Author: Reporter

The nation’s cybersecurity agency has played a critical role in helping states shore up the defenses of their voting systems, but its election mission appears uncertain amid sustained criticism from Republicans and key figures in the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has yet to name anyone to lead the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, and for the first time since it was formed, there are no plans for anyone in its leadership to address the annual gathering of the nation’s secretaries of state, which was held in January in Washington DC. Trump’s new homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, asserted...

Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields. The nation’s copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated. And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis,...

As the U.S. Census Bureau gets public feedback about how it should tally people into new race and ethnicity groups, the agency has released new research reflecting how U.S. residents from different backgrounds regard their racial and ethnic identities. The U.S. government changed how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity in early 2024 to more accurately count residents who identify as Hispanic and of Middle Eastern and North African heritage. Before this year, the categories had not been changed in 27 years. Under the revisions, questions about race and ethnicity that previously were asked separately on forms will...

When the 2020 census results were released, they showed a boom in the number of people classified as multiracial in the United States since 2010. Two Princeton sociologists now say that jump was mostly an illusion. The 276% increase largely happened because of a change in how people were classified by the U.S. Census Bureau rather than strong shifts in racial or ethnic identity or major growth, according to a paper published in December by Paul Starr and Christina Pao. The Census Bureau for the first time provided space on the census form for people to write-in their families’...

The Biden administration is moving to clarify how homeowners and businesses can receive lucrative tax credits for installing electric vehicle chargers. A rule proposed in September by the Treasury Department would make credits worth up to $1,000 for individuals and $100,000 for businesses available for each EV charger that is installed. If finalized, the new rule would be especially valuable to businesses that plan to install multiple chargers and would be eligible for significant credits to offset the expense. “In order to help more Americans go electric, we need to make sure they can charge their EVs where they...