TECH GIANTS BACK WHITE HOUSE TECH INITIATIVE: The Trump administration announced Tuesday in Detroit that Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other companies are committing more than $300 million toward computer science education programs over the next five years.

First daughter Ivanka Trump attended an event in the city championing technical training for high skilled jobs in computer science and engineering.

"Computer science and coding are priorities for the administration as we think about pathways to jobs and alignment of education to in demand jobs in the modern economy," Trump said.

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Officials from Lockheed Martin, Quicken Loans and the Internet Association, a trade group representing major tech firms, which coordinated the $300 million donations, attended.

The funding is part of the White House's new initiative to boost so-called STEM -- science, technology, engineering and math -- and computer science education in grades K-12, which the administration unveiled on Monday.

The initiative will combine the $300 million from the private sector with at least another $200 million from the Department of Education. The money will be spent on computer science curriculums around the country starting in the 2018 fiscal year.

Most high schools in the U.S. currently offer no computer science education, something the White House's program hopes to change.

Tech companies are pledging a lion's share of the money.

Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce each committed $50 million. Accenture, General Motors and Pluralsight will each give $10 million. Lockheed Martin committed another $25 million. Three million dollars will be contributed by foundations and private individuals, who were not named by the Internet Association, who along with Intuit are "providing a significant contribution."

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TWITTER ON TRUMP'S NORTH KOREA TWEET: Twitter on Monday explained why it will not delete President Trump's tweet threatening North Korea, saying it did not violate the company's rules because of its "newsworthiness."

"We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules," Twitter's Policy account said in a six-part Twitter thread.

Twitter said "newsworthiness" is part of the criteria it takes into account when judging whether to keep a tweet or not, saying that keeping the public informed is an integral role that the platform serves to fulfill.

Read more here.

TWITTER EXPERIMENTS WITH DOUBLING CHARACTER LIMIT: Twitter is experimenting with doubling the number of characters users can include in a single tweet, the company announced on Tuesday.

Some users will be able to write messages with 280 characters, double the normal 140-character limit, as the social media site considers whether to launch the feature more widely.

"This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence!" Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote in a single tweet -- something that would have been impossible before the limit was doubled to 280.

EQUIFAX CEO RETIRES: The chief executive officer of Equifax retired from the company after a data breach affecting approximately 143 million people was reported earlier this month.

Equifax's board announced Richard Smith's retirement, which is effective Tuesday, in a statement that also appointed an interim CEO.

"The Board of Directors appointed current board member, Mark Feidler, to serve as Non-Executive Chairman. Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr., who most recently served as President, Asia Pacific, and is a seven-year veteran of the company, has been appointed as interim Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Smith," the statement said.

Smith will forgo any benefits or bonuses owed to him by the company until after the board of directors completes its review of the massive data breach.

He will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on October 3.

Read more here.

FCC SAYS WIRELESS MARKET IS COMPETITIVE: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a report on Tuesday that says there is effective competition in the mobile wireless industry, even as the number of major service providers is expected to drop from four to three.

The report says that the high concentration in the market has not impeded effective competition, pointing to increased investments, lowered prices and new offerings for consumers from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

The four companies account for 98.4 percent of the mobile wireless market, according to the analysis.

But the report comes amid talk that Sprint and T-Mobile are preparing to announce a merger in the coming weeks. A combined T-Mobile and Sprint would comprise 28.8 percent of the market.

During an agency hearing on Tuesday, Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said "most reasonable people see a fiercely competitive marketplace."

He noted that the major carriers have all introduced unlimited data plans in the past year.

The FCC voted 3-2 along party lines to approve the findings. Democrats accused the GOP majority of narrowing the scope of the annual analysis to conclude conclusion the market has effective competition.

Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the agency should not try to rush such a market analysis amid rumors of a Sprint and T-Mobile deal, which the FCC will likely have to approve.

"While the Commission should not prejudge what is not yet before us, I think this agency sticks its collective head in the sand by issuing this report and implying move along, there is nothing to see here," Rosenworcel said.

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SEC STILL DETERMINING EXTENT OF DATA BREACH: The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday said it would take "substantial" time to determine the full scope a 2016 cybersecurity breach that may have allowed hackers to profit from insider information.

Jay Clayton testified to the Senate Banking Committee one week after revealing that hackers had breached the SEC's EDGAR corporate filing system, a key hub for financial information. The intruders accessed information from corporate disclosures that are not public.

Several Democrats focused on why it took more than a year for the SEC to realize and reveal it had been hacked, despite the potential consequences.

"We understand the breach happened under your predecessor, but the disclosure -- or lack thereof -- is all yours," Sen. Sherrod Brown Sherrod Campbell BrownBipartisan praise pours in after Ginsburg's death Emboldened Democrats haggle over 2021 agenda Hillicon Valley: Russia 'amplifying' concerns around mail-in voting to undermine election | Facebook and Twitter take steps to limit Trump remarks on voting | Facebook to block political ads ahead of election MORE (Ohio), the committee's ranking Democrat, said to Clayton regarding the SEC breach.

"How can you expect companies to do the right thing when your agency is not?"

Clayton, who was confirmed as SEC chairman in May, said he acted as quickly as he could to disclose the breach and bolster the agency's cyber defenses.

Hackers allegedly infiltrated the EDGAR system through a flaw in the SEC's custom software sometime in 2016, Clayton said.

EDGAR is the electronic filling system through which publicly traded companies make public and private disclosures about their financial affairs. Companies and investors send scores of forms through the system on securities sales, initial public offerings, corporate financial information and structural plans.

Sylvan Lane has more here.

UBER SHAREHOLDER SUES COMPANY: An Uber shareholder is suing the ride-sharing startup for alleged "illicit business tactics," putting the embattled company in yet another legal dispute.

Irving Firemen's Relief & Retirement Fund in Texas, which owns a small amount of Uber equity, alleges that Uber and its ousted CEO Travis Kalanick knowingly deceived investors while raising money.

The court filing, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is aimed at starting a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Uber's investors. The Texas fund invested roughly $2 million in Uber via a Morgan Stanley fund.

Read more here.

RUSSIA THREATENS TO BAN FACEBOOK: Russia is threatening to block Facebook unless the company complies with the country's data storage laws, according to reports Tuesday.

A law requires data on the country's citizens be stored on Russian servers.

"The law is mandatory for everyone, and therefore there is no doubt -- in any case, we will either achieve the law to be implemented, or the company will stop working in Russia, as, unfortunately, happened with LinkedIn," said Alexander Zharov, the head of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technology, and Mass Communications, known in Russia as Roskomnadzor.

Read more here.

GOOGLE TO SPLIT ONLINE SHOPPING SERVICE INTO NEW UNIT: Google will create a separate unit for its comparison shopping tool to satisfy European Union regulators who hit the tech giant with a $2.8 billion antitrust fine this summer, Bloomberg reports.

According to the report, the comparison shopping service will still be a part of Google but will be housed in a new department apart from the company's internet search business. The unit will be required to bid against rival services for top spots in Google's search results.

Google's comparison shopping service will be run separately and the company won't be allowed to subsidize its bids for search result placement.

The EU fined Google in June for favoring its own comparison shopping service in search algorithms. Authorities gave the company a Sept. 28 deadline to change their practices to give competitors a level playing field.

Read more here.

ON TAP:

Public Knowledge will host a net neutrality day of advocacy at 8 a.m.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

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The Hill: DHS planning to collect social media info on all immigrants

The Hill: Stock trading apps rife with security problems, says new research

The Hill: Tillerson's No. 2 faces questions over State cyber closure

The Ringer: Can tech startups do journalism?

Wired: Facebook can absolutely control its algorithm