top vaccine regulator proposed broad changes, claiming that a new review linked 10 children’s deaths to the Covid vaccine. But public health experts questioned the findings, wanting to examine the data.

© Hannah Beier for The New York Times

Industry groups and scientists have urged the Trump administration to reconsider its plan to close a renowned Agriculture Department center in Maryland and disperse its work around the country.

Oil and gas firms were supposed to start reducing methane, a powerful driver of climate change. The agency is giving them more time and may cancel the requirement.

© Desiree Rios for The New York Times

The email sent to atom bomb officials by Brandon Williams highlights the managerial challenge faced by the former one-term congressman.

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The president’s energy strategy is projected to generate more pollution, but so far production has not risen significantly and price drops have been modest, analysts say.

© Eli Hartman/Reuters

The Trump administration said that had the new prices been in effect last year, Medicare would have saved $12 billion, which would have reduced its spending on those drugs by 44 percent.

© Helen Sessions/Alamy