Reporting

The 2020 election is less than two weeks away. One of the biggest questions that remain unanswered is whether or not our U.S. election infrastructure is prepared for any potential cyberattacks from hackers, both foreign and domestic. In part 1 of our two-part episode: Rage Against the Machines: Is our Election Technology Safe and Secure? Gigi chats with computer scientist and law professor Matt Blaze to assess the biggest challenges and threats to state and county election systems.

Senior officials throughout various departments and agencies of the Trump administration are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense's mid-band spectrum -- premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market -- to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump have investments. The pressure campaign to fast track Rivada's "Request for Proposal" (RFP) by using authorities that would preclude a competitive bidding process intensified in September, and has

More antitrust cases are likely to be filed against Google soon by state attorneys general, even though partisan-tinged wrangling has clouded the path forward. At least two separate though overlapping groups of attorneys general are investigating the company concurrently. One effort, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) focuses on online advertising and could lead to a lawsuit being filed within weeks.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google reveals new details about a secretive, multibillion-dollar deal between Google and Apple. The suit targets paid deals Google negotiates to get its search engine to be the default on browsers, phones and other devices. The biggest of these is an agreement that makes Google search the default on iPhones and other Apple devices. The Justice Department said Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai met in 2018 to discuss the deal.

Frontier Communications has secured approval for its Chapter 11 restructuring plan from the New York Public Service Commission. With New York checked off, Frontier said it has received regulatory approval, or "favorable determination," from 10 of the 25 states in its footprint. Those states include: Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. Frontier is targeting early 2021 to exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

Peru, the nation with the world’s highest coronavirus mortality rate, is also one of dozens of countries where schools nationwide remain closed on account of the pandemic, with no reopening date in sight. The quarantine here is particularly severe; children 14 and under are permitted out of their homes only one hour per day. Some families can afford workarounds. Students from families wealthy enough to pay for private schools have kept their educations going with private tutors and interactive classes on home computers.

Internet service providers will suffer “irreparable harm” if California is allowed to enforce its net neutrality law, which includes restrictions on carriers' ability to exempt video streams from data caps, trade groups told a federal judge.

Even the best technology can't eliminate the inherent problems of virtual schooling. Several key technological stumbling blocks have persisted in keeping remote learning from meeting its full potential. 

There is a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. Yet the network, now in all 50 states, is built not on traditional journalism but on propaganda ordered up by dozens of conservative think tanks, political operatives, corporate executives and public-relations professionals. The sites appear as ordinary local-news outlets, with names like Des Moines Sun, Ann Arbor Times and Empire State Today.

Technology companies are set to end the year with their greatest share of the stock market ever, topping a dot-com era peak in the latest illustration of their growing influence on global consumers. Companies that do everything from manufacturing phones to operating social-media platforms now account for nearly 40% of the S&P 500, on pace to eclipse a record of 37% from 1999, according to a Dow Jones Market Data analysis of annual market-value data going back 30 years. Apple accounts for more than 7% of the index on its own.