Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) is expected to sign net neutrality legislation that bans internet service providers from getting taxpayer money in Colorado if they slow down internet access or unfairly speed up certain websites. The legislation passed the state's House and Senate chambers along strict party lines according to the Denver Post. The newspaper reported that Polis supports the legislation, which will now head to his desk.

More than 106,000 rural homes and small businesses in 43 US states will get access to 25Mbps broadband at some point in the next decade thanks to a Federal Communications Commission policy change. The FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF), which distributes money to ISPs in exchange for new broadband deployments in underserved areas, had been requiring speeds of just 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream over the past few years. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a vote in December 2018 to raise the standard for new CAF projects to 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

Remember in February when the Federal Communications Commission essentially said that broadband deployment in the US is going great despite 20 million homes lacking access to high-speed connections? And then a month later, Microsoft basically called bullshit? Well, the FCC has finally admitted the report "drastically overstated" actual broadband deployment, but still insists everything is just fine.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has rejected a request to have the FCC investigate Frontier Communications' business practices in Minnesota, despite evidence that the company has failed to properly maintain its telecom network.

A US Navy memo warns that 5G mobile networks are likely to interfere with weather satellites, and senators are urging the Federal Communications Commission to avoid issuing new spectrum licenses to wireless carriers until changes are made to prevent harms to weather forecasting.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state legislature must redraw at least eight congressional districts, including the 5th, that had been gerrymandered to favor the GOP.

A campaign has been launched to change a school district’s dress code after a student was sent home for wearing a shirt that showed her collarbone. WTVQ reports that Stacie Dunn received a call on her daughter’s first day of school and was told she was in violation of the dress code. The dress code requires that students wear shirts that cover their collarbone.

Amendment-seeking right wingers are getting close.

One hundred fifty miles northwest of here, the residents of Flint, Mich., are still reeling from the drinking water debacle that more than doubled the share of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood — to a peak, in mid-2014, of 7 percent of all children tested. Clevelanders can only sympathize. The comparable number here is 14.2 percent. The poisoning of Flint’s children outraged the nation. But too much lead in children’s blood has long been an everyday...

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on Friday called for a citywide vote in November on making the nation’s capital the 51st state, resurrecting a decades-old plan to thrust the issue before Congress and raise awareness across the country about District residents’ lack of full citizenship. “I propose we take another bold step toward democracy in the District of Columbia,” Bowser (D) said at a breakfast attracting hundreds of city residents...

The U.S. is ranked 41 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, which measures the "level of freedom of information in 180 countries." According to the organization, the U.S. moved from 49 in 2015 to 41 this year, though it warned that the "relative improvement by comparison hides overall negative trends." Citing the U.S. government's "war on whistleblowers who leak information about its surveillance activities, spying and foreign operations...

The Federal Communications Commission has lost in an attempt to preempt state laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband networks. The FCC in February 2015 voted to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. The FCC, led by Chairman Tom Wheeler, claimed it could preempt the laws because Congress authorizes the commission to promote telecom competition by removing barriers to investment.

Fidel Castro thanked Cubans for their well-wishes on his 90th birthday and criticized President Barack Obama in a lengthy letter published in state media. He appeared but did not speak at a gala in his honor broadcast on state television. "I want to express my deepest gratitude for the shows of respect, greetings and praise that I've received in recent days, which give me strength to reciprocate with ideas that I will send to party militants and relevant organizations," he wrote about his birthday on Saturday.

More species protected by the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) have recovered during President Barack Obama’s administration than under all other presidents combined, the US Department of Interior announced on August 11. And 2016 marks a record high for species recovery, with six so far officially ‘delisted’ from ESA’s roster. The ESA, passed in 1973 to assist the recovery and protection of imperilled species and ecosystems, is widely seen as a landmark piece of environmental legislation.

Sandra Bland's family has reached a $1.9 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit, the family's attorney said Thursday. The settlement includes compensation for Bland's death in custody as well as several changes to jail procedures in Waller County, Texas. Bland was found dead in her jail cell three days after she was arrested for failing to use her turn signal in July 2015.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is one of those federal agencies that tends to inspire intense reactions among the traveling public. It’s a bureaucracy that interacts with millions of passengers each day, requiring their shoes, jackets, laptops—and time. Virtually all this occurs at airports, with about 80 percent of the agency’s $7.4 billion budget spent on aviation security. Only 2 percent of the TSA’s funding goes to surface transportation...

Nearly two dozen members of Congress sent a letter to the White House on Thursday requesting that the Obama administration intervene to stop construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. The two-page letter, co-signed by 19 members, was a direct call to action to an administration that has been the most progressive in the nation's history in its efforts to address issues affecting Native Americans.

The rules require providers to ask your permission before sharing your data.

A former top Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official has accused Congress of putting pharmaceutical company profits ahead of public health in the battle to combat the US’s prescription opioid epidemic. Joseph Rannazzisi, head of the DEA office responsible for preventing prescription medicine abuse until last year, said drug companies and their lobbyists have a “stranglehold” on Congress to protect a $9bn a year trade in opioid painkillers claiming the lives of nearly 19,000 people a year.

The crowdsourcing goal was modest: $5,000, enough to help a few dozen people camping in North Dakota to protest the nearby construction of the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline. The fund has since topped a staggering $1 million. The fund is among several cash streams that have provided at least $3 million to help with legal costs, food and other supplies to those opposing the nearly 1,200-mile pipeline. It may also give protesters the ability to prolong their months-long encampments that have attracted thousands of supporters, as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe pursues the fight in court.

A passionate advocate for making Puerto Rico the 51st U.S. state appears poised to become the next governor of the territory, giving a boost to a movement that has been gaining momentum amid the island's economic woes. Ricardo Rossello, a scientist and the son of a former governor of the island, is expected to win Tuesday largely due to widespread public anger over the decade-long recession and a corruption scandal that has left the party of his main opponent in disarray.

The anti-pipeline protesters descending by the hundreds on rural North Dakota in support of the Standing Rock Sioux aren’t necessarily standing with Beverly Fischer. Or her dead buffalo. An enrolled tribal member, Mrs. Fischer and her husband, Ernie, are convinced that at least 13 of their bison have been butchered, barbecued and eaten by some of the hundreds of activists trespassing through the livestock pastures of Cannonball Ranch since the protests erupted in August.

Standing Rock protesters have gathered in North Dakota to exercise their constitutional rights against the Dakota Access Pipeline project, which is a underground oil pipeline that is roughly 1,172 miles long. The $3.7 billion project came under scrutiny by environmental groups and native American tribes. Since earlier this year protests have been growing steadily.

THE MAN WHO saved net neutrality is stepping aside. Federal Communication Commission chairman Tom Wheeler will resign on January 20, the agency announced today. Wheeler’s decision to step down means Donald Trump will have two FCC seats to fill, one Republican and one Democratic. His resignation will also give Republicans a 2-to-1 majority on the commission even before those seats are filled after the departure of fellow Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel at the end of the year.

In subsequent coins, she'll be featured as Asian-American, Hispanic-American and Indian-American among others.

Wheeler talks to Ars about "Cablewood," competition, regulation on last day at FCC.

A group of U.S. military veterans has vowed to block completion of the hotly disputed Dakota Access pipeline, despite the secretary of the Army giving the project the green light. "We are committed to the people of Standing Rock, we are committed to nonviolence, and we will do everything within our power to ensure that the environment and human life are respected. That pipeline will not get completed. Not on our watch," said Anthony Diggs, a spokesman for Veterans Stand.

Congress has passed legislation ending an Obama-era regulation that's required oil and gas companies to disclose payments to the U.S. or foreign governments for commercial development. The Senate gave final congressional approval to the measure Friday 52-47 in an unusual vote that began before dawn. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill. It represents an initial Republican swipe at the 2010 Dodd-Frank law curbing Wall Street that President Barack Obama and Democrats enacted following the 2008 financial crisis.

The Latest on the sentencing of an ex-convict in the arson fire at a Florida mosque (all times local): 3 p.m. An ex-convict who investigators say confessed to setting fire to a Florida mosque tied to the Orlando nightclub shooter has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Thirty-two-year-old Joseph Schreiber pleaded no contest to second-degree arson during Monday's hearing in Fort Pierce. A no contest plea is treated the same as a guilty plea.

The chairman of Pakistan's senate says the body will not welcome any U.S. delegation, member of Congress or dignitary in Islamabad. The move comes after the U.S. failed to issue a visa to the senate's deputy chairman, a member of the right-wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam political party. Chairman Raza Rabbani says in a statement that no Pakistani senate delegation will visit the U.S. until an explanation for the delay in issuing a visa to Maulana Ghafoor Haideri is given by U.S. authorities.

A military veteran organisation has raised more than $200,000 for a renewed campaign effort against the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline. Veterans Stand has collected $213,500 so far to send supplies to the Standing Rock Native American reservation in North Dakota to help protesters and those who will be affected by the construction of the $3.7 billion pipeline, which would cut through four states and threaten the water supply for millions of people.

The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to eliminate a requirement that Charter Communications compete against other ISPs with new broadband deployments spurred by its purchase of Time Warner Cable. The FCC's approval of the merger last year required Charter to deploy broadband with download speeds of 60Mbps to at least 2 million residential and small business locations, of which at least 1 million must be in areas served by at least one other high-speed provider.

Two days before the Trump administration approved an easement for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross a reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation, the U.S. Department of the Interior withdrew a legal opinion that concluded there was “ample legal justification” to deny it. The withdrawal of the opinion was revealed in court documents filed this week by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the same agency that requested the review late last year.

The Australian children’s book author Mem Fox has suggested she might never return to the US after she was detained and insulted by border control agents at Los Angeles airport. Fox, who is famous worldwide for her best-selling books including Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes and Possum Magic, was en route to a conference in Milwaukee earlier this month when she was stopped.

Protection of your Internet history is up in the air thanks to new, pending legislation. A new bill coming before Senate aims to completely dismantle the FCC’s ability to enact data security or online privacy protections for consumers under the powers of the Congressional Review Act. Senate Joint Resolution (S.J.Res 34) was introduced by Arizona Senator Jeff Flake and cosponsored by 23 other Senators.