New York Times

The American Rescue Plan, the biggest infusion of funds in decades, will soon start putting state, local and tribal governments in a situation they have not experienced in years: Items that had long seemed totally unaffordable are now well within reach. Erie County (NY), which includes Buffalo, has for years struggled with barely functioning internet in its rural areas, which have been mostly bypassed by internet providers. A plan for the county to lay cable for internet service was scrapped a year ago when COVID-19 blew a hole in the county’s budget, but the county executive plans to inclu

The House Antitrust Subcommittee debated an antitrust bill that would give news publishers collective bargaining power with online platforms like Facebook and Google, putting the spotlight on a proposal aimed at chipping away at the power of Big Tech. At a hearing. Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, emerged as a leading industry voice in favor of the law. He took a divergent path from his tech counterparts, pointing to an imbalance in power between publishers and tech platforms.

Former President Donald J. Trump called multiple times for repealing the law that shields tech companies from legal responsibility over what people post. President Biden, as a candidate, said the law should be “revoked.” But the lawmakers aiming to weaken the law have started to agree on a different approach. They are increasingly focused on eliminating protections for specific kinds of content rather than making wholesale changes to the law or eliminating it entirely.

President Biden’s two immediate predecessors had ambitious goals to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, but both left office having made little progress in fixing the nation’s bridges, roads, pipes, and broadband. President Donald Trump announced so many meaningless infrastructure weeks that the term became a running joke of his administration. While the goal of addressing the United States’ infrastructure is bipartisan, the details are not.