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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

An important tool for keeping our drinking water clean may be riskier than we thought. New research finds link between water chlorination and an increased risk of certain cancers.

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden led the research, which is a review of past studies looking at chlorination and cancer. They found evidence that people exposed to the highest levels of chlorine byproducts were significantly more likely to develop bladder and colorectal cancer than people exposed to the lowest levels. This associated risk was seen starting at levels below the safety thresholds established in the U.S. and Europe, suggesting that current guidelines aren’t enough to protect the public, the researchers say.

Chlorine has been routinely used to disinfect drinking and recreational water since the early 20th century. It’s helped eradicate or reduce the spread of dangerous diseases like typhoid fever and cholera. But chlorine and other disinfectants are known to have their drawbacks. One major downside is the formation of disinfectant byproducts, created by these chemicals mixing with organic compounds in raw water, and the most prominent byproducts from chlorine are called trihalomethanes (THMs). Past research has shown that THMs can be cancer-causing, at least in rodents, but studies examining whether THMs in chlorinated water are tied to cancer in humans have been more mixed.

They ultimately analyzed data from 29 papers, the latest published just last year. Though most of the studies looked at bladder and colorectal cancer, 14 cancers in total were evaluated. The researchers failed to find a significant link between THM exposure and any other cancers besides the two. But they found that the highest THM levels (relative to the lowest) were associated with a 33% higher risk of bladder cancer, and a 15% higher risk of colorectal cancer. Importantly, this added risk appeared at THM levels starting at 41 parts per billion (ppb)—below the 80 ppb regulatory limit in the U.S. and the 100 ppb limit in the EU.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Singapore's Second Minister for Trade and Industry, Tan See Leng, addressed the issue in a statement to lawmakers. According to Tan, while Nvidia reported that 22 percent of its sales in the August-October 2023 period were attributed to Singapore, this figure primarily reflects billing practices rather than physical product delivery.

Tan emphasized that the actual physical delivery of Nvidia products to Singapore represents less than one percent of Nvidia's overall revenue for the three-month period ending in October 2023. These deliveries were primarily for major enterprises and government use within Singapore.

The discrepancy between billing attribution and physical delivery is not unique to Nvidia or Singapore. Tan explained that it is common practice for global entities to centralize billing for procured goods and services in their hubs, separate from where products are shipped. This strategy allows multinational companies operating across borders to streamline their financial operations, often billing everything through their headquarters address while shipping items directly to where they're needed.

Nvidia has long acknowledged this practice in its financial reporting, stating that revenue by geographic area is based on the billing location of the customer, which may differ from the end customer and shipping location.

Singapore's position in this matter is particularly sensitive due to its close ties with both China and the United States. The country has become a hub for many Chinese tech companies, including ByteDance's TikTok, which has its headquarters in Singapore.

[...] The investigation comes in the wake of DeepSeek's release of a chatbot called R1, which has demonstrated capabilities comparable to US-developed tools. This development has raised questions about China's progress in AI technology and whether this progress has relied on Western technology.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/psa-amazon-kills-download-transfer-via-usb-option-for-kindles-this-week/

Later this week, Amazon is closing a small loophole that allowed purchasers of Kindle books to download those files to a computer and transfer them via USB. Originally intended to extend e-book access to owners of very old Kindles without Wi-Fi connectivity, the feature has also made it easier for people to download and store copies of the e-books they've bought, reducing the risk that Amazon might make changes to their text or remove them from the Kindle store entirely.

The "Download & transfer via USB" option on Amazon's site is going away this Wednesday, February 26.
[...]
If you're trying to download your Kindle purchases to your PC and Mac before the deadline, you'll need to have a somewhat older Kindle or Fire device attached to your account.
[...]
Jason Snell at Sixcolors highlighted a possible timesaver for people with large libraries: a command-line tool called the Amazon Kindle eBook Bulk Downloader that can grab all your files automatically rather than doing one at a time.
[...]
Obviously, "people who want to download these files so they can strip their DRM" are not of concern to Amazon, but we contacted the company to ask if it has an official recommendation for people who are still using older Kindles and want to download Amazon-purchased books for legitimate reasons. An Amazon representative only responded with a statement telling us the other ways that customers could get Amazon books onto their Kindle devices.

"Customers can continue reading books previously downloaded on their Kindle device, and access new content through the Kindle app, Kindle for web, as well as directly through Kindle devices with Wi-Fi capability," the spokesperson told Ars.

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Original Submission

upstart writes:

'It's extremely worrisome.' NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential 20% budget cut just 4 years after launch:

The scientists behind NASA's largest and most powerful space telescope ever built are bracing for potentially crippling budget cuts, and the observatory is only halfway through its primary mission.

The team overseeing NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been directed to prepare for up to 20% in budget cuts that would touch on every aspect of the flagship observatory's operations, which are managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Maryland. The potential cut comes even as the space observatory is more in demand than ever before, with astronomers requesting the equivalent of nine years' worth of Webb observing time in one operational year.

"NASA is having budget constraints across the entire board, so the institute is being asked to consider a significant — about 20% — cut to our operational budget for the mission starting later this year," Tom Brown, who leads the Webb mission office at STScI, told a crowd of scientists last month at the 245th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. "So the impacts of that, if it comes to pass, pretty much cut across the entire mission."

NASA's $25.4 billion budget request for 2025 set aside $317 million to fund the Webb space telescope, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory that together comprise NASA's currently operational "Great Observatories." The Hubble Telescope program is facing a potential 20% budget cut of its own, according to SpaceNews. And Chandra is facing the end of its mission, with NASA's 2025 budget request including plans to wind down operations, with its budget dropping from $41.1 million this year to just $5.2 million in 2029.

But unlike Hubble, which turns 35 this spring, and Chandra, which launched in 1999, Webb is in its prime, approaching the midpoint of a primary 10-year mission. It could last at least 20 years or more, NASA officials have said. The mission is an international partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

"Frankly, this mission works far better than, really, most folks expected it to, you know," Brown said during the Webb town hall event on Jan. 15 at the AAS conference. "It's extremely worrisome that, while we're in the middle of the prime mission, we're also maybe looking at significant budget cuts."

taylorvich writes:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/pfas-busting-piezoelectric-catalyst

Nearly all coastal waters and more than half of rivers in some European countries contain elevated levels of chemicals that will never break down. But one Swiss startup says it has developed a piezoelectric catalyst that can eliminate 99 percent of these forever chemicals in wastewater streams and prevent them from entering water supplies.

On 30 January, Zurich-based Oxyle announced it had raised US $16 million to scale up its technology and deploy its first commercial units, which aim to eliminate the chemicals from industrial wastewater. Oxyle last year built and began operating its first full-scale system at a contaminated site in Switzerland.

The company developed its technology around eliminating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or "forever chemicals." PFAS are incredibly stable molecules due to their strong carbon-fluorine bonds, which has led to widespread use of them in industrial processes and consumer products such as waterproof fabrics and long-lasting coatings.

But their durability has also resulted in the spread of PFAS throughout the environment, into potable water, and into the food chain. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to health issues such as decreased fertility, increased risk of some cancers, and reduced ability to fight infections. The amount of PFAS-carrying micro- and nanoplastics getting into human brains has increased significantly over the past 50 years, according to new research in Nature Medicine.

Finding cost-effective ways to reduce PFAS on a large scale has proven challenging, in part because of the energy required to break down the persistent chemicals.

Many legacy PFAS treatment methods focus on extracting PFAS from water rather than destroying them. But many of these approaches aren't environmentally friendly or energy efficient. "These methods fail to break down PFAS, leaving behind hazardous waste that often ends up in landfills or incinerators, reintroducing contamination into the environment and perpetuating an endless cycle of treatment," says Fajer Mushtaq, CEO and cofounder of Oxyle.

Oxyle aims to address these shortcomings. The company's approach electrochemically breaks down PFAS into their chemical constituents such as carbon dioxide and fluorides, which then exit wastewater streams. "Instead of simply filtering PFAS, our solution actively degrades and mineralizes broad-spectra PFAS into harmless byproducts, eliminating the need for polluting, costly, and complex secondary waste management," says Mushtaq.

To achieve this, Oxyle uses a nanoporous material coated with apiezoelectric catalyst that offers a massive surface area for immobilizing PFAS. When water flows across the material, the piezoelectric effect generates electrical charges. This triggers reduction and oxidation reactions that gradually degrade PFAS into their harmlesscompounds. For example, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), a type of PFAS, gets broken down into fluoride ions (F-), sulfate ions (SO42-), and carbon dioxide (CO2).

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/108371/right-to-repair-laws-have-now-been-introduced-in-all-50-us-states

With the introduction of a bill in Wisconsin, Right to Repair legislation has now been introduced in every single US state.

We've been fighting for the simple right to fix everything we own for the last eleven years—and we've been joined in that fight by more and more advocates, tinkerers, farmers, students, and lawmakers. Today, that movement has touched every corner of the country. Lawmakers in every state in the union have filed legislation demanding access to the parts, tools, and documentation we need for repair. This year alone, legislation is active in 24 states.

Some of those laws have passed: Five states (New York, California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado) have passed electronics Right to Repair legislation. One in five Americans lives in a state that has passed Right to Repair—and the remaining states are working hard to restore repair competition.

[...] "This is more than a legislative landmark—it's a tipping point. We've gone from a handful of passionate advocates to a nationwide call for repair autonomy," said Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit. "People are fed up with disposable products and locked-down devices. Repair is the future, and this moment proves it."

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/dangling-twitching-human-robot-with-synthetic-muscles-makes-its-debut/

On Wednesday, Clone Robotics released video footage of its Protoclone humanoid robot, a full-body machine that uses synthetic muscles to create unsettlingly human-like movements. In the video, the robot hangs suspended from the ceiling as its limbs twitch and kick, marking what the company claims is a step toward its goal of creating household-helper robots.

Poland-based Clone Robotics designed the Protoclone with a polymer skeleton that replicates 206 human bones.

[...] It contains over 1,000 artificial muscles built with the company's "Myofiber" technology, which builds on the McKibbin pneumatic muscle concept.

[...] While the Protoclone is a twitching, dangling robotic prototype right now, there's a lot of tech packed into its body. Protoclone's sensory system includes four depth cameras in its skull for vision, 70 inertial sensors to track joint positions, and 320 pressure sensors that provide force feedback. This system lets the robot react to visual input and learn by watching humans perform tasks.

[...] Other companies' robots typically use other types of actuators, such as solenoids and electric motors. Clone's pressure-based muscle system is an interesting approach, though getting Protoclone to stand and balance without the need for suspension or umbilicals may still prove a challenge.

Clone Robotics plans to start its production with 279 units called Clone Alpha, with plans to open preorders later in 2025.

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Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Repurposing old GPUs to help relive your favorite legacy games.

A few days ago, it came to light that Nvidia has dropped support for 32-bit CUDA applications with its latest RTX 50-series (Blackwell) GPUs. Support for PhysX has gradually faded over the years. However, PhysX can still be offloaded to an RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace) or older GPU, and that's exactly what a user at Reddit has done. In addition, we've gathered some interesting benchmarks, courtesy of VerbalSilence on YouTube and the same Reddit user, where the GTX 980 Ti handily outperforms the RTX 5090 in 32-bit PhysX games.

PhysX is fully functional in 64-bit applications like Batman: Arkham Knight, so Nvidia hasn't abandoned the technology entirely. However, the GPU maker has retired 32-bit CUDA support for RTX 50-series GPUs (and likely beyond). Given the age of the technology, most games with PhysX were compiled using 32-bit CUDA libraries. This is a software limitation, for the most part, though maintaining support for legacy environments is easier said than done.

As the news dropped, a Redditor snagged a separate RTX 3050 GPU to pair with the primary RTX 5090 to maintain PhysX support in older 32-bit titles. Using the Nvidia Control Panel, you can offload PhysX computations to a separate GPU or CPU, which you never need to do. Around 20 years back, dedicated processors for computing physics calculations were dubbed PPUs (Physics Processing Units). Ageia used to make such devices, which Nvidia later acquired.

In older 32-bit titles, there's a substantial gap between using the RTX 3050 and without. With legacy PhysX no longer supported, RTX 50 GPUs crash when you enable the setting or fall back to CPU processing. The user mentions that despite setting the RTX 3050 as a dedicated PhysX processor, 64-bit games utilize the RTX 5090 anyway. As mentioned above, modern PhysX implementations, at least the handful that exist, should still run fine on Blackwell.

Another test conducted by VerbalSilence reveals a striking difference in Mirror's Edge, where in some scenes, the RTX 5080 plummets to less than 10 FPS while the GTX 980 Ti sits comfortably at almost 150 FPS. The performance delta is heavily dependent on the game's PhysX implementation. Still, Borderlands 2 sees the GTX 980 Ti lead the RTX 5080 by almost 2X, and that's telling. Here, the GTX 980 Ti system is coupled with a Core i5-4690K, with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D reserved for the RTX 5080 setup.

It's unlikely that Nvidia will reinstate compatibility for legacy CUDA applications. If you genuinely wish to play your favorite 32-bit titles with PhysX, maybe it's time to dust off that old GPU in your cabinet and restore it to service.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-fluid-discovery-defies-logic.html

A team led by researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill have made an extraordinary discovery that is reshaping our understanding of bubbles and their movement. Picture tiny air bubbles inside a container filled with liquid. When the container is shaken up and down, these bubbles engage in an unexpected, rhythmic "galloping" motion—bouncing like playful horses and moving horizontally, even though the shaking occurs vertically.

This counterintuitive phenomenon, revealed in a new study published in Nature, has significant implications for technology, from cleaning surfaces to improving heat transfer in microchips and even advancing space applications.

These galloping bubbles are already garnering significant attention: their impact in the field of fluid dynamics has been recognized with an award for their video entry at the most recent Gallery of Fluid Motion, organized by the American Physical Society.

"Our research not only answers a fundamental scientific question but also inspires curiosity and exploration of the fascinating, unseen world of fluid motion," said Pedro Sáenz, principal investigator and professor of applied mathematics at UNC-Chapel Hill. "After all, the smallest things can sometimes lead to the biggest changes."

In collaboration with a colleague at Princeton University, the research team sought to answer a seemingly simple question: Could shaking bubbles up and down make them move continuously in one direction?

To their surprise, not only did the bubbles move—but they did so perpendicularly to the direction of shaking. This means that vertical vibrations were spontaneously transformed into persistent horizontal motion, something that defies common intuition in physics. Moreover, by adjusting the shaking frequency and amplitude, the researchers discovered that bubbles could transition between different movement patterns: straight-line motion, circular paths, and chaotic zigzagging reminiscent of bacterial search strategies.

"This discovery transforms our understanding of bubble dynamics, which is usually unpredictable, into a controlled and versatile phenomenon with far-reaching applications in heat transfer, microfluidics, and other technologies," explained Connor Magoon, joint first author and graduate student in mathematics at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Bubbles play a key role in a vast range of everyday processes, from the fizz in soft drinks to climate regulation and industrial applications such as cooling systems, water treatment, and chemical production.

Controlling bubble movement has long been a challenge across multiple fields, but this study introduces an entirely new method: leveraging a fluid instability to direct bubbles in precise ways.

One immediate application is in cooling systems for microchips. On Earth, buoyancy naturally removes bubbles from heated surfaces, preventing overheating. However, in microgravity environments such as space, there is no buoyancy, making bubble removal a major issue. This newly discovered method allows bubbles to be actively removed without relying on gravity, which can enable improved heat transfer in satellites and space-based electronics.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/linux-leaders-pave-a-path-for-rust-in-kernel-while-supporting-c-veterans/

Rust, a modern and notably more memory-safe language than C, once seemed like it was on a steady, calm, and gradual approach into the Linux kernel.

In 2021, Linux kernel leaders, like founder and leader Linus Torvalds himself, were impressed with the language but had a "wait and see" approach. Rust for Linux gained supporters and momentum, and in October 2022, Torvalds approved a pull request adding support for Rust code in the kernel.

By late 2024, however, Rust enthusiasts were frustrated with stalls and blocks on their efforts, with the Rust for Linux lead quitting over "nontechnical nonsense."
[...]
over the last two months, things in one section of the Linux Kernel Mailing List have gotten tense and may now be heading toward resolution—albeit one that Torvalds does not think "needs to be all that black-and-white."
[...]
Hector Martin, the lead of the Asahi Linux project, resigned from the list of Linux maintainers while also departing the Asahi project, citing burnout and frustration with roadblocks to implementing Rust in the kernel.
[...]
Christoph Hellwig, maintainer of the Direct Memory Access (DMA) API, was opposed to Rust code in his section on the grounds that a cross-language codebase was painful to maintain.
[...]
Hellwig posted a longer missive, outlining his opposition to Rust bindings—or translations of Rust libraries that can work with equivalents in C—and continuing with his prior comparison of such multi-language allowances to "cancer."
[...]
Torvalds' response from Thursday does offer some clarification on Rust bindings in the kernel, but also on what die-hard C coders can and cannot control.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The software engineering job market has experienced a significant downturn, with job openings hitting a five-year low, according to an analysis of data from Indeed by Practical Engineer. The statistics reveal a stark 35 percent decrease in software developer job listings compared to five years ago, marking a dramatic shift in the industry's employment landscape.

This decline is particularly noteworthy when compared to other sectors. While the overall job market has seen a 10 percent increase in listings since February 2020, software development positions have plummeted. This contrasts sharply with growth in areas such as construction (25 percent), accounting (24 percent), and electrical engineering (20 percent).

The software development sector has also experienced very volatile fluctuations in recent years. Job listings more than doubled during the pandemic-era boom of 2021 and 2022, outpacing all other industries. However, this surge was followed by an equally dramatic fall, with current vacancy numbers 3.5 times lower than their mid-2022 peak.

Several factors contribute to this decline. The end of zero-percent interest rates has had a significant impact on the tech industry, affecting hiring practices, venture capital funding, and the survival of tech startups. However, this alone doesn't explain the hiring slowdown and layoffs at highly profitable Big Tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google, according to author Gergely Orosz.

He posits that many companies may still be adjusting after over-recruiting in 2021-2022, leading to a more cautious approach to hiring.

Additionally, the rise of generative AI and LLMs may be influencing the job market. These technologies have shown particular promise in coding – 75 percent of engineers reported the use of AI coding tools in a recent survey. Some speculate that companies might be adopting a "wait and see" approach, assessing the potential productivity gains from these tools before expanding their engineering teams.

[...] Orosz also points out that Indeed's data may not provide a complete picture of the job market. The platform may be losing popularity for posting software engineering jobs, particularly among startups and some Big Tech companies. For instance, Microsoft lists more software-related jobs on its own site than are reflected in Indeed's data.

So, while the Indeed data should be considered directionally correct, indicating a genuine decrease in developer job listings, it may not fully represent hiring trends in startups or accurately track Big Tech hiring. Still, it is clear that the software engineering job market is undergoing significant changes, influenced by economic factors, technological advancements, and evolving company strategies.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Companies are advised to constantly update their apps and software, and patch known network vulnerabilities to prevent such attacks:

A ransomware group called "Ghost" is exploiting the network vulnerabilities of various organizations to gain access to their systems, according to a joint advisory issued by multiple U.S. federal agencies.

"Beginning early 2021, Ghost actors began attacking victims whose internet-facing services ran outdated versions of software and firmware," the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in the Feb. 19 joint advisory. "Ghost actors, located in China, conduct these widespread attacks for financial gain."

The attacks have targeted schools and universities, government networks, critical infrastructure, technology and manufacturing companies, health care, and several small and mid-sized businesses.

[...] The criminals use publicly available code to exploit "common vulnerabilities and exposures" of their targets to secure access to servers. They leverage vulnerabilities in servers running Adobe ColdFusion, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft SharePoint.

Also at BleepingComputer.

Related:

• Chinese Salt Typhoon Hackers 1st Spotted on Federal Networks Under Another Name
• U.S. Treasury Confirms It Was Breached by China-Backed Hackers
• A 9th Telecoms Firm Has Been Hit by a Massive Chinese Espionage Campaign, the White House Says
• U.S. Officials Urge Americans to Use Encrypted Apps Amid Unprecedented Cyberattack
• T-Mobile Hacked in Massive Chinese Breach of Telecom Networks, WSJ Reports

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A scheme involving the resale of used Seagate Exos enterprise-grade hard drives as new was uncovered earlier this month, but we have now learned that it reportedly affects not only Exos HDDs but also Seagate's IronWolf Pro HDDs, according to an investigation conducted by Lutz Labs from ComputerBase. Fraudsters erase usage records, alter serial numbers, and modify labels to deceive buyers, but it is still possible to determine that the particular drive had been in use, and by now, there are multiple ways to detect such falsified HDDs. 

Both Exos and IronWolf Pro are extremely reliable hard disk drives. Seagate's Exos HDDs are aimed at enterprises and hyperscale cloud service providers and are meant to operate 24/7, whereas IronWolf Pro is designed for enterprise-grade NAS environments that also work in 24/7 mode. While these drives share a lot in terms of hardware platforms, they have different firmware. Given the reliability, performance, and capacity points of IronWolf Pro HDDs, they are good candidates for use in Chia mining. As such, the current theory is that Chia miners are selling off used hard drives from mining farms, and it would make sense they may have both Exos and IronWolf Pro devices.

Falsified Seagate's Exos and IronWolf Pro hard drives are sold by retailers in different countries and generally look almost like new. The drives appear unused to the software because their internal usage logs, specifically SMART parameters, were wiped. However, a closer look at these drives may reveal slight dents and scratches on the chassis as well as scratches on their SATA connector, which are clear signs of previous use. 

Also, the QR codes on counterfeit units have been tampered with. Instead of linking to Seagate's usual verification page, they redirect to a warranty check that does not display the serial number or storage capacity, making it harder to verify authenticity. Since the labels on the drives are false, there are slight variations in label alignment and scaling. Finally, tools like smartmontools that can read Seagate's FARM (field-accessible reliability metrics) values reveal that some had operated for over 50,000 hours. 

So far, no similar cases have been reported for Toshiba or Western Digital. However, detecting tampering in these brands is more difficult since they lack Seagate's FARM values (which are only available on Exos, IronWolf, IronWolf Pro, and perhaps SkyHawk drives, according to ComputerBase), which store extensive usage history. 

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

It’s not every day that we get to see a glimpse of what a mysterious space plane is up to in orbit. This week, the US Space Force shared a picture it says was snapped last year by the X-37B, showing Earth in the distance and a bit of the craft itself. X-37B launched on its seventh mission at the end of 2023, though not much is known about what that mission entails. Its previous flight, which wrapped up in 2022, set a new endurance record for the space plane, logging 908 days in orbit.

There isn't too much information to glean from the photo, but it does offer a rare look at X-37B in space. “An X-37B onboard camera, used to ensure the health and safety of the vehicle, captures an image of Earth while conducting experiments in HEO in 2024,” the Space Force wrote on X.

One thing we have been told about the current mission is that it marks the first time the Boeing-made X-37B has tried out a maneuver known as aerobraking, or a more fuel-efficient method of changing orbit through “a series of passes using the drag of Earth's atmosphere.” The Space Force said back in October that the vehicle had begun the process, and the latest update indicates it was successful. “The X-37B executed a series of first-of-kind maneuvers, called aerobraking, to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel,” the Space Force noted. It's unknown how much longer the mission is expected to go on.

Original Submission

From our shy community member: https://www.fincen.gov/boi

As discussed here earlier the US Treasury FinCen beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements for millions of small businesses are back again. They have ping-ponged on and off several times since the end of 2024.

Now it seems there was a judgement in the Texas lawsuit:

... However, because the Department of the Treasury recognizes that reporting companies may need additional time to comply with their BOI reporting obligations, FinCEN is generally extending the deadline 30 calendar days from February 19, 2025, for most companies.

Notably, in keeping with Treasury's commitment to reducing regulatory burden on businesses, during this 30-day period FinCEN will assess its options to further modify deadlines, while prioritizing reporting for those entities that pose the most significant national security risks.

FinCEN also intends to initiate a process this year to revise the BOI reporting rule to reduce burden for lower-risk entities, including many U.S. small businesses.

[...] For the vast majority of reporting companies, the new deadline to file an initial, updated, and/or corrected BOI report is now March 21, 2025. FinCEN will provide an update before then of any further modification of this deadline, recognizing that reporting companies may need additional time to comply with their BOI reporting obligations once this update is provided. [continues with exceptions]

Reading between the lines, your SN small business owner is guessing that, "reduce burden for lower-risk entities, including many U.S. small businesses" means that the Treasury is expecting Musk and DOGE to hit this topic, any day now.

Original Submission