Washington Post

The latest coronavirus relief bill sets aside $7.6 billion to help students and teachers get online, in an ambitious effort to address the “homework gap.” The funding will allow elementary schools, high schools and libraries to purchase Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, and routers for students, and also fund the Internet service that those devices use.

Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) signed data privacy legislation into law, making Virginia the second state in the nation to adopt its own data protection rules. The law, known as the Consumer Data Protection Act, had broad support from the tech industry, including Amazon, which is building an Arlington (VA) headquarters. The legislation will allow residents of the commonwealth to opt out of having their data collected and sold, similar to a California law that went into effect in 2020.

Gov. Gina Raimondo (D-RI) won Senate confirmation as the next US commerce secretary, a post that will thrust her into some of the most contentious economic and security questions confronting the Biden administration. The Senate easily approved her nomination by a vote of 84 to 15. She is expected to be sworn in on March 3. Gov. Raimondo, a former venture capitalist who was reelected to her second term as Rhode Island’s chief executive in 2018, will assume command of a federal agency with sweeping responsibilities and an increasingly important portfolio.

When President Joe Biden asked what critics would have him cut from his covid relief bill, he got plenty of answers about reducing the $510 billion in aid to state and local governments — including from us. Now some moderate Senate Democrats are suggesting a middle way: Earmark $50 billion of those funds for broadband investment. The idea, spearheaded by Sens Angus King (I-ME) and Mark Warner (D-VA), is a political crowd-pleaser more likely to attract cross-aisle support than most big spending.

California may soon begin enforcing its first-in-the-nation net neutrality law after a federal judge ruled against broadband providers that had sought to scuttle the state’s open-Internet safeguards.