policy

The US Commerce Department is circulating a proposal to stop collecting census data on race and sexual orientation, and to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count for the 2030 census, which could reshape federal funding and political representation.

X updated its creator monetization program, requiring 500,000 verified Home Timeline impressions in 90 days (excluding replies) for the Original Content Rewards program, disproportionately hurting small creators.

Oracle has banned AI-generated code from OpenJDK contributions, citing safety and IP risks, despite its own heavy use of AI internally and a $70 billion datacenter investment.

MIT Technology Review's newsletter covers the spread of the 'censorship-industrial complex' conspiracy theory into Trump administration policy, and reports that AI has designed novel viruses from scratch for the first time, alongside other tech news.

The article examines why Apple temporarily banned Telegram from the App Store over CSAM content while X remains, suggesting the difference is more political than technical due to the potential backlash of removing Elon Musk's platform.

The FCC voted to end the national broadcast ownership cap, replacing it with case-by-case review, enabling further broadcast consolidation under Chairman Brendan Carr.

The FCC voted 2–1 to eliminate the national TV ownership cap of 39 percent, claiming authority to override a limit set by Congress. The decision will allow case-by-case merger review and is expected to enable larger broadcast consolidation, drawing lawsuits from advocacy groups.

A Verge Decoder podcast episode explores the growing bipartisan backlash against AI data centers, featuring reporting from Hernando County, Florida, where a conservative group protested and helped pass a moratorium on data center construction.

Top US officials warn that AI risks necessitate stronger cyber defenses, urging enhanced security measures to counter emerging threats.

GraphARC is an open-source governed agent runtime that uses a deterministic checker to admit or refuse proposed agent graph actions before execution, providing audit trails and cost tracking. It demonstrates how to steer agents away from forbidden actions using structured refusals.

The Rust project is adopting a new policy governing how LLMs can be used when contributing to the rust-lang/rust monorepo, formalizing rules for PR authors, reviewers, and issue reporters.

Anthropic has hired former California Supreme Court justice Tino Cuéllar as its first Chief Global Affairs Officer to lead policy and worldwide government relations, amid domestic pressure over a Pentagon supply-chain risk designation.

The White House finalized an AI oversight framework requiring 30-day government review of advanced closed-source AI models before release, while exempting open-weight models. The framework is not public and leaves key terms undefined, raising concerns about transparency and small developer impact.

U.S. senators are calling for a crackdown on wildfire prediction markets, arguing they create perverse incentives and monetize disasters. Polymarket defends its approach, while wildfire experts express disgust at the practice.

A court forced the Trump administration to partially reinstate the Digital Equity Act's competitive grant program, but eliminated racial and ethnic minority eligibility criteria. The NTIA will issue a new funding opportunity while the NDIA urges restoration of state grants.

The White House will not publicly release its new AI evaluation framework for advanced models, presenting it only to select tech companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. Details remain undisclosed, including discussions about open-source models.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered a comprehensive audit of data center proposals before they can connect to the state's energy grid, aiming to maintain grid stability amid surging power requests from data centers.

The White House will host AI companies to review a new voluntary framework for testing the cybersecurity capabilities of advanced AI models, as ordered by President Trump's executive order. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are expected to attend.

A developer complains that Apple doesn't handle app refunds, shifting the responsibility onto developers, and even when refunds are issued privately, Apple still takes a cut.

Starting Sunday, the EU will require companies to clearly label AI-generated or significantly manipulated content, with visible labels and technical markers like watermarks. The rule, part of the EU's phased AI law, aims to help users distinguish synthetic media, with some exceptions for personal and creative uses.