5 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Policy

Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Siri AI v. EU, an update.

According to an unnamed spokesperson speaking to the FT, Tim Cook and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen had a “constructive exchange on topics of common interest” on Tuesday over the current impasse that will leave roughly 450 million people without access to Apple Intelligence that actually works:

The meeting included a discussion of how Apple can launch its reinvented Siri in Europe while avoiding millions of dollars in fines for violating the bloc’s flagship competition rules, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Trump pulled in over $1 billion from crypto ventures last year.

The President’s annual disclosure noted that companies owned by Trump and his family received more than $800 million from the WLFI token and $635 million in royalties from Trump memecoins, report Reuters, WSJ, and CNBC.

CoinDesk points out the more than $50 million in Bitcoin, $25 million in ETH, investments in Coreweave and Coinbase, and $6 million from an NFT licensing agreement.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Supreme Court is taking up Epic v. Apple.

The Court will hear Apple’s arguments about a lower court decision upholding a ruling that Apple “willfully” violated a 2021 injunction forcing the company to let developers point to alternative payment methods, Bloomberg reports.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
The KIDS Act has advanced through the House.

The Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act — the package of bills requiring online platforms to implement new safeguards for minors — passed the House with a 267-117 vote. The bill introduces regulations for “social gaming platforms” as well, and would require AI chatbots to disclose they’re not human.

Meet the lawyer who beat Elon Musk — twice

Walk softly and carry a Fender Telecaster.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Nathan Edwards
Nathan Edwards
Mullvad’s cofounder gave $500K to Swedish populist party.

Swedish-language site Flamman reported that Daniel Berntsson gave 5 million Swedish kronor to the Örebro Party. The VPN company responded to the news on X, and Mullvad’s co-CEO Fredrik Strömberg told TechRadar “I don’t like that he made this donation,” but that “we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy.”

Lawmakers want to ban AI companies from selling your health data

A revamped data privacy bill would limit selling information to data brokers, including from chatbot services.

Hayden Field
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Discord is testing age verification with Incode and Google Wallet.

An update to Discord’s support page says it’s trying out a way to scan your ID through Incode, adding that “only your date of birth is reviewed for age confirmation purposes,” while your ID and selfie will be “permanently deleted.” Discord’s also testing age verification via a credit card or ID pass in Google Wallet.

Hayden Field
Hayden Field
California partnered with Anthropic to make Claude available to all state agencies and local governments.

They will get a 50% discount on access to Claude, as part of a “first-of-its-kind collaboration” that also includes complimentary workforce training, technical assistance, and “workflow input from Anthropic developers,” per a release. On the state level, government employees will use Claude to help draft and summarize documents, analyze information, and supplement day-to-day work, per the release.

Gaby Del Valle
Gaby Del Valle
A search is a search.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court determined that people have a reasonable right to privacy on their devices. The government had argued “geofence warrants” don’t constitute searches — but the court disagreed.

Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, said:

“An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information—even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company.”

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Google says EU Search and Android proposals may increase cybercrime.

Mirroring similar concerns raised by Apple, Google is now warning that “scammers and fraudsters could exploit greater access to apps’ permissions” if the EU pushes ahead with draft measures that would force the company to open its Search data and Android operating system to competitors. In a statement to Wired, Google security engineering head, Heather Adkins, said:

”Past implementation [date], I would give it maybe weeks before we began to see an increase in fraud in
Europe.”

The war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it

‘Everyone will be affected, not just scientists. Every community in the country.’

Bethany Brookshire
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Australia doubles down on social media ban fines.

The maximum penalty for social media providers that fail to keep under-16’s off their platforms is now 99 million AUD (about $68.2 million), double the original. It follows a study suggesting more than 80 percent of under-16s are still using social media in Australia. In a statement, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said:

“It’s clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law – there are still too many children on social media.”

The Guardian’s Kai Wright refuses to buy a new phone

But he’s quite happy gardening and listening to John Coltrane.

Terrence O'Brien
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Pete Buttigieg: “You’ve probably heard of ‘swatting’... Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team.”

This is a long and distressing post from Buttigieg about an experience with CPS over an accusation that he says “was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement.”

As part of the process, however, Buttigieg could not be alone with his kids, and he could not be present while CPS interviewed them.

A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family

[Pete Buttigieg’s Substack]

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
ICE agents confronted a Syracuse woman to try to get her to delete an Instagram post.

Agents walked into a polling place on primary Election Day to demand that one of the workers, Paigelynne Gonyea, delete her post, claiming she “may be in violation of federal law.” The post contains the name of Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, who has been named by a number of media outlets, including The Verge.

On Friday, US Representative John Mannion wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin requesting the agency “promptly review this incident and put a stop to any ICE activities that target protected speech under the First Amendment.”

"ICE wanted my autograph. I declined."

[@turndapaigeofficial - Instagram]

The World Cup puts the US’s nightmarish immigration policies front and center

Despite promises of smooth travel for the tournament, fans’ and even players’ visa chaos further illustrates the Trump administration’s goals.

Gaby Del Valle
Anthropic’s Mythos mess is only getting worse

The White House standoff could have dire implications for the US AI industry.

Hayden Field
Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Brake pedals may no longer be required in autonomous vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration kicked off a new rulemaking aimed at eliminating the requirement for brake pedals as long as the vehicle is fully automated. If it passes, it would be a gift to companies like Zoox that make purpose-built AVs without traditional controls. Safety advocates have expressed concerns about these moves, arguing that its premature to eliminate the requirement for manual controls and could pose a safety risk.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Nearly 400 local newspapers are suing OpenAI and Microsoft.

The coalition of publishers alleges OpenAI and Microsoft “scraped, copied, and ingested” their work without permission or compensation to train their AI models. This latest legal battle adds to the string of copyright lawsuits OpenAI is facing from publishers like The New York Times, Ziff Davis, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
People Inc. CEO says it’s “probably” headed for a confrontation with Google over AI crawling.

Neil Vogel, CEO of the publisher formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, brought up his company’s AI licensing deals with Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft in an Axios interview this week. He noted that while it blocks other unlicensed AI crawlers, it can’t block Google’s since it’s the same one used for Google Search.

According to Vogel, “We would love to do something productive with them, but we’re probably heading towards more confrontation than productivity with those guys.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This week in the big AI data center buildout.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Meta reportedly still hasn’t agreed to allow the US government to review its AI models.

That’s according to a report from The New York Times, which says the White House officials are pressuring Meta to submit its AI models for evaluation, something OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and xAI have already agreed to do.

“While we are working through the details, we hope to sign the agreement soon,” Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan tells the NYT.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
YouTube settles ahead of the next bellwether trial over alleged harms from social media.

The terms of the settlement are confidential, Courthouse News Service reports. Meta, Snap, and ByteDance are still set to be defendants in the trial, which is being brought by a 15-year old plaintiff known as “R.K.C.” and is scheduled to start on July 27th.

In the first bellwether case, Meta and YouTube were found negligent.