Beginning this month, California businesses will be required to have plans in place to prevent violence in the workplace.

Senate Bill 553, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, requires that employers develop plans to protect workplaces from foreseeable threats of violence, which can range from bullying and harassment to active shooter and hostage situations. Under the law, employers were to have these comprehensive plans in place by July 1.

Here’s what you should know about the new law:

Who pushed for the workplace violence prevention law, and why?

State Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), who wrote the legislation, said he began looking into regulating workplace violence after a major shooting in 2021 at a light-rail yard roiled his district. In the incident, an employee killed nine colleagues at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority before taking his own life.

Surveying the scene soon after the shooting, Cortese said he felt there could have been a clear plan for how workers might respond in such a situation. “It would have saved lives,” he said.

Cortese said the requirements outlined by the law took cues from a regulation the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health had been in the process of developing. Their safety standard, however, given their lengthy rule-making process and bureaucratic delays, probably would have taken several more years to get final approval.

More than half of such shootings in 2021 occurred in places of commerce, including grocery stores and manufacturing sites, according to the FBI.

SB 553 was backed by several unions, among them the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council. The union sought a law that would help address what it described as a rash of violent attacks at grocery stores and pharmacies, as workers were being pressured by their employers to crack down on shoplifting.

Grocery and other retail workers who interact with the public have long worried about violence in the workplace. Notably, they faced harassment and at times assault from customers who refused to comply with mask mandates in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast-food workers also have complained of violent and dangerous customers.

Did anyone oppose the legislation? If so, why?

Industry groups such as the National Retail Assn. had vehemently opposed SB 553, arguing the paperwork would be overly burdensome for businesses.

They also took issue with a provision the bill had in its early stages that prohibited businesses from requiring nonsecurity employees to confront shoplifters and active shooters. That language was later removed. Eventually, the trade groups dropped their opposition.

What exactly is required under the law?

Legal experts said many companies had already started loosely addressing workplace violence concerns as mass shootings and other violent incidents dominated headlines over the years. The law helps to clarify employers’ obligations in this arena, experts said.

The law defines four types of workplace violence employers should try to prevent: violent action by a third-party person with no real reason to be at the worksite — essentially, a stranger showing up and harming an employee; violence by parties that are entitled to be there, such as customers, clients, patients or other authorized visitors; violence committed against employees by another employee; and violence by a third party who has a romantic or other personal relationship with an employee.

Under the law, most California businesses with at least 10 employees are required to have a policy document identifying potential violence and plans to deal with it — either as a standalone document, or as part of an existing injury and illness prevention policy.

They must also make workers aware of the violence prevention plan through annual training, and maintain a log of incidents of violence over a minimum of five years.

What else should I know about the law?

The law makes it easier for employees — or the unions that represent them — to get temporary restraining orders if they are threatened by a coworker or someone else in the workplace.

“That’s a big thing — most employees don’t get to choose who they work with or what happens at work,” said Ian A. Wright, a labor and employment attorney at Alston & Bird. “It gives employees an additional form of protection that they can go and seek themselves.”

Noncompliance could be met with civil penalties, and businesses that haven’t yet implemented the law are already several days past the deadline.

“My advice would be to get it done as soon as possible,” Wright said.

Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spent an unexpected Fourth of July aboard the International Space Station — but it was hardly a patriotic display of engineering prowess.

The two NASA astronauts docked with the orbiting lab June 6 for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission, but their return home may be delayed for months in what has become a star-crossed test flight for Boeing’s new Starliner capsule.

Not only was the launch of the spacecraft with astronauts aboard for the first time repeatedly delayed due to multiple problems, but NASA and Boeing are taking a cautious approach in returning the pair to earth largely due to five thrusters that malfunctioned during docking.

Four of the tiny engines that direct the craft in space are now working properly, but engineers don’t have a clear understanding of what caused the shutdown, so they have decided to conduct ground tests at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, NASA officials said. The tests will put a Starliner thruster through its paces in a replicated space environment.

The delay also will allow engineers to further study a helium leak in the capsule’s propulsion system that was first detected prior to launch and worsened as Starliner made its way up to the space station roughly 250 miles above earth. The gas is used to pressurize the Starliner’s propulsion system.

However, both the company and space agency stressed at a press conference earlier this week that the astronauts are not stranded in space and, if need be, they could board Starliner and return to Earth immediately if there is an emergency aboard the space station.

“We’re not stuck on ISS. The crew is not in any danger, and there’s no increased risk when we decide to bring Suni and Butch back to Earth,” said Mark Nappi, manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program.

Ken Bowersox, an associate administrator at NASA, said the delay will allow for the collection of more data and that there is no hurry to bring the astronauts back. “We have the luxury of time,” he said.

Before launch, NASA had said the batteries aboard Starliner were rated for 45 days but during the press conference they indicated they were performing well and would be rated to last another 45 days. On regular missions to service the station, Starliner would stay docked for six months.

NASA and Boeing also will not have a chance to examine the thrusters or investigate the helium leak when Starliner returns since the propulsion system is jettisoned before the return to earth.

Nevertheless, the desire to conduct ground tests expected to take weeks has highlighted yet again how far Arlington, Va.-based Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, has fallen behind Elon Musk’s Hawthorne upstart SpaceX — at least in the program to service the space station.

Both companies were given multibillion-dollar contracts in 2014 to develop their crafts, and since 2020 Elon Musk’s Hawthorne company has ferried more than half a dozen crews aboard its Crew Dragon capsule to the station — while Boeing has managed only two remote flights, including a first that failed to reach orbit and a second in May 2022 that docked with the orbiting lab.

The current mission with astronauts aboard was scheduled to launch last year but was delayed due to the need to replace flammable tape used extensively in Starliner and a second issue with the parachute system that will slow its descent for a ground landing in the Southwest.

Then, this year’s May 6 launch date was repeatedly delayed, at first due to a malfunctioning valve on the Atlas V rocket that launches Starliner into space. The workhorse rocket is manufactured by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Additional launch dates were missed due to the helium leak, believed caused by a single defective seal, so software fixes were developed to work around it — but then additional leaks developed after the launch. However, NASA and Boeing officials says the craft has 10 times more helium than it needs to return to earth.

Boeing has reportedly had to absorb $1.5 billion in Starliner cost overruns, even as it continues to deal with the fallout from the two crashes of its 737 Max 8 jets in 2018 and 2019.

The company is weighing whether to plead guilty to a charge of fraud over allegations it misled regulators who approved the new, larger version of the 737, including how much flight training pilots would need, according to the Associated Press.

Boeing also announced plans this week to acquire Spirit AeroSystems, a key supplier it had spun off in 2005 as it moved to outsource more work on its commercial jets. Spirit supplied the fuselage of the Alaska Airline Max 9 that experienced a panel blowout Jan. 5 on its way to Ontario International Airport in San Bernardino County. Boeing’s chief executive called the acquisition “in the best interest of the flying public.”

Meanwhile, SpaceX last month was awarded a NASA contract worth as much as $843 million to build a spacecraft to guide the International Space Station out of orbit so it can burn up in the atmosphere when it is retired in 2030.

Bloomberg reported last month that the privately held company is now valued at a record $210 billion following a company tender offer to insiders that priced shares at $112.

Should Starliner get certified, the dismantling of the space station would leave the spacecraft with only a handful of scheduled service flights, prompting speculation that Boeing may end the program.

However, the company says it has plans for Starliner to service the Orbital Reef orbiting station in development by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company.

I had just started my master’s degree in artificial intelligence when a classmate asked if I’d heard of Amazon, a new online bookstore where you could order basically any book in the world and have it shipped to your front door. Feeling all the excitement of a middle school book fair flooding back, I entered the world of Amazon.com and ordered a beautiful book. It felt revolutionary and futuristic but still cozy and personal. At the end of that year, 1995, Amazon sent loyal customers, including me, a free coffee mug for the holidays.

It would have been hard to imagine then that the small business famously run out of Jeff Bezos’ Bellevue, Wash., garage would be celebrating its 30th anniversary and a mind-bending $1.97 trillion net worth today. I continue to use Amazon to order gadgets and basic necessities, watch movies and shows and read books on a Kindle. I do all of this even though I know the once-beloved bookseller has become a data-hungry behemoth that is laying waste to personal privacy.

Today, Amazon sells basically everything and knows basically everything, from our favorite toilet paper to our kids’ questions for Alexa to what’s going on in our neighborhoods — and has let police in on that, too! Amazon knows where we live, what our voices sound like, who our contacts are, how our credit histories are, at what temperature we like to keep our homes and even whether we have allergies or other health issues.

Based on this information, the company infers a whole profile: It potentially knows whether we’re gay or straight, married or divorced, Republican or Democratic, sexually active or not, religious or secular. It knows how educated we are and how much money we make. And it uses this data to sell to us better.

As a privacy researcher, I advocate for strong consumer privacy protections. After spending the better part of a decade going through privacy policies with a fine-tooth comb, I can safely say that Amazon has been worse for privacy than nearly any other company. It’s not just that Amazon has awful privacy policies; it’s also that, along with Facebook and Google, it co-authored our terrible targeted-ad economy, built on siphoning as much data as possible from users so that anyone with access to it can manipulate you into buying more stuff.

Considering the importance of freedom to America’s origin story, it’s ironic that the country is so beholden to a company that has manipulation of our free will down to a science.

“Did you just buy these Italian coffee beans?” Amazon asks us. “Here’s what you should buy next.”

Privacy and free will are inextricably intertwined: Both rest on being left to decide who we are, what we want and when we want it without anyone watching or interfering. Privacy is good for our mental health and good for society. Neither corporations nor governments — which have a way of acquiring the data the companies collect — should have access to unlimited knowledge about who we are and what we do all the time.

Amazon has played a pivotal role in making that possible. Its war on privacy took a particularly dystopian turn recently in Britain, where some train stations were using an Amazon artificial intelligence system called Rekognition to scan passengers’ faces and determine their age, gender and emotional state, whether happy, sad or angry; identify supposedly antisocial behavior such as running, shouting, skateboarding and smoking; and guess if they were suicidal. It’s like Orwell’s thought police came to life, but instead of Big Brother, it’s Big Bezos.

The worst part is that we just went right along with this intrusion in exchange for cheap stuff and free two-day shipping.

Unfortunately, Amazon has become almost a basic necessity. But we can take steps to rein in its worst consequences.

Consumers shouldn’t bear the burden of making Amazon better; policymakers and regulators should. A good place for them to start is with the American Privacy Rights Act, legislation currently before Congress. It isn’t perfect, but it would at least address our glaring lack of a federal privacy law. State privacy laws form a patchwork that varies widely in how well it protects consumers.

We need to start thinking of data privacy as a human right. The idea that companies have a right to all the data they can collect on and infer about us is absolutely bonkers. Thirty years ago, no one would have agreed with it.

This isn’t how the world should work, and it’s particularly terrifying that this is where we are as we enter the age of artificial intelligence. Generative AI programs, like the chatbots we hear about constantly, are designed to root out as much personal information as they can, supposedly to make them more effective. And Amazon is upgrading its Alexa assistant to incorporate generative AI technology.

Nothing I can impulse-buy on Amazon will help me feel better about a future with no privacy, mass surveillance and pervasive monitoring of our feelings and tendencies. What started as a beautiful book and a free mug has yielded a world where everything I buy, everywhere I go and, perhaps in the not-so-distant future, every emotion I feel can be tracked and turned into inferences to sell me more stuff or push dangerous ideologies or advance any other purpose that corporations or governments deem useful. If it sounds dystopian, that’s because it is.

Jen Caltrider is the director of Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project.