Society

On Tuesday, the Senate passed a massive foreign aid package that included an ultimatum for TikTok: Divest or be banned from operating within the US. The package was approved by the House of Representatives on Saturday, and President Joe Biden said that he intends to sign the bill on Wednesday. “Even as our social media…

More US workers will soon be free to leave their employers to work for rivals, thanks to a new federal rule that will block the long-standing practice of locking in workers with noncompete agreements. The US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a final rule that bans most noncompetes nationwide. The agency estimated that by…

Tesla is accelerating plans for a lineup of new electric vehicles, including “more affordable models,” the automaker said in a memo to investors Tuesday. New models previously slated to start production in the second half of 2025 will now launch before then, the company said, implying production will start much earlier. It’s unclear whether the…

While Netflix seemingly led the way for other streaming networks to create compelling original programming, Hulu actually beat them all to the punch. In 2011, a year before Netflix’s Lilyhammer and two years before the arrival of House of Cards, the burgeoning streamer premiered The Morning After, a pop-culture-focused news show that ran for 800…

Hearing aids: Not only for the near-deaf? We’ve already seen one product in the emerging category of hearing aids designed for users with relatively mild hearing loss—the Olive Union Olive Max. Now there’s Elehear’s Alpha Pro, another affordable over-the-counter product that aims to acclimate users to what hearing aids can do … before things reach…

Jason Matheny is a delight to speak with, provided you’re up for a lengthy conversation about potential technological and biomedical catastrophe. Now CEO and president of Rand Corporation, Matheny has built a career out of thinking about such gloomy scenarios. An economist by training with a focus on public health, he dived into the worlds…

The ability of the United States to intercept and store Americans’ text messages, calls, and emails in pursuit of foreign intelligence was not only extended but enhanced over the weekend in ways likely to remain enigmatic to the public for years to come. On Saturday, US president Joe Biden signed a controversial bill extending the…

For almost a decade, Nick Roy has been scanning North Korea’s tiny internet presence, spotting new websites coming online and providing a glimpse of the Hermit Kingdoms’ digital life. However, at the end of last year, the cybersecurity researcher and DPRK blogger stumbled across something new: signs North Koreans are working on major international TV…

When Christophe Fouquet takes over as CEO of Europe’s most valuable tech company on April 24, he will inherit not only a single firm, but also the leadership of an entire industry responsible for a critical ingredient of modern life: chips. Netherlands-based ASML makes one of the world’s most complex machines, used by chipmakers like…

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In Georgia’s 2020 gubernatorial election, some voters in Atlanta waited over 10 hours to cast a ballot. One reason for the long lines was that almost 10 percent of Georgia’s polling sites had closed over the preceding seven years, despite an influx of about 2…