Democratic governor of Minnesota says administration’s federal withholding of $259m ‘has nothing to do with fraud’
A newly revealed diplomatic cable calls on US diplomats to work against attempts by foreign nations to regulate how US tech companies handle their citizens’ data, as “data sovereignty initiatives” gather steam in Europe over security concerns.
More from Reuters:
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services.
Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information - initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.“
Continue reading...Group says case far from over after being found liable for defamation and other claims brought by energy firm
A North Dakota judge has said he will order Greenpeace to pay damages expected to total $345m in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline from nearly a decade ago, a figure the environmental group contends it cannot pay.
In court papers filed Tuesday, Judge James Gion said he would sign an order requiring several Greenpeace entities to pay the judgment to pipeline company Energy Transfer. He set that amount at $345m last year in a decision that reduced a jury’s damages by about half, but his latest filing did not specify a final amount.
Continue reading...Tim Walz says federal withholding of $259m ‘has nothing to do with fraud’; JD Vance says Trump administration is withholding Medicaid funds from Minnesota out of ‘love’
A newly revealed diplomatic cable calls on US diplomats to work against attempts by foreign nations to regulate how US tech companies handle their citizens’ data, as “data sovereignty initiatives” gather steam in Europe over security concerns.
More from Reuters:
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services.
Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information - initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.“
Continue reading...
Killing of Ruben Ray Martinez on 15 March 2025 in Texas was not disclosed by the department until media reported it
A grand jury on Wednesday rejected indictments over the fatal shooting last year of a US citizen by a federal immigration agent during a traffic encounter in Texas, prosecutors said.
The shooting of Ruben Ray Martinez on 15 March 2025, by a Homeland Security investigations agent wasn’t publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security until the Associated Press and other media outlets reported it last week.
Continue reading...Proposed settlement would pay users of glyphosate-based weedkiller who have non-Hodgkin lymphoma $10,000 to $165,000
A group of 14 law firms representing nearly 20,000 plaintiffs is seeking to intervene in Bayer’s proposed class action settlement of Roundup litigation, citing concerns that the deal will not be fair to cancer sufferers.
The group filed both a motion to intervene and a motion for an extension of time for court preliminary approval of the deal in St Louis city circuit court in Missouri late on February 24.
This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group
Continue reading...Investigation under way after man was dropped off five miles from home but family wasn’t notified, officials say
A nearly blind Burmese refugee who was abandoned by border patrol agents has been found dead in Buffalo, New York, city officials confirmed.
Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, had been missing since 19 February, when he was dropped off by border patrol following his release from Erie county holding center, according to the Investigative Post.
Continue reading...Critics concerned as Casey Means, aligned with RFK Jr on vaccine stance, does not have active medical license
Casey Means, Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for US surgeon general, appeared before the Senate health committee on Wednesday for a two‑hour hearing in which she defended her medical credentials, side-stepped direct questions on vaccine guidance, and blamed the country’s chronic‑disease burden on “ultra‑processed foods, industrial chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, chronic stress and loneliness, and over‑medicalization”.
As the nation’s prospective top doctor, Means would be responsible for communicating federal public‑health guidance. In her opening remarks, she said Americans were “angry, exhausted and hurting from preventable diseases” and called for a “great national healing”. Her hearing was postponed in October, after she went into labor hours before she was scheduled to testify.
Continue reading...Providers have already been paid by the state of Minnesota for their services, Vance says, but federal funds that reimburse the state will be withheld
A newly revealed diplomatic cable calls on US diplomats to work against attempts by foreign nations to regulate how US tech companies handle their citizens’ data, as “data sovereignty initiatives” gather steam in Europe over security concerns.
More from Reuters:
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services.
Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information - initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.“
Continue reading...Vice-president makes announcement with Mehmet Oz, who says other states will be next after Minnesota
JD Vance announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration would “temporarily halt” more than a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid reimbursements to the state of Minnesota as part of Donald Trump’s newly announced “war on fraud”.
“What we’re doing is we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer,” the vice-president said at a press conference in Washington, where he was joined by Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid.
Continue reading...Tech companies ranging from 300-person startups to giants like Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Salesforce have moved beyond encouraging employees to use AI tools and are now actively tracking adoption and, in several cases, tying it to performance reviews. Google is factoring AI use into some software engineer reviews for the first time this year, and Meta's new performance review system will do the same -- it can track how many lines of code an engineer wrote with AI assistance. Amazon Web Services managers have dashboards showing individual engineer AI-tool usage and consider adoption when evaluating promotions. About 42% of tech-industry workers said their direct manager expects AI use in daily work as of last October, up from 32% eight months earlier, according to AI consulting firm Section. At software maker Autodesk, CEO Andrew Anagnost acknowledged that some employees had been using initially blocked coding tools like Cursor stealthily -- and warned that AI holdouts "probably won't survive long term."
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