Under the newly adopted policies, the Corps of Engineers must weigh the energy produced per acre for any projects under its oversight against the potential impact of alternative uses of the land. The Department of the Interior was ordered to make a similar consideration.

For the purposes of a temporary injunction, that turned out to be enough. Given this justification, Casper said she could not conclude that the suing organizations were likely to win on their claims that the policy was arbitrary and capricious. That determination would have to await a full trial.

But it won’t, because those rules turned out to be illegal for other reasons.

Casper’s ruling notes that the laws governing the use of public lands require agencies to weigh multiple factors, balancing the benefits of different uses versus preservation. The rules instituted at Interior and the Corps of Engineers made a simple energy-density calculation the sole determinant of whether a project could proceed, sidestepping the process set forth in the relevant laws. As such, those policies also merit an injunction.

At least for the parties involved in the suit, none of the hurdles the Trump administration placed on renewable energy will apply. And the groups involved in the suit included many renewable energy developers*. That said, involved agencies could still create informal obstacles without violating the injunction, such as quietly slowing the pace of project approvals. The government can also potentially appeal this injunction.

So while the ruling is good news, it’s not a guarantee that the growth of renewables will continue unhindered over the next several years.

* The full list of plaintiffs: Clean Grid Alliance, Alliance For Clean Energy New York, Renew Northeast, Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition Action, Renewable Northwest, Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, Southern Renewable Energy Association, Interwest Energy Alliance.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/new-court-ruling-blocks-many-of-the-governments-anti-renewable-policies/

So last January, Sam created Emily Hart, a registered nurse and Jennifer Lawrence look-alike. On an Instagram account for Emily, @emily_hart.nurse, Sam posted photos of her ice fishing, drinking Coors Light, and shooting off a few rounds at the rifle range, with emoji-laden captions like “If you want a reason to unfollow: Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported,” and “POV: You were assigned intelligent at birth, but you identify as liberal <clown emoji>.”

Though Sam has never lived in the United States, he became an assiduous student of MAGA ideology. “Every day I’d write something pro-Christian, pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-woke, and anti-immigration,” he tells me.

The grift seemed almost too obvious, but to Sam’s astonishment, he says the account “blew up.”

“Every Reel I posted was getting 3 million views, 5 million views, 10 million views. The algorithm loved it.” he claims. Within a month, Emily Hart had more than 10,000 Instagram followers, many of whom also subscribed to her softcore AI-generated content on the OnlyFans competitor Fanvue. And between Fanvue subscriptions and selling MAGA-themed T-shirts (one sample message reads ”PTSD: Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats”), Sam estimates he was making a few thousand dollars a month.

“I was spending maybe 30 to 50 minutes of my day, and I was making good money for a medical student,” he says. “In India, even in professional jobs, you can’t make this amount of money. I haven’t seen any easier way to make money online.”

Emily Hart is one of a slew of AI-generated hot girl MAGA influencers inundating social media, thanks to technologically savvy young men like Sam capitalizing both on pro-Trump sentiment and Americans’ relative lack of digital literacy.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/indian-med-student-rakes-in-thousands-with-ai-generated-maga-hottie/

A coalition of US states sued Trump in response to the 10 percent tariff. “Having lost the battle on IEEPA, the President now dusts off a separate statute: Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, 19 U.S.C. § 2132, which is another statute that has never been used to impose tariffs. Indeed, it has never been used at all,” the states’ lawsuit said.

The Trump administration also “opened investigations into dozens of other countries’ trade practices” under another provision of the Trade Act, and these “inquiries are expected to result in tariffs similar in magnitude to those that the Supreme Court struck down,” The New York Times article said.

Trade group sees problem in refund system

There is a separate dispute over who should receive refunds in cases where surety bonds were issued for imports but the importer or broker failed to pay the tariff. A trade group that represents surety and insurance professionals told the court on Friday that its members have paid millions of dollars to CBP “on entries where importers (or their brokers) have failed to pay estimated or liquidated tariffs issued under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.”

“Customs has not included (or even mentioned) sureties in its development of CAPE and its reports to this Court, despite the fact that limiting refunds to importers and brokers will inevitably lead to IEEPA tariff refunds being issued to importers, instead of to the sureties who actually paid the IEEPA tariffs directly to Customs,” the International Trade Surety Association said in the court filing.

The group said it “advised Customs of the need to include sureties in Phase One of CAPE. While Customs has acknowledged our concerns, they have not indicated to us that the omission will be corrected, nor has Customs mentioned sureties or this issue in its presentations to the Court.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/us-opens-refund-portal-to-start-paying-back-trumps-illegal-tariffs/

“Moore intentionally accessed the Supreme Court’s electronic filing system without authorization using the stolen credentials of an authorized user (‘GS’) on 25 different days, sometimes returning to the site multiple times on the same day,” according to a government court filing. Moore used the access to obtain GS’s full name, email address, phone number, home address, date of birth, and private answers the person had given to three security questions.

“On July 29, August 18, and November 28, 2023, Moore publicly posted on his Instagram account, which used the handle ‘@ihackedthegovernment,’ screenshots of GS’s home page on the Supreme Court electronic filing system. Clearly visible to the public in the screenshots were GS’s name and a list of all of GS’s current and past electronic filing records,” the court filing said.

Moore similarly used stolen credentials to access one person’s My AmeriCorps account. He publicly posted the My AmeriCorps user’s name, date of birth, email address, home address, phone number, citizenship status, veteran status, service history, and the last four digits of his Social Security number, the government said.

Moore posted Marine veteran’s personal info

Moore is also said to have used stolen login credentials of a US Marine Corps veteran identified as “HW” to access the Department of Veterans Affairs ‘My HealtheVet’ platform on five different days. He obtained HW’s personal information, including prescribed medications and blood type.

“On October 13, 2023, Moore disclosed HW’s individually identifiable health information when he sent an associate a screenshot from HW’s MyHealtheVet account that identified HW and showed the medications he had been prescribed,” the government said. Moore then used his Instagram account to publicly post “HW’s personal information, including his full name, home address, service branch, email address, phone number, and blood type.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/man-with-ihackedthegovernment-instagram-account-tells-judge-i-made-a-mistake/

The Trump administration last month decided to drop out of the case that began during the Biden era. The US blindsided states by announcing a settlement with Live Nation during the trial, forcing states to take over the lead role.

“The Trump administration gave up the fight and wanted to let these companies off the hook easily,” Arizona AG Kris Mayes said today. “But we kept fighting for every Arizonan who has been charged too much by this illegal monopoly and we won.”

The Trump administration agreed to stop pursuing a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster as part of the settlement. The terms reportedly included changes to business practices and civil penalties of up to $280 million for states that opted to join the settlement. But only six states joined the deal, and they will reportedly receive a total of $18.6 million.

Ex-Trump official congratulates state AGs

States that joined the Trump administration’s settlement are Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. The litigation against Live Nation was continued by the District of Columbia and 33 states: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut, New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Gail Slater, a former assistant attorney general who led the US Justice Department’s antitrust division from March 2025 to February 2026, congratulated states on the win. Slater was a Trump nominee who seemed to want tougher antitrust enforcement, but resigned after less than a year. News reports said she was forced to leave after disputes with key Trump officials.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/jury-finds-live-nation-ticketmaster-is-illegal-monopoly-that-overcharged-fans/

Chinese drone companies DJI, the market share leader, and its smaller rival Autel have yet to receive exemptions. “If the router Conditional Approval process follows a similar pattern, Chinese-origin manufacturers like TP-Link may face a presumptive denial, while companies with manufacturing in allied nations like Taiwan, Vietnam, or South Korea could find an easier path,” the Global Electronics Association report said. This easier path for non-Chinese companies is “by no means guaranteed,” the report said.

TP-Link was founded in China but relocated to the US in 2024. It was already facing the possibility of a US ban over a year before the FCC’s industry-wide router action, but the Trump administration never formalized a TP-Link ban. TP-Link may hope its relocation to the US will help it win an exemption, but the Global Electronics Association report said the drone process suggests that “Chinese-origin manufacturers may face a presumptive denial regardless of corporate restructuring.”

Fast approvals key for router supply, group says

Even if the Trump administration is inclined to approve most exemption requests, the industry trade group’s report said there are doubts about how fast the administration can process applications for the dozens of new models introduced annually.

“Existing channel stock of previously authorized models may last three to six months, creating a window during which the market can absorb the disruption, but that window closes if the approval process proves as restrictive or slow as the drone precedent suggests,” the report said. The system “introduces a structural advantage for the largest firms” because “documentation and onshoring obligations are extensive and smaller manufacturers and startups may lack the resources to navigate the process,” it said.

The industry already “reduc[ed] Chinese-origin imports from 24 percent of units in 2019 to 4 percent in 2025” in a shift that cost billions and required “full cooperation of contract manufacturing ecosystems across Southeast Asia,” the report said. “The Conditional Approval framework now asks the industry to execute a second migration of comparable magnitude, this time to domestic soil, on a timeline measured in quarters rather than years, and without the established manufacturing ecosystems, workforce pipelines, or supplier networks that made the first migration possible.”

The report warned that if the approval process isn’t quick, residential consumers and home Internet service providers “will face constrained selection and delayed access to next-generation products at precisely the moment Wi-Fi 7 adoption should be accelerating.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/fcc-exempts-netgear-from-ban-on-foreign-routers-doesnt-explain-why/

The complaint also claimed that the plaintiff received a desktop with an RTX 4090 instead of the expected RTX 4080 Super. Further, it alleged that a Fragile representative told a plaintiff that he could buy the PC after renting. This is despite a NZXT representative previously confirming via Reddit that Flex isn’t a rent-to-own program.

Settlement agreement

In lieu of a trial, on April 7, NZXT and Fragile reached a settlement agreement [PDF] for a class of 19,322 customers [PDF], as first spotted by Gamers Nexus. The terms of the agreement are pending approval from a judge.

The agreement would allow some customers to own the PCs that they rented if they meet certain requirements, including having signed up for Flex on or before 2024 and never received an upgraded PC, or if “their accounts are more than 90 days delinquent as of March 30, 2026 and they signed up for the NZXT Flex Program between October 29, 2024, and June 1, 2025.” The value of the PCs that users may keep is “approximately” $1,216,129.02, the agreement says.

The rest of the proposed settlement consists of a $923,117.92 debt forgiveness pool that will provide up to $5,000 to members who are 90 days past due on payments, plus a $1,450,000 settlement cash fund.

Finally, NZXT agreed to change its business practices by trying to “prohibit social media influencer advertisement campaigns from making statements that customers have an ownership interest in NZXT Flex PCs,” using different brand names for its rental PCs and PCs that can be owned (something that NZXT has done since December 2024).

The PC company also committed to providing “accurate specifications and performance statistics” for its rental PCs and requiring customers to confirm that they know Flex isn’t a rent-to-own program before subscribing.

Finally, NZXT will update Flex’s website to “prominently” inform customers that they can use software to transfer their data from one rental PC to another rental PC for free.

NZXT agreed to maintain these practices until December 31, 2027.

Ars Technica reached out to NZXT for comment, but did not hear back before publication. We’ll update the story if we receive a response.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/nzxt-agrees-to-3-45-million-settlement-over-controversial-rental-pc-program/

Payment processors aren’t idiots, and a huge number of new charges was likely to arouse suspicion. (Indeed, one processor suspected that Tech Live Connect was using “friendly” charges as early as 2018.) To make the charges look legitimate, Tech Live Connect processed them using real customer data, including names and addresses.

Once Tech Live Connect got its chargeback ratio low enough, it used this data to get more merchant accounts, allowing it to stay in business longer and for people there to scam new targets. Cotter eventually admitted that, by keeping his company open using this scheme, he defrauded Americans of an additional $8 million or so.

The scheme ran for four years, and it had to be managed every month. In March 2018, for instance, Cotter’s team realized that it needed 27,000 more “good” transactions that month to outweigh all the bad ones, so it spent $140,000 to acquire 3,000 virtual debit cards, which it then charged through six different payment gateways.

For a plan that involved giving money to yourself, this one proved surprisingly costly. By the time Tech Live Connect acquired the cards in bulk, which required third-party vendors, and then paid all processing charges, half of the money charged was gone.

Still, it was worth a few million dollars to keep the company in business. Tech Live Connect made significant cash—more than $13 million during the four years this system was in operation.

Payment processors grew suspicious despite Cotter’s tricks, and by 2020 the US Postal Inspection Service had launched an investigation. Cotter was charged later that year and by December 2020 had been hit with an injunction ordering him to stop “selling technical-support services or software via telemarketing or websites.”

The legal case dragged on for years, until Cotter finally pleaded guilty in January 2026 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Last week, the 64-year-old Cotter was sentenced to 28 months in prison.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/your-tech-support-company-runs-scams-stop-or-disguise-with-more-fraud/

While companies often enter settlements without admitting to alleged misdeeds, this settlement says IBM ended conduct that it denies having ever engaged in. In one sentence, the settlement agreement says that “the cooperation IBM provided included… taking voluntary remedial measures, including the termination and/or modification of various programs, policies, or other activities described in the Covered Conduct.” Two sentences later, the settlement states that “IBM denies that it engaged in the Covered Conduct.”

Trump admin’s aggressive push against DEI

IBM agreed to pay $17,077,043 to the government within 14 days of the settlement being signed. The amount includes civil penalties and $8.2 million in restitution to the government.

“Racial discrimination is illegal, and government contractors cannot evade the law by repackaging it as DEI,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said. “The department launched the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative to root out this misconduct, hold offenders accountable, and end this practice for good.”

The Trump administration has taken an aggressive stance against DEI programs that were implemented to help historically underrepresented groups. President Trump has issued several executive orders on DEI, including one last month that targets federal contractors.

In addition to ending DEI policies within the government, the Trump administration uses multiple legal and regulatory tools to pressure private companies. For example, the Federal Communications Commission chairman has refused to approve mergers unless the merging companies end DEI initiatives.

“IBM is pleased to have resolved this matter,” the company said in a statement provided to Ars. “Our workforce strategy is driven by a single principle: having the right people with the right skills that our clients depend on.”

The Justice Department credited IBM for cooperating in its investigation and for ending DEI programs. “IBM made early disclosures of facts relevant to the government’s investigation gathered during IBM’s independent investigation, including information to assist in the calculation of damages and penalties,” the department’s press release said. “The company also undertook voluntary remedial measures, including the termination and/or modification of various programs and practices at issue.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/ibm-folds-to-trump-anti-dei-push-admits-no-misconduct-but-pays-17m-penalty/

Several Californians sued Sutter Health and MemorialCare this week over allegations that an AI transcription tool was used to record them without their consent, in violation of state and federal law.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, states that, within the past six months, the plaintiffs received medical care at various Sutter and MemorialCare facilities.

During those visits, medical staff used Abridge AI. According to the complaint, this system “captured and processed their confidential physician-patient communications. Plaintiffs did not receive clear notice that their medical conversations would be recorded by an artificial intelligence platform, transmitted outside the clinical setting, or processed through third-party systems.”

The complaint adds that these recordings “contained individually identifiable medical information, including but not limited to medical histories, symptoms, diagnoses, medications, treatment discussions, and other sensitive health disclosures communicated during confidential medical consultations.”

In recent years, Abridge’s software and AI service have been rapidly deployed across major health care providers nationwide, including Kaiser Permanente, the Mayo Clinic, Duke Health, and many more.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/californians-sue-over-ai-tool-that-records-doctor-visits/