In what could be a major victory for public alternatives to internet service giants, the Federal Communications Commission introduced a draft proposal to kill municipal broadband limits in two states this week. Commissioners are expected to vote on the proposal on February 26, the same day they are likely to vote on net neutrality regulations….
It has been nearly four years since hackers brought down Sony’s PlayStation Network, a popular online gaming service that tens of millions of gamers use for everything from Netflix to multi-player gaming with friends. Not only did the hackers bring PSN services to a grinding halt, they also compromised the accounts of PSN users, stealing…
The Obama administration unveiled a plan on Tuesday that would open up a large swath of federal waters off the coast of the eastern United States to oil and gas drilling. Under the plan, drilling in the Atlantic could span from Virginia to Georgia. “This is a balanced proposal that would make available nearly 80…
2014 was the Earth’s warmest year since records began in 1880, according to reports from federal scientists published Friday. The finding reached by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA offers more confirmation of the planet’s warming trend as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. NOAA stated that 2014’s combined global land and ocean…
The United States lags behind much of the rest of the highly developed world in terms of Internet speeds. Estimates vary but a study from Akamai — one of the world’s largest cloud content delivery companies — found that the US ranked only #12 in average Internet speeds and #17 in peak Internet speeds. Even…
Republicans take control of Congress on Tuesday, marking the first time since 2006 that the GOP holds both the House and Senate. Their first order of business: approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which would deliver Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama’s response: not so fast. The White House said today…
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon vote on a new set of net neutrality rules. The vote is likely to come at the FCC’s monthly meeting in February, which is scheduled to occur on February 26. The Washington Post’s Brian Fung reports: President Obama’s top telecom regulator, Tom Wheeler, told fellow FCC commissioners before…
A monstrous cloud of accumulated methane—a potent greenhouse gas—is now hovering over a large portion of the western United States according to satellite imagery analyzed by NASA and reported by the Washington Post. Created by years of intentionally released and errantly leaked natural gas during fossil fuel drilling operations, the cloud — invisible to the…
Pope Francis will take on global warming in 2015, with a lengthy speech on human ecology and climate change to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, an address to the United Nations general assembly, and a summit of the world’s main religions, according to the Observer. The Sunday paper reports: The reason for such frenetic activity,…
The Food and Drug Administration made a historic shift on Tuesday, announcing that the government agency in charge of protecting the nation’s blood supply would end the lifetime ban on blood donations for gay and bisexual men. The policy was put in place in 1983 during the early days of the HIV epidemic before reliable…
