However, Trump seems to think that longtime TikTok partner Oracle taking a bigger stake while handling Americans’ user data at its facilities in Texas will be enough to prevent remaining China-based owners—which will maintain less than a 20 percent stake—from allegedly spying, launching disinformation campaigns, or spreading other kinds of propaganda. China previously was resistant to a forced sale of TikTok, FT reported, even going so far as to place export controls on algorithms to keep the most lucrative part of TikTok in the country. And “it remains unclear to what extent TikTok’s Chinese parent would retain control of the…

Earlier this month, Ars spoke with the Consumer Technology Association’s vice president of international trade, Ed Brzytwa, to check in and see how tech firms have navigated Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff regimes so far. Brzytwa has led CTA’s research helping tech firms prepare for Trump’s trade war, but during our talk, he confirmed that “the reality has been a lot more difficult and far worse, because of not just the height of the tariffs, but the variability, the tariffs on, tariffs off.” Our discussion with Ed Brzytwa. Click here for transcript. Currently, every tech company is in a “slightly different…

A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit where music publishers sued the Internet Archive over the Great 78 Project, an effort to preserve early music recordings that only exist on brittle shellac records. No details of the settlement have so far been released, but a court filing on Monday confirmed that the Internet Archive and UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and other record labels “have settled this matter.” More details may come in the next 45 days, when parties must submit filings to officially dismiss the lawsuit, but it’s unlikely the settlement amount will be publicly disclosed.…

Leading Internet companies and publishers—including Reddit, Yahoo, Quora, Medium, The Daily Beast, Fastly, and more—think there may finally be a solution to end AI crawlers hammering websites to scrape content without permission or compensation. Announced Wednesday morning, the “Really Simple Licensing” (RSL) standard evolves robots.txt instructions by adding an automated licensing layer that’s designed to block bots that don’t fairly compensate creators for content. Free for any publisher to use starting today, the RSL standard is an open, decentralized protocol that makes clear to AI crawlers and agents the terms for licensing, usage, and compensation of any content used to…

Some Republicans are still angry over the deplatforming of Trump by tech executives once known for their progressive politics. They had been joined by a “vocal and growing group of conservatives who are fundamentally suspicious of the benefits of technological innovation,” Thierer said. With MAGA skeptics on one side and Big Tech allies of the president on the other, a “battle for the soul of the conservative movement” is under way. Popular resentment is now a threat to Trump’s Republican Party, warn some of its biggest supporters—especially if AI begins displacing jobs as many of its exponents suggest. “You can…

Microsoft has avoided an EU fine after the US tech group offered concessions on how it packages together its Teams and Office products, ending a long-running antitrust investigation by the bloc’s regulators. The probe, which began after a 2020 complaint from Slack, now part of Salesforce, accused Microsoft of abusing its market dominance by tying its video conferencing tool to its widely used suite of productivity applications. Since the initial complaint, Microsoft has unbundled Teams from Office 365 in the EU, but critics said the changes were too narrow. In May, the $3.7 trillion software giant promised concessions, such as…

Hale, a 38-year-old with prior felony convictions for armed robbery, risked a potential sentence of 15 years for these crimes, but he reduced his sentence to a maximum of five years through his plea deal. At the time, the DOJ credited him for taking “responsibility,” arguing that he deserved a maximum reduction partly because the total “infringement amount” was likely no more than $40,000, not the “tens of millions” the DOJ claimed in today’s release. Ultimately, Hale pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement, while agreeing to pay restitution (the exact amount is not clarified in the release) and return “approximately…

The bill also drew opposition from the Real Estate Technology & Transformation Center (RETTC). The group’s sponsors include real estate companies and Internet providers AT&T, Comcast, and Cox. Another notable sponsor of RETTC is RealPage, which has faced claims from the US government and state attorneys general that its software distorts competition in rental housing by helping landlords collectively set prices. “AB 1414 introduces an opt-out requirement that would fundamentally undermine the economics of bulk billing,” the RETTC said. “By fragmenting service, it could destabilize networks and reduce the benefits residents and operators rely on today.” The group claimed the…

Failure to complete the revision process would leave the EPA vulnerable to claims that it’s relying on an incomplete draft report for its scientific justifications. So, while the DOE’s tactics may protect some of its internal documents, it may ultimately cause larger problems for the Trump administration’s agenda. Attacking the academies Earlier this year, we were critical of the US’s National Academies of Science for seemingly refusing to respond to the Trump administration’s attacks on science. That reticence appeared to end in August with the release of the DOE climate report and the announcement that the EPA was using that…

“Spotify honors our users’ privacy rights, including the right of portability,” Spotify’s spokesperson said. “All of our users can receive a copy of their personal data to use as they see fit. That said, UnwrappedData.org is in violation of our Developer Terms which prohibit the collection, aggregation, and sale of Spotify user data to third parties.” But while Spotify suggests it has already taken steps to stop Unwrapped, the Unwrapped team told Ars that it never received any communication from Spotify. It plans to defend users’ right to “access, control, and benefit from their own data,” its statement said, while…

In the one-pager, Cruz noted that “most US rules and regulations do not squarely apply to emerging technologies like AI.” So “rather than force AI developers to design inferior products just to comply with outdated Federal rules, our regulations should become more flexible,” Cruz argued. Therrier noted that once regulations are passed, they’re rarely updated and backed Cruz’s logic that AI firms may need support to override old rules that could restrict AI innovation. Consider the “many new applications in healthcare, transportation, and financial services,” Therrier said, which “could offer the public important new life-enriching service” unless “archaic rules” are…

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has a simple request for the Trump administration: Don’t take our broadband money away. Trump’s Commerce Department rewrote the rules of the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program, forcing states to change how they spend money earmarked for expanding broadband access. The overhaul led states to reduce spending on fiber networks and increase spending on satellite—although not to the extent sought by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is demanding more money for his Starlink network. Since states are spending less on deployment, and the program still has the $42 billion allocated by…

Instead of providing notice to customers and obtaining or verifying customer consent itself, Verizon “largely delegated those functions via contract,” the court said. This system and its shortcomings were revealed in 2018 when “the New York Times published an article reporting security breaches involving Verizon’s (and other major carriers’) location-based services program,” the court said. Securus Technologies, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, “was misusing the program to enable law enforcement officers to access location data without customers’ knowledge or consent, so long as the officers uploaded a warrant or some other legal authorization,” the ruling said. A…

At a hearing Monday, US District Judge William Alsup blasted a proposed $1.5 billion settlement over Anthropic’s rampant piracy of books to train AI. The proposed settlement comes in a case where Anthropic could have owed more than $1 trillion in damages after Alsup certified a class that included up to 7 million claimants whose works were illegally downloaded by the AI company. Instead, critics fear Anthropic will get off cheaply, striking a deal with authors suing that covers less than 500,000 works and paying a small fraction of its total valuation (currently $183 billion) to get away with the…

“For almost a decade, the Defendant led the scheme to systematically coerce and defraud women into engaging in filmed sexual activity for profit,” the sentencing recommendation said. “A sentence of 260 months is warranted, given the longevity of the scheme, the amount of profit, and the extent of the damage to the victims.” Pratt’s plea agreement limited his rights to appeal the sentencing, but said he “may appeal a custodial sentence above 260 months.” The 27-year (324-month) sentence exceeds that. While the government agreed to recommend no more than 260 months, the plea agreement said the government “may support on…

1935 Supreme Court is key precedent The key precedent in the case is Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 ruling in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that the president can only remove FTC commissioners for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. Trump’s termination notices to Slaughter and Bedoya said they were being fired simply because their presence on the commission “is inconsistent with my Administration’s priorities.” The Trump administration argues that Humphrey’s Executor shouldn’t apply to the current version of the FTC because it exercises significant executive power. But the appeals court, in a 2–1 ruling,…

SpaceX’s complaints to the Federal Communications Commission have helped the satellite company land a $17 billion deal to buy spectrum licenses from EchoStar. The deal consists of up to $8.5 billion in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, EchoStar said. SpaceX also agreed to pay $2 billion worth of interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027. After SpaceX alleged that EchoStar subsidiary Dish Network “barely uses” its spectrum and urged the FCC to make the spectrum available to other carriers, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced an investigation into EchoStar and threatened to revoke its spectrum licenses.…

Midjourney could slow down the cycle and “minimize” these allegedly infringing outputs, if it cannot automatically block them all, WB suggested. But instead, “Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement,” WB alleged. Fearing a supposed scheme to replace WB in the market by stealing its best-known characters, WB accused Midjourney of willfully allowing WB characters to be generated in order to “generate more money for Midjourney” to potentially compete in streaming markets. Midjourney will remove protections “on a…

Authors revealed today that Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion and destroy all copies of the books the AI company pirated to train its artificial intelligence models. In a press release provided to Ars, the authors confirmed that the settlement is “believed to be the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of US copyright litigation.” Covering 500,000 works that Anthropic pirated for AI training, if a court approves the settlement, each author will receive $3,000 per work that Anthropic stole. “Depending on the number of claims submitted, the final figure per work could be higher,” the press release noted.…

The Federal Communications Commission’s Republican chairman is eliminating regulations at breakneck speed by using a process that cuts dozens of rules at a time while giving the public only 10 or 20 days to review each proposal and submit objections. Chairman Brendan Carr started his “Delete, Delete, Delete” rule-cutting initiative in March and later announced he’d be using the Direct Final Rule (DFR) mechanism to eliminate regulations without a full public-comment period. Direct Final Rule is just one of several mechanisms the FCC is using in the Delete, Delete, Delete initiative. But despite the seeming obscurity of regulations deleted under…

Burroughs’ footnote said that district courts try to follow Supreme Court rulings, but “the Supreme Court’s recent emergency docket rulings regarding grant terminations have not been models of clarity, and have left many issues unresolved.” “This Court understands, of course, that the Supreme Court, like the district courts, is trying to resolve these issues quickly, often on an emergency basis, and that the issues are complex and evolving,” Burroughs wrote. “Given this, however, the Court respectfully submits that it is unhelpful and unnecessary to criticize district courts for ‘defy[ing]’ the Supreme Court when they are working to find the right…

A Democrat who was fired from the Federal Trade Commission by President Trump was reinstated to her position yesterday in an appeals court ruling. Trump’s firing of Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter violated Supreme Court precedent, said yesterday’s ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A District Court judge ruled the same way in July, but Slaughter couldn’t get back to work because of an administrative stay that delayed the lower-court ruling from taking effect. The administrative stay was dissolved in yesterday’s appeals court ruling, in which a three-judge panel also ruled 2–1 to deny…

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is teaming up with Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to block funding for Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolchildren. Cruz convinced the Senate to kill the FCC’s hotspot program in May. While Cruz’s proposal didn’t make it through the House of Representatives, Carr is now taking action to stop the program’s implementation. “Today, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr asked his commission colleagues to vote on two items that would reverse the agency’s unlawful, Biden-era decisions to expand COVID spending programs,” Carr’s announcement said. “Those FCC decisions spent scarce taxpayer dollars on funding unsupervised screen time for kids without…

And perhaps the biggest confounding factor for businesses attempting to align supply chain choices with predictable tariff costs is looming chip tariffs. Trump has suggested those could come in August, but nearing the end of the month, there’s still no clarity there. As tech firms brace for chip tariffs, Brzytwa will share CTA’s forecast based on a survey of industry experts, revealing the unique sourcing challenges chip tariffs will likely pose. It’s a particular pain point that Trump seems likely to impose taxes not just on imports of semiconductors but of any downstream product that includes a chip. Because different…

Rule-cutting and mergers on cable agenda As the NCTA’s new head, Gardner will be representing the interests of Comcast, Charter, and other cable companies. He can be expected to continue the group’s long-term fight against government regulations applied to cable TV and broadband providers. He won’t have much trouble convincing the current FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, who has embarked on a project to “delete” as many telecom regulations as possible. The NCTA’s announcement said that during Gardner’s time in Congress, he “held committee assignments in both chambers that oversaw technology and telecommunications policy.” NCTA Board Chair Mark Greatrex, who is…

Fresh off his thorough victory over CBS News, President Trump is taking aim at ABC and NBC. “Why is it that ABC and NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the World, aren’t paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last night. “They should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!! Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be…

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Since 2022, Republican lawmakers in Congress and state attorneys general have sent letters to major banks, pension funds, asset managers, accounting firms, companies, nonprofits, and business alliances, putting them on notice for potential antitrust violations and seeking information as part of the Republican pushback against “environmental, social and governance” efforts such as corporate climate commitments. “This caused a lot of turmoil and stress obviously across the whole ecosystem,” said Denise Hearn, a senior fellow…

And perhaps the biggest confounding factor for businesses attempting to align supply chain choices with predictable tariff costs is looming chip tariffs. Trump has suggested those could come in August, but nearing the end of the month, there’s still no clarity there. As tech firms brace for chip tariffs, Brzytwa will share CTA’s forecast based on a survey of industry experts, revealing the unique sourcing challenges chip tariffs will likely pose. It’s a particular pain point that Trump seems likely to impose taxes not just on imports of semiconductors but of any downstream product that includes a chip. Because different…

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused Google of using “partisan” spam filtering in Gmail that sends Republican fundraising emails to the spam folder while delivering Democratic emails to inboxes. Ferguson sent a letter yesterday to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, accusing the company of “potential FTC Act violations related to partisan administration of Gmail.” Ferguson’s letter revives longstanding Republican complaints that were previously rejected by a federal judge and the Federal Election Commission. “My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail’s spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block…

The FCC’s threat drew widespread backlash from across the political spectrum. The conservative Free State Foundation told the FCC that the move would create “regulatory uncertainty” for carriers, while consumer advocacy groups warned it would harm competition and wireless users. The AT&T/EchoStar deal was “inevitable in light of Chairman Carr’s determination that immediate intensity of spectrum use should trump concerns about competition and consumer welfare,” Harold Feld, senior VP of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, told Ars. “We can only hope that the FCC will take steps to facilitate competition in other ways, such as adopting mandatory roaming requirements and…

During those chats, “ChatGPT mentioned suicide 1,275 times—six times more often than Adam himself,” the lawsuit noted. Ultimately, OpenAI’s system flagged “377 messages for self-harm content, with 181 scoring over 50 percent confidence and 23 over 90 percent confidence.” Over time, these flags became more frequent, the lawsuit noted, jumping from two to three “flagged messages per week in December 2024 to over 20 messages per week by April 2025.” And “beyond text analysis, OpenAI’s image recognition processed visual evidence of Adam’s crisis.” Some images were flagged as “consistent with attempted strangulation” or “fresh self-harm wounds,” but the system scored…

However, the US can vote “as it wishes,” Intel reported, and experts suggested to Reuters that regulations may be needed to “limit government opportunities for abuses such as insider trading.” That could reassure investors somewhat, Rich Weiss, a senior vice president and chief investment officer of multi-asset strategies for American Century Investments, told Reuters. Without such laws, Weiss noted that “in an unchecked scenario of government direct investing, trading in those companies could be much riskier for investors.” It also seems possible that the US could influence Intel’s decisions without the government explicitly taking voting control, experts suggested. “Several investors…

We contacted the FCC and will update this article if it provides a response. The plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction said the FCC, led by Chairman Brendan Carr, “acted favorably on several Starlink initiatives” while Musk and DOGE exerted influence within the agency. That includes “open[ing] an investigation against SpaceX competitor EchoStar,” which holds licenses for spectrum that SpaceX wants, and “approv[ing] a waiver for SpaceX to provide satellite service directly from orbit to smartphones, over the objection of cell network providers who say this move will worsen mobile network service for many.” The motion said: The Plaintiffs seek…

“Commissioner [Frank] Bisignano and the Social Security Administration take all whistleblower complaints seriously,” the agency said. “SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information. The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the Internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team. We are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data.” The Government Accountability Project letter quoted a July 15 email…

Authors are celebrating a “historic” settlement expected to be reached soon in a class-action lawsuit over Anthropic’s AI training data. On Tuesday, US District Judge William Alsup confirmed that Anthropic and the authors “believe they have a settlement in principle” and will file a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement by September 5. The settlement announcement comes after Alsup certified what AI industry advocates criticized as the largest copyright class action of all time. Although the lawsuit was raised by three authors—Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and Charles Graeber—Alsup allowed up to 7 million claimants to join based on…

“There is no telling how long this exclusive arrangement will last,” X said, warning the court that OpenAI’s rivals “suffer harm every moment they are illegally denied access to these prompts.” X suggests that Apple has no valid pro-competitive reason to give ChatGPT such exclusivity and seemed stung that Apple allegedly rejected xAI’s request to integrate Grok with iOS. Supposedly, Apple has also rejected “numerous requests by xAI for the Grok app to be featured in the App Store,” including when the app launched and more recently when X debuted Grok’s new “Imagine” feature. In addition to “manipulating App Store…

US Senator Ron Wyden accused the federal judiciary of “negligence and incompetence” following a recent hack, reportedly by hackers with ties to the Russian government, that exposed confidential court documents. The breach of the judiciary’s electronic case filing system first came to light in a report by Politico three weeks ago, which went on to say that the vulnerabilities exploited in the hack were known since 2020. The New York Times, citing people familiar with the intrusion, said that Russia was “at least partly responsible” for the hack. A “severe threat” to national security Two overlapping filing platforms—one known as…

As banks around the world prepare to replace many thousands of workers with AI, Australia’s biggest bank is scrambling to rehire 45 workers after allegedly lying about chatbots besting staff by handling higher call volumes. In a statement Thursday flagged by Bloomberg, Australia’s main financial services union, the Finance Sector Union (FSU), claimed a “massive win” for 45 union members whom the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) had replaced with an AI-powered “voice bot.” The FSU noted that some of these workers had been with CBA for decades. Those workers in particular were shocked when CBA announced last month that…

After a judge warned that the Federal Trade Commission’s probe into Media Matters for America (MMFA) should alarm “all Americans”—viewing it as a likely government retaliation intended to silence critical reporting from a political foe—the FTC this week appealed a preliminary injunction blocking the investigation. The Republican-led FTC’s determined to keep pressure on the nonprofit—which is dedicated to monitoring conservative misinformation—ever since Elon Musk villainized MMFA in 2023 for reporting that ads were appearing next to pro-Nazi posts on X. Musk claims that reporting caused so many brands to halt advertising that X’s revenue dropped by $1.5 billion, but advertisers…

4chan’s law firms, Byrne & Storm and Coleman Law, said in a statement on August 15 that “4chan is a United States company, incorporated in Delaware, with no establishment, assets, or operations in the United Kingdom. Any attempt to impose or enforce a penalty against 4chan will be resisted in US federal court. American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an e-mail.” 4chan seeks Trump admin’s help 4chan’s lawyers added that US “authorities have been briefed on this matter… We call on the Trump administration to invoke all diplomatic and legal levers…

“The defendant breached his employer’s trust by using his access and technical knowledge to sabotage company networks, wreaking havoc and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for a U.S. company,” Galeotti said. Developer loses fight to avoid prison time After his conviction, Lu moved to schedule a new trial, asking the court to delay sentencing due to allegedly “surprise” evidence he wasn’t prepared to defend against during the initial trial. The DOJ opposed the motion for the new trial and the delay in sentencing, arguing that “Lu cannot establish that the interests of justice warrant a new trial”…

Intel has agreed to sell the US a 10 percent stake in the company, Donald Trump announced at a news conference Friday. The US stake is worth $10 billion, Trump said, confirming that the deal was inked following his talks with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Trump had previously called for Tan to resign, accusing the CEO of having “concerning” ties to the Chinese Communist Party. During their meeting, the president claimed that Tan “walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States.” “I said, ‘I think it would be good…

The dissents The primary dissent was written by Chief Justice Roberts, and joined in part by the three Democratic appointees, Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor. It is a grand total of one paragraph, and can be distilled down to a single sentence: “If the District Court had jurisdiction to vacate the directives, it also had jurisdiction to vacate the ‘Resulting Grant Terminations.’” Jackson, however, chose to write a separate and far more detailed argument against the decision, mostly focusing on the fact that it’s not simply a matter of abstract law; it has real-world consequences. She notes that existing law prevents…

Since reducing costs was one of the Trump administration’s stated goals, and states are complying with that mandate, they have a fighting chance to get their updated plans approved even if they face challenges from SpaceX. The NTIA seems to be “motivated by its desire to be able to return a significant amount of the money Congress appropriated for the program to the US Treasury,” Levin wrote in an August 15 note to investors about SpaceX’s challenge in Virginia. The NTIA could return a large chunk of the $42 billion even if it doesn’t fully accept SpaceX’s argument. Levin predicted…

Court ruled broadband isn’t telecommunications Although the Obama-era FCC won on this point in the District of Columbia Circuit in 2016, a Supreme Court ruling in 2024 gave courts more power to block rules when judges disagree with an agency’s interpretation of federal statutes. Judges at the 6th Circuit subsequently decided that broadband must be classified as an “information service” under US law. “The 6th Circuit’s decision earlier this year was spectacularly wrong, and the protections it struck down are extremely important. But rather than attempting to overcome an agency that changed hands—and a Supreme Court majority that cares very…

Trump plan salvages CHIPS Act he vowed to kill While chipmakers wait for more clarity, Lutnick has suggested that Trump—who campaigned on killing the CHIPS Act—has found a way to salvage the legislation that Joe Biden viewed as his lasting legacy. It seems possible that the plan arose after Trump realized how hard it would be to ax the legislation completely, with grants already finalized (but most not disbursed). “The Biden administration literally was giving Intel money for free and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving the money for free, and Donald Trump turned it…

The UK has dropped its demand that Apple create a backdoor for government security officials to access encrypted data, according to US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard wrote in a post on X last night that she has “been working closely with our partners in the UK… to ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected. As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our…

Starlink operator SpaceX is continuing its fight against state plans to expand fiber broadband availability. After saying the Trump administration should deny a Virginia proposal, SpaceX is taking the same approach in a fight against Louisiana. SpaceX made its view known to the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity in a filing, which was reported yesterday by PCMag. SpaceX complained that Louisiana proposed awarding 91.5 percent of funds to fiber Internet service providers instead of to the Starlink satellite system. SpaceX alleged that Louisiana was influenced by “a legion of fiber lobbyists and other hangers-on seeking to personally benefit…

“Perhaps the Defendants will establish otherwise later in these proceedings,” Sooknanan wrote. “But at this stage, the record certainly supports that inference,” that the FTC was politically motivated to back Musk’s fight. As the FTC mulls a potential appeal, the only other major front of Musk’s fight with MMFA is the lawsuit that X Corp. filed in Texas. Musk allegedly expects more favorable treatment in the Texas court, and MMFA is currently pushing to transfer the case to California after previously arguing that Musk was venue shopping by filing the lawsuit in Texas, claiming that it should be “fatal” to…

Carriers claimed selling data didn’t violate law Instead of denying the allegations, the carriers argued that the FCC overstepped its authority. But the appeals court panel decided that the FCC acted properly: Sprint and T-Mobile (collectively, “the Carriers”) now petition for our review. Neither denies what happened. Instead, they argue that the undisputed facts do not amount to a violation of the law. The Carriers also argue that the Commission misinterpreted the Communications Act, miscalculated the penalties, and violated the Seventh Amendment by not affording them a jury trial. Because the Carriers’ arguments lack merit, we deny the petitions for…

These sought-after regions are scientifically vital and geopolitically sensitive, as multiple countries want to build bases or conduct research there. Building infrastructure in these areas would cement a country’s ability to access the resources there and potentially exclude others from doing the same. Critics may worry about radiation risks. Even if designed for peaceful use and contained properly, reactors introduce new environmental and operational hazards, particularly in a dangerous setting such as space. But the UN guidelines do outline rigorous safety protocols, and following them could potentially mitigate these concerns. Why nuclear? Because solar has limits The Moon has little…

A former adviser to Joe Biden’s Commerce Department, Alasdair Phillips-Robins, told Reuters that the levy suggests the Trump administration “is trading away national security protections for revenue for the Treasury.” Huawei close to unveiling new AI chip tech The end of a 90-day truce between the US and China is rapidly approaching, with the US signaling that the truce will likely be extended soon as Trump attempts to get a long-sought-after meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping. For China, gutting export curbs on chips remains a key priority in negotiations, the Financial Times reported Sunday. But Nvidia’s H20 chips, for…

Musk claimed the request was to “ensure OpenAI was not being taken advantage of or corrupted by Microsoft,” but two weeks later, he appeared on national TV, insinuating that OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft was “improper,” OpenAI alleged. Eventually, Musk announced xAI in July 2023, and that supposedly motivated Musk to deepen his harassment campaign, “this time using the courts and a parallel, carefully coordinated media campaign,” OpenAI said, as well as his own social media platform. Musk “supercharges” X attacks As OpenAI’s success mounted, the company alleged that Musk began specifically escalating his social media attacks on X, including broadcasting…

After what was arguably Meta’s biggest purge of child predators from Facebook and Instagram earlier this summer, the company now faces backlash after its own chatbots appeared to be allowed to creep on kids. After reviewing an internal document that Meta verified as authentic, Reuters revealed that by design, Meta allowed its chatbots to engage kids in “sensual” chat. Spanning more than 200 pages, the document, entitled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” dictates what Meta AI and its chatbots can and cannot do. The document covers more than just child safety, and Reuters breaks down several alarming portions that Meta is…

Why Intel may be into Trump’s deal At one point, Intel was the undisputed leader in chip manufacturing, Bloomberg noted, but its value plummeted from $288 billion in 2020 to $104 billion today. The chipmaker has been struggling for a while—falling behind as Nvidia grew to dominate the AI chip industry—and 2024 was its “first unprofitable year since 1986,” Reuters reported. As the dismal year wound down, Intel’s longtime CEO Pat Gelsinger retired. Helming Intel for four years, Gelsinger acknowledged the “challenging year.” Now Tan is expected to turn it around. To do that, he may need to deprioritize the…

We contacted the White House today and will update the story if it provides any comment. Ending “weaponization” Public Citizen wrote that “President Donald Trump spent much of his 2024 presidential campaign claiming his prosecution by multiple authorities and subsequent conviction for his crimes are unfair ‘weaponization’ of law enforcement. Corporate executives in the technology sector, eager to curry favor, seized on the talking point. They similarly cast powerful corporations accused of violating laws that protect consumers, workers, investors, and the public as victims of ‘weaponized’ enforcement.” The Trump administration acted quickly to end this alleged weaponization, Public Citizen wrote:…

Noting that its “project areas span from mountains and hills to farmland and coastal plains,” the DHCD said its previous experience with grant-funded deployments “revealed that tree canopy, rugged terrain, and slope can complicate installation and/or obstruct line-of-sight.” State officials said that wireless and low-Earth orbit satellite technology “can have signal degradation, increased latency, and reduced reliability” when there isn’t a clear line of sight. The DHCD said it included these factors in its evaluation of priority broadband projects. State officials were also apparently concerned about the network capacity of satellite services and the possibility that using state funding to…

xAI apparently lost a government contract after a tweak to Grok’s prompting triggered an antisemitic meltdown where the chatbot praised Hitler and declared itself MechaHitler last month. Despite the scandal, xAI announced that its products would soon be available for federal workers to purchase through the General Services Administration. At the time, xAI claimed this was an “important milestone” for its government business. But Wired reviewed emails and spoke to government insiders, which revealed that GSA leaders abruptly decided to drop xAI’s Grok from their contract offering. That decision to pull the plug came after leadership allegedly rushed staff to…

Wikipedia’s parent organization lost a challenge to the UK Online Safety Act but can bring another case if the government tries to force it to verify the identity of Wikipedia users. The High Court of Justice in London dismissed claims from the Wikimedia Foundation, which challenged the lawfulness of the categorization system used to determine which sites must comply with obligations. But Justice Jeremy Johnson stressed “that this does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations.” The Online Safety Act has forced social media sites like…

Beijing is demanding tech companies including Alibaba and ByteDance justify their orders of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips, complicating the US chipmaker’s business in China after striking an export arrangement with the Trump administration. The tech companies have been asked by regulators such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to explain why they need to order Nvidia’s H20 chips instead of using domestic alternatives, said three people familiar with the situation. Some tech companies, who were the main buyers of Nvidia’s H20 chips before their sale in China was restricted, were planning to downsize their orders as…

As more recent evidence of allegedly bad-faith conduct, OpenAI noted that Musk signed a letter calling for a moratorium on all AI development in 2023. That six-month pause on all AI development may have bought Musk time to catch up with ChatGPT, as he was at that time plowing ahead with his plans to release Grok, OpenAI alleged, questioning the sincerity of Musk’s co-signing of the letter. And finally, in 2025, OpenAI flagged Musk’s allegedly “sham bid” to buy OpenAI for $97 billion “as a ‘naked effort to disrupt the [OpenAI] board’s consideration of a potential restructuring and to sow…

Among concerned users fighting to block AI age checks is the petition starter, an anonymous YouTuber who runs a monetized account exploring video game lore called “Gerfdas Gaming” (who, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll refer to as Gerfdas). Gerfdas told Ars that YouTube’s appeal process “raises major privacy concerns,” leaving YouTubers wondering, “where is this sensitive data stored, and how secure is it?” “If YouTube suffers a breach, people’s names, IDs, and faces could end up in the wrong hands,” Gerfdas suggested. Gerfdas also takes issue with the AI age verification system itself, noting that any monetized account already shares personal…

“Until they’re able to defend their site and comply with platform policies (e.g., respecting user privacy, re: deleting removed content) we’re limiting some of their access to Reddit data to protect redditors,” Rathschmidt said. A review of social media comments suggests that in the past, some Redditors have used the Wayback Machine to research deleted comments or threads. Those commenters noted that myriad other tools exist for surfacing deleted posts or researching a user’s activity, with some suggesting that the Wayback Machine was maybe not the easiest platform to navigate for that purpose. Redditors have also turned to resources like…

Once again, Apple escapes Trump’s iPhone pressure Since Trump took office, analysts have suggested that Cook might be the tech CEO best prepared to navigate Trump’s trade war. During Trump’s last term, Cook launched a charm offensive, wooing Trump with investment commitments to avoid caving to Trump’s demands for US-made iPhones while securing tariff exemptions. Back then, Apple notably seemed to avoid following through on some of its commitments, abandoning plans to build three “big, beautiful” Apple plants that Trump announced in 2017. Ultimately, only one plant was built, which made face masks, not Apple products. Similarly, in 2019, Trump…

Some of Storm’s instant messages that his defense team wanted to use at trial. But Storm fought back. In a trial in Manhattan over the last few weeks, his defense team has introduced text messages showing that Storm was glad to have the North Koreans identified. As he put it, “I’m glad those f*ckers are detected.” They contend that Storm tried to help the crypto exchange recover its money by pointing them to blockchain analysis tools; he could not do more because it simply wasn’t possible with the Tornado system, which was built for anonymity. As for regulatory compliance, Storm’s…

Nvidia said there are no backdoors or kill switches in its chips, denying an accusation from the Chinese government. The company also urged policymakers to reject proposals for backdoors and kill switches. “There are no back doors in NVIDIA chips. No kill switches. No spyware. That’s not how trustworthy systems are built—and never will be,” Nvidia Chief Security Officer David Reber Jr. wrote in a blog post yesterday. The Cyberspace Administration of China last week said it held a meeting with Nvidia over “serious security issues” in the company’s chips and claimed that US AI experts “revealed that Nvidia’s computing…

The Trump administration is telling states they will be shut out of a $42 billion broadband deployment fund if they set the rates that Internet service providers receiving subsidies are allowed to charge people with low incomes. The latest version of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) FAQ on the grant program, released today, is a challenge to states considering laws that would force Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people who meet income eligibility guidelines. One state already has such a law: New York requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers in the state to offer $15 broadband…

Last week, the EPA made lots of headlines by rejecting the document that establishes its ability to regulate the greenhouse gases that are warming our climate. While the legal assault on regulations grabbed most of the attention, it was paired with two other actions that targeted other aspects of climate change: the science underlying our current understanding of the dramatic warming the Earth is experiencing, and the renewable energy that represents our best chance of limiting this warming. Collectively, these actions illuminate the administration’s strategy for dealing with a problem that it would prefer to believe doesn’t exist, despite our…

We asked the White House and European Commission for more details today and will update this article with any new information. If the White House fact sheet’s reference to network usage fees has at least some truth to it, it may refer only to a tentative agreement between Trump and von der Leyen. The overall trade deal, which includes a 15 percent cap on tariffs for most EU exports into the US, is not final, as the European Commission pointed out in its announcement. “The political agreement of 27 July 2025 is not legally binding,” a European Commission announcement said.…

The Tesla board approved the interim award yesterday, with recusals from Musk and his brother, Kimbal. The Tesla board is still working on “a longer-term CEO compensation strategy, which we plan to put to a shareholder vote at the November 6 annual meeting,” the letter said. The interim award would vest in two years, and Musk would be required to hold the stock for five years. It has a provision preventing Musk from being paid twice for the same time period in the event that the 2018 plan is reinstated. “If the Delaware courts fully reinstate the 2018 CEO Performance…

The CAC did not specify which experts had found a back door in Nvidia’s products or whether any tests in China had uncovered the same results. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lawmakers in Washington have expressed concern about chip smuggling and introduced a bill that would require chipmakers such as Nvidia to embed location tracking into export-controlled hardware. Beijing has issued informal guidance to major Chinese tech groups to increase purchases of domestic AI chips in order to reduce reliance on Nvidia and support the evolution of a rival domestic chip ecosystem. Chinese tech giant…

But even Amazon may struggle to shift its supply chain as the de minimis exemption is eliminated for all countries. In February, the e-commerce giant “projected lower-than-expected sales and operating income for its first quarter,” which it partly attributed to “unpredictability in the economy.” A DataWeave study concluded at the end of June that “US prices for China-made goods on Amazon” were rising “faster than inflation,” Reuters reported, likely due to “cost shocks” currently “rippling through the retail supply chain.” Other non-Chinese firms likely impacted by this week’s order include eBay, Etsy, and Walmart. Amazon did not respond to Ars’…

Survivors, or their representatives, must submit claims by February 2, 2026. To receive compensation, claims must include at least one document showing they “suffered monetary and/or behavioral health losses,” the claims form specified. Documents can include emails, texts, screenshots, or advertisements. Claims may be further strengthened by sharing receipts from doctors’ visits, as well as medical or psychological exam results, summaries, or plans. Medical expenses survivors can document can include any expenses paid out of pocket, including dental expenses, tattoo removals, or even future medical costs referenced in doctor’s referrals, an FAQ noted. Similarly, counseling or therapy costs can be…

Delta scandal highlights value of transparency According to Delta, the company has “zero tolerance for discriminatory or predatory pricing” and only feeds its AI system aggregated data “to enhance our existing fare pricing processes.” Rather than basing fare prices on customers’ personal information, Carter clarified that “all customers have access to the same fares and offers based on objective criteria provided by the customer such as origin and destination, advance purchase, length of stay, refundability, and travel experience selected.” The AI use can result in higher or lower prices, but not personalized fares for different customers, Carter said. Instead, Delta…

Despite the protests of millions of Americans, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced it will be winding down its operations after the White House deemed NPR and PBS a “grift” and pushed for a Senate vote that eliminated its entire budget. The vote rescinded $1.1 billion that Congress had allocated to CPB to fund public broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. In a press release, CPB explained that the cuts “excluded funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades.” CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said the corporation had no choice but to prepare…

Faced with mounting backlash, OpenAI removed a controversial ChatGPT feature that caused some users to unintentionally allow their private—and highly personal—chats to appear in search results. Fast Company exposed the privacy issue on Wednesday, reporting that thousands of ChatGPT conversations were found in Google search results and likely only represented a sample of chats “visible to millions.” While the indexing did not include identifying information about the ChatGPT users, some of their chats did share personal details—like highly specific descriptions of interpersonal relationships with friends and family members—perhaps making it possible to identify them, Fast Company found. OpenAI’s chief information…

Privacy experts are demanding transparency after YouTube announced it would test using AI to estimate user ages in the US ahead of a wider rollout of the age check system. Throughout the first half of August, YouTube will begin interpreting “a variety of signals” to determine if certain users are under 18. No new user data will be collected, but those signals could include things like “the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account,” YouTube said. Anyone determined to be too young will automatically be hit…

Picking up where the FTC left off, lawmakers announced the Click to Cancel Act, which requires companies to “provide a simple, direct mechanism to cancel a subscription and immediately stop charges.” It also requires companies to obtain clear and direct consent before signing customers up for auto-renewals. John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications, and fraud for the National Consumers League, suggested that the “simple, commonsense policy” is “long overdue” and passing it “could be the easiest vote for Members of Congress to cast this year.” Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) introduced a companion bill in the Senate, which could…

Moxon has switched to Ghost for his independent blog, The Reframe, an open source Substack alternative that woos users by migrating accounts for users and ditching Substack’s fees, which take a 10 percent cut of each Substacker’s transactions. That means users can easily switch platforms and make more money on Ghost, if they can attract as broad an audience as they got on Substack. However, some users feel that Substack’s design, which can help more users discover their content, is the key reason they can’t switch, and Ghost acknowledges this. “Getting traffic to an independent website can be challenging, of…

Also on Friday, the Windscribe VPN service posted a screenshot on X claiming to show a spike in new subscribers. The makers of the AdGuard VPN claimed that they have seen a 2.5X increase in install rates from the UK since Friday. Nord Security, the company behind the NordVPN app, says it has seen a “1,000 percent increase in purchases” of subscriptions from the UK since the day before the new laws went into effect. “Such spikes in demand for VPNs are not unusual,” Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Security’s head of public relations, tells WIRED. She adds in a statement that…

Wyoming’s data center boom Cheyenne is no stranger to data centers, having attracted facilities from Microsoft and Meta since 2012 due to its cool climate and energy access. However, the new project pushes the state into uncharted territory. While Wyoming is the nation’s third-biggest net energy supplier, producing 12 times more total energy than it consumes (dominated by fossil fuels), its electricity supply is finite. While Tallgrass and Crusoe have announced the partnership, they haven’t revealed who will ultimately use all this computing power—leading to speculation about potential tenants. A potential connection to OpenAI’s Stargate AI infrastructure project, announced in…

The Federal Communications Commission’s approval of CBS owner Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance came with a condition to install an ombudsman, which FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has described as a “bias monitor.” It appears that the bias monitor will make sure the news company’s reporting meets standards demanded by President Donald Trump. “One of the things they’re going to have to do is put an ombudsman in place for two years, so basically a bias monitor that will report directly to the president [of Paramount],” Carr told Newsmax on Thursday, right after the FCC announced its approval of the…

But experts seem to fear that Trump isn’t paying enough attention to how exports of US technology could threaten to not only supercharge China’s military and AI capabilities but also drain supplies that US firms need to keep the US at the forefront of AI innovation. “More chips for China means fewer chips for the US,” experts said, noting that “China’s biggest tech firms, including Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba,” have spent $16 billion on bulk-ordered H20 chips over the past year. Meanwhile, “projected data center demand from the US power market would require 90 percent of global chip supply through…

With Walters blowing off their concerns about what had just happened and why it had happened in the middle of a state education meeting, the two board members took their story to media outlets the next day. NonDoc and The Oklahoman both ran long pieces on it. Walters’ office sent sarcastic statements calling the outlets “NonsenseDoc” and “The Woklahoman,” respectively. Oklahoma’s legislative branch then got involved, opening an investigation into the incident through the state’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES). According to Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton (R), “The accounts made public by board members paint a…

Boerner said her goal with the bill “was always a basic broadband service” that would be affordable. “There are lots of packages out there in the world that people choose to get because they’re being price-conscious and they choose the service level that they need,” she said. We asked Boerner about pressure from broadband industry lobbyists. She replied, “Most industries are against rate regulation. We were trying to find a balance between meeting a need, which I think all of the companies see that need, right? They see the need for low-income Californians to get online. They want to be…

In May 2020, Sacramento, California, resident Alfonso Nguyen was alarmed to find two Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies at his door, accusing him of illegally growing cannabis and demanding entry into his home. When Nguyen refused the search and denied the allegation, one deputy allegedly called him a liar and threatened to arrest him. That same year, deputies from the same department, with their guns drawn and bullhorns and sirens sounding, fanned out around the home of Brian Decker, another Sacramento resident. The officers forced Decker to walk backward out of his home in only his underwear around 7 am while…

“The targeted and proportionate actions we have set out today would enable UK app developers to remain at the forefront of global innovation while ensuring UK consumers receive a world-class experience,” Cardell said. “Time is of the essence: as competition agencies and courts globally take action in these markets, it’s essential the UK doesn’t fall behind.” Google and Apple oppose the outlined changes, arguing they could threaten user security and delay the launch of new products and services in the UK. “We’re concerned the rules the UK is now considering would undermine the privacy and security protections that our users…

Trump’s plan was not welcomed by everyone. J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate for Public Citizen, in a statement provided to Ars, criticized Trump as giving “sweetheart deals” to tech companies that would cause “electricity bills to rise to subsidize discounted power for massive AI data centers.” Infrastructure demands and energy requirements Trump’s new AI plan tackles infrastructure head-on, stating that “AI is the first digital service in modern life that challenges America to build vastly greater energy generation than we have today.” To meet this demand, it proposes streamlining environmental permitting for data centers through new National Environmental Policy…

“There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal information or otherwise,” Delta said. “A variety of market forces drive the dynamic pricing model that’s been used in the global industry for decades, with new tech simply streamlining this process. Delta always complies with regulations around pricing and disclosures.” Other companies “engaging in surveillance-based price setting” include giants like Amazon and Kroger, as well as a ride-sharing app that has been “charging a customer more when their phone battery is low.” Public Citizen, a progressive…

Warning that the “Paramount payout” and “reckless” acquisition approval together mark a “dark chapter” for US press freedom, Gomez suggested the FCC’s approval will embolden “those who believe the government can—and should—abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage.” FCC terms also govern Skydance hiring decisions Gomez further criticized the FCC for overstepping its authority in “intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction on these issues” by requiring Skydance commitments to not establish any DEI programs, which Carr derided as “invidious.” But Gomez countered that “this…

Donald Trump vowed to save TikTok before taking office, claiming only he could make a deal to keep the app operational in the US despite national security concerns. But then, he put Vice President JD Vance in charge of the deal, and after months of negotiations, the US still doesn’t seem to have found terms for a sale that the Chinese government is willing to approve. Now, Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has confirmed that if China won’t approve the latest version of the deal—which could result in a buggy version of TikTok made just for the US—the administration is…

Earlier this summer, Grok shocked the world after Musk announced he would be updating the bot to eliminate a supposed liberal bias. The unhinged chatbot began spouting offensive outputs, including antisemitic posts that praised Hitler as well as proclaiming itself “MechaHitler.” But those obvious biases did not conflict with the Pentagon’s decision to grant xAI a $200 million federal contract. In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson insisted that “the antisemitism episode wasn’t enough to disqualify” xAI, NBC News reported, partly since “several frontier AI models have produced questionable outputs.” The Pentagon’s statement suggested that the government expected to deal with…

Yesterday, Ukrainian authorities arrested the suspected administrator of a notorious Russian-language crime forum, XSS.is. In an X post, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office announced that Ukrainian authorities detained the suspect after an investigation conducted with French authorities’ and Europol’s help that began almost exactly four years ago. XSS has been “one of the main hubs of global cybercrime” since 2013, French authorities said, allowing “the sale of malware, access to compromised systems, stolen data, and ransomware-related services.” Used by criminals globally to cover up illicit activity, the forum was shut down soon after the admin’s arrest. The suspected admin has so…

Nearly 150 employees of the National Science Foundation (NSF) sent an urgent letter of dissent to Congress on Tuesday, warning that the Trump administration’s recent “politically motivated and legally questionable” actions threaten to dismantle the independent “world-renowned scientific agency.” Most NSF employees signed the letter anonymously, with only Jesus Soriano, the president of their local union (AFGE Local 3403), publicly disclosing his name. Addressed to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, the letter insisted that Congress intervene to stop steep budget cuts, mass firings and grant terminations, withholding of billions in…

A popular account on TikTok and Instagram stopped posting suddenly at the end of last year, hit by a lawsuit after garnering millions of views on funny videos using adorable Calico Critter dolls made for preschoolers to act out dark, cringe-y adult storylines. While millions of followers mourn the so-called “Sylvanian Drama” account’s demise, experts told Ars that the creator may have a decent chance at beating the lawsuit. The “Sylvanian Drama” account derived its name from “Sylvanian Families,” a brand name used by Epoch Company Ltd., the maker of Calico Critters, for its iconic fuzzy animal dolls in some…

For the more than 200 employees who did not opt out, xAI asked that they record 15- to 30-minute conversations, where one employee posed as the potential Grok user and the other posed as the “host.” xAI was specifically looking for “imperfect data,” BI noted, expecting that only training on crystal-clear videos would limit Grok’s ability to interpret a wider range of facial expressions. xAI’s goal was to help Grok “recognize and analyze facial movements and expressions, such as how people talk, react to others’ conversations, and express themselves in various conditions,” an internal document said. Allegedly among the only…

“As part of our return to following the plain language of section 706, we propose to abolish without replacement the long-term goal of 1,000/500Mbps established in the 2024 Report,” Carr’s plan said. “Not only is a long-term goal not mentioned in section 706, but maintaining such a goal risks skewing the market by unnecessarily potentially picking technological winners and losers.” Fiber networks can already meet a 1,000/500Mbps standard, and the Biden administration generally prioritized fiber when it came to distributing grants to Internet providers. The Trump administration changed grant-giving procedures to distribute more funds to non-fiber providers such as Elon…

X claimed that David Chavalarias, “who spearheads the ‘Escape X’ campaign”—which is “dedicated to encouraging X users to leave the platform”—was chosen to assess the data with one of his prior research collaborators, Maziyar Panahi. “The involvement of these individuals raises serious concerns about the impartiality, fairness, and political motivations of the investigation, to put it charitably,” X alleged. “A predetermined outcome is not a fair one.” However, Panahi told Reuters that he believes X blamed him “by mistake,” based only on his prior association with Chavalarias. He further clarified that “none” of his projects with Chavalarias “ever had any…

The language Abbott’s office used appears to be fairly boilerplate. Paxton’s office, in an explanation of the common-law privacy exception on its website, mentions that “personal financial information” that doesn’t deal with government transactions “is generally highly intimate or embarrassing and must be withheld.” But Bill Aleshire, a Texas-based attorney specializing in public records law, was appalled that the governor is claiming that months of emails between his office and one of the world’s richest people are all private. “Right now, it appears they’ve charged you $244 for records they have no intention of giving you,” Aleshire said. “That is…

It’s “Crypto Week” in Congress, and experts continue to warn that legislation Donald Trump wants passed quickly could give the president ample opportunities to grift while leaving Americans more vulnerable to scams and financial ruin. Perhaps most controversial of the bills is the one that’s closest to reaching Trump’s desk, the GENIUS Act, which creates a framework for banks and private companies to issue stablecoins. After passing in the Senate last month, the House of Representatives is hoping to hold a vote as soon as Thursday, insiders told Politico. Stablecoins are often hyped as a more reliable form of cryptocurrency,…

While Trump and Musk have fallen out this year after developing a political alliance on the 2024 election, the US president has directly attacked EU penalties on US companies calling them a “form of taxation” and comparing fines on tech companies with “overseas extortion.” Despite the US pressure, commission president Ursula von der Leyen has explicitly stated Brussels will not change its digital rulebook. In April, the bloc imposed a total of €700 million fines on Apple and Facebook owner Meta for breaching antitrust rules. But unlike the Apple and Meta investigations, which fall under the Digital Markets Act, there…

Although Delta’s AI pricing could increase competition in the airline industry, Slover expects that companies using such pricing schemes are “all too likely” to be incentivized “to skew in the direction of higher prices” because of the AI pricing’s lack of transparency. “Informed consumer choice is the engine that drives competition; because consumers won’t be as informed, and thus will have little or no agency in the supposed competitive benefits, they are more apt to be taken advantage of than to benefit,” Slover said. Delta could face backlash as it rolls out individualized pricing over the next few years, Slover…

Some Democrats supported the GENIUS Act, arguing that some regulation is better than none as cryptocurrency activity increases globally and the technology has the potential to revolutionize the US financial system. But Hand told Ars that “we’ve already seen what happens when there are no protections” for consumers, like during the FTX collapse. She joins critics that the BBC reported are concerned that stablecoin investors could get stuck in convoluted bankruptcy processes as tech firms engage more and more in “bank-like activities” without the same oversight as banks. The only real assurances for stablecoin investors are requirements that all firms…

“Without removal protections, that independence would be jeopardized… Accordingly, the Court held that the FTC Act’s for-cause removal protections were constitutional,” wrote AliKhan, who was appointed to the District Court by President Biden in 2023. Judge: Facts almost identical to 1935 case The Supreme Court reaffirmed its Humphrey’s Executor findings in cases decided in 2010 and 2020, AliKhan wrote. “Humphrey’s Executor remains good law today. Over the span of ninety years, the Supreme Court has declined to revisit or overrule it,” she wrote. Congress has likewise not disturbed FTC commissioners’ removal protection, and “thirteen Presidents have acquiesced to its vitality,”…

A former cop in the United Kingdom was sentenced to five and a half years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to covering up his theft of 50 bitcoins seized during an investigation into the now-defunct illicit dark web marketplace Silk Road. In 2014, the former UK National Crime Agency (NCA) officer, Paul Chowles, assisted in the arrest of Thomas White, a man “who had launched Silk Road 2.0 less than a month after the FBI had shut down the original site in 2013,” the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a press release. Chowles was tapped to analyze and…

CPB expenses in fiscal year 2025 are $545 million, of which 66.9 percent goes to TV programming. Another 22.3 percent goes to radio programming, while the rest is for administration and support. The CPB distributes over 70 percent of its funding to about 1,500 public radio and TV stations. Those stations pay fees to NPR and PBS, which also get money from sponsorships, donations, and grants. Emergency alerts system at risk Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) talked about the funding’s impact on emergency alerts in a speech from the Senate floor. Stations “running on backup generators are built to broadcast through…

In an SELC press release, LaTricea Adams, CEO and President of Young, Gifted and Green, called the SCHD’s decisions on xAI’s permit “reckless.” “As a Black woman born and raised in Memphis, I know firsthand how industry harms Black communities while those in power cower away from justice,” Adams said. “The Shelby County Health Department needs to do their job to protect the health of ALL Memphians, especially those in frontline communities… that are burdened with a history of environmental racism, legacy pollution, and redlining.” Groups also suspect xAI is stockpiling dozens of gas turbines to potentially power a second…

When contacted by Ars today, the CPB did not offer any comment on the Trump administration’s lawsuit but referred us to its June 8 statement on Moss’s ruling. “We are very pleased that the Court recognized CPB is an independent, nonprofit corporation, free from governmental control or influence,” CPB CEO Patricia Harrison said at the time. Although Moss denied the request for an injunction, the CPB said the board members would continue in their offices. “Consistent with the Court’s decision and the authority provided under the governing statute, Harrison has today taken steps to affirm that the three individuals whom…

Chinese firms have begun rushing to order Nvidia’s H20 AI chips as the company plans to resume sales to mainland China, Reuters reports. The chip giant expects to receive US government licenses soon so that it can restart shipments of the restricted processors just days after CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump, potentially generating $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year. Nvidia said in a statement that it is filing applications with the US government to resume H20 sales and that “the US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes…

Grok checked Musk’s posts, called itself “MechaHitler” xAI has been checking Elon Musk’s posts before providing answers on some topics, such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. xAI acknowledged this in an update today that addressed two problems with Grok. One problem “was that if you ask it ‘What do you think?’ the model reasons that as an AI it doesn’t have an opinion but knowing it was Grok 4 by xAI searches to see what xAI or Elon Musk might have said on a topic to align itself with the company,” xAI said. xAI also said it is trying to fix…

“Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren’t suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling,” Ofcom said. “Now, children will be better protected from online material that’s not appropriate for them, while adults’ rights to access legal content are preserved. We expect other companies to follow suit, or face enforcement if they fail to act.” Ofcom said online platforms that fall under the law “must use highly effective age assurance to identify which users are children, to protect them from harmful material, while preserving adults’ rights to access legal content. That may involve preventing children from accessing…

Now, Herman is paying $80 a month to his own company for symmetrical gigabit service. Prime-One also offers 500Mbps for $75, 2Gbps for $95, and 5Gbps for $110. The first 30 days are free, and all plans have unlimited data and no contracts. “We are 100 percent fiber optic,” Baciu told Ars. “Everything that we’re doing is all underground. We’re not doing aerial because we really want to protect the infrastructure and make sure we’re having a reliable connection.” Each customer’s Optical Network Terminal (ONT) and other equipment is included in the service plan. Prime-One provides a modem and the…

Lawyers representing MyPillow and its CEO Mike Lindell were fined $6,000 after using artificial intelligence in a brief that was riddled with misquotes and citations to fictional cases. Attorney Christopher Kachouroff and the law firm of McSweeney Cynkar & Kachouroff were fined $3,000, jointly and severally. Attorney Jennifer DeMaster was separately ordered to pay $3,000. This “is the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance,” US District Judge Nina Wang wrote in an order issued yesterday in the District of Colorado. Kachouroff and DeMaster were defending Lindell against a defamation lawsuit filed by former…

FTC arguments rejected Summarizing the FTC’s arguments, judges said the agency contended that US law “did not require the Commission to conduct the preliminary regulatory analysis later in the rulemaking process,” and that “any alleged error was harmless because the NPRM addressed alternatives to the proposed amendments to the 1973 [Negative Option] Rule and analyzed record-keeping and compliance costs.” Judges disagreed with the FTC, writing that “the statutory language, ‘shall issue,’ mandates a separate preliminary analysis for public review and comment ‘in any case’ where the Commission issues a notice of proposed rulemaking and the $100 million threshold is surpassed.”…

With Verizon seeking permission to lock phones to its network for six months or longer instead of the current 60 days, a coalition of advocacy groups yesterday urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject the cellular carrier’s petition. “Phone locking distorts market competition, raises switching costs, and contributes to unnecessary e-waste,” the groups said in a filing. “It impedes consumers’ ability to take full advantage of the devices they already own, forces them to purchase new phones unnecessarily, and reduces their freedom to choose more affordable or higher-quality service options. It undermines price discipline among carriers, makes it harder for…

Update: Shortly after this article was published, the Department of Justice announced that it has closed its investigation into the T-Mobile/US Cellular deal and will not try to stop the merger. The FCC had not yet announced its own approval of the merger. Firm reassigns employees, scrubs DEI from training In March, T-Mobile obtained FCC approval for a joint venture to acquire fiber provider Lumos. That happened one day after T-Mobile sent Carr a letter saying it “is fully committed to identifying and rooting out any policies and practices that enable such discrimination, whether in fulfillment of DEI or any…

DOJ approval “reads like a complaint” The DOJ’s unusual statement about the wireless industry oligopoly shows that the Justice Department staff and antitrust chief “clearly did not want to approve this,” stated Harold Feld, senior VP of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. The press release “reads like a complaint,” not an announcement of a merger approval, he added. Daniel Hanley, senior legal analyst at the Open Markets Institute, said that “Slater could easily make a public comment or resign in protest. If she isn’t allowed to do the job Congress entrusted her with, then she can leave with her principles…

The AI tool could also possibly be “overstepping in its interpretation of the audio,” possibly misinterpreting slang or adding context that never happened. A “major concern,” the EFF said, is that the AI reports can give cops a “smokescreen,” perhaps even allowing them to dodge consequences for lying on the stand by blaming the AI tool for any “biased language, inaccuracies, misinterpretations, or lies” in their reports. “There’s no record showing whether the culprit was the officer or the AI,” the EFF said. “This makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to assess how the system affects justice outcomes over…

The code also details expectations for AI companies to respect paywalls, as well as robots.txt instructions restricting crawling, which could help confront a growing problem of AI crawlers hammering websites. It “encourages” online search giants to embrace a solution that Cloudflare is currently pushing: allowing content creators to protect copyrights by restricting AI crawling without impacting search indexing. Additionally, companies are asked to disclose total energy consumption for both training and inference, allowing the EU to detect environmental concerns while companies race forward with AI innovation. More substantially, the code’s safety guidance provides for additional monitoring for other harms. It…

Ars could not immediately find any legislation that seemed to match Prince’s description, and Cloudflare did not respond to Ars’ request to comment. Passing tech laws is notoriously hard, though, partly because technology keeps advancing as policy debates drag on, and challenges with regulating artificial intelligence are an obvious example of that pattern today. Google declined Ars’ request to confirm whether talks were underway or if the company was open to separating its crawlers. Although Cloudflare singled out Google, other search engines that view AI search features as part of their search products also use the same bots for training…

And “the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter” with xAI, Yaccarino said. Grok cites “growing tensions” between Musk and CEO It’s unclear how Yaccarino’s departure could influence X advertisers who may have had more confidence in the platform with her at the helm. Eventually, Musk commented on Yaccarino’s announcement, thanking her for her contributions but saying little else about her departure. Separately, he responded to Thierry Breton, former European Union commissioner for the internal market, who joked that “Europe’s got talent” if Musk “needs help.” The X owner, who previously traded barbs with Breton over…

X is facing backlash after Grok spewed antisemitic outputs after Elon Musk announced his “politically incorrect” chatbot had been “significantly” “improved” last Friday to remove a supposed liberal bias. Following Musk’s announcement, X users began prompting Grok to see if they could, as Musk promised, “notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.” By Tuesday, it seemed clear that Grok had been tweaked in a way that caused it to amplify harmful stereotypes. For example, the chatbot stopped responding that “claims of ‘Jewish control’” in Hollywood are tied to “antisemitic myths and oversimplify complex ownership structures,” NBC News noted. Instead,…

Where trucks congregate There’s also a policy tool called indirect source rules, or ISR. The rules are called “indirect” because they don’t regulate the vehicles themselves, but the facilities that attract emissions-heavy traffic, like large warehouses, ports, or rail yards. The rules hold the facilities owners or operators responsible for reducing or offsetting the pollution from their profitable traffic. Studies show that the pollution from these trucks often ends up in nearby neighborhoods, which are disproportionately lower-income and communities of color. California is currently the only state enforcing ISRs. In Southern California, large warehouses must take steps to reduce the…

The 1,200 MHz between 5.925 and 7.125 GHz was allocated to Wi-Fi in April 2020 under then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The Pai-led FCC rejected the mobile industry’s requests to use the band for cellular networks, saying that making the entire 6 GHz available to Wi-Fi on an unlicensed basis would promote “more efficient and productive use of the spectrum” by helping Wi-Fi speeds keep up with rising home Internet speeds. Pai is now CEO of the CTIA, the major lobby group representing mobile carriers who want access to the 6 GHz band. Pai hailed the new law’s passage in a…

“Even if Beijing would choose to overlook the recent tariff hikes and ratcheting up of US export controls on chip technologies, they still wouldn’t grant export licenses for the algorithms,” Capri said. US version of TikTok may be buggy Trump claims that he has found US buyers for TikTok, which Bloomberg reported is believed to be the same group behind the prior stalled deal, including Oracle, Blackstone Inc., and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. If a sale is approved, a new US version of TikTok would roll out on September 5, The Information reported. All US-based TikTok users would…

In a sudden reversal, Canada has caved and will remove its digital services tax after trade talks with the US suddenly fell apart this weekend. Blocked just hours before taking effect, the controversial digital services tax (DST) would have charged big US tech companies like Apple, Google, and Meta a 3 percent tax on all digital services revenue earned from Canadian users. Frustrating US tech giants, Canada also sought to collect retroactive taxes dating back to 2022. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump claimed the tax was a “direct and blatant attack” on US tech companies and terminated the trade…

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine whether Internet service providers must terminate users who are accused of copyright infringement. In a list of orders released today, the court granted a petition filed by cable company Cox. The ISP, which was sued by Sony Music Entertainment, is trying to overturn a ruling that it is liable for copyright infringement because it failed to terminate users accused of piracy. Music companies want ISPs to disconnect users whose IP addresses are repeatedly connected to torrent downloads. “We are pleased the US Supreme Court has decided to address…

AI companies must buy in For Cloudflare’s plan to work, AI companies must sign up, too. However, while some AI companies may not see the incentive, Cloudflare has confirmed that it has partnered with AI companies on the initiative, which may benefit from having a simple interface to negotiate with content creators. Cloudflare suggested its AI partners benefit from “long-term collaboration” with creators whose updated content will help AI products stay relevant. They also can stop wasting money scraping poor quality data sources, a Cloudflare blog said. “Without ongoing contributions from content creators, AI systems risk becoming outdated, biased, or…

An early evaluation shows the administration’s planned energy policies would result in the drilling of 50,000 new oil wells every year for the next few years, he said, adding that it “ensures the continuation of land devastation… the poisoning of soil and groundwater due to fossil fuels and the continuation of gas blowouts and fires.” There is nothing beneficial about the tax, he said, “only guaranteed misery.” An analysis by the Rhodium Group, and energy policy research institute, projected that the Republican regime’s proposed energy policies would result in about 4 billion tons more greenhouse gas emissions than a continuation…

Meanwhile, Clothoff continues to evolve, recently marketing a feature that Clothoff claims attracted more than a million users eager to make explicit videos out of a single picture. Clothoff denies it plans to use influencers Der Spiegel’s efforts to unmask the operators of Clothoff led the outlet to Eastern Europe, after reporters stumbled upon a “database accidentally left open on the Internet” that seemingly exposed “four central people behind the website.” This was “consistent,” Der Spiegel said, with a whistleblower claim that all Clothoff employees “work in countries that used to belong to the Soviet Union.” Additionally, Der Spiegel noted…

Payout to future presidential library Paramount told us that the settlement terms were proposed by a mediator and that it will pay $16 million, including plaintiffs’ fees and costs. That amount, minus the fees and costs, will be allocated to Trump’s future presidential library, Paramount said. Trump’s complaint sought at least $20 billion in damages. Paramount also said that “no amount will be paid directly or indirectly to President Trump or Rep. Jackson personally” and that the settlement will release Paramount from “all claims regarding any CBS reporting through the date of the settlement, including the Texas action and the…

Before xAI got the permit, residents were stuck relying on infrequent thermal imaging to determine how many turbines appeared to be running without BACT. Now that xAI has secured the permit, the company will be required to “record the date, time, and durations of all startups, shutdowns, malfunctions, and tuning events” and “always minimize emissions including startup, shutdown, maintenance, and combustion tuning periods.” These records—which also document fuel usage, facility-wide emissions, and excess emissions—must be shared with the health department semiannually, with xAI’s first report due by December 31. Additionally, xAI must maintain five years of “monitoring, preventive, and maintenance…

Separately, Trump v. Casa blocked the use of a national injunction against illegal activity. So, while the government’s actions have been determined to be illegal, Young can only protect the people who were parties to this suit. Anyone who lost a grant but wasn’t a member of any of the parties involved, or based in any of the states that sued, remains on their own. Those issues aside, the ruling largely focuses on whether the termination of grants violates the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs how the executive branch handles decision- and rule-making. Specifically, it requires that any decisions of…

If AI note writers “generate initial drafts that represent a wider range of perspectives than a single human writer typically could, the quality of community deliberation is improved from the start,” the paper said. Future of AI notes Researchers imagine that once X’s testing is completed, AI note writers could not just aid in researching problematic posts flagged by human users, but also one day select posts predicted to go viral and stop misinformation from spreading faster than human reviewers could. Additional perks from this automated system, they suggested, would include X note raters quickly accessing more thorough research and…

News orgs will soon start searching ChatGPT logs The clock is ticking, and so far, OpenAI has not provided any official updates since a June 5 blog post detailing which ChatGPT users will be affected. While it’s clear that OpenAI has been and will continue to retain mounds of data, it would be impossible for The New York Times or any news plaintiff to search through all that data. Instead, only a small sample of the data will likely be accessed, based on keywords that OpenAI and news plaintiffs agree on. That data will remain on OpenAI’s servers, where it…

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has decided to let prisons and jails keep charging high prices for calling services until at least 2027, delaying implementation of rate caps approved last year when the FCC had a Democratic majority. Carr’s office announced the change yesterday, saying it was needed because of “negative, unintended consequences stemming from the Commission’s 2024 decision on Incarcerated People’s Communications Services (IPCS)… As a result of this waiver decision, the FCC’s 2021 Order rate cap, site commission, and per-minute pricing rules will apply until April 1, 2027, unless the Commission sets an alternative date.” Commissioner Anna…

Cruz blamed “outside interests” After the compromise fell apart, the Senate voted 99-1 for Blackburn’s amendment to remove the AI provision from the budget bill. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cast the only vote against the amendment. “Cruz ultimately got behind Blackburn’s amendment early Tuesday, acknowledging that ‘many of my colleagues would prefer not to vote on this matter,'” according to The Hill. Cruz said the five-year moratorium had support from President Trump and “protected kids and protected the rights of creative artists, but outside interests opposed that deal.” However, Blackburn was quoted as saying that they “weren’t able to come…

Michael Calabrese of New America’s Open Technology Institute told Ars that 6 GHz and CBRS “are the most vulnerable non-federal bands for reallocation and auction.” While the spectrum for auctions is to come from frequencies between 1.3 and 10.5 GHz, much of that spectrum will be off-limits either because it’s specifically excluded or because it would be more difficult to reallocate. “About half the spectrum in that range is federal, and then the rest has already been auctioned for cellular mobile use or is assigned to other critical users such as aviation and satellites,” said Calabrese, who directs the Open Technology…

Section 230 has so far failed to shield Meta and TikTok owner ByteDance from a lawsuit raised by a mother who alleged that her son’s wrongful death followed a flood of “subway surfing” videos platforms intentionally targeted to teens in New York. In a decision Monday, New York State Supreme Court Judge Paul Goetz largely denied social media companies’ motions to dismiss claims they argued should be barred under Section 230 and the First Amendment. Goetz said that the mother, Norma Nazario, had adequately alleged that subway surfing content “was purposefully fed” to her son Zackery “because of his age”…

But if you’re not intimately familiar with the AI industry and copyright, you might wonder: Why would a company spend millions of dollars on books to destroy them? Behind these odd legal maneuvers lies a more fundamental driver: the AI industry’s insatiable hunger for high-quality text. The race for high-quality training data To understand why Anthropic would want to scan millions of books, it’s important to know that AI researchers build large language models (LLMs) like those that power ChatGPT and Claude by feeding billions of words into a neural network. During training, the AI system processes the text repeatedly,…

An interesting wrinkle that may have stopped authors from invoking market dilution as a threat in the Meta case is that Chhabria noted that Meta had argued that “market dilution does not count under the fourth factor.” But Chhabria clarified “that can’t be right.” “Indirect substitution is still substitution,” Chhabria wrote. “If someone bought a romance novel written by [a large language model (LLM)] instead of a romance novel written by a human author, the LLM-generated novel is substituting for the human-written one.” Seemingly, the same would go for AI-generated non-fiction books, he suggested. So while “it’s true that, in…

Justice Elena Kagan filed a dissenting opinion that was joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kagan said that in similar cases, the court applied strict scrutiny, “a highly rigorous but not fatal form of constitutional review, to laws regulating protected speech based on its content.” “Texas’s law defines speech by content and tells people entitled to view that speech that they must incur a cost to do so,” Kagan wrote. “That is, under our First Amendment law, a direct (not incidental) regulation of speech based on its content—which demands strict scrutiny.” The Texas law applies to websites in…

In the meantime, the Copyright Office is in the odd position of attempting to carry on as though it wasn’t missing its head. Immediately after Perlmutter’s dismissal, the Copyright Office paused issuing registration certificates “out of an abundance of caution,” according to USCO spokesperson Lisa Berardi Marflak, who says the pause impacted around 20,000 registrations. It resumed activities on May 29 but is now sending out registration certificates with a blank spot where Perlmutter’s signature would ordinarily be. This unusual change has prompted discussion amongst copyright experts as to whether the registrations are now more vulnerable to legal challenges. The…

Finally, the Consumers’ Research position produces absurd results, divorced from any reasonable understanding of constitutional values. Under its view, a revenue-raising statute containing non-numeric, qualitative standards can never pass muster, no matter how tight the constraints they impose. But a revenue-raising statute with a numeric limit will always pass muster, even if it effectively leaves an agency with boundless power. In precluding the former and approving the latter, the Consumers’ Research approach does nothing to vindicate the nondelegation doctrine or the separation of powers. The Gorsuch dissent said the “combination” question isn’t the deciding factor. He said the only question…

With Comcast trying to figure out how to stop losing broadband customers, the cable firm yesterday announced new plans that are available nationwide and do not have data caps. Comcast said it is offering “four simple national Internet tiers that include unlimited data and the advanced Xfinity WiFi Gateway for one low monthly price.” Customers whose current plans have data caps won’t automatically get unlimited data and would have to switch to a new plan to remove that annoying limit from their accounts. “Customers can repackage into one of our new plans that include unlimited data if they don’t have…

It could certainly look worse for Meta if authors manage to present evidence supporting the second way that torrenting could be relevant to the case, Chhabaria suggested. “Meta downloading copyrighted material from shadow libraries” would also be relevant to the character of the use, “if it benefitted those who created the libraries and thus supported and perpetuated their unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted works,” Chhabria wrote. Counting potential strikes against Meta, Chhabria pointed out that the “vast majority of cases” involving “this sort of peer-to-peer file-sharing” are found to “constitute copyright infringement.” And it likely doesn’t help Meta’s case…

Whether Trump’s appointees can manage DOGE without Musk’s help or his appointees remains to be seen, as DOGE continues to seek new hires. While Musk’s appointed DOGE staff was heavily criticized from day one, Kamarck noted that at least Musk’s appointees appeared “to have a great deal of IT talent, something the federal government has been lacking since the beginning of the information age.” Trump can extend the timeline for when DOGE sunsets, NextGov noted, and DOGE still has $22 million left over from this year to keep pursuing its goals, as lawmakers debate whether $45 million in funding is…

The Trump phone was announced last week with a claim that the device would be made entirely in America, and people were rightly skeptical. Trump Mobile’s $500 T1 Phone “is a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier,” the Trump Organization said in a press release. But with electronics supply chain experts casting doubt on the feasibility of designing and building an American-made phone in a short span of time, Trump Mobile’s website doesn’t currently promise an American-made phone. The website says…

The lawsuit alleged that Media Matters’ free speech rights are being violated “as state governments and now a federal agency have employed sweeping governmental powers to attempt to silence and harass an organization for daring to speak the truth.” Media Matters said that under the First Amendment, it has “a privilege against disclosure of materials that would chill its constitutional rights.” The FTC also violated “basic statutory requirements” in US law because the investigative demand “fails to identify the relevant ‘conduct’ or the ‘alleged violation’ that the FTC is investigating,” the lawsuit said. The FTC is led by Chairman Andrew…

“This order doubts that any accused infringer could ever meet its burden of explaining why downloading source copies from pirate sites that it could have purchased or otherwise accessed lawfully was itself reasonably necessary to any subsequent fair use,” Alsup wrote. “Such piracy of otherwise available copies is inherently, irredeemably infringing even if the pirated copies are immediately used for the transformative use and immediately discarded.” But Alsup said that the Anthropic case may not even need to decide on that, since Anthropic’s retention of pirated books for its research library alone was not transformative. Alsup wrote that Anthropic’s argument…

Other conduct rules that the CMA is considering include requirements in how it ranks its search results and for Google’s distribution partners such as Apple to offer “choice screens” to help consumers switch more easily between search providers. The CMA said Alphabet-owned Google’s dominance made the cost of search advertising “higher than would be expected” in a more competitive market. Google on Tuesday slammed the proposals as “broad and unfocused” and said they could threaten the UK’s access to its latest products and services. Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director for competition, warned that “punitive regulations” could change how quickly Google…

Blackburn said she agreed with Cantwell that the AI regulation proposal “is not the type of thing that we put into reconciliation bills.” Blackburn added that lawmakers “are working to move forward with legislation at the federal level, but we do not need a moratorium that would prohibit our states from stepping up and protecting citizens in their state.” Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have also criticized the idea of stopping states from regulating AI. Cruz accused states of “strangling AI” Cruz argued that his proposal stops states “from strangling AI deployment with EU-style regulation.” Under his…

Critics warn that the United States may soon be taking on more nuclear safety risks after Donald Trump fired one of five members of an independent commission that monitors the country’s nuclear reactors. In a statement Monday, Christopher Hanson confirmed that Trump fired him from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday. He alleged that the firing was “without cause” and “contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees.” According to NPR, he received an email that simply said his firing was “effective immediately.” Hanson had enjoyed bipartisan support for his work for years.…

But the new mobile empire could collapse at any moment. Trump Mobile’s website repeatedly warns customers that its use of the Trump trademark can “be terminated or revoked,” while noting that “Trump Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed or sold by The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals.” And although the press release touted Trump Mobile’s “reliability,” the terms make clear that the Trump Organization is not liable for third-party services it relies on, warning that the wireless services can be withdrawn “permanently” without notice. Additionally, all T1 Phone sales are…

Most obviously, AI models are still prone to hallucination, Kaur noted. And while Mattel’s AI toys are “unlikely to cause physical harm,” toys giving “inappropriate or bizarre responses” could “be confusing or even unsettling for a child,” he said. For parents, the emotional ties kids make with AI toys will also need to be monitored, especially since chatbot outputs can be unpredictable. Another LinkedIn user, Adam Dodge—founder of a digital safety company preventing cyber abuse, called EndTab—pointed to a lawsuit where a grieving mom alleged her son committed suicide after interacting with hyper-realistic chatbots. Those bots encouraged self-harm and engaged…

Although that statement may provide comfort to those who have kept their WhatsApp numbers off the Internet, it doesn’t resolve the issue of WhatsApp’s AI helper potentially randomly generating a real person’s private number that may be a few digits off from the business contact information WhatsApp users are seeking. Expert pushes for chatbot design tweaks AI companies have recently been grappling with the problem of chatbots being programmed to tell users what they want to hear, instead of providing accurate information. Not only are users sick of “overly flattering” chatbot responses—potentially reinforcing users’ poor decisions—but the chatbots could be…

“It is our sincere belief that the current social media landscape makes it far too easy for bad actors to promote false claims, hatred and dangerous conspiracies online, and some large social media companies are not able or willing to regulate this hate speech themselves,” the letter said. Although the letter acknowledged that X was not the only platform targeted by the law, the lawmakers further noted that Musk taking over Twitter spiked hateful and harmful content on the platform. They said it seemed “clear to us that X needs to provide greater transparency for their moderation policies and we…

“For instance, if all the 35 turbines operated by xAI were using” add-on air pollution control technology “to achieve a NOx emission rate of 2 ppm”—as xAI’s consultant agreed it would—”they would emit about 177 tons of NOx per year, as opposed to the 1,200 to 2,100 tons per year they currently emit,” the letter said. Allegedly, all of xAI’s active turbines “continue to operate without utilizing best available control technology” (BACT) and “there is no dispute” that since xAI has yet to obtain permitting, it’s not meeting BACT requirements today, the letter said. “xAI’s failure to comply with the…

“Why—beyond the obvious benefit of gaining favor, directly or indirectly, with the Trump administration—did you select USD1, a newly launched, untested cryptocurrency with no track record?” the senators asked. Responding, World Liberty Financial’s lawyers claimed MGX was simply investing in “legitimate financial innovation,” CBS News reported, noting a Trump family-affiliated entity owns a 60 percent stake in the company. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the MGX deal, ABC News reported. However, Warren fears the GENIUS Act will provide “even more opportunities to reward buyers of Trump’s coins with favors like tariff exemptions, pardons, and government appointments” if it becomes…

For many Americans, losing TikTok would be disruptive. TikTok has warned that US businesses could lose $1 billion in one month if TikTok shuts down. As these businesses wait in limbo for a resolution to the situation, it’s getting harder to take the alleged national security threat seriously, as clinching the deal appears to lack urgency. On Wednesday, the White House continued to warn that Americans are not safe using TikTok, though, despite leaving Americans vulnerable for an extended period that could now stretch to eight months. In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt only explained that “President…

The departments of Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health were all compromised. A large roster of private companies—among them Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Deloitte, FireEye, and CrowdStrike—were also breached. In response, a Biden EO required the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to establish a “common form” for self-attestation that organizations selling critical software to the federal government were complying with the provisions in the SSDF. The attestation had come from a company officer. Trump’s EO removes that requirement and instead directs National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to create a reference security implementation for the SSDF…

“Where’s the support for that?” Young asked. “I see no evidence of that.” Meanwhile, a lawyer representing one of the plaintiffs suing to block the grants, Kenneth Parreno, seemingly successfully argued that canceling grants related to race or transgender health were part of “a slapdash, harried effort to rubber stamp an ideological purge.” At the trial, Young noted that much of the information about the grant cancellations was only available due to the independent efforts of academics behind a project called Grant Watch, which was launched to crowdsource the monumental task of tracking the cuts. According to Young, he felt…

Last Friday, a Michigan man named David Bartels was sentenced to five years in federal prison for “Possession of Child Pornography by a Person Employed by the Armed Forces Outside of the United States.” The unusual nature of the charge stems from the fact that Bartels bought and viewed the illegal material while working as a military contractor for Maytag Fuels at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bartels had made some cursory efforts to cover his tracks, such as using the TOR browser. (This may sound simple enough, but according to the US government, only 12.3 percent of people charged…

The new report concludes that not only will the expansion of ethanol increase greenhouse gas emissions, but it has also failed to provide the social and financial benefits to Midwestern communities that lawmakers and the industry say it has. (The report defines the Midwest as Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.) “The benefits from biofuels remain concentrated in the hands of a few,” Leslie-Bole said. “As subsidies flow, so may the trend of farmland consolidation, increasing inaccessibility of farmland in the Midwest, and locking out emerging or low-resource farmers. This means…

FTC chair alleged “serious risk” from ad boycotts After Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the social network lost advertisers for various reasons, including changes to content moderation and an incident in which Musk posted a favorable response to an antisemitic tweet and then told concerned advertisers to “go fuck yourself.” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said at a conference in April that “the risk of an advertiser boycott is a pretty serious risk to the free exchange of ideas.” “If advertisers get into a back room and agree, ‘We aren’t going to put our stuff next to this guy or woman or…

“This could also invoke issues with contract, property and intellectual property rights, and right of publicity as well if AI replicas (image, voice, text, etc.) are being used without authorization,” Sheehan said. And there are likely more protections for celebrities than for everyday people, Sheehan suggested. “As far as I know, there is no law” preventing unauthorized non-commercial digital replicas, Sheehan said. Widely adopted by states, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act—which governs who gets access to online accounts of the deceased, like social media or email accounts—could be helpful but isn’t a perfect remedy. That law…

Butcher said Lutnick is exercising “authority as a central government over the rights and expertise of a state body, which I guess I don’t understand how the party’s values work anymore, but that to me feels like a pretty strange Republican imposition.” Butcher still expects significant fiber deployment Overall, Nevada’s plan was to use $416 million to connect 43,715 households and businesses. Maine was to receive about $272 million, which Butcher said would “provide deployment to about 25,000 unserved households and businesses” and about 3,500 community anchor institutions. Anchor institutions under the BEAD program can include places like schools, libraries,…

Elon Musk’s strategy of suing or threatening to sue companies that don’t buy advertising on X has reportedly paid off in at least a few cases. A Wall Street Journal report yesterday said that Verizon and other companies started advertising on X after lawsuit threats. X sued some advertisers last year over what it claims is an illegal boycott and reportedly threatened to add other companies to the lawsuit if they didn’t buy ads. The WSJ article said that Verizon, which hadn’t advertised on X since 2022, was told late last year that it would be added to the lawsuit…

The legal action follows similar moves in other creative industries, with more than a dozen major news companies suing AI company Cohere in February over copyright concerns. In 2023, a group of visual artists sued Midjourney for similar reasons. Studios claim Midjourney knows what it’s doing Beyond allowing users to create these images, the studios argue that Midjourney actively promotes copyright infringement by displaying user-generated content featuring copyrighted characters in its “Explore” section. The complaint states this curation “show[s] that Midjourney knows that its platform regularly reproduces Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works.” The studios also allege that Midjourney has technical protection measures…

Both countries agreed in Geneva last month to slash their respective tariffs by 115 percentage points and provided a 90-day window to resolve the trade war. But the ceasefire came under pressure after Washington accused Beijing of reneging on an agreement to speed up the export of rare earths, while China criticized new US export controls. This week’s talks to resolve the impasse were held in the historic Lancaster House mansion in central London, a short walk from Buckingham Palace, which was provided by the British government as a neutral ground for the talks. Over the two days, the US…

Incompas, a communications industry trade group, said that revoking the deadline extension “would undermine regulatory certainty and threaten to disrupt ongoing investments in advanced network infrastructure, including EchoStar’s important work to integrate Open RAN and satellite capabilities.” EchoStar, SpaceX, and VTel Wireless each submitted one last filing on Friday. SpaceX urged the FCC “to ensure that valuable spectrum resources are not allowed to remain fallow but instead are made available to those who would put them to productive use to provide advanced services to consumers across the United States.” VTel Wireless, which was outbid by Dish in auctions for spectrum…

“DoD is concerned about the high possibility that non-Federal users will not adhere to the established coordination conditions at all times; the impacts related to airborne systems, due to their range and speed; and required upgrades to multiple classes of ships,” the 2023 report said. We contacted the Department of Defense and did not receive a response. Levin quoted Calabrese as saying the new plan “would pull the rug out from under more than 1,000 CBRS operators that have deployed more than 400,000 base stations. While they could, in theory, share DoD spectrum lower in the band, that spectrum will now…

Jackson said the ruling “sends a troubling message” that the court will depart from its usual legal standards “for certain litigants.” While other litigants seeking a stay “must point to more than the annoyance of compliance with lower court orders they don’t like, the Government can approach the courtroom bar with nothing more than that and obtain relief from this Court nevertheless,” Jackson wrote. Jackson: “Grave privacy risks for millions” Jackson said the ruling puts at risk personal information like Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, bank account numbers, and medical records. “Every person who has received a Social Security…

Backlash to the idea was quick, with the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus immediately calling it “unethical.” “Allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical. It’s not an option,” Tedros said in a news briefing at the time. “A risk” In the letter on Monday, NIH researchers speak directly to Bhattacharya, writing, “We hope you will welcome this dissent, which we modeled after your Great Barrington Declaration.” They titled the letter “The Bethesda Declaration,” named after the NIH’s location in Maryland. “Standing up in this way is a risk, but I…

When plaintiff Catherine Jackson received her termination notice, she “was surprised to see recent performance ratings that were flatly incorrect,” the lawsuit said. Jackson worked in the Office of Child Care “supporting the state of Alaska and American Indian tribes in their implementation of programs that help low-income families afford childcare.” Jackson’s notice “reflected a recent performance rating of 3, but she had never received a score lower than 4. Defendants had clearly used an inaccurate personnel record in determining to include her in the RIF. She has not received an offer of reinstatement or reassignment. Ms. Jackson is 68…

“The court nevertheless required OpenAI to continue preserving API Conversation Data as well,” OpenAI argued, in support of lifting the order on the API chat logs. Users who found out about the preservation order panicked, OpenAI noted. In court filings, they cited social media posts sounding alarms on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). They further argued that the court should have weighed those user concerns before issuing a preservation order, but “that did not happen here.” One tech worker on LinkedIn suggested the order created “a serious breach of contract for every company that uses OpenAI,” while privacy advocates on…

According to a post on his blog, this was done with the approval of Musk before he left DOGE. “When he asked the room about improving DOGE’s public perception, I asked if I could open-source the code I’d been writing,” Lavingia said. “He said yes—it aligned with DOGE’s goal of maximum transparency.” That openness may have eventually led to Lavingia’s dismissal. Lavingia confirmed he was terminated from DOGE after giving an interview to Fast Company magazine about his work with the department. A VA spokesperson declined to comment on Lavingia’s dismissal. VA officials have declined to say whether they will…

There were at least 100 heat-related deaths in the state from June 26 to July 2, 2021, according to the Washington State Department of Health. That unprecedented stretch of scorching high temperatures was the deadliest weather-related event in Washington’s history. Climate change linked to the burning of fossil fuels intensified this extreme heat event, scientists say. Misti Leon’s complaint argues that big oil companies “are responsible” for her mother’s climate change-related death. “Through their failure to warn, marketing, distribution, extraction, refinement, transport, and sale of fossil fuels, defendants each bear responsibility for the spike in atmospheric CO2 levels that have…

BEAD changes: No fiber preference, no low-cost mandate The BEAD program is separately undergoing an overhaul because Republicans don’t like how it was administered by Democrats. The Biden administration spent about three years developing rules and procedures for BEAD and then evaluating plans submitted by each US state and territory, but the Trump administration has delayed grants while it rewrites the rules. While Biden’s Commerce Department decided to prioritize the building of fiber networks, Republicans have pushed for a “tech-neutral approach” that would benefit cable companies, fixed wireless providers, and Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick…

In the copyright fight, Magistrate Judge Ona Wang granted the order within one day of the NYT’s request. She agreed with news plaintiffs that it seemed likely that ChatGPT users may be spooked by the lawsuit and possibly set their chats to delete when using the chatbot to skirt NYT paywalls. Because OpenAI wasn’t sharing deleted chat logs, the news plaintiffs had no way of proving that, she suggested. Now, OpenAI is not only asking Wang to reconsider but has “also appealed this order with the District Court Judge,” the Thursday statement said. “We strongly believe this is an overreach…

Notably, Reddit pointed out that Anthropic’s Claude models will help power Amazon’s revamped Alexa, following about $8 billion in Amazon investments in the AI company since 2023. “By commercially licensing Claude for use in several of Amazon’s commercial offerings, Anthropic reaps significant profit from a technology borne of Reddit content,” Reddit alleged, and “at the expense of Reddit.” Anthropic’s unauthorized scraping also burdens Reddit’s servers, threatening to degrade the user experience and costing Reddit additional damages, Reddit alleged. To rectify alleged harms, Reddit is hoping a jury will award not just damages covering Reddit’s alleged losses but also punitive damages…

On Thursday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued against a proposed 10-year moratorium on state AI regulation in a New York Times opinion piece, calling the measure shortsighted and overbroad as Congress considers including it in President Trump’s tax policy bill. Anthropic makes Claude, an AI assistant similar to ChatGPT. Amodei warned that AI is advancing too fast for such a long freeze, predicting these systems “could change the world, fundamentally, within two years; in 10 years, all bets are off.” As we covered in May, the moratorium would prevent states from regulating AI for a decade. A bipartisan group of…

Two commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission are resigning at the end of this week. For at least a little while, the FCC will have just two members: Chairman Brendan Carr, a Republican chosen by Trump to lead the agency, and Anna Gomez, a Democratic commissioner. Democrat Geoffrey Starks announced in March that he would leave in the near future, and today he said that Friday will be his final day. Starks’ departure could have given Carr a 2-1 Republican majority, but it turns out Republican Commissioner Nathan Simington will leave at the same time as Starks. “I will be…

Lutnick’s announcement of the BEAD overhaul also criticized what he called the program’s “woke mandates” and “burdensome regulations.” Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have criticized a requirement for ISPs that accept subsidies to offer low-cost Internet plans to people with low incomes, though the low-cost rule was originally imposed by Congress in the law that created the BEAD program. Letter: Projects could be delayed two years Although Musk last week announced his departure from the government and criticized a Trump spending bill for allegedly “undermining” DOGE’s cost-cutting work, Trump still seems favorably inclined toward Starlink. Trump said in a…

A federal judge ruled today that Florida cannot enforce a law that requires social media platforms to block kids from using their platforms. The state law “is likely unconstitutional,” US Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida ruled while granting the tech industry’s request for a preliminary injunction. The Florida law “prohibits some social media platforms from allowing youth in the state who are under the age of 14 to create or hold an account on their platforms, and similarly prohibits allowing youth who are 14 or 15 to create or hold an account unless a parent or…

The Trump administration weighed in on Cox’s side, arguing that ISPs should not be held “liable for contributory copyright infringement for failing to terminate subscribers after receiving notices of infringement.” The Trump admin’s Department of Justice said that making ISPs liable for their customers’ infringement could “encourage providers to avoid substantial monetary liability by terminating subscribers after receiving a single notice of alleged infringement.” The record labels’ lawsuit complained that Frontier “received hundreds of thousands of copyright infringement notices from copyright owners” but “provided known repeat infringers with continued access to and use of its network and failed to terminate…

College students who have reportedly grown too dependent on ChatGPT are starting to face consequences after graduating and joining the workforce for placing too much trust in chatbots. Last month, a recent law school graduate lost his job after using ChatGPT to help draft a court filing that ended up being riddled with errors. The consequences arrived after a court in Utah ordered sanctions after the filing included the first fake citation ever discovered in the state hallucinated by artificial intelligence. Also problematic, the Utah court found that the filing included “multiple” mis-cited cases, in addition to “at least one…

The administration says the plan will “drastically” speed up hiring while cutting costs. The plan said that efficiencies would be created by cutting down resumes to a maximum of two pages (cutting review time) while creating a pool of resumes that can be returned to so that new jobs won’t even need to be announced. Even hiring for jobs requiring top secret clearances will be expedited, the plan said. Critics highlight pain points of hiring plan A federal HR official speaking anonymously told GovExec that “this plan will make life harder for hiring managers and applicants alike.” That official noted…

Last week, Musk posted that he was “back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms.” Lawsuits against Musk, DOGE continue Musk and the Trump administration are facing numerous lawsuits over the authority wielded by DOGE and the large spending cuts imposed by the new government entity. In one case filed by 14 states against Musk, DOGE, and Trump, a federal judge dismissed President Trump from the lawsuit on Tuesday but said the lawsuit can proceed against Musk and DOGE. “States allege that President Trump is the only individual in the Executive Branch who resolves matters of greater…

Trump quickly appeals Trump has immediately appealed the ruling and is expected to take the case to the Supreme Court. He’s arguing that the court cannot define what constitutes a “national emergency,” which is a political question he believes only Congress can address. White House spokesperson Kush Desai has made it clear that Trump remains “committed to using every lever of executive power to address” the “crisis” of trade deficits, CNN reported, which he claimed have “decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base.” But the three-judge panel has already indicated that Trump may be…

Ars contacted Google to see if the glitch’s cause has been uncovered. A spokesperson remained vague, only reiterating prior statements that Google “investigated a technical issue that temporarily showed inaccurate road closures on the map” and has “since removed them.” Apparently, Google only learned of the glitch after users who braved the supposedly closed roads started reporting the errors, prompting Google to remove incorrect stop signs one by one. Engadget reported that the glitch only lasted a couple of hours. Google’s spokesperson told German media that the company wouldn’t comment on the specific case but noted that Google Maps draws…

A California bill would require $15 plans with download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps. The broadband lobby groups’ filing said ISPs are also worried about “unnecessary anticompetitive regulations” proposed in Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia. Not all the pending state bills are specifically about prices charged to low-income users. Some would impose net neutrality requirements or classify ISPs as utilities, the filing said. Preempting state laws while simultaneously avoiding federal regulation has been a long-held dream for the broadband industry. During the first Trump administration, then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai…

If MMFA is made to endure Paxton’s probe, the media company could face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation of Texas’ unfair trade law, a fine or confinement if requested evidence was deleted, or other penalties for resisting sharing information. However, Edwards agreed that even the threat of the probe apparently had “adverse effects” on MMFA. Reviewing evidence, including reporters’ sworn affidavits, Edwards found that MMFA’s reporting on X was seemingly chilled by Paxton’s threat. MMFA also provided evidence that research partners had ended collaborations due to the looming probe. Importantly, Paxton never contested claims that he retaliated…

Musk, so used to getting his way at his businesses, struggled for control. At various points in his tenure he took on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, and trade tsar Peter Navarro, while clashing with several other senior officials. Far from being laser-focused on eliminating waste, Musk’s foray into government was a “revenge tour” against a bureaucracy the billionaire had come to see as the enemy of innovation, a former senior colleague of Musk’s said, highlighting the entrepreneur’s frustration with COVID-19 regulations in California, his perceived snub by the Biden administration, and…