A judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by former President Donald Trump seeking to lift his ban from Twitter. But San Francisco federal district court Judge James Donato left the door open for Trump and other plaintiffs to file an amended complaint against Twitter that is consistent with his written decision Friday to toss the lawsuit in its entirety. CNBC reports: The social media giant had banned Trump on Jan. 8, 2021, citing the risk of the incitement of further violence on the heels of the Capitol riot by a mob of supporters of the then-president two days earlier. Trump, the American Conservative Union, and five individuals had sued Twitter and its co-founder Jack Dorsey last year on behalf of themselves and a class of other Twitter users who had been booted from the app. [...] His suit alleged that Twitter violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to free speech, arguing that the bans were due to pressure on the company by Democratic members of Congress.

But in his 17-page ruling, Donato wrote that Trump and the other plaintiffs "are not starting from a position of strength" with their First Amendment claim. The judge noted, citing federal case law, that, "Twitter is a private company, and "the First Amendment applies only to governmental abridgements of speech, and not to alleged abridgements by private companies.'" Donato rejected the notion that Twitter's ban of Trump and the others was attributable to the government's actions, which would be the only way to uphold the claim of a violation of the First Amendment. "Overall, the amended complaint does not plausibly allege that Twitter acted as a government entity when it closed plaintiffs' accounts," Donato wrote.

The suit also asked the judge to rule that the federal Communications Decency Act was unconstitutional. The CDA says online service providers such as Twitter cannot be held responsible for content posted by others. Donato dismissed that claim after finding that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge the CDA. The judge said the only way they could have such standing was to show that Twitter "would not have de-platformed the plaintiff" or others but for the legal immunity conferred by the CDA when it came to content. [...] Shortly after Twitter announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Elon Musk, Trump told Fox News that he is "not going back to Twitter," adding: "I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on Truth. I hope Elon buys Twitter because he'll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple has agreed to settle a long-lasting six-year class-action lawsuit that accused it of knowingly slowing down iPhone 4S devices following the iOS 9 update in 2015, agreeing to pay some iPhone 4S owners who had experienced poor performance $15 each for their claims. The class-action lawsuit was initially filed in December 2015 by plaintiffs representing a group of iPhone 4S customers from New York and New Jersey. The lawsuit accused Apple of falsely marketing the iOS 9 update as providing enchanted performance on devices it supports, including the iPhone 4S.

Under the settlement, Apple allocated $20 million to compensate iPhone 4S owners in New York and New Jersey who experienced poor performance after updating to iOS 9. Customers who believe they are entitled to the $15 must "submit a declaration under the penalty of perjury that, to the best of their knowledge, they downloaded iOS 9, or any version thereof, onto their iPhone 4S... their iPhone 4S experienced a significant decline in performance as a result, are entitled to a payment of $15 per applicable device." A website will be created where customers who believe they are entitled to the settlement will be able to submit a form, providing their name, email, iPhone 4S serial number (if possible), and mailing address. See the full motion here.

A New York bill that would ban new bitcoin mining operations is "swiftly making its way through the state capitol in Albany," reports CNBC. Some industry insiders fear that the bill, which calls for a two-year moratorium on certain cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions, could have a domino effect across the U.S. From the report: Lawmakers sponsoring the legislation say they are looking to curb the state's carbon footprint by cracking down on mines that use electricity from power plants that burn fossil fuels. For two years, unless a proof-of-work mining company uses 100% renewable energy, it would not be allowed to expand or renew permits, and new entrants would not be allowed to come online. [...] At this point, the State Assembly has passed the bill, and it is now under consideration by the Democratic-controlled State Senate, which will soon vote on the measure. If it passes, it will land on the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, who could sign it into law or veto it. "If it passes, it would make New York the first state in the country to ban blockchain technology infrastructure," explained Perianne Boring, founder and president of the Digital Chamber of Commerce. "New York will be left behind, losing to other states at best, and at worst, other more progressive nations," says Galaxy Digital's Head of Mining Amanda Fabiano. "New York is setting a bad precedent that other states could follow."

VPN companies are squaring up for a fight with the Indian government over new rules designed to change how they operate in the country. Wired: On April 28, officials announced that virtual private network companies will be required to collect swathes of customer data -- and maintain it for five years or more -- under a new national directive. VPN providers have two months to accede to the rules and start collecting data. The justification from the country's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is that it needs to be able to investigate potential cybercrime. But that doesn't wash with VPN providers, some of whom have said they may ignore the demands.

"This latest move by the Indian government to require VPN companies to hand over user personal data represents a worrying attempt to infringe on the digital rights of its citizens," says Harold Li, vice president of ExpressVPN. He adds that the company would never log user information or activity and that it will adjust its "operations and infrastructure to preserve this principle if and when necessary." Other VPN providers are also considering their options. Gytis Malinauskas, head of Surfshark's legal department, says the VPN provider couldn't currently comply with India's logging requirements because it uses RAM-only servers, which automatically overwrite user-related data. [...] ProtonVPN is similarly concerned, calling the move an erosion of civil liberties.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge has ordered all Internet service providers in the United States to block three pirate streaming services operated by Doe defendants who never showed up to court and hid behind false identities. The blocking orders affect Israel.tv, Israeli-tv.com, and Sdarot.tv, as well as related domains listed in the rulings and any other domains where the copyright-infringing websites may resurface in the future. The orders came in three essentially identical rulings (see here, here, and here) issued on April 26 in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Each ruling provides a list of 96 ISPs that are expected to block the websites, including Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. But the rulings say that all ISPs must comply even if they aren't on the list: "It is further ordered that all ISPs (including without limitation those set forth in Exhibit B hereto) and any other ISPs providing services in the United States shall block access to the Website at any domain address known today (including but not limited to those set forth in Exhibit A hereto) or to be used in the future by the Defendants ('Newly Detected Websites') by any technological means available on the ISPs' systems. The domain addresses and any Newly Detected Websites shall be channeled in such a way that users will be unable to connect and/or use the Website, and will be diverted by the ISPs' DNS servers to a landing page operated and controlled by Plaintiffs (the 'Landing Page')." That landing page is available here and cites US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla's "order to block all access to this website/service due to copyright infringement." "If you were harmed in any way by the Court's decision you may file a motion to the Federal Court in the Southern District of New York in the above case," the landing page also says.

The three lawsuits were filed by Israeli TV and movie producers and providers against Doe defendants who operate the websites. Each of the three rulings awarded damages of $7.65 million. TorrentFreak pointed out the rulings in an article Monday. The orders also contain permanent injunctions against the defendants themselves and other types of companies that provided services to the defendants or could do so in the future. That includes companies like Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Google, and Namecheap. In all three cases, none of the defendants responded to the complaints and did not appear in court, the judge's rulings said. "Defendants have gone to great lengths to conceal themselves and their ill-gotten proceeds from Plaintiffs' and this Court's detection, including by using multiple false identities and addresses associated with their operations and purposely deceptive contact information for the infringing Website," the rulings say. The defendants are liable for copyright infringement and violated the anti-circumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the judge wrote [...].

tsu doh nimh shares a report from Krebs on Security: Faced with a brain drain of smart people fleeing the country following its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is floating a new strategy to address a worsening shortage of qualified information technology experts: Forcing tech-savvy people within the nation's prison population to perform low-cost IT work for domestic companies. Multiple Russian news outlets published stories on April 27 saying the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service had announced a plan to recruit IT specialists from Russian prisons to work remotely for domestic commercial companies.

Russians sentenced to forced labor will serve out their time at one of many correctional centers across dozens of Russian regions, usually at the center that is closest to their hometown. Alexander Khabarov, deputy head of Russia's penitentiary service, said his agency had received proposals from businessmen in different regions to involve IT specialists serving sentences in correctional centers to work remotely for commercial companies. Khabarov told Russian media outlets that under the proposal people with IT skills at these facilities would labor only in IT-related roles, but would not be limited to working with companies in their own region. "We are approached with this initiative in a number of territories, in a number of subjects by entrepreneurs who work in this area," Khabarov told Russian state media organization TASS. "We are only at the initial stage. If this is in demand, and this is most likely in demand, we think that we will not force specialists in this field to work in some other industries."

Andy Maxwell, reporting for TorrentFreak: In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, several Hollywood studios announced the immediate suspension of new releases in Russia. Unexpectedly, some Russian theaters are still able to show movies such as The Batman on the big screen but this isn't down to the studios. The movies are sourced from illegal torrent sites and few seem afraid to admit it.

New data shared by tracking company MUSO shows that the number of visits to pirate sites has increased by nearly 30% compared to last year. The publishing category is growing particularly hard, mostly driven by manga piracy. The United States continues to harbor the most pirates in absolute numbers. TorrentFreak reports: During the first quarter of 2022, pirate site visits increased by more than 29% compared to a year earlier, which is good for a dazzling 52.5 billion visits. Nearly half of this traffic (48%) goes to TV-related content. The publishing category takes second spot with 27%, followed by the film (12%), music (7%), and software (6%) categories. The traffic increase is noticeable across all types of piracy but the publishing category stands out. Compared to the first quarter of 2021, the number of visits in this category has grown explosively. Software piracy is lagging behind, but the category still continues to grow. The strong growth in the publishing category is largely driven by manga, comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Some of the pirate sites dedicated to this 'niche', such as Manganato.com, attract well over 100 million 'visits' per month. That's more than iconic pirate sites such as The Pirate Bay and Fmovies.to.

The United States is the country that sends most visitors to pirate sites. With well over 5.7 billion 'visits' in the first three months of the year, the U.S. is good for more than 10% of all piracy traffic. With a 39% increase compared to last year, pirate audience growth exceeds the global average. Russia and India follow at a respectable distance with just over 3 billion visits to pirate sites, followed by China and France, with 1.8 and 1.7 billion visits, respectively. There is no single explanation for the apparent piracy boom. However, MUSO sees the upward trend as an alarming signal and expects that the 'streaming wars' and growing subscription fatigue may play a role.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation, according to CDC documents obtained by Motherboard. From a report: The documents also show that although the CDC used COVID-19 as a reason to buy access to the data more quickly, it intended to use it for more general CDC purposes. Location data is information on a device's location sourced from the phone, which can then show where a person lives, works, and where they went.

The sort of data the CDC bought was aggregated -- meaning it was designed to follow trends that emerge from the movements of groups of people -- but researchers have repeatedly raised concerns with how location data can be deanonymized and used to track specific people. The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data to, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a digital advertising network was selling precise movements of millions of users of the gay-dating app Grindr. The locations were available for purchase since "at least 2017," according to the report. Gizmodo reports: According to the Journal's sources, one of the company's old ad partners, MoPub (which was sold off by Twitter earlier this year), was freely passing off location data from the tens of thousands of apps that use place-based information to monetize. At one time, this included Grindr. Once in MoPub's hands, the Journal alleges that this data was sold off, in bulk, to other partners, like Near (formerly known as UM, and formerly formerly known as UberMedia). And Near offered up that data to just about anyone. Because data privacy laws in the U.S. are vague and chaotic where they exist at all, Near can pawn off data from its upstream partners out in the open. You, dear reader, could buy it yourself.

"Grindr has shared less information with ad partners than any of the big tech platforms and most of our competitors, restricting the information we share to IP address, advertising ID, and the basic information necessary to support ad delivery," Grindr spokesperson Patrick Lenihan noted in a public statement. With all respect to Lenihan, that bar is extremely low. So-called "anonymous" data points like an ad ID or IP address can easily be tied back to a specific device, and the person who owns that device. By using "anonymous" data like this, advertisers can accurately surmise your workout routine, your favorite tunes, your immigration status and much, much more. "[A]bout one year ago, reports emerged that location data gleaned from the app was used to out a Catholic priest," adds Gizmodo. "The priest resigned, and Catholic news writers wrung their hands over the ill-gotten data source."

"[T]he data used to out the priest was anonymized, legally speaking, but the middlemen were able to tie the Grindr-using device to a certain Grindr-using priest because the device was seen frequenting the priest's residence and lake house."

The Biden administration plans to begin a $3.1 billion effort on Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. The New York Times reports: President Biden has prodded automakers to churn out electric vehicles and utilities to switch to solar, wind and other clean energy, saying the transitions are critical to eliminating the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. In the wake of surging energy prices caused largely by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, administration officials also have described the transition to clean energy as a way to insulate consumers from the fluctuation of global oil markets and achieve true energy independence. Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, last week called renewable energy "the greatest peace plan this world will ever know." Yet currently, lithium, cobalt and other minerals needed for electric car batteries and energy storage are processed primarily in Asia. China alone controls nearly 80 percent of the world's processing and refining of those critical minerals.

Ms. Granholm plans to announce the funding plan on Monday during a visit to Detroit, a senior administration official said. The $3.1 billion in grants, along with a separate $60 million program for battery recycling, is an effort to "reduce our reliance on competing nations like China that have an advantage over the global supply chain," according to a Department of Energy statement. The funding is aimed at companies that can create new, retrofitted or expanded processing facilities as well as battery recycling programs, officials with the Department of Energy said. The grants will be funded through the $1 trillion infrastructure law, which includes more than $7 billion to improve the domestic battery supply chain.

Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science at Argonne National Laboratory, told the panel that the United States "can become a dominant force in energy storage technology" and has a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seize the moment." Between electric vehicles and grid storage, the market for lithium-ion batteries in the United States is expected to increase by a factor of 20 to 30 in the next decade but a secure domestic supply chain is needed, Dr. Srinivasan said. The Biden administration wants half of all new vehicles sold in the United States to be electric by 2030. The president also has issued procurement guidelines to transform the 600,000-vehicle federal fleet, so that all new cars and trucks purchased by the federal government by 2035 are zero-emission.

Technology startup Rivos allegedly stole Apple's computer-chip trade secrets after poaching its engineers, Apple said in a lawsuit filed in California federal court. From a report: Apple's Friday lawsuit said Mountain View, California-based Rivos has hired over 40 of its former employees in the past year to work on competing "system-on-chip" (SoC) technology, and that at least two former Apple engineers took gigabytes of confidential information with them to Rivos. Rivos is a "stealth" startup that has largely avoided public attention since its founding last year.

As a category, mental health apps have worse privacy protections for users than most other types of apps, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Prayer apps also had poor privacy standards, the team found. From a report: "The vast majority of mental health and prayer apps are exceptionally creepy," Jen Caltrider, the Mozilla *Privacy Not Included guide lead, said in a statement. "They track, share, and capitalize on users' most intimate personal thoughts and feelings, like moods, mental state, and biometric data." In the latest iteration of the guide, the team analyzed 32 mental health and prayer apps. Of those apps, 29 were given a "privacy not included" warning label, indicating that the team had concerns about how the app managed user data. The apps are designed for sensitive issues like mental health conditions, yet collect large amounts of personal data under vague privacy policies, the team said in the statement. Most apps also had poor security practices, letting users create accounts with weak passwords despite containing deeply personal information.

This week saw the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster -- which had occurred just days before the Soviet Union's annual May Day celebration in 1986 -- and featured lots of patriotic outdoor parades.

At the time Lev Golinkin was a 6-year-old living less than 300 miles away in the Ukrainian town now called Kharkiv. Writing for CNN, Golinkin remembers that Moscow "had remained silent, refusing to admit anything had occurred until the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl was detected in Scandinavia on April 28, making it impossible to hide the catastrophe any longer." Even then, Golinkin remembers that they "grossly downpayed the issue...." On April 29, three days after the Chernobyl disaster, Moscow issued a terse television announcement informing citizens that a reactor was damaged and aid was being provided to those who required it. The announcement was less than 20 seconds

The days and weeks that followed were filled with a torrent of rumors and innuendo swirling around living rooms across the USSR while Moscow continued to pile over the explosion with secrecy and obfuscation. The Politburo began to loosen up restrictions on freedom of speech, but the confusion remained. No one knew the truth, but everyone knew the Kremlin was lying -- and that was about the only certainty around...

[T]here was no rationalizing away the radiation. Moscow's refusal to cancel May Day festivities exposed the hollow horror of the Soviet Union -- even the most faithful believers in communism realized they lived in a country that thrust millions of people into danger just so it could hold a parade. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev himself admitted Chernobyl -- which eroded faith in the Soviet system, poisoned vast tracts of land and cost billions to clean up -- contributed to the collapse of the USSR more than any other factor. Decades of Moscow's secrecy around the disaster makes it impossible to arrive at an accurate estimate of casuaties, and to this day, experts continue to guess and reassess the true impact of Chernobyl....

For nearly 70 years, the Soviets in Kremlin had generations of citizens tolerate bloodshed papered over by mendacity and propaganda. The same is happening today, during Moscow's savage war in Ukraine. The media formats may be somewhat different, but the lies continue...

My family and I fled the Soviet Union in 1989. Watching the horrors in Ukraine unfold from America is surreal, in no small part because it feels like the intervening decades between the falls of communism and today have evaporated.

28-year-old Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people in New Zealand in 2019. The Associated Press reports that at that point he'd been reading 4chan for 14 years, according to his mother — since the age of 14.

The year before, 25-year-old Alek Minassian, who killed 11 people in Toronto in 2018, namechecked 4chan in a pre-attack Facebook post.

But the Guardian now adds another a story from nine days ago — when a 23-year-old shooter with 1,000 rounds of ammunition opened fire from his apartment in Washington D.C. Just two minutes after the shooting began, someone under the username "Raymond Spencer" logged onto the normally-anonymous 4chan and started a new thread titled "shool [sic] shooting". The newly published message contained a link — to a 30-second video of images captured from the digital scope of Spencer's rifle....

Even as police stormed the apartment building where Spencer hid, with officers maneuvering past a surveillance camera that he had set up in the hallway and was monitoring, Spencer continued to post to the message board. "They're in the wrong part of the building right now searching," he posted at one point. A few minutes later: "Waiting for police to catch up with me."

As he waited, Spencer logged on to Wikipedia to edit the entry for Edmund Burke School, which he had just opened fire on....

Police believe Spencer shot himself to death as officers breached his apartment.

MacRumors reports that Apple has begun a staggered rollout of a new firmware update (which will go fully live to everyone on May 13.) Here's how Apple's describes how it will change the lost-device-tracking AirTags: "Currently, iOS users receiving an unwanted tracking alert can play a sound to help them find the unknown AirTag. We will be adjusting the tone sequence to use more of the loudest tones to make an unknown AirTag more easily findable."
That'll make them easier to find — but some people have a different problem. This ZDNet reporter keeps getting notifications on their iPad trying to warn them about their own AirPod earbuds. The warning is totally erroneous. These are my AirPods Pro, which I have had for years now. I was able to verify they are mine by using the iPad to play a sound on the AirPods.

Apple's technology doesn't know these are my own AirPods.

The strange behavior began to appear in February. I am not alone in experiencing this annoying mistaken alert. Apple's AirPods support user forum shows several individuals in recent months with the same frustration... "It still happens several times a day. I'm getting annoyed. I get it on my phone and my iPad everytime I open the case and use my AirPods. I play the sound to be sure its really mine and it is indeed mine."

There are numerous examples of this....

Users have also reported the problem with their AirTags not being recognized. "I get constant notifications that an air tag is near me, but it turns out it's my tags. Shouldn't my phone know the difference?" writes Joe Thomas 3 on February 8th....

It's worth noting that Apple has posted a note that promises "a series of updates that we plan to introduce later this year," which include something such as "precision finding" for AirTags, and "Refining unwanted tracking alert logic."

"Fort Worth, Texas, is now the first city government in the United States to mine bitcoin," reports CNBC.

"[A]nd in an almost poetic devotion to the initiative, Mayor Mattie Parker oversaw the construction of a small mining farm in City Hall." Three Bitmain Antminer S9 mining rigs will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the climate-controlled information technology wing of Fort Worth City Hall. The city says the miners will be hosted on a private network to minimize the security risk....

Each of the program's three machines will consume the same amount of energy as a household vacuum cleaner, according to city estimates. While the mayor doesn't expect the three miners to be major money makers, the cost of electricity needed for the program is expected to be offset by the value of bitcoin mined.... To make it happen, the city has teamed up with a few key partners, including the Texas Blockchain Council, which donated the three mining rigs (each valued at roughly $600 apiece), and Luxor Technologies, a mining pool, which lets a single miner combine its hashing power with thousands of other miners all over the world to increase their chances of earning bitcoin....

After six months, Fort Worth will re-assess and decide whether to sink real cash into building out a mine .
Luxor's VP of business development argues that Fort Worth's move "is setting an example and effectively de-risking both bitcoin mining and bitcoin treasury strategies for every other mayor in the country."

"The Biden administration has a plan to rob Vladimir Putin of some of his best innovators," reports Bloomberg, "by waiving some visa requirements for highly educated Russians who want to come to the U.S., according to people familiar with the strategy." One proposal, which the White House included in its latest supplemental request to Congress, is to drop the rule that Russian professionals applying for an employment-based visa must have a current employer. It would apply to Russian citizens who have earned master's or doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics in the U.S. or abroad, the proposal states.

A spokesman for the National Security Council confirmed that the effort is meant to weaken Putin's high-tech resources in the near term and undercut Russia's innovation base over the long run — as well as benefit the U.S. economy and national security. Specifically, the Biden administration wants to make it easier for top-tier Russians with experience with semiconductors, space technology, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, advanced computing, nuclear engineering, artificial intelligence, missile propulsion technologies and other specialized scientific areas to move to the U.S.

Biden administration officials have said they've seen significant numbers of high-skilled technology workers flee Russia because of limited financial opportunities from the sanctions the U.S. and allies have imposed after Putin's invasion on Ukraine.

The provision would expire in four years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US Postal Service is facing lawsuits from 16 states and several environmental groups challenging its decision to buy tens of thousands of gasoline-powered delivery vehicles instead of electric vehicles. As previously reported, the Environmental Protection Agency says the gas-powered trucks being ordered by the USPS "are expected to achieve only 8.6 miles per gallon (mpg), barely improving over the decades-old long-life vehicles that achieve 8.2 mpg." The USPS countered that the vehicles get 14.7 mpg when air conditioning isn't being used and that the trucks' size will make it possible to deliver the same amount of mail in fewer trips. The USPS plan is to buy 50,000 to 165,000 vehicles over 10 years. Of those, at least 10 percent are slated to be battery-electric vehicles (BEV). [...]

A lawsuit filed by California and 15 other states on Thursday said the USPS failed "to follow a process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)," continuing: "Instead, the Postal Service first chose a manufacturer with minimal experience in producing electric vehicles, signed a contract, and made a substantial down payment for new vehicles. Only then did the Postal Service publish a cursory environmental review to justify the decision to replace 90 percent of its delivery fleet with fossil-fuel-powered, internal combustion engine vehicles, despite other available, environmentally preferable alternatives. In doing so, the Postal Service failed to comply with even the most basic requirements of NEPA."

The lawsuit seeks an injunction forcing the USPS to stop the vehicle purchases "until it has complied with NEPA." It was filed against the USPS and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by the USPS Board of Governors in 2020 under then-President Donald Trump. All 16 states involved in the lawsuit have Democratic attorneys general. They allege that the USPS "violated well-established legal precedent prohibiting 'an irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources' before completing the NEPA process by signing contracts with a defense company (Oshkosh Defense, LLC) to procure vehicles six months before even releasing its draft environmental review and a year prior to issuing the Final Environmental Impact Statement ('Final EIS') and Record of Decision." The states also claim the USPS failed to consider and evaluate reasonable alternatives. "Specifically, the Postal Service did not properly evaluate several environmental impacts of its action, including air quality, environmental justice, and climate harms, by simply assuming that any upgrade to its vehicle fleet would have positive impacts on the environment," the complaint said. States also alleged the USPS "failed to ensure the scientific integrity of its analysis by relying on unfounded assumptions regarding the costs and performance of electric vehicles, infrastructure, and gas prices, and refusing to identify the source of the data relied upon in the Final EIS." "The Postal Service conducted a robust and thorough review and fully complied with all of our obligations under NEPA," a USPS spokesperson told Ars.

The statement continues: "The Postal Service is fully committed to the inclusion of electric vehicles as a significant part of our delivery fleet even though the investment will cost more than an internal combustion engine vehicle. That said, as we have stated repeatedly, we must make fiscally prudent decisions in the needed introduction of a new vehicle fleet. We will continue to look for opportunities to increase the electrification of our delivery fleet in a responsible manner, consistent with our operating strategy, the deployment of appropriate infrastructure, and our financial condition, which we expect to continue to improve as we pursue our plan."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In the latest effort to challenge Amazon's grueling labor practices, a new bill, that was introduced on Friday, would require New York employers to disclose and place limits on productivity quotas for warehouse workers. The New York bill, known as the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, is an expanded version of a similar first-of-its-kind law that passed in California last year aimed at Amazon that regulates warehouse worker productivity quotas. The legislation is in part a response to skyrocketing injury rates in Amazon warehouses linked to productivity expectations. Recent data shows that workers in the e-commerce warehousing industry in New York experience serious work-related injuries at three times the average rate for private industry in the state, according to OSHA data.

The New York bill would require employers with at least 50 employees in a single warehouse or 500 workers statewide to share a written description of productivity quotas, how the quotas are developed, and how they can be used for disciplinary purposes with each worker. It would also ensure that production quotas do not interfere with workers' basic rights such as bathroom breaks and rest periods or health and safety laws. [...] Amazon has provided little transparency into how productivity "rates" that are designed by algorithms are formulated, but said that it creates productivity targets for workers that are based on their experience and take into consideration health and safety. [...] The bill takes California's law a few steps further by requiring employers to develop and implement an injury reduction program with worker input that identifies and addresses job hazards, such as rapid pace and heavy lifting, that can cause musculoskeletal injuries. This includes a worksite evaluation by an ergonomics consultant and worker training on how to avoid injuries. "The Warehouse Worker Protection Act will give workers in this industry -- union or not -- the ability to demand that their health and bodily integrity is accounted for, and not sacrificed for profits they do not get to share in," said Jessica Ramos, the bill's author and a New York state senator from Queens. "As the senate labor chair, I see it as my responsibility to clear the path for any worker who needs to stand up to an abusive employer."