u/mastertofu

Drivers could be banned from wearing smart glasses on the road in Illinois under a proposal awaiting Gov. JB Pritzker's approval.

State lawmakers have approved legislation updating Illinois' distracted driving laws to target increasingly popular smart glasses. House Bill 4843, which now heads to Pritzker's desk, expands the definition of an electronic device to include smart glasses - putting them in the same category as a handheld wireless telephone or tablet under state law.

Under the measure, smart glasses would face stricter limits than cellphones.

While phones can be used hands-free through Bluetooth or voice commands - smart glasses wouldn't qualify for that exemption and could not be used at all while driving.

The effort comes as smart glasses rise in popularity, with lawmakers raising concerns over their ability to project images directly into a driver's line of sight.
Penalties, which mirror those for other distracted driving violations, are listed below.

$75 - First offense
$100 - Second offense
$125 - Third offense
$150 - Fourth and subsequent offenses
Drivers involved in a serious crash could face misdemeanor or felony charges.

The bill explicitly bans activities such as using video conferencing apps such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams or WebEx and accessing social media like Instagram, Snapchat, X and Facebook.

Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has signaled support for the ban, saying in a social media video - whether in your hand or in front of your eyes - the risk and danger for different distractions are the same.

"One glance away from the road or one missed stoplight can destroy lives forever," he said. "This law keeps pace with new technology while protecting everyone who shares the road... Remember eyes up, phones down, and now, smart glasses off," he said.

Giannoulias’ push to address smart glasses as a distracted driving risk is part of the "One Road. One Focus." public safety campaign launched by the Secretary of State's Office to curb distracted driving.

The measure would become law if signed by the governor.

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KEY POINTS

The Social Security Administration released a new report on Tuesday with new projections as to when the trust funds it relies on to help pay benefits may be depleted.

The retirement trust fund will run out in 2032, at which point 78% of benefits will be payable, according to the latest projections.

While Social Security has never missed a payment, the looming shortfall may prompt benefit cuts unless Congress takes action.

ARTICLE

The trust fund Social Security relies on to help pay retirement benefits may run out in 2032, at which point 78% of benefits will be payable, according to the Social Security Administration's annual trustees reportreleased on Tuesday.

That projected depletion date is one year sooner than had been estimated last spring.

The new projected depletion date follows the enactment of the "big beautiful" tax law, which Social Security's chief actuary said in an August letter would have "material effects" on the financial status of the trust funds since it impacts income taxation of Social Security benefits.

The OASI trust fund, formally known as Old Age and Survivors Insurance, or OASI, if combined with the disability insurance trust fund, may be able to pay full benefits until 2034, when 83% of benefits will be payable, according to the new report.

This is a developing story. Please refresh for updates.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-have-plenty-heres-the-real-story-behind-the-record-drop-in-americas-oil-reserves-9c8de9d5

The U.S. strategic crude stockpiles are dwindling at a record pace and are approaching their lowest in decades, but concerns about slimmer reserves may be overblown.

Steep drawdowns in recent weeks from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the federal government’s emergency supply of crude oil, have rattled some economists and investors. They worry that the U.S. could be left too vulnerable to another supply strain, such as a hurricane, and in a tougher spot if the war with Iran drags on through the end of summer.

Others, however, are taking a brighter view. The system is working exactly as intended: Flexing hard, but not breaking. And having a smaller “rainy day” crude fund is just fine when America produces roughly three times as much oil as it did just a few years ago.

“I look at the SPR at this point as a luxury, and as a piece of leverage,” said Jan Stuart, a global energy strategist at investment bank Piper Sandler. “We are an oil-exporting country. We have plenty.”

The U.S. is doing the heavy lifting of keeping the world supplied, through the reserve release as well as exports.

Back in March, the U.S. agreed to release 172 million barrels of crude from its SPR, part of an International Energy Agency-coordinated global release of a collective 400 million barrels from IEA member countries. That was to counter the supply shocks brought by the Iran war and the near-standstill at the Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime is the conduit for a fifth of the world’s supply of crude and crude products, such as diesel and gasoline.

While it’s true that withdrawals have been hefty, they are proceeding apace and there’s still a ways to go to fulfill that commitment, said Sarah Emerson, president of consulting firm ESAI Energy and an energy expert with four decades in the industry.

So far, the U.S. has released about 50 million barrels of those promised 172 million barrels.

By the end of the cycle, the U.S. will be left with roughly 300 million barrels of crude in the SPR, the lowest since the 1980s. It may be less of a buffer, but “that’s still a hefty amount of oil,” Emerson said. “We need to think of strategic stocks in context.”

Kevin Liu, an oil and gas analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, compared the SPR releases as a painkillers for the oil market. “It helps relieve the immediate pressure, but it does not solve the underlying supply tension,” he said.

It adds barrels to a tight prompt-month market, helps smooth out price spikes and “it buys time,” Liu said. But it’s nowhere close to offsetting the lost physical supply if the underlying disruption persists, he added.

But a “protracted conflict” scenario is not off the table just yet, given the mixed messages on the negotiation front, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Liu said. And Esai’s Emerson warned that prices could reach $140 to $150 a barrel if the strait’s near-standstill persists through August.

The SPR’s most recent drawdown, covering the week ended May 22, shows a drop of 9.1 million barrels, leaving the reserves at 365 million barrels. The previous weekly drawdown, covering the week of May 15, was its steepest on record, the U.S. withdrew 9.92 million barrels from the SPR then.

Before that record-breaking decline, the largest weekly drop in the SPR’s history occurred in the week ended Oct. 7, 2022, when the reserves dropped by 7.41 million barrels, and was connected to the war in Ukraine.

The SPR has a storage capacity of 714 million barrels, and it last stayed close to that level in the 2010s.

“We have to remember that the U.S. used to produce around 5.5 million barrels of oil a day back then, instead of the over 13 million barrels of oil a day it does today,” said Jaime Brito, executive director of refining and oil products at Dow Jones Energy.

Whether the U.S. would return to those near-full SPR levels around 700 million barrels remains to be seen.

An argument can be made that the U.S. does not necessarily need to return to those same SPR levels to have a sense of being better prepared for unexpected issues, Brito said.

For one, it would be expensive to replenish reserves to capacity, turning it into a political football in Washington, a line item on budget negotiations rife with potential for disputes, Emerson said.

“I’d think we’d build it back up, but maybe not all the way,” she said.

“Refilling the SPR will depend on if, or how, Congress decides to provide the funds to replenish it. Even if it does, it will likely take years to refill the SPR,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and a former Obama administration adviser.

The calculations around the reserve have changed as the so-called shale revolution picked up speed in the 2010s, Piper Sandler’s Stuart said.

The U.S. unlocked oil previously trapped in shale rock, using technology not entirely new but applied in a much larger scale at that time. America has been a net exporter of combined crude and crude products since 2020, and just last month became a net crude-oil exporter.

It’s an asymmetric trade, because the country still imports some gasoline, for example. “But the bottom line is, we export [crude],” Stuart said. “We have no strategic vulnerability in regards to oil,” nor in regards to natural gas or coal, he said.

And that’s not counting on Canada, the other energy powerhouse next door and a close U.S. ally, Stuart added.

There have been dozens of sales and exchanges from the SPR over its many years of existence, but emergencies drawdowns have been few and far between: Before this year’s tap, there was the 2022 one, used to counter retail-gasoline spikes and supply disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and also coordinated through the International Energy Agency. Recent drawdowns include smaller taps in the 2011 due to the Libyan crisis and in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

The SPR was created in 1975, two years after the Arab oil embargo and crisis of 1973.

The U.S. SPR is effectively structured as an exchange. The original volume of oil taken, plus additional barrels, must be returned to the reserve. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in March that the oil removed from the reserve would be replaced by even more oil, about 200 million barrels within the next year.

It would take about 120 days to release the total promised 172 million barrels, Wright said. That’s because the SPR can only release oil at a maximum rate of 4.4 million barrels per day for up to 90 days, due to capacity constraints.

The reserve’s oil is held in storage in 60 underground salt caverns in four locations in Texas and Louisiana. The facilities are connected to the nation’s commercial oil transport network via a pipeline distribution system, according to the Energy Department.

The caverns offer “the best security and the most affordable means of storage,” it said, compared with above-ground tanks.

The SPR reached its top capacity in 2009. In 2022, it dipped below 400 million barrels for the first time since in May 1984, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Following the shale boom, many people thought that the U.S. no longer needed a SPR at all, said Robert McNally, president at Rapidan Energy Group and a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush.

“That was very shortsighted,” he said. The U.S. is the largest oil producer in the world, but it is vulnerable to shocks, like the loss of oil-tanker transit through of the Strait of Hormuz drove home.

“An oil-supply disruption anywhere leads to a price shock everywhere, including here,” McNally said. “For that reason we need to keep a large emergency stockpile and coordinate with allies in using it to absorb the shock of emergency disruptions.”

Abridged version of the article below, full article in the link:

The state of Pennsylvania is suing Character.AI to stop the company's AI chatbots from posing as doctors and offering medical advice, in violation of state medical licensing rules.

State officials said an investigation found that the company's chatbots, which present themselves as fictional characters, have claimed to be licensed medical professionals.

…

In one case, the state alleged a Character.AI bot named "Emilie" claimed to be a licensed psychiatrist. The chatbot's description on Character.AI's platform read "Doctor of psychiatry. You are her patient," according to the lawsuit.

When a state investigator started a conversation and described feeling sad and empty, the chatbot allegedly "mentioned depression and asked if the [investigator] wanted to book an assessment." Asked whether it could assess if medication might help, the bot allegedly responded, "Well technically, I could. It's within my remit as a Doctor."

The bot allegedly told the investigator it had gone to medical school at Imperial College London and was licensed to practice medicine in the U.K. and Pennsylvania. It even provided a fake Pennsylvania medical license number, the lawsuit said.

…

The state is asking a Pennsylvania state court to order the company to stop what it says is the unlawful practice of medicine.

…

Character.AI has faced other lawsuits over harms allegedly involving its chatbots. In January, it settled multiple lawsuits brought by families who claimed Character.AI contributed to suicides and mental health crises among children and teenagers. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Article pasted here as well:

A Philadelphia group known for Black Panther-style community patrols is fighting to restore several members' gun licenses after the city revoked them over an encounter with police earlier this year, the group's attorney tells Axios.

Why it matters: The revocations have halted the armed neighborhood patrols and escalated tensions between city officials and the group.

The big picture: In Pennsylvania, owners of licensed firearms usually do not need a permit to openly carry their weapons, except in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia police have broad authority to revoke gun licenses, including for failing to properly secure their weapons, associating with people convicted of felonies, or, in the group's case, for "good cause," per city correspondence obtained by Axios.

Driving the news: Philadelphia police sent a letter to at least four members of the Black Lion Party for International Solidarity, including its leader, Paul Birdsong, in February, indicating their gun licenses had been revoked, the members' attorney, Lyandra Retacco, tells Axios.

In the letter, Lt. Wanda Newsome says the "visibly armed" group's conduct during a Jan. 31 encounter with a police officer at 23rd and Diamond streets "created an unreasonable danger to public safety."
At least two of the Lions were not even present during the interaction, Retacco says, adding she has asked the city solicitor's office to immediately restore their licenses. She declined to identify them, saying they did not want to speak publicly about their experiences.

What they're saying: Retacco is challenging the revocations, arguing that the city lacks a legal basis to yank the licenses.

"The idea that the police are interacting with the Lions when they are armed differently than someone when they're not armed … is unconstitutional, illegal, inappropriate," Retacco tells Axios.

The other side: Philadelphia police spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp declined to comment on the license revocations, saying the department "cannot confirm or deny whether someone has a concealed carry permit" unless they're charged with a crime relevant to their ability to carry a firearm.

The city law department declined to comment.

Reinforcing the University of Chicago’s commitment to providing an education that is transformative and affordable, UChicago is launching an initiative that will guarantee free tuition starting in Autumn Quarter 2027 for undergraduate students from families that have annual income less than $250,000, with typical assets. The College will also provide free housing and meals and other fees for students from families with income less than $125,000, with typical assets.

The announcement is an affirmation of the University’s core belief that costs should not prevent a student from joining UChicago’s community of extraordinary scholars. 

Since its founding in 1890, UChicago has been defined by distinctive principles, including a commitment to free expression and rigorous inquiry, the power of education to improve lives, and the importance of bringing together students with a cross-section of life perspectives. Defined by the influential Core curriculum, a UChicago education teaches students how to think, not what to think. The breadth of the student experience at UChicago includes wide-ranging study abroad programs, hundreds of recognized student organizations, research opportunities with world-class faculty, and a campus culture that fosters fearless questioning and discussion across differences. UChicago is continuing to build on these strengths and expand opportunities and financial support for middle-income families, first-generation students, families in rural communities, and those committed to public service, preparing all students to become leaders, thinkers, and innovators in the fields of their choice.

UChicago is a national leader in preparing College students for success after graduation, showing the deep value of a UChicago education. The College connects undergraduates with more than 5,000 paid internships annually—far more than most peers—and 99% of students complete a substantive internship or research experience during their time in the College. Among Class of 2025 students, 98% received offers for employment, graduate school, and other post-college opportunities. 

“The University of Chicago is proud to sponsor a learning environment characterized by intellectual curiosity, ambition, and rigor, to shape the next generation of great thinkers whose ideas will benefit the American people and the broader world,” said President Paul Alivisatos. “By deepening our commitment to affordability, we are helping to ensure that the brightest minds can join us.”