"Maintenance of the software that's used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree," reports Quanta magazine, saying the situation "reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia." Particle physicists use some of the longest equations in all of science. To look for signs of new elementary particles in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, for example, they draw thousands of pictures called Feynman diagrams that depict possible collision outcomes, each one encoding a complicated formula that can be millions of terms long. Summing formulas like these with pen and paper is impossible; even adding them with computers is a challenge. The algebra rules we learn in school are fast enough for homework, but for particle physics they are woefully inefficient.

Programs called computer algebra systems strive to handle these tasks. And if you want to solve the biggest equations in the world, for 33 years one program has stood out: FORM. Developed by the Dutch particle physicist Jos Vermaseren, FORM is a key part of the infrastructure of particle physics, necessary for the hardest calculations. However, as with surprisingly many essential pieces of digital infrastructure, FORM's maintenance rests largely on one person: Vermaseren himself. And at 73, Vermaseren has begun to step back from FORM development. Due to the incentive structure of academia, which prizes published papers, not software tools, no successor has emerged. If the situation does not change, particle physics may be forced to slow down dramatically...

Without ongoing development, FORM will get less and less usable — only able to interact with older computer code, and not aligned with how today's students learn to program. Experienced users will stick with it, but younger researchers will adopt alternative computer algebra programs like Mathematica that are more user-friendly but orders of magnitude slower. In practice, many of these physicists will decide that certain problems are off-limits — too difficult to handle. So particle physics will stall, with only a few people able to work on the hardest calculations.

In April, Vermaseren is holding a summit of FORM users to plan for the future. They will discuss how to keep FORM alive: how to maintain and extend it, and how to show a new generation of students just how much it can do. With luck, hard work and funding, they may preserve one of the most powerful tools in physics.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader g01d4 for submitting the story.

Remittances to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) withstood global headwinds in 2022, growing an estimated 5% to $626 billion. This is sharply lower than the 10.2% increase in 2021, according to the latest World Bank Migration and Development Brief. World Bank: Remittances are a vital source of household income for LMICs. They alleviate poverty, improve nutritional outcomes, and are associated with increased birth weight and higher school enrollment rates for children in disadvantaged households. Studies show that remittances help recipient households to build resilience, for example through financing better housing and to cope with the losses in the aftermath of disasters.

Remittance flows to developing regions were shaped by several factors in 2022. A reopening of host economies as the COVID-19 pandemic receded supported migrants' employment and their ability to continue helping their families back home. Rising prices, on the other hand, adversely affected migrants' real incomes. Also influencing the value of remittances is the appreciation of the ruble, which translated into higher value, in U.S. dollar terms, of outward remittances from Russia to Central Asia. In the case of Europe, a weaker euro had the opposite effect of reducing the U.S. dollar valuation of remittance flows to North Africa and elsewhere. In countries that experienced scarcity of foreign exchange and multiple exchange rates, officially recorded remittance flows declined as flows shifted to alternative channels offering better rates.

ZDNet asks: why is everyone getting remote working wrong?

Researchers at tech analyst Gartner believe a rigid requirement to return to offices is a mistake. But the researchers also believe so-called "hybrid" schedules often are also flawed: "Most of those work models delivered below-average outcomes," the research found, and the common factor was some kind of rigid on-site requirement. Much more successful was a "hybrid-flexible" set-up offering leaders and employees the opportunity to choose where they work from. But most successful by far were workplaces that offered this flexibility and also included elements of "intentional collaboration and empathy-based management", where bosses don't force staff to come to the office just to keep an eye on them.

How the working week is organized matters: get it right, and staff are more likely to want to stay, and more likely to perform well. Autonomy also reduces fatigue, which in turn means workers are likely to sustain good performance over time.
ZDNet also tested virtual reality meetings — concluding they're "still undeniably somewhat clunky and can make you feel a bit awkward."

But at the same time, "I was also surprised by how much benefit they could potentially deliver." Sure, a meeting with avatars that only look a bit like your colleagues, in a fantasy meeting room that wouldn't look out of place in a Bond villain's lair does feel a bit ridiculous. But it also — and this was the revelation to me — adds a level of engagement that you just don't get from a video meeting of colleagues occupying flat tiles on a screen. It provides a sense of being there (wherever 'there' was) that adds meaning beyond what you get from staring into a monitor.

I'm not saying I want to have every meeting in VR from now on: far from it. But we have to see the present state of hybrid and remote working as just the current state of the art, and to keep experimenting, and thinking, about the way we work.

Renewables are on track to generate more power than coal in the United States this year. But the question is whether they can grow fast enough to meet the country's climate goals. From a report: Supply chain constraints and trade disputes have slowed wind and solar installations, raising questions about the United States' ability to meet the emission reductions sought by the Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden administration is banking on the landmark climate law cutting emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Many analysts think the United States will ultimately shake off the slowdown thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act's $369 billion in clean energy investments. But it may take time for the law's impact to be felt. Tax guidance needs to be finalized before developers begin plunking down money on new facilities, and companies now face headwinds in the form of higher interest rates and the looming threat of a recession.

The Inflation Reduction Act's emission reductions hinge on the country's ability to at least double the rate of renewable installations over the record levels observed in 2020 and 2021, said John Larsen, a partner at the Rhodium Group. "Every year we don't have capacity additions beyond the record is lost ground," he said. "It's going to be that much harder to make that up over time. There is a point where we don't get to the outcomes we projected because we blew the first few years of the transition." For now, U.S. renewable output is edging higher. Wind and solar output are up 18 percent through Nov. 20 compared to the same time last year and have grown 58 percent compared to 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The government energy tracker predicts that wind, solar and hydro will generate 22 percent of U.S. electricity by the end of this year. That is more than coal at 20 percent and nuclear at 19 percent.

As antitrust regulators around the world dial up scrutiny of platform power, Mozilla has published a piece of research digging into the at times subtle yet always insidious ways operating systems exert influence to keep consumers locked to using their own-brand browsers rather than seeking out and switching to independent options -- while simultaneously warning that competition in the browser market is vital to ensure innovation and choice for consumers and, more broadly, protect the vitality of the open web against the commercial giants trying to wall it up. TechCrunch: "Billions of people across the globe are dependent on operating systems from the largest technology companies. Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta each provide their own browser on their operating systems and each of them uses their gatekeeper position provider to preference their own browsers over independent rivals. Whether it is Microsoft pushing Firefox users to switch their default on Windows computers, Apple restricting the functionality of rival browsers on iOS smartphones or Google failing to apply default browser settings across Android, there are countless examples of independent browsers being inhibited by the operating systems on which they are dependent," Mozilla writes in a summary of its findings. "This matters because American consumers and society as a whole suffer. Not only do people lose the ability to determine their own online experiences but they also receive less innovative and lower quality products. In addition, they can be forced to accept poorer privacy outcomes and even unfair contracts. By contrast, competition from independent browsers can help to drive new features, as well as innovation in areas like privacy and security."

People who experience frequent bad dreams in middle age may experience a faster rate of cognitive decline and be at higher risk of dementia as they get older, data suggests. If confirmed, the research could eventually lead to new ways of screening for dementia and intervention to slow the rate of decline. From a report: Most people experience bad dreams from time to time, but approximately 5% of adults experience nightmares -- dreams distressing enough to wake them up -- at least once a week. Stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation are all potential triggers, but previous research in people with Parkinson's disease has also linked frequent distressing dreams to faster rates of cognitive decline, and an increased risk of developing dementia in the future.

To investigate whether the same might be true of healthy adults, Dr Abidemi Otaiku at the University of Birmingham turned to data from three previous studies that have examined people's sleep quality and then followed them over many years, assessing their brain health as well as other outcomes. This included more than 600 middle-aged adults (aged 35 to 64), and 2,600 people aged 79 and older. Their data was analysed using statistical software to find out whether those who experienced a higher frequency of distressing dreams were more likely to go on to experience cognitive decline and be diagnosed with dementia. The research, published in eClinicalMedicine, found that middle-aged people who experienced bad dreams at least once a week were four times more likely to experience cognitive decline over the following decade than those who rarely had nightmares. Among elderly participants, those who frequently reported distressing dreams were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia in subsequent years.

Slashdot reader storagedude writes: Nearly a quarter of healthcare organizations hit by ransomware attacks experienced an increase in patient mortality, according to a new study from Ponemon Institute and Proofpoint.

The report, "Cyber Insecurity in Healthcare: The Cost and Impact on Patient Safety and Care," surveyed 641 healthcare IT and security practitioners and found that the most common consequences of cyberattacks are delayed procedures and tests, resulting in poor patient outcomes for 57% of the healthcare providers, followed by increased complications from medical procedures. The type of attack most likely to have a negative impact on patient care is ransomware, leading to procedure or test delays in 64% of the organizations and longer patient stays for 59% of them.

The Ponemon report depends on the accuracy of self-reporting and thus doesn't have the weight of, say, an epidemiological study that looks at hospital mortality baseline data before and after an attack, but the data is similar to what Ponemon has found in the past and there have been a number of reports of patient deaths and other complications from ransomware attacks.

The new report found that 89% of the surveyed organizations have experienced an average of 43 attacks in the past year. The most common types of attacks were cloud compromise, ransomware, supply chain, and business email compromise (BEC)/spoofing/phishing.

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a top concern for survey participants. Healthcare organizations have an average of more than 26,000 network-connected devices, yet only 51% of the surveyed organizations include them in their cybersecurity strategy.

Healthcare organizations are better at cloud security, with 63% taking steps to prepare for and respond to cloud compromise attacks, and 62% have taken steps to prevent and respond to ransomware — but that still leaves nearly 40% of healthcare organizations more vulnerable than they should be.

Preparedness is even worse for supply chain attacks and BEC, with only 44% and 48% having a documented response to those attacks, respectively.

The high costs of healthcare cyberattacks — an average of $4.4 million — mean that healthcare cybersecurity tools likely have a high ROI, even though roughly half of the survey respondents say they lack sufficient staffing and in-house expertise.

Investment giant BlackRock is rebutting Republican politicians over its ESG investment policies, arguing that its critics are wrong on both the science and the cents. Axios: Private equity and other investment fund managers should pay close attention, because they could be next in the line of fire. Last month, 18 state attorneys general sent a letter to BlackRock, essentially arguing that its goal of moving toward a net-zero economy is in conflict with its fiduciary duty. Two states, Texas and West Virginia, also banned state entities from doing business with BlackRock, arguing (incorrectly) that the firm boycotts fossil fuel company investments.

Axios' Alayna Treene reports that the BlackRock blowback is part of a coordinated lobbying effort, writing: "The crusade against ESG investments is something many conservatives feel deeply about -- they view these companies as cultural enemies who are misusing investment funds to promote pro-climate policies... House Republicans plan to make an assault on ESG a central part of their legislative and investigative agenda if they take back the majority in November's midterms." BlackRock yesterday responded to the AG's letter, with a 10-page letter of its own. After again disputing the "boycott" accusations, the firm wrote: "We believe investors and companies that take a forward-looking position with respect to climate risk and its implications for the energy transition will generate better long-term financial outcomes." BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, and its CEO Larry Fink has been very outspoken about ESG initiatives (with declining emphasis as the acronym progresses). In other words, it's a juicy target.

The U.S. has identified intensifying technological competition with China as a top national-security threat. But a Commerce Department-led process that reviews U.S. tech exports to the country approves almost all requests and has overseen an increase in sales of some particularly important technologies, according to an analysis of trade data. From a report: Of the U.S.'s total $125 billion in exports to China in 2020, officials required a license for less than half a percent, Commerce Department data shows. Of that fraction, the agency approved 94%, or 2,652, applications for technology exports to China. The figures omit applications "returned without action," meaning their outcomes were uncertain. The result: The U.S. continues to send to China an array of semiconductors, aerospace components, artificial-intelligence technology and other items that could be used to advance Beijing's military interests.

The Commerce Department says it is focused on long-term, strategic competition with China and that it makes export-control decisions with its interagency partners in the Defense, State and Energy Departments. Critics say Commerce officials are improperly giving priority to U.S. commercial interests over national security and that an urgent regulatory revamp is necessary to respond to the threat from Beijing. For Steve Coonen, the Pentagon's former top China export-controls analyst, the high rate of approvals for licenses to sell tech with potential military use is evidence of significant policy failure.

Meta publicly released information on 21 billion Facebook friendships as part of a research project looking at economic inequality in the United States, the company announced today. Along with new insights into the intersection of money and friendships in America, the partnership between Meta and the researchers gives us another look at who Facebook is willing to share data with -- and why. The Verge reports: The research team wanted to understand why people in some places in the US were more likely to move between economic brackets than in others. Using the information from Meta, along with other data, a research team built a dataset for a pair of studies on economic mobility, published Monday in the journal Nature. One study found that people who grow up in areas where there are more friendships between high- and low-income people are more likely to move out of poverty and up the economic ladder. "Growing up in a community connected across class lines improves kids' outcomes and gives them a better shot at rising out of poverty," Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist and lead researcher on the study, told The New York Times.

Many places, though, don't allow for much interaction between high- and low-income people, the second of the two studies found. And even when a neighborhood does allow for that kind of interaction, people are still more likely to befriend people in similar economic brackets. [...] [T]he full dataset, which covers 21 billion Facebook friendships, is available through Facebook's Data for Good program. People can search the public-facing website and see the economic connectedness of various communities, including their own. Researchers can download the data for additional studies. [...] The new studies offer valuable insight into economic mobility in the US, and the data could help researchers understand how people in the US build relationships.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Arizona passed a law making it harder to record police by limiting how close bystanders can be while recording specified law enforcement activity. [...] The new Arizona law requires any bystanders recording police activity in the state to stand at a minimum of 8 feet away from the action. If bystanders move closer after police have warned them to back off, they risk being charged with a misdemeanor and incurring fines of up to $500, jail time of up to 30 days, or probation of up to a year. Sponsored by Republican state representative John Kavanagh, the law known as H.B. 2319 makes it illegal to record police at close range. In a USA Today op-ed, Kavanagh said it is important to leave this buffer for police to protect law enforcement from being assaulted by unruly bystanders. He said "there's no reason" to come closer and predicted tragic outcomes for those who do, saying, "Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary, and unsafe, and should be made illegal."

This week, Kavanagh has succeeded in making close-range recording illegal in Arizona, with only a few exceptions. Perhaps most critically, the person involved in the police activity -- someone being questioned, arrested, or handled by police -- can record, as long as it doesn't interfere with police actions. The same exception extends to anyone recording while in a vehicle involved in a police stop. Additionally, anyone recording activity from an enclosed structure on private property still has a right to record police within 8 feet -- unless law enforcement "determines that the person is interfering" or "it is not safe" for them to be in the area. That caveat potentially gives police a lot of discretion over who can record and when.

Kavanagh said he decided to push for this change in Arizona law after some Tucson officers complained that bystanders sometimes stood a foot or two behind them while recording arrests. The state representative also told USA Today that his decision to set the minimum distance at 8 feet "is based upon 8 feet being established by the US Supreme Court as being a reasonable distance as they applied it to people entering and leaving abortion clinics when faced with protesters." Responding to critics who think citizens should be able to get closer to law enforcement activity, Kavanagh said, "The argument that filming from 8 feet away does not allow for a proper view of the scene is ridiculous." He cited impactful police brutality recordings that were recorded from further distances, including Rodney King (100 feet) and Freddie Gray ("clearly 8 to 10 feet away"). In 2017, a federal appeals court ruled that the First Amendment protects individuals' right to film police officers performing their official duties.

The ACLU says this law is a "chilling" use of the "public's most effective tool against police wrongdoing in violation of our First Amendment rights." ACLU staff attorney K.M. Bell added: "By limiting our ability to record police interactions, this law will undoubtedly make it even more difficult to hold police officers accountable for misconduct."

Clinics offering debunked cancer treatments are still allowed to advertise, despite the company's stated efforts to control medical misinformation. From a report: The ad reads like an offer of salvation: Cancer kills many people. But there is hope in Apatone, a proprietary vitamin C-based mixture, that is "KILLING cancer." The substance, an unproven treatment that is not approved by the FDA, is not available in the United States. If you want Apatone, the ad suggests, you need to travel to a clinic in Mexico. If you're on Facebook or Instagram and Meta has determined you may be interested in cancer treatments, it's possible you've seen this ad, or one of the 20 or so others recently running from the CHIPSA hospital in Mexico near the US border, all of which are publicly listed in Meta's Ad Library. They are part of a pattern on Facebook of ads that make misleading or false health claims, targeted at cancer patients.

Evidence from Facebook and Instagram users, medical researchers, and its own Ad Library suggests that Meta is rife with ads containing sensational health claims, which the company directly profits from. The misleading ads may remain unchallenged for months and even years. Some of the ads reviewed by MIT Technology Review promoted treatments that have been proved to cause acute physical harm in some cases. Other ads pointed users toward highly expensive treatments with dubious outcomes. CHIPSA, which stands for Centro Hospitalario Internacional del Pacifico, S.A, was founded in 1979 and refers to itself as a community hospital offering integrative treatments for cancer. On Facebook, the facility describes itself as being at the "cutting edge" of cancer research. But the hospital's foundational diet-based therapy, called the Gerson Protocol, is "all nonsense," says David Gorski, a surgical oncologist at Wayne State University in Michigan and the managing editor of the website Science-Based Medicine. Developed by a German doctor in the 1920s to treat migraines, the regimen consists of a special diet and frequent "detox" procedures. It has been discredited for decades in the medical community.

According to figures from trade group IAB and PwC, the podcast advertising business in the United States is expected to grow to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024. Variety reports: The sector hit $1.45 billion in 2021, representing 72% annual growth, according to the report. In 2021, U.S. podcast advertising revenue grew twice as fast as the total internet advertising market, which was up 35% last year, according to the 2021 PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Still, U.S. podcast advertising revenue is poised to continue double-digit growth, growing more than 100% over the next two years to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024, per the report.

According to the latest IAB/PwC podcast report, three key factors are driving podcast ad revenue growth: the ongoing increase in listeners and content; increased use of automated ad tech, as ad revenue served via dynamic ad insertion (DAI) has almost doubled in two years to take 84% share in 2021 (versus ads embedded in podcast audio); and growth of ad spending in categories that historically had lower spend volumes like sports and true crime. "Everything right now is aligned to drive growth," said Chris Bruderle, IAB's VP of research and insights. "There's more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences. But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes."

A lawsuit charges that Rutgers Business School sought to improve its rankings by creating bogus temporary jobs for graduating MBA students. From a report: Rutgers Business School is always keeping score. On its website, it proclaims its No. 1 ranking this year by Bloomberg Businessweek as the top Public Business School in the Northeast. Fortune bestowed a similar honor in 2021. And U.S. News & World Report rated its MBA program among the top ten for Best Overall Employment Outcomes in the U.S., as well as No. 12 for its Supply Chain Management MBA program. But in a whistleblower lawsuit filed Friday, a Rutgers administrator charged that the university fraudulently burnished those national rankings by creating totally bogus jobs to show the success its business school graduates had in finding employment.

The lawsuit by Deidre White, the business school's human resources manager, alleged the program used a temp agency to hire unemployed MBA students, placing them into sham positions at the university itself -- for no other reason than to make it appear like a greater number of graduates were getting full-time jobs after getting their Rutgers diplomas. "The fraud worked," wrote White's attorney, Matthew A. Luber of McOmber McOmber & Luber in Marlton. In the very first year of the scheme, they said Rutgers was suddenly propelled to, among other things, the 'No. 1' business school in the Northeast.

Genetic testing to predict how individuals will respond to common medicines should be implemented without delay to reduce the risk of side-effects and ensure that everyone is given the right drug at the right dose, experts have said. From a report: About 6.5% of UK hospital admissions are caused by adverse drug reactions, while most prescription medicines only work on 30% to 50% of people. A significant part of this is due to genetics: almost 99% of people carry at least one genetic variation that affects their response to certain drugs, including commonly prescribed painkillers, heart disease drugs and antidepressants. By the age of 70, about 90% of people are taking at least one of these medications.

A new report, published by the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians, argues that many of these issues could be addressed through pharmacogenomic testing, which allows personalised prescribing according to people's genes. "The ultimate goal is to make pharmacogenomic prescribing a reality for everyone within the NHS, which will empower healthcare professionals to deliver better, more personalised care," said Sir Munir Pirmohamed, a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, who chaired the report's working party. "The aim of pharmacogenomics is to make sure patients get the right drug, at the right dose, at the right time to be able to improve their outcomes, treat their symptoms, cure their disease and prevent side-effects."

Krebs on Security reports: In the United States, when federal, state or local law enforcement agencies wish to obtain information about who owns an account at a social media firm, or what Internet addresses a specific cell phone account has used in the past, they must submit an official court-ordered warrant or subpoena. Virtually all major technology companies serving large numbers of users online have departments that routinely review and process such requests, which are typically granted as long as the proper documents are provided and the request appears to come from an email address connected to an actual police department domain name. But in certain circumstances -- such as a case involving imminent harm or death -- an investigating authority may make what's known as an Emergency Data Request (EDR), which largely bypasses any official review and does not require the requestor to supply any court-approved documents.

It is now clear that some hackers have figured out there is no quick and easy way for a company that receives one of these EDRs to know whether it is legitimate. Using their illicit access to police email systems, the hackers will send a fake EDR along with an attestation that innocent people will likely suffer greatly or die unless the requested data is provided immediately. In this scenario, the receiving company finds itself caught between two unsavory outcomes: Failing to immediately comply with an EDR -- and potentially having someone's blood on their hands -- or possibly leaking a customer record to the wrong person. "We have a legal process to compel production of documents, and we have a streamlined legal process for police to get information from ISPs and other providers," said Mark Rasch, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. "And then we have this emergency process, almost like you see on [the television series] Law & Order, where they say they need certain information immediately," Rasch continued. "Providers have a streamlined process where they publish the fax or contact information for police to get emergency access to data. But there's no real mechanism defined by most Internet service providers or tech companies to test the validity of a search warrant or subpoena. And so as long as it looks right, they'll comply." To make matters more complicated, there are tens of thousands of police jurisdictions around the world -- including roughly 18,000 in the United States alone -- and all it takes for hackers to succeed is illicit access to a single police email account.

Covid-19 patients who have been hospitalised should also be routinely tested for flu, researchers have said. The call was made after the publication of a paper in the medical journal the Lancet that revealed having both conditions more than doubles the risk of a patient dying. From a report: Scientists also discovered that individuals who had contracted both Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and influenza viruses were more than four times more likely to require ventilation support and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they just had Covid-19. "We found that the combination of Covid-19 and flu viruses is particularly dangerous," said Professor Kenneth Baillie of Edinburgh University. "We expect that Covid-19 will circulate with flu, increasing the chance of co-infections. That is why we should change our testing strategy for Covid-19 patients in hospital and test for flu much more widely."

The study looked at more than 305,000 hospitalised patients with Covid-19 and involved researchers from Edinburgh University, Liverpool University, Imperial College London and Leiden University in the Netherlands. A total of 6,965 patients were found to have had Covid-19, while 227 also had the influenza virus. These individuals experienced significantly more severe outcomes, researchers found. "We were surprised that the risk of death more than doubled when people were infected by both flu and Covid-19 viruses," said Professor Calum Semple of Liverpool University. "It is now very important that people get fully vaccinated and boosted against both viruses, and not leave it until it is too late."

schwit1 writes: Two separate lawsuits against American University and George Washington University have new life after an appeals court revived cases that allege both institutions violated contractual obligations to students when they shifted to online instruction in early 2020 at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic [Qureshi v. American University, No. 21-7064 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 8, 2022); Shaffer v. George Washington University, No. 21-7040 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 8, 2022)].

At the core of the issue is the refusal of both universities to refund students' tuition and fees. The plaintiffs allege that both universities had a contractual commitment to provide in-person education and should have offered at least partial tuition and fee refunds for students forced into online classes. Plaintiffs in both cases are seeking class action status for their lawsuits.

The lawsuits against American University and GWU are just two among dozens of similar suits filed by students and families since 2020, which have had various outcomes in courts across the United States.

U.S. states and municipalities are launching new programs covering the costs of college tuition — or expanding existing programs, reports the Washington Post: At least seven tuition-free initiatives have publicly launched since November, according to the College Promise campaign, which advocates making the first two or more years of college free. The governors of Pennsylvania and Maine are pushing for new programs, while the University of Texas System Board of Regents recently approved a $300 million endowment to cover tuition for more students at its public institutions. College Promise programs, as tuition-free initiatives are commonly known, enjoy widespread support across the political spectrum. Forty-seven states and D.C. have at least one such program at the college, city or state level. There are 33 statewide programs that cover tuition at community colleges or universities and higher education, and experts say the number is likely to grow.

Critics of universal public college say the price tag is unsustainable. Opponents of tuition-free community college say too many of the schools have poor outcomes, with fewer than 40 percent of students earning a degree within six years. Advocates argue that could be remedied by providing more institutional dollars and financial aid to keep students on track....

A number of states have used federal pandemic funds to shore up College Promise programs. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) used some of the state's allocation to create Futures for Frontliners, a scholarship for essential workers to attend community college. After the scholarship rolled out in 2020, about 100,000 people signed up, Whitmer said in an interview last year. Those who did not qualify were encouraged to apply for Michigan Reconnect, which covers community college tuition for residents 25 and older without a degree.

The Washington Post reports: Google announced it will begin the process of getting rid of long-standing ad trackers on its Android operating system, upending how advertising and data-collection work on phones and tablets used by more than 2.5 billion people around the world.

Right now, Google assigns special IDs to each Android device, allowing advertisers to build profiles of what people do on their phones and serve them highly targeted ads. Google will begin testing alternatives to those IDs this year and eventually remove them completely, the company said in a Wednesday blog post. Google said the changes will improve privacy for Android users, limiting the massive amounts of data that app developers collect from people using the platform.

But the move also could give Google even more power over digital advertising, and is likely to deepen concerns regulators have already expressed about the company's competitive practices... It made $61 billion in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 alone....

The announcement comes over a year after Apple began blocking trackers on its own operating system, which runs on its iPhones, giving customers more tools to limit the data they share with app developers.... Google contrasted its plan with Apple's, saying it would make the changes over the next two years, working closely with app developers and the advertising industry to craft new ways of targeting ads and measuring their effectiveness before making any drastic changes.

"We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers," said Anthony Chavez, vice president of product management for Android security and privacy, in the blog post. "We believe that without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses."
The Post also includes this quote from the chief security office of Mozilla (which began restricting ad tracking in Firefox several years ago). "Google's two year plan is too long. People deserve better privacy now."