Author: Reporter

U.S. officials said in early February they disrupted a state-backed Chinese effort to plant malware that could be used to damage civilian infrastructure, as the head of the FBI warned that Beijing is positioning itself to disrupt the daily lives of Americans if the United States and China ever go to war. The operation, announced just before FBI Director Chris Wray addressed House lawmakers, disrupted a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home routers owned by private citizens and companies that had been hijacked by the Chinese hackers to cover their tracks as they sowed the malware....

Wisconsin, along with other state governments and federal regulators, were already moving to keep individuals’ reproductive health information private when a U.S. senator’s report in February offered a new jolt, describing how cellphone location data was used to send millions of anti-abortion ads to people who visited Planned Parenthood offices. Federal law bars medical providers from sharing health data without a patient’s consent but does not prevent digital tech companies from tracking menstrual cycles or an individual’s location and selling it to data brokers. Legislation for federal bans have never gained momentum, largely because of opposition from the tech...

Abortion is going to remain a major issue in politics, policy, and the courts in the U.S. in 2024, even though most of the states that were expected to impose restrictions have already done so. The abortion landscape has been in flux since the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, which touched off a round of abortion policy changes and new litigation about them. There are still looming ballot questions and court decisions. And lawmakers could tweak current abortion laws. Here is a look at what to know. ABORTION WILL BE ON THE BALLOT...

Alisha Alderson placed her folded clothes and everything she needed for the last month of her pregnancy in various suitcases. She never imagined she would have to leave the comfort of her rural home just weeks before her due date. But following the abrupt closure in August of the only maternity ward within 40 miles, she decided to stay at her brother’s house near Boise, Idaho — a two hour drive through a mountain pass — to be closer to a hospital. “We don’t feel safe being so far away from a birthing center,” said Alderson, noting her advanced...

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a decision critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatments. The decision was issued in a pair of wrongful death cases brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic. Justices, citing anti-abortion language in the Alabama Constitution, ruled that an 1872 state law allowing parents to sue over the death of a minor child “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.” “Unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage,...