Washington state senators are proposing to create an emergency notification system for public officials that would alert them about any confirmed targeted threat to any public official. SB-5853, prefiled Monday, cites the Minnesota shootings in June that killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband and seriously injured state Sen. John Hoffman (D) and his wife. "Had an emergency notification system been implemented in Minnesota, senator Hoffman and his wife could have been notified of representative Hortman and her husband's murder and taken whatever precautions necessary to avoid harm," according to the legislation. Sponsoring the bipartisan bill are Washington state Sen. Jeff Wilson (R) and 10 others.
A group of more than 160 state legislators from 28 states urged the Department of Commerce on Tuesday to release BEAD program non-deployment funds. “Congress was clear: non-deployment investments are not optional extras, they are central to BEAD’s mission,” they said in a letter, which was shared in a release from the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. “This unprecedented opportunity was created in direct response to NTIA’s call for efficiency. To now deny states the funds their efficiency generated would penalize success and undermine BEAD’s purpose.”
NTIA has given the green light to Kansas' final BEAD proposal, the state said Monday. Kansas received competitive bids for every eligible home and business, and it selected 14 subgrantees, it said. Fixed wireless will cover 67% of locations, with fiber covering 30% and low earth orbit satellite 3%.
South Carolina has received its BEAD award notice from the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, state Broadband Office Director Jim Stritzinger wrote Monday. That NIST approval lets the state move forward on its BEAD subrecipient agreements, which should be executed in Q1, he said. "We are really excited to get these final 16 investments in place so that the remaining 20,480 BEAD-eligible homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions will be able to receive high-speed internet in the next few years."
Multiple state attorneys general said Wednesday that their Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force was warning Lumen, Peerless, Inteliquent and Bandwidth about ongoing illegal robocall traffic on their networks.
New Jersey has launched a volunteer cybersecurity initiative, the Civilian Cyber Resilience Corps, to help enhance its ability to prevent and recover from cyberattacks, the state's Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness said Wednesday. The effort will use experienced cybersecurity and IT professionals for surge capacity and specialized expertise in incident response, as well as for vulnerability assessment, target hardening and cybersecurity training, it said.
More than 570 colocation and hyperscale self-built data center projects are in the works in the U.S. and are expected to add more than 100 gigawatts of capacity, ResearchAndMarkets.com reported Wednesday. Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Nevada, Georgia and Ohio account for more than 70% of the upcoming capacity in the market, the report said.
Indiana schools would have to adopt a policy that would ban students from using or possessing wireless communication devices during the school day under HB-1034, introduced Monday by state Reps. Jake Teshka (R) and Julie McGuire (R). The bill would also require that any teacher-directed use of wireless communications devices for educational purposes be done only on school-supplied devices and that the state Education Department issue model policy language and implementation guidance. The bill was referred to the House Education Committee.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) issued a subpoena to California Wi-Fi router maker TP-Link Systems as part of a consumer protection investigation of the company’s relationship with China and handling of consumer data, said a release Tuesday.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said Monday that he signed into law HB-23, which creates a program for escaped convict alerts. It also indemnifies participating broadcasters and cable systems from being liable for any losses or damages from airing or not airing the alerts.