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Meta agrees to $18 billion settlement with 29 states over child safety claims

Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to resolve a lawsuit brought by 29 U.S. states accusing it of deliberately designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to children while aware of the potential harms. The states also alleged Meta improperly collected data from minors without parental consent, violating federal children's privacy law. Meta is not admitting wrongdoing but avoids a jury trial by settling.

Meta agrees to pay up to $16.68B settling 29-state youth safety lawsuit

Meta has reached a settlement with 29 US states that had sued the company over allegedly designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive and harmful to minors. Reuters reports the deal could cost Meta as much as $16.68 billion and would involve 52 state attorneys general, requiring Meta to adopt default usage limits during school and nighttime hours plus stricter age verification. The agreement still needs court approval but would let Meta avoid a trial that could have forced broader industry changes.

Small modular reactors emerge as bid to revive nuclear power's clean-energy promise

New reactor designs, including smaller modular units, are being developed to make nuclear fission a more flexible and reliable source of carbon-free electricity. This shift comes after decades in which nuclear power failed to deliver on early promises of cheap, abundant energy following its transition from wartime use to civilian power generation.

Buc-ee's CEO signals preference for red states in expansion plans

At the grand opening of Buc-ee's first Arkansas location in Benton, CEO Arch 'Beaver' Aplin III told a crowd that included Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders that he prefers building stores in 'conservative, business-friendly' states with strong workforces. He suggested that expansion works best when supported by state leadership from the top down, implying the chain may avoid areas where it feels unappreciated.

Harvard historian Jill Lepore warns AI elites are building an 'artificial state'

On the New York Times podcast 'Hard Fork,' Harvard historian Jill Lepore argues that tech leaders are constructing what she calls an 'artificial state,' where corporations and machines increasingly make decisions once reserved for democratic government. She says this shift bypasses public consent, noting that ordinary people generally don't want more AI or data centers imposed on their lives. Lepore explores the concept further in her forthcoming book, 'The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.'

Solid-state transformers gain traction as AI data centers drive demand

Rising electricity demand from AI data centers is spurring investment in solid-state power transformers, which use semiconductor switching instead of the century-old copper-coil design of conventional transformers. Unlike traditional units, which are hand-built and face multi-year delivery backlogs, solid-state versions can be mass-produced using materials like silicon carbide, making them smaller, lighter, and modular. Tech companies building AI infrastructure are especially drawn to them because they suit the direct current power setups increasingly used to run dense racks of AI chips.

Food safety experts point to meat thermometers as key defense against salmonella outbreaks

As salmonella outbreaks spread across more than 30 states this summer, affecting products from eggs to nut butters, WIRED's cooking technology reviewer highlights that proper cooking temperatures remain the most reliable way to kill the bacteria. Despite most households owning a food thermometer, surveys show over 70 percent of Americans rarely use one to check whether food has reached safe internal temperatures.

Arizona State study probes what 'adaptability' really means for engineers

Samantha Brunhaver, an associate professor at Arizona State University, is leading an NSF-funded project examining how engineers develop adaptability on the job. Through interviews with managers, early-career employees, and undergraduates, she found that while adaptability is widely cited as essential, employers rarely define or teach it consistently, and its meaning shifts depending on the industry, from tool turnover in software to regulatory changes in aerospace or biomedical fields.

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