Washington Post

Poor infrastructure, small number of customers, bottom of the list: That is the story of rural broadband in the United States. The situation is much more than an annoyance for the 7 million U.S. households that still do not have access to broadband internet — 90 percent of them in rural areas. Many times that number are “underserved,” with speeds below 100 mbps, or have high-speed broadband infrastructure but can’t afford service.

After a divisive investigation into the “Twitter Files” that Republicans decried as “harassment,” the Federal Trade Commission has found no evidence that the social network violated the terms of a government order that placed sweeping restrictions on the company’s data security practices. “Longtime information security employees at Twitter intervened and implemented safeguards to mitigate the risks,” the FTC said.

A group of lawmakers is making a major push to extend a key internet subsidy program in their upcoming government spending talks, part of a last-ditch effort to head off a lapse in funding. In recent days, top Democratic lawmakers and officials at the Federal Communications Commission have held numerous rallies calling for the $14 billion Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, to receive a new round of appropriations from Congress. The ACP “allowed some 23 million low-income households to receive discounts on their internet bills of up to $30 a month,” or higher for tribal lands.