In the News

A powerhouse legal team representing a bipartisan group of congressional members and candidates is unleashing a new effort to overturn the case that birthed super PACs, part of a novel strategy to rein in the big money that has poured into campaigns since 2010.

Their immediate target is not Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the polarizing decision handed down by the Supreme Court that year. Instead, they are going after a lesser-known case decided by U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just two months later: SpeechNow.org v. FEC .

Terrorism is once again in the headlines with the suicide-bomber attack at the Istanbul airport late Tuesday that killed 41 and wounded 239 others.

U.S. officials believe the attack was the work of ISIS, though no group has yet taken responsibility.

Most of the ISIS attacks have been suicide or car bombs—with the noted exception of the apparently ISIS-inspired mass shooting at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12.

Ransomware attacks can shut down hospitals and health care systems by locking out providers' access to records. The Department of Health and Human Services is preparing guidance on how institutions should respond to such attacks and notify patients whose records are compromised.

Two Capitol Hill IT leaders, Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), are urging HHS leaders to think of ransomware as different from other types of cyberattacks.

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers is calling on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to treat ransomware attacks in the healthcare industry differently than other cyber attacks.

“In the case of a ransomware attack, the threat is not usually to privacy, but typically to operational risks to health systems and potential impacts on safety, and service,” Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas) wrote in a letter to Deven McGraw, deputy director for health information policy at HHS’s Office of Civil Rights.

June 28 (BNA) - Two House lawmakers today told health privacy regulators that ransomware attacks on hospitals should be treated as data breaches that trigger a federal investigation.

President Barack Obama announced Monday that UCLA will house a new manufacturing research center to increase manufacturing efficiency in the U.S.

The UCLA center will be part of a national network of manufacturing institutes under the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, with locations in Texas, New York, Washington and North Carolina, according to a White House press release.

Taiwan-born US Representative Ted Lieu (劉雲平) was last week promoted from lieutenant colonel to colonel in the US Air Force reserves during a special ceremony at Capitol Hill in Washington attended by top political and military figures.

“As the son of immigrant parents who were able to achieve the American dream, I joined the air force on active duty and decided to continue to serve in the reserves to give back to America,” he said.

Lieu, 47, moved from Taiwan to Cleveland, Ohio, when he was three years old.

A Chinese national is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in federal court in White Plains, New York, on a six-count indictment that accuses him of stealing computer source code from his employer to benefit himself and the Chinese government.

Jiaqiang Xu, 30, was charged with three counts of economic espionage and three counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with passing along proprietary code to two undercover law enforcement officers last year, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.