"To address housing affordability in our community, we need all types of affordable housing options, including affordable ownership opportunities that allow individuals and families an opportunity to build equity alongside housing stability," said Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong.
"The specific barrier is capital," says Lisa George, global head of the Macquarie Group Foundation. "Without access to capital, it's very hard to get social mobility and educational mobility in life."
66% of internet users live where political or social sites are blocked, and 78% are in countries where people have been arrested for online posts. New social media regulations have emerged in dozens of countries in the past year alone.
When Guatemalan computer scientist Luis von Ahn first proposed the idea of "games with a purpose" (GWAPs) in 2004, his goal was to harness human brainpower so that computers could learn from it. His idea was simple: Get humans to solve tasks that are trivial to us but difficult for computers back then, like labeling images, transcribing text or classifying data.
"Lehigh Valley residents deserve internet that works as hard as they do. We're not just expanding our network—we're giving customers a superior choice. By signing up now, residents can secure early access to faster speeds, better reliability, and a customer experience built for them."
"The most important aspect of pricing for consumers is knowing their total price rather than an advertised price that comes with hidden fees: 88% of respondents believe all fees should be included in advertised pricing."
Every city contains two transportation systems. One is the visible network of roads, rail lines, sidewalks, and bus routes mapped in planning documents. The other is the invisible geography of privilege and exclusion embedded within it: the neighborhoods that received highways instead of parks, the communities whose bus routes were cut, the sidewalks that abruptly end at the edge of a district.
Eight of the municipal networks studied beat their local provider competitors in median upload speed. Sherwood Broadband - in the town of the same name in Oregon - was the only one to beat its local competitor in median download speed.
In 2026, the US healthcare system is changing. Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies have expired, causing premiums for marketplace plans to spike - and pricing some families out of health insurance entirely. President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce coverage for some patients with Medicaid and funding for hospitals, especially those in rural areas. Costs for Medicare and private insurance are also rising: Employer-based healthcare premiums have increased by 9%, the largest rise in more than a decade.
Algorithms can now transcribe meetings in real time, translate across languages instantly, summarise dense reports in seconds, and generate content tailored to different reading levels. For many users, these are not just productivity gains. They are meaningful improvements in access, sometimes the difference between participating fully and struggling quietly on the margins. Voice interfaces reduce reliance on complex forms. Automated captions support participation in live conversations. Generative tools can rephrase technical or academic language into something clearer and more digestible.
Spectrum below 1 GHz could significantly boost 4G and 5G coverage in rural areas, according to the report from GSMA Intelligence. Rural areas depend heavily on low-band spectrum because it allows signal to travel further and penetrate better through barriers such as buildings. Rural residents spend twice as much time connected to low bands as their urban and rural counterparts.
