FAA Scraps Civil and Criminal Penalties for Flying Drones Near ICE Vehicles

On Wednesday the Federal Aviation Administration rescinded a temporary flight restriction (TFR) that created a no-fly zone within 3,000 feet of “Department of Homeland Security facilities and mobile assets.” The new restriction softened the language of the original and abandoned the threat of civil or criminal penalties but added the Department of Justice to the…

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The Destroyed Remnants of a Lost World Are Falling to Earth, Scientists Discover

🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. The remnants of a bizarre long-lost world that fell apart before our planet was fully formed are falling to Earth in the form of meteorites, according to a new study in…

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App Stores Push Users Toward Nudify Apps, New Research Shows

A new report from the nonprofit research group Tech Transparency Project (TTP) claims that Google and Apple’s app stores go beyond simply hosting harmful “nudify” and “undress” apps that remove women’s clothing in images, and actually encourage users to download those apps. In January, TTP published research that showed how the app stores host dozens…

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Thomson Reuters Shareholders Demand Investigation into ICE Contracts

On Wednesday shareholders in Thomson Reuters demanded the company’s board launch an investigation into whether its products have contributed to human rights violations, specifically with regards to Thomson Reuters’ ongoing sale of peoples’ personal data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Thomson Reuters sells access to the CLEAR investigative database, which can include peoples’ names,…

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Ukraine Says Russians are Surrendering to Robots

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy praised robots as the future of war in a Defense Industry Worker Day address on Monday. “For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms—ground systems and drones. The occupiers surrendered, and the operation was carried out without infantry and without…

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Thomson Reuters Fired Worker For Speaking Out About ICE, Former Employee Says

Thomson Reuters, the technology and content conglomerate that owns the Reuters media agency but also owns and operates the investigative CLEAR database, fired a longstanding employee after they spoke out about the company selling data products to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday. The lawsuit and firing come after…

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Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out, According to an Independent Audit

An independent privacy audit of Microsoft, Meta, and Google web traffic in California found that the companies may be violating state regulations and racking up billions in fines. According to the audit from privacy search engine webXray, 55 percent of the sites it checked set ad cookies in a user’s browser even if they opted…

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