SmallSat Alliance hires Microsoft’s Angel Smith as executive director, succeeding Steve Nixon, co-founder who remains as strategic adviser ... Digital services firm Orion Innovation appoints Cyrus Lam, ex-CDI, as CFO ... Data recovery company Clumio adds Jillian Souza, ex-BigPanda, as chief people officer and Carol Hague, previously Salesloft, as vice president-marketing ... Family Entertainment Television appoints Christine Carbia, ex-E.W. Scripps, as vice president-national sales ... Technology distribution company Graybar promotes Jason Casey to vice president-distribution operations ... Brillio names Melissa Bethell, previously Bain Capital, to board ... Technology platform company Lightwave Logic appoints consultant Yves LeMaitre, ex-Luna Innovations, to board, effective Aug. 1.

Multiple states are examining ways of directing their public schools to limit students' mobile phone use. Verjeana McCotter-Jacobs, executive director-National School Boards Association (NSBA), told us the growing momentum behind cellphone limits means more and more states will be called upon to address it.

The global outage of Microsoft systems caused by a software update from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike grounded airplanes globally and affected some broadcasters and 911 systems but spared others, reports from multiple companies and state agencies said.

Stop Project 2025 Task Force founder Rep. Jared Huffman of California and 15 additional House Democrats asked FCC Inspector General Fara Damelin and other federal watchdogs Wednesday to investigate “potential ethics violations” by Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr related to his writing the telecom chapter of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto. Carr, seen as the front-runner to lead the FCC if former President Donald Trump wins a second term (see 2407120002), urged in the Project 2025 chapter to roll back Communications Decency Act Section 230 protections for tech companies, deregulate broadband infrastructure and restrict Chinese companies. Trump has disavowed Project 2025 and its proposals.

It seems likely FCC commissioners will approve 3-2 a draft order and Further NPRM allowing schools and libraries to use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. FCC Republicans are expected to issue dissents. Some advocates hope the item will be tweaked to address fixed wireless access and partnerships with nontraditional providers (see 2406270068). Commissioners will vote at their open meeting Thursday.

The FCC Precision Agriculture Task Force will meet in person Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. at FCC headquarters, a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register said (see 2401310010). Attendees will hear updates from working group leadership and discuss the task force's executive summary for its report to the FCC about facilitating broadband deployment on agricultural land.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A California rulemaking on modernizing carrier of last resort rules could inspire similar proceedings elsewhere, state and industry officials signaled at the NARUC conference Monday. The California Public Utilities Commission last month opened a rulemaking that took a fresh look at COLR rules after rejecting regulatory relief for AT&T (see 2406200065).

Jehmal Hudson, chairman-Virginia State Corporation Commission, named to NARUC executive committee, replacing Kent Chandler ... Cybersecurity company Forcepoint promotes Ryan Windham to CEO, succeeding Manny Rivelo, retiring ... Streaming service Zone·tv’s founder and chief product and technology officer Doug Edwards takes additional role as president, replacing Jeff Weber ... Cybersecurity company TXOne Networks appoints Stephen Driggers, ex-Nozomi Networks, chief revenue officer ... Cybersecurity company Tufin adds Jeff Taylor, ex-Pegasystems, as COO and Christian Na, ex-Emburse, as general counsel ... Louise Pentland, ex-Disney, joins Roku as senior vice president-general counsel, succeeding Stephen Kay, retiring ... Skylo names Paul Hanton, ex-Google, as vice president-carrier partnerships; Pete Saladino, ex-Samsung, as global head-marketing; and Vijay Krishnan, ex-Intel, as vice president-strategic partnerships.

California will spend about $88.5 million on last-mile broadband projects using federal funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, the California Public Utilities Commission decided at a Thursday meeting. Commissioners voted 5-0 for resolution T-17826 to spend $44.1 million on unserved areas in Imperial, Lassen and Plumas counties. They also voted unanimously for resolution T-17829 to spend $44.4 million on unserved areas in Alameda, San Francisco and Sierra counties, including an Oakland project that especially received support from local officials and community groups in comments during the meeting. Awardees included Golden State Connect Authority and Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications and the cities of Oakland, Fremont and San Francisco. The CPUC proposed the resolutions last month (see 2406070073). "These projects are a shining example of our state's broadband-for-all values and objectives," CPUC President Alice Reynolds at the livestreamed meeting said. She praised the approved projects for exceeding the program's 100 Mbps symmetrical requirements and for focusing on connecting low-income and disadvantaged communities. A top state legislator recently criticized the CPUC for not rolling out last-mile grants faster (see 2406050065). Thursday’s resolutions awarding federal funding account support are the CPUC's first since the agency received 484 applications requesting $4.6 billion from the $2 billion program in January, Executive Director Rachel Peterson said. The commission plans a vote at its Aug. 1 meeting on another resolution that would include $95 million in proposed grants (see 2407010037). Before the meeting, the commission delayed until Aug. 1 voting on a proposed decision related to ratemaking for small local exchange carriers (see 2406070027).

The 2024 Paris Olympics will see the largest number of cyber threats, including “the most complex threat landscape, the largest ecosystem of threat actors, and the highest degree of ease for threat actors to execute attacks,” IDC said in a report Thursday. Accordingly, revenue from cybersecurity services in France will grow $94 million in 2024 as a result of the Games, which start July 26, IDC estimates. “Paris 2024 will be the most connected Games ever, including but not limited to back-of-house systems, financial systems, critical national infrastructure, city infrastructure, sport technology, broadcast technology, and merchandising and ticketing,” IDC said: While the risk is highest for venues and other assets used in the Games, “it permeates outward and seemingly unrelated assets can come under attack, including critical national infrastructure and many French businesses.”