Copper thieves cost US businesses $1 billion a year and are a threat to critical infrastructure. What can you do to prevent putting resiliency at risk?

Termite is quickly making itself a name in the ransomware space. The threat actor group claimed responsibility for a November cyberattack on Blue Yonder, a supply chain management solutions company, according to CyberScoop. Shortly afterward, the group was linked with zero day attacks on several Cleo file transfer products.How much damage is this group doing, and what do we know about Termites tactics and motives?New Gang, Old RansomwareTermite is rapidly burrowing into the ransomware scene. While its name is new, the group is using a modified version of an older ransomware strain: Babuk. This strain of ransomware has been on law enforcements radar for quite some time. In 2023, the US Department of Justice indicted a Russian national for using various ransomware variants, including Babuk, to target victims in multiple sectors.Babuk first arrived on the scene in December 2020, and it was used in more than 65 attacks. Actors using this strain demanded more than $49 million in ransoms, netting up to $13 million in payments, according to the US Justice Department.While Babuk has reemerged, different actors could very well be behind its use in Termites recent exploits.Babuk ransomware was leaked back in 2021. The builder is basically just the source code so that anyone can compile the encrypting tool and then run their own ransomware campaign, says Aaron Walton, threat intelligence analyst atExpel, a managed detection and response provider.Related:How is Termite putting the ransomware to work?Researchers have found that the groups ransomware uses a double extortion method, which is very common these days, Mark Manglicmot, senior vice president of security services at cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf, tells InformationWeek. They extort the victim for a decryptor to prevent the release of stolen data publicly.A new ransomware group is not automatically noteworthy, but Termites aggression and large-scale attacks early on in its formation make it a group to watch.Usually, these groups start with smaller instances and then they kind of build up to something bigger, but this new group didnt waste any time, says Manglicmot.Termites VictimsTermite appears to be a financially motivated threat actor. Theyre attacking victims in different countries across different verticals, says Jon Miller, CEO and cofounder ofanti-ransomware platform Halcyon. The fact that theyre executing without a theme makes me feel like theyre opportunist-style hackers.Related:Termite has hit 10 victims thus far, in sectors including automotive manufacturing, oil and gas, and government, according to Infosecurity Magazine.The group does have victims listed on its leak site, but it is possible there are more. Maybe we could guess that there might be another handful that have paid ransom or have negotiated to stay off of [the] data leak site, says Walton.Given the groups aggression and opportunistic approach, it could conceivably execute disruptive attacks on other large companies.Termite seems to be bold enough to impact a large number of organizations, says Walton. That is normally a risky tactic that really brings the heat on you much faster than just hitting one organization and avoiding anything that could severely damage supply lines.The attack on Blue Yonder caused significant disruption to many organizations. Termite claims it has 16,000 e-mail lists and more than 200,000 insurance documents among a total of 680GB of stolen data, according to Infosecurity Magazine.The ransomware attack caused outages for Blue Yonder customers, including Starbucks and UK supermarket companies Morrisons and Sainsburys, according to Bleeping Computer.Termites exploitation of a vulnerability in several Cleo products is impacting victims in multiple sectors, including consumer products, food, shipping, and trucking, according to Huntress Labs.Related:Ongoing Ransomware RisksWhether Termite is here to stay or not, ransomware continues to be a risk to enterprises. With certain areas of the globe being destabilized, we could see even more of these types of behaviors pop up, says Manglicmot.As enterprise leaders assess the risk their organizations face, Miller advocates for learning about the common tactics that ransomware groups use to target victims.Its really important for people to go out and educate themselves on what ransomware groups are targeting their vertical or like-sized companies, he says. The majority of these groups use the exact same tactics over and over again in all their different victims.

The US Navys Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS HamptonMC2 Chase Stephens/U.S. Navy/AlamyThe US Navy has a long wish list of applications for quantum computers, ranging from basic science understanding corrosion, a fleets constant enemy to more intriguing uses like war game simulations. Although quantum computers have rapidly improved in recent years, they are not yet capable of all these tasks, but that hasnt stopped the military from dreaming up ways to use them.We are committed to the axiom that whatever legacy model is now successful will lead to [our] demise if it does not

This relatively small solar flare from October the bright flash in the centre spotted by NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory would be dwarfed by a superflareNASA/SDOThe sun may produce extremely powerful bursts of radiation more frequently than we thought. Such superflares seem to happen as often as once a century, according to a survey of sun-like stars, and might be accompanied by particle storms that could have devastating consequences for electronics on Earth. As the last big solar storm to hit Earth was 165 years ago, we might be in line for another soon, but it is uncertain how similar the sun is to these other stars.Direct measurements of the suns activity only started towards the middle of the 20th century. In 1859, our star produced an extremely powerful solar flare, a burst of light radiation. These are often associated with a subsequent coronal mass ejection (CME), a bubble of magnetised plasma particles that shoots out into space.AdvertisementThat flare was indeed followed by a CME that struck Earth and caused an intense geomagnetic storm, which was recorded by astronomers at the time, and is now known as the Carrington event. If this happened today, it could knock out communication systems and power grids.There is also evidence on Earth of much more powerful storms long before the Carrington event. Assessments of radioactive forms of carbon in tree rings and ice cores suggest that Earth has occasionally been showered with very high-energy particles over periods of several days, but it is unclear whether these came from one-off, massive solar outbursts, or from several smaller ones. It is also uncertain if the sun can produce flares and particle storms so large in a single outburst.The frequency of these signs on Earth, as well as superflares that astronomers have recorded on other stars, suggested that these giant bursts tend to occur many hundreds to thousands of years apart. Voyage across the galaxy and beyond with our space newsletter every month.Sign up to newsletterNow, Ilya Usoskin at the University of Oulu in Finland and his colleagues have surveyed 56,450 stars and found that sun-like stars appear to produce superflares much more often than this.Superflares on sun-like stars are much more frequent than we thought before, roughly once per one or two centuries, says Usoskin. If we believe that this projection to the sun is correct, then we expect a superflare on the sun roughly every 100 to 200 years, and extreme solar storms, as we know them, occur roughly once per 1500 or 2000 years. There is a mismatch.Usoskin and his colleagues measured the brightness of the stars using the Kepler space telescope and detected a total of 2889 superflares on 2527 of the stars. The energies for these flares were between 100 and 10,000 times the size of the largest measured from the sun the Carrington event.We still dont know whether such large flares also produce large particle events of the sort we have evidence for on Earth, says Usoskin, but our current theories of the sun cant explain such large flares. This opens a question of what we are actually seeing, he says.As a stellar flare survey, it looks really impressive, says Mathew Owens at the University of Reading, UK. Theyve clearly got new methods for detecting flares with increased sensitivity.How much this tells us about the suns flaring activity is harder to discern, says Owens, partly because it is difficult to accurately measure the rotation rate of other stars. The devil is in the detail here, he says.The rotation rate is important because its linked to how a star generates a magnetic field, and the magnetic field is linked to flaring activity, says Owens.Journal referenceScience DOI: 10.1126/science.adl5441Topics:The sun

The Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, was released in 1971. With 2,300 transistors packed into 12mm2, it heralded a revolution in computing. A little over 50 years later, Apples M2 Ultra contains 134 billion transistors. The scale of progress is difficult to comprehend, but the evolution of semiconductors, driven for decades by Moores Law, has paved a path from the emergence of personal computing and the internet to todays AI revolution. But this pace of innovation is not guaranteed, and the next frontier of technological advancesfrom the future of AI to new computing paradigmswill only happen if we think differently. Atomic challenges The modern microchip stretches both the limits of physics and credulity. Such is the atomic precision, that a few atoms can decide the function of an entire chip. This marvel of engineering is the result of over 50 years of exponential scaling creating faster, smaller transistors. But we are reaching the physical limits of how small we can go, costs are increasing exponentially with complexity, and efficient power consumption is becoming increasingly difficult. In parallel, AI is demanding ever-more computing power. Data from Epoch AI indicates the amount of computing needed to develop AI is quickly outstripping Moores Law, doubling every six months in the deep learning era since 2010. These interlinked trends present challenges not just for the industry, but society as a whole. Without new semiconductor innovation, todays AI models and research will be starved of computational resources and struggle to scale and evolve. Key sectors like AI, autonomous vehicles, and advanced robotics will hit bottlenecks, and energy use from high-performance computing and AI will continue to soar. Materials intelligence At this inflection point, a complex, global ecosystemfrom foundries and designers to highly specialized equipment manufacturers and materials solutions providers like Merckis working together more closely than ever before to find the answers. All have a role to play, and the role of materials extends far, far beyond the silicon that makes up the wafer. Instead, materials intelligence is present in almost every stage of the chip production processwhether in chemical reactions to carve circuits at molecular scale (etching) or adding incredibly thin layers to a wafer (deposition) with atomic precision: a human hair is 25,000 times thicker than layers in leading edge nodes. Yes, materials provide a chips physical foundation and the substance of more powerful and compact components. But they are also integral to the advanced fabrication methods and novel chip designs that underpin the industrys rapid progress in recent decades. For this reason, materials science is taking on a heightened importance as we grapple with the limits of miniaturization. Advanced materials are needed more than ever for the industry to unlock the new designs and technologies capable of increasing chip efficiency, speed, and power. We are seeing novel chip architectures that embrace the third dimension and stack layers to optimize surface area usage while lowering energy consumption. The industry is harnessing advanced packaging techniques, where separate chiplets are fused with varying functions into a more efficient, powerful single chip. This is called heterogeneous integration. Materials are also allowing the industry to look beyond traditional compositions. Photonic chips, for example, harness light rather than electricity to transmit data. In all cases, our partners rely on us to discover materials never previously used in chips and guide their use at the atomic level. This, in turn, is fostering the necessary conditions for AI to flourish in the immediate future. New frontiers The next big leap will involve thinking differently. The future of technological progress will be defined by our ability to look beyond traditional computing. Answers to mounting concerns over energy efficiency, costs, and scalability will be found in ambitious new approaches inspired by biological processes or grounded in the principles of quantum mechanics. While still in its infancy, quantum computing promises processing power and efficiencies well beyond the capabilities of classical computers. Even if practical, scalable quantum systems remain a long way off, their development is dependent on the discovery and application of state-of-the-art materials. Similarly, emerging paradigms like neuromorphic computing, modelled on the human brain with architectures mimicking our own neural networks, could provide the firepower and energy-efficiency to unlock the next phase of AI development. Composed of a deeply complex web of artificial synapses and neurons, these chips would avoid traditional scalability roadblocks and the limitations of todays Von Neumann computers that separate memory and processing. Our biology consists of super complex, intertwined systems that have evolved by natural selection, but it can be inefficient; the human brain is capable of extraordinary feats of computational power, but it also requires sleep and careful upkeep. The most exciting step will be using advanced computeAI and quantumto finally understand and design systems inspired by biology. This combination will drive the power and ubiquity of next-generation computing and associated advances to human well-being. Until then, the insatiable demand for more computing power to drive AIs development poses difficult questions for an industry grappling with the fading of Moores Law and the constraints of physics. The race is on to produce more powerful, more efficient, and faster chips to progress AIs transformative potential in every area of our lives. Materials are playing a hidden, but increasingly crucial role in keeping pace, producing next-generation semiconductors and enabling the new computing paradigms that will deliver tomorrows technology. But materials sciences most important role is yet to come. Its true potential will be to take usand AIbeyond silicon into new frontiers and the realms of science fiction by harnessing the building blocks of biology. This content was produced by EMD Electronics. It was not written by MIT Technology Reviews editorial staff.

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Googles new Project Astra could be generative AIs killer app Google DeepMind has announced an impressive grab bag of new products and prototypes that may just let it seize back its lead in the race to turn generative artificial intelligence into a mass-market concern. Top billing goes to Gemini 2.0the latest iteration of Google DeepMinds family of multimodal large language models, now redesigned around the ability to control agentsand a new version of Project Astra, the experimental everything app that the company teased at Google I/O in May. The margins between top-end models like Gemini 2.0 and those from rival labs like OpenAI and Anthropic are now slim. These days, advances in large language models are less about how good they are and more about what you can do with them. And thats where agents come in. MIT Technology Review got to try out Astra in a closed-door live demo last week. It gave us a hint at whats to come. Find out more in the full story. Will Douglas Heaven China banned exports of a few rare minerals to the US. Things could get messier. Casey Crownhart Ive thought more about gallium and germanium over the last week than I ever have before (and probably more than anyone ever should). China banned the export of those materials to the US last week and placed restrictions on others. The move is just the latest drama in escalating trade tensions between the two countries. While the new export bans could have significant economic consequences, this might be only the beginning. China is a powerhouse, and not just in those niche materialsits also a juggernaut in clean energy, and particularly in battery supply chains. So what comes next could have significant consequences for EVs and climate action more broadly. Read the full story.This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday. The must-reads Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Its looking pretty likely 2024 will be the hottest year on recordBut average temperatures are just one way of assessing our warming world. (New Scientist $) + The first few months of 2025 are likely to be hotter than average, too. (Reuters)+ The US is about to make a sharp turn on climate policy. (MIT Technology Review)2 Meta has donated $1 million to Trumps inaugural fund In an effort to strengthen their previously fractious relationship. (WSJ $)+ Mark Zuckerberg isnt the only tech figure seeking the President-elects ear. (Insider $) 3 How China secretly repatriates Uyghurs Even the United Nations is seemingly powerless to stop it. (WP $)+ Uyghurs outside China are traumatized. Now theyre starting to talk about it. (MIT Technology Review)4 How Big Tech decides when to scrub a users digital footprint Murder suspect Luigi Mangiones Instagram has been taken downbut his Goodreads hasnt. (NYT $)+ Why its dangerous to treat public online accounts as the full story. (NY Mag $)5 Russia-backed hackers targeted Ukraines military using criminal toolsWhich makes it even harder to work out who did it. (TechCrunch) 6 What Cruises exit means for the rest of the robotaxi industryAutomakers are becoming frustrated waiting for the technology to mature. (The Verge) + Cruise will focus on developing fully autonomous personal vehicles instead. (NYT $)7 Researching risky pathogens is extremely high stakes The potential for abuse has some researchers worried we shouldnt undertake it at all. (Undark Magazine)+ Meet the scientist at the center of the covid lab leak controversy. (MIT Technology Review)8 Altermagnetism could be computings next big thingIt would lead to faster, more reliable electronic devices. (FT $) 9 Why some people need so little sleep Gene mutations appear to hold at least some of the answers. (Knowable Magazine)+ Babies spend most of their time asleep. New technologies are beginning to reveal why. (MIT Technology Review)10 Inside the creeping normalization of AI movies The worlds largest TV manufacturer wants to make films for people too lazy to change the channel. (404 Media)+ Unsurprisingly, itll push targeted ads, too. (Ars Technica)+ How AI-generated video is changing film. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day "They've made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies." Felipe Rodriguez, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, explains why murder suspect Luigi Mangione is being lionized online to Reuters. The big story Why AI could eat quantum computings lunch November 2024 Tech companies have been funneling billions of dollars into quantum computers for years. The hope is that theyll be a game changer for fields as diverse as finance, drug discovery, and logistics. But while the field struggles with the realities of tricky quantum hardware, another challenger is making headway in some of these most promising use cases. AI is now being applied to fundamental physics, chemistry, and materials science in a way that suggests quantum computings purported home turf might not be so safe after all. Read the full story. Edd Gent We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.) + Working life getting you down? These pictures of bygone office malaise will make you feel a whole lot better (or worsethanks Will!) + Gen Z are getting really into documenting their lives via digital cameras, apparently. + If you believe that Alan MacMasters invented the first electric bread toaster, Im sorry to inform you that youve fallen for an elaborate online hoax.+ The case for a better Turing test for AI-generated art.

Amazon plans to donate $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration, according to WSJ.Meta also confirmed that it will be donating $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.The moves show Big Tech's effort to mend relations with Trump, who has been critical of the industry.Jeff Bezos' Amazon plans to donate $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration, following Wednesday's news that Mark Zuckerberg's Meta made the same contribution, The Wall Street Journal reported.Meta confirmed to the Journal Wednesday that the company donated $1 million to the president-elect's inaugural fund.The donations would mark a shift in the relationship between tech leaders and Trump, who had previously been critical of Big Tech bosses. Trump has previously accused Zuckerberg and Bezos of bias against his administration, among other criticisms.Last month, the Meta CEO paid a visit to Trump at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago resort for Thanksgiving Eve dinner. Google CEO Sundar Pichai also plans to meet with Trump, The Information reported.Mark Zuckerberg's been over to see me, and I can tell you, Elon is another and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week, and I want to get ideas from them," Trump told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday.Spokespeople for Amazon and Trump did not respond to a request for comment.In previous years, Bezos and Trump have frequently feuded with each other. During his first campaign and term, Trump would take shots at Amazon, once stating that the company was doing "great damage to tax paying retailers."Bezos on the other hand has previously criticized Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, including the president-elect's call at the time to imprison Hilary Clinton.As Trump took office in 2017, Amazon donated about $58,000 to Trump's inauguration much less than what other tech companies donated at the time, according to the Journal.Similarly, Zuckerberg has criticized Trump's violent remarks on Facebook. In 2021, the social media platform took the extraordinary step of deplatforming the president after Trump praised Jan. 6 rioters.Both tech leaders have appeared to warm up to Trump in recent months.The Amazon tycoon said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit last week that he's "actually very optimistic" about a second Trump term, saying that Trump has likely "grown in the last eight years" and that he was encouraged by the president-elect's focus on deregulation."He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I'm going to help him," Bezos said.Zuckerberg also appears to be mending his relationship with the president-elect, despite Trump threatening to throw the Meta CEO in prison as recently as July.After the first assassination attempt against Trump, Zuckerberg called the president-elect a"badass"but stopped short of endorsing him during the Bloomberg interview.On November 6, Zuckerberg joined the chorus of CEOs congratulating Trump's decisive election victory."Looking forward to working with you and your administration," Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads post.

My preteen feels left out because he's one of the few kids in his class without a cellphone.My husband and I are concerned he lacks the impulse control for a phone or smartwatch.We decided against getting him one for now, but will keep an open conversation about the topic.My 12-year-old feels left out at school because he's not in a group chat with his classmates. He says he's one of the only kids in his class without a phone or smartwatch. At first, I was surprised, but Common Sense Media reported that 71% of 12-year-olds had their own smartphone as of 2021.I don't want my son to feel left out. However, he already owns a Nintendo Switch, a Kindle, and an iPad. Even with strict screen usage limits, his access to the digital world feels robust enough for his age.At the kitchen table a few nights ago, my son wrote a persuasive essay about why he should be permitted a smartwatch or a phone. It was well-researched, including this zinger: "I only need to use it when I go out with friends, so you don't worry about me. I can leave it on the charger when I'm at home."It sounds innocent enough a tool that will keep him in contact with us when he isn't home. However, I doubt the device will live on the charger. I've heard from other parents whose preteens are in the school group chat, that the messages come in fast succession and often at odd hours. With access, my son will likely obsess over the influx of messages, making his emotional attachments to friends even more complex.I worry about the consequences of getting him a phoneFor preteens, a phone or other tech device often has more consequences than only staying connected, Dr. Kyra Bobinet, a physician and behavioral expert, told Business Insider. Because the prefrontal cortex, which manages impulse control and decision-making, is still developing, "introducing phones too early may overwhelm a preteen with constant notifications and endless online options, making it harder for them to self-regulate," she said. These distractions can make it hard for them to form boundaries around screens.Our preteen already melts down when his timer rings to turn off his devices, and he sometimes attempts to sneak more screen time. In my experience, he lacks the impulse control and self-constraint for a cellphone or smartwatch.Dr. Zishan Khan, a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, said that because preteens (children between ages 9 and 12) are in critical stages of emotional and cognitive development, devices can expose them to adult content, peer pressure, and social media dynamics they aren't ready for.Excessive screen time can impair their ability to focus. He added that it can also contribute to sleep disruption and interfere with their development of healthy coping strategies and positive social skills. Khan also said that preteen phone usage comes with other risks, such as cyberbullying and privacy and safety concerns."They may not fully understand the implications of oversharing on the internet, whether through text, photos, or geolocation features," he said. "It never ceases to amaze me how many times a very intelligent, well-meaning, and genuinely innocent child is coerced into doing things totally out of character, even being convinced to share inappropriate pictures.My preteen is more tech-savvy than I am. Even if we give him a phone with boundaries, it's possible he'd outsmart our restrictions.While we decided against it, we're keeping open communication about the issueMy husband and I took a few simple steps immediately following our son's request. We communicated with our son why we don't feel he's ready for a phone or smartwatch, including a conversation about his current behavior patterns.We told him that we don't know when he'll get a device, and we also assured him that when we do get him a phone or smartwatch, we'll need to enforce healthy boundaries and restrictions. In the meantime, we offered him a compromise. He can use our phones to text friends until the time comes to get him his own device. We also promised to schedule intentional time with friends outside school so he doesn't feel as left out.Although my preteen isn't happy with the decision, my husband and I strive for open, honest dialogue at home. I hope this will create bridges in our relationship instead of building walls because, like all well-meaning parents, we want to enter the teenage years with a strong relationship.

Democrats will hold some of North Carolinas highest offices, including the governorship, come January. But these incoming lawmakers will be less powerful than their predecessors, after the Republican-dominated legislature stripped away several of their duties this week.It isnt the first time Republicans in North Carolinas state legislature have shifted the balance of power away from Democrats and toward members of their own party. As a result, the North Carolina governorship is a weaker office than it is in many other states and Republicans will have a remarkable degree of influence over state politics, despite Democratic victories at the ballot box in November.North Carolina is a deeply polarized state, and was considered a battleground in the 2024 elections. Now, when Gov.-elect Josh Stein and other Democrats take office in 2025, the battle will be between them and a legislature still dominated by Republicans.What powers did the governor and other officials lose?The state legislature, known as the General Assembly, didnt just target Stein, although hes the most high-profile official that the new law applies to. The incoming lieutenant governor, attorney general, and superintendent of public instruction (who oversees the states public school system) all had authority stripped from them in the new legislation.There are two major changes to Steins authority. First, he loses the ability to make appointments to North Carolinas five-person elections board. Previously, the governor appointed two Republicans and two Democrats, and a fifth member who could belong to either political party. (Typically, the governor appointed a member of their own party for that final slot.) The State Board of Elections chooses four of the five members of each county board, with the governor appointing the fifth member again, usually a member of the governors party. Those powers will now be in the hands of the new state auditor, Republican Dave Boliek. It shifts from Democratic control to Republican control, because the auditor is now a Republican, and if they keep the same basic principle, hell appoint three Republicans and Democrats will appoint two, Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at North Carolinas Catawba College, told to Vox. Whether that will be significant in terms of what the election board does in the future, I think well just have to wait and see.Perhaps of greater significance, Stein will also have limits around who he can appoint to vacant state supreme court and Court of Appeals seats; now, rather than appointing any qualified person, the law states he must choose from a list recommended by the political party executive committee of the political party with which the vacating judge was affiliated when elected, preventing him from significantly changing the balance of power in those courts. The other significant change relates to incoming Attorney General Jeff Jackson. Under the new law, he will be required to defend the state legislatures bills when they are challenged at any level. Why did this happen?Current North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill, which also included some funds for disaster relief following Hurricane Helene, but Republicans have enough of a majority in both the states House and Senate to override gubernatorial vetos. Republicans, however, will narrowly lose their veto-proof supermajority in the House next year this bill represents the partys last chance to impose strict limits on the governorship and executive power. In many ways, North Carolina is a state primed for the sort of action the legislature took this week: The states executive branch has always been weak, Bitzer said.The General Assembly is the first among co-equal branches of government, Bitzer told Vox. And this is a long history, going back to colonial rule. So the executive branch is weak in general, and they serve at the discretionary authority of what the General Assembly assigns to them.This is not the first time the North Carolina General Assembly has weakened an incoming administrations power. Before Cooper started his first term in 2016, the General Assembly then also dominated by Republicans voted to curtail Coopers power over the state board of elections and have the state senate approve the governors Cabinet selections.They took [powers] from him in 2016, [and] they continued to take more powers throughout the rest of the cycle, Democratic North Carolina state Sen. Sydney Batch told Vox.What youve seen is an attrition of powers in every single elected office that has consistently gone Democratic.A similar dynamic played out in the 1970s, when Republican Jim Holzhauser was the governor and Democrats dominated the General Assembly. Republicans have taken similar action in other states as well: For example, Wisconsins Republican-dominated legislature also adopted measures to limit Democratic Gov. Tony Everss power before he took office in 2019.Whats nextIn the immediate term, there are likely to be challenges to the new law in court; however, if those challenges make their way up to the state supreme court, they will face a Republican-dominated bench. The new General Assembly will meet on January 29. The Senate will maintain a strong Republican majority, as will the House. Again, House Republicans are just one vote shy of a veto-proof supermajority with 71 seats; theyll need to appeal to at least some of the chambers 49 Democrats if they want to stymie Steins agenda. I think Stein and Jackson will certainly attempt to use their executive authority and any discretionary power that they feel they have to pursue their own goals, Bitzer said. But I think were in institutional battle lines between the legislature and the governor and other Democratic executive officers, and well just see how trench warfare plays itself out over the next four years.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

From the Desk of: Ed JayFrom the Desk Of: Anousheh Ansari