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Wave of AI Bills to Continue Next Year As of early September, more than 30 states had passed artificial intelligence-related bills or resolutions this year, according to the National Conference of State...
MI Addresses Multiple Healthcare Issues Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed over half a dozen bills dealing with healthcare and family support. The measures include SB 790 and SB 791 , allowing home help...
In recent years, the boardroom has become a new front in the culture wars alongside a cacophony of three-letter acronyms. DEI, ESG and CSR. These buzzwords—short for diversity, equity and inclusion;...
Statehouse Shift Ahead for Earned Wage Access? In recent years earned wage access apps, which allow workers to obtain access to their earnings before they receive their paychecks, have exploded in popularity...
SD to Consider App- and Device-Based Age Verification Legislation in 2025 The South Dakota Legislature’s Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Internet Access by Minors voted...
As drones are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and sophisticated, state governments are coming up with new ways to use them.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced in May that the state would be adding 10 drones—including one with thermal imaging technology—to its fleet of 8 already deployed for monitoring state beaches for sharks.
Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, which has already experimented with the use of drones for tracking game and surveying fish passage structures, among other things, plans to start using drones for crop-dusting noxious weeds.
Last month, roughly a year after a gunman killed seven people and wounded nearly 50 others at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed legislation (HB 3902) allowing law enforcement to use drones to monitor special events.
Several states have also considered restrictions on the use of drones.
A bill introduced in Iowa (HF 572), for instance, would prohibit drone operators from flying over feedlots and other agricultural animal facilities.
Arkansas enacted legislation (HB 1125) making it a class D felony for a registered sex offender to buy, own or use a drone with image-capture capability.
And Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi (SB 2853) and Tennessee (HB 1070) have all recently barred public agencies from purchasing or deploying drones made in China. (PLURIBUS NEWS, STATE NET)
Security researchers say vulnerabilities in the EV chargers governments and consumers are rushing to install could not only allow hackers to access the vehicle data or credit card information of individual users or frustrate them by turning their chargers on or off, but also potentially disrupt entire power networks.
“It’s not about your charger, it’s about everyone’s charger at the same time,” said Ken Munro, a cofounder of the British security research firm Pen Test Partners. “We’ve inadvertently created a weapon that nation-states can use against our power grid.” (WIRED)
A panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals gave the go-ahead for customers of a mail-order pharmacy whose personal information was stolen in a cyberattack and allegedly used to file a fake tax return to bring a class-action lawsuit against the company.
A trial court had ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to establish they’d suffered a “concrete injury.” But the appellate panel, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision, ruled: “Intangible harms can also be concrete, including when they ‘are injuries with a close relationship to harms traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in American courts,’ such as ‘reputational harms, disclosure of private information, and intrusion upon seclusion.’” (INSURANCE JOURNAL)
Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub have sued New York City in an effort to prevent the city’s new minimum pay requirements for gig workers—starting at $18 per hour and increasing to $20 per hour by 2025—from taking effect on July 12. The companies contend the data regulators used to set the pay rates was faulty. (NEW YORK TIMES)
The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule that would ban fake online reviews and testimonials. The rule would prohibit the purchasing or selling of fake reviews; the suppression of negative reviews; and the repurposing of favorable reviews for one particular item to other listings, a practice known as “review hijacking;” as well as bar company insiders from reviewing their company’s products or services without disclosing their relationship to the company. (CNBC)
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop direct air capture technologies to remove greenhouse gas emissions from the air. Two companies broke ground on Wyoming’s first major carbon capture projects in May. (CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE)
Fourteen states, including Colorado, Minnesota, Texas and Virginia, have enacted legislation dealing with nuclear energy this year. Among other things the measures commission studies, repeal moratoriums and provide nuclear workforce development incentives. (PLURIBUS NEWS)
—Compiled by SNCJ Managing Editor KOREY CLARK
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