Policy

Joel Feder at The Drive reported a frightening story about how Flock cameras, recently suspended by the LAPD, tracked him in Minnesota and sent police after him over “stolen plates.” (They were not.) Flock says its cameras worked “correctly” in the lead-up to a potentially deadly incident. But here we are in our new era of computer policing.

The Pentagon may make a deal where it would pay for billions of dollars of compute from SpaceX, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The DOJ sued Apple in 2024, but the two sides are in “early” and “active” discussions about a settlement, Bloomberg reports.

Around 40 employees received the letters, which ask for meetings with Apple’s lawyers and tell them to “preserve documents and communications,” according to a report from the Financial Times. Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last week and accused two of its former employees of helping the AI giant steal its trade secrets.

A new report from Meta’s Oversight Board that tested popular AI models from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, and OpenAI found that each LLM is significantly less likely to criticize governments and leaders known ​for restricting free speech. The reasons for the refusals are varied and often confusing.

Citing two unnamed sources familiar with the investigation, the Washington Post reported Thursday night that, based on reports from many of the people who fell ill, investigators “have identified shredded iceberg lettuce supplied to Taco Bell restaurants by Taylor Farms as a potential source of contamination.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a spate of new housing policies, including a provision requiring landlords to disclose when rental listings have been altered by AI or with other tools.

Here’s the Financial Times citing an official report published by the UK’s media watchdog:

UK communications regulator Ofcom has opened an investigation to assess whether TikTok is complying with Online Safety Act duties to prevent children from seeing harmful content. The probe will also examine the effectiveness of TikTok’s age assurance systems. An update is expected in October 2026.

The EU is excluding wearable devices, including smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smart glasses, from an incoming rule that will require a wide range of electronics to have user-replaceable batteries. The Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t exempt, though, and will come with a replaceable battery in the EU by the time the law goes into effect in February 2027.

Apple’s on-device generative AI service has officially been registered with China’s cyberspace regulator, clearing a major hurdle for device rollout. To navigate local regulations, Apple is tapping domestic tech giants, integrating Alibaba’s Qwen and Baidu’s AI models to power the experience for Chinese users, as reported last year.

The largest US electrical grid operator, PJM, will add $6.3 billion in electricity costs for consumers across 13 states due to the booming energy demands of data centers. The rate hikes will hit millions of households and businesses over the next two years, adding to the $29 billion in costs that data centers have added to PJM regions since 2024.

Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked a State Department policy restricting visas to foreign officials who “demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies.” Boasberg wrote that a group representing tech researchers could likely prove it violates the First Amendment by categorizing research as “foreign censorship” based on viewpoint.

OpenAI and the prediction market have a deal, The New York Times reports, that pulls in Kalshi data for World Cup-related queries. A prompt for “France and Spain,” for example, included a win forecast attributed to Kalshi.

In May, the Office of Management and Budget proposed a budget change which would require all research grants to align with “the President’s policy priorities” and give political appointees the ability to veto grants they don’t like — with potentially catastrophic effects. While the OMB is required to review almost half a million comments submitted by the public, you can call Congress to keep up the fight.

Federal immigration agents shot a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday morning, the Portland Press-Herald reports.

Over the weekend, the three-year deal for Flock Safety’s 138 pole-mounted surveillance cameras came to an end, as the LA Times reports the LAPD CIO says it ended the arrangement while working on a new contract that has “very clear terms” about who owns the data collected and what happens to it.

Earlier this week, the president flew on the old Air Force One, according to the Times, because it lacked some security features, including anti-missile defenses. Now, the DOJ has issued subpoenas to the reporters involved in the story. The Times quickly denounced the intimidation tactics: