A Massachusetts newspaper reports that officials from the town of Littleton (population: 10,141) "claim that five of Littletonâ(TM)s Flock Safety cameras were switched back on by the company without informing the town..." Littleton had temporarily disabled the cameras earlier this year, according to the article, but upon discovering the cameras were still active, city officials say they directed the Town Counsel "to initiate cancellation of the contract with Flock Safety and directed the Town Administrator to coordinate the removal of the six cameras on public ways" with the Department of Public Works. Ironically, it's the same Massachusetts town that last year was breached by a Chinese-state-sponsored hacking group for over 300 days. Flock has also considered dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers' vehicles "to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed," reports 404 Media, "essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media... 404 Media first revealed the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan."

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NBC Bay Area brings news from the small idyllic California town of Suisun City (population: 29,518). The city council "declared a state of emergency Saturday after a cyberattack that shut down computer systems including 911 public safety operations." "Malicious software infected and compromised" the East Bay community's information technology systems beginning about 5:45 a.m. Friday, the city said on social media. "The cybersecurity incident hit critical public safety operations, including 911 routing, police and fire dispatch, records and city services," the city said. "There is no imminent threat to the public," the city said. "All public safety services remain active." The city shut down its computer network "to contain the threat and preserve evidence for a federal investigation," it said... Suisun City dispatchers were taking calls for service through the Solano County dispatch center. Suisun City police officers and firefighters continued responding to calls for service, the city said, but online city services and internal operations were unavailable. On Facebook the city said it was "working alongside federal, state and regional agencies, including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and California Office of Emergency Services to maintain emergency services, investigate the incident and restore systems." But Bay Area PBS station KQED notes "They're only the latest local government in the region to be hit by a cyberattack." Earlier this year, Foster City and Pittsburg experienced other cyberattacks that impacted services in their own jurisdictions. Foster City declared a state of emergency after a March ransomware incident that shut down many services for more than a week. Pittsburg lost almost $1 million to a February phishing attack, though over half of it was recovered.

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President Trump has ordered a 15% tariff on imported products made with polysilicon, a key material for semiconductors and solar panels. The new tariff will take effect on December 4th. The Guardian reports: The executive order signed by the president on Thursday evening said: "The plan of action in this proclamation will, among other things, help ensure the commercial viability of United States production of polysilicon and its derivatives that is necessary to meet United States economic and national security requirements." Polysilicon, an ultra-pure form of silicon, is an important ingredient in making the semiconductors vital for AI processing power, datacentres and solar power generation. US solar factories have long accused Chinese rivals of dumping cheaper panels on the market, which they say have been enabled by excessive government subsidies and by moving manufacturing to other countries to dodge US tariffs. [...] The US has two main polysilicon factories, including Hemlock Semiconductor, which operates a plant in Michigan and is a joint venture between the US tech company Corning and Japan's Shin-Etsu Handotai. The Munich-based Wacker Chemie runs a factory in Tennessee. Trump said in the order that he had accepted recommendations by the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to set minimum import prices of $21 a kilogram for polysilicon, $100 a kilogram for polysilicon ingots and wafers, $0.22 a watt for solar cells, and $0.38 a watt for solar modules or panels. The order also allows the commerce department to create an incentive program for companies that invest in factories to produce polysilicon or derivative products.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to eliminate the National Television Ownership Rule, claiming authority to repeal a limit that was set by Congress over 20 years ago. The rule prohibits any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent of all TV households in the US. Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the FCC is replacing the rule with a "case-by-case review" of each proposed merger. "This will empower the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any deals that do not meet that standard," Carr's office said in a press release today. Without the 39 percent rule, broadcasters will be better able to compete against streaming companies that don't face similar limits, Carr's office said. The change, if not stopped by courts, will make it easier for Carr to allow broadcast mergers that result in more favorable news coverage for President Trump. Carr has consistently threatened to revoke licenses from broadcasters who have drawn Trump's ire, including by ordering an early license review of all ABC-owned stations. Carr said local broadcast TV stations are becoming "undifferentiated passthroughs of national programming produced in Hollywood and New York," and he justified repealing the ownership rule by arguing it will help the stations invest in local news. "It's worth noting that Republicans with deep firsthand knowledge of this issue also agree the commission cannot do what it is attempting today," said Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who voted against the decision today. "Former FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly has been unequivocal that the FCC lacks authority to change the cap. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who negotiated the 39 percent compromise, has stressed that Congress intentionally wrote the cap into law to prevent FCC revision. And Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz has said he is 'skeptical a change can be made absent an act of Congress.' Their consensus reinforces a simple point: Congress set the cap, and only Congress can change it." Gomez, in addition to arguing that "Congress deliberately enshrined the cap in statute and removed it from the Commission's review process," said removing the cap will hurt local broadcasters. "Digital giants compete for their most valuable programming and advertising, while consolidation pressures at the national level threaten the local reporting and public-safety functions on which communities rely," Gomez said. "But eliminating the cap does not free local broadcasters from that strain. It just changes who is doing the squeezing. A handful of station-group giants does not represent the wishes of local broadcasters. They are large national companies that own local stations and increasingly dictate what airs on them without much local input. Trading a squeeze from Big Tech for a squeeze from Big Media does nothing to protect the communities this cap was designed to serve."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Several US senators have written a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), inquiring about the agency's "plans to crack down on prediction markets" that offer "contracts for individuals to bet on wildfires." "Offering bets on destructive wildfires threatens to minimize communities' suffering, all so the rich and powerful can profit," wrote (PDF) the group of senators, who represent Oregon, California, Nevada, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. The document specifically cites that Polymarket hosted bets in January 2025 on the wildfires in Los Angeles, and it mentions another website which specifically accepts "simulated bets" exclusively on California wildfires. "There's also the heightened risk -- according to state and local fire officials -- that individuals could be tempted to commit arson in order to make sure their bets are successful," the letter continues. "By offering contracts on fires, prediction market sites run the risk of encouraging people to influence fires that have already started, creating additional concerns around public safety and insider trading." [...] Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana told Ars by email that the company does not allow such wildfire markets "because they create perverse incentives." But its primary rival, Polymarket, has taken a different approach. A spokesperson for Polymarket told Ars in an emailed statement that the company does not "profit from outcomes," adding that people "come to Polymarket for information." "While we are not blind to the risks, removing these markets does not prevent a tragedy but makes the most accurate information less accessible to the people who need it most," he wrote.

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The House voted 308-117 to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide and end the twice-yearly clock change. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, "where one G.O.P. leader said it was unclear whether it could move ahead and at least one Republican appears inclined to try to block it," reports The New York Times. Some sleep experts oppose permanent daylight saving time, arguing that year-round standard time better aligns with circadian rhythms and winter morning safety. The New York Times reports: President Trump has championed the effort to save an extra hour of daylight before nightfall and make the time zone permanent, describing the ritual of moving clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall a "ridiculous, twice yearly production." "We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day," Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post in May. "And who can be against that." A sizable bloc of Florida Republicans in Congress is leading the charge on legislation that would do just that, mandating daylight saving time nationwide for the entire year. Representative Vern Buchanan of the Tampa Bay area is backing the bill, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, another Tampa Bay-area Republican, cosponsored it. House leaders agreed to allow a vote on the measure this week as a sweetener for Ms. Luna in their efforts to persuade her to lift a legislative blockade she had maintained as she sought to force Senate action on a voting restriction bill Mr. Trump has championed.

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Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis is calling for a U.S.-led AI standards body to review frontier models for national security risks such as cybersecurity and biological threats. His proposal would create a federally overseen public-private organization, initially voluntary and eventually mandatory for U.S. deployment. CNBC reports: Google DeepMind boss Demis Hassabis, a Nobel laureate, said in an article posted on X on Tuesday that "urgent action" was needed to address risks associated with artificial general intelligence (AGI) -- the point at which AI matches or surpasses human intelligence. "We've already seen the challenges frontier models pose for cybersecurity, and other threats including nuclear and bio risks may soon emerge as capabilities continue to advance," he said. [...] Hassabis said the U.S. was well positioned to lead in developing an AI framework "given its economic and technical standing." "It could establish a new Standards Body modelled on a federally overseen public-private partnership or self-regulatory organisation, much like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), with a board that includes independent leading technical experts and open-source representatives," he added. FINRA regulates brokerage firms and exchange markets in the U.S. The proposed body would need "substantial" funding "in order to attract world-class technical talent and provide the necessary compute resources for large-scale testing," Hassabis said. Funding would "likely" come from industry, he added. Frontier labs would initially voluntarily share models with the body for review up to 30 days before release, before becoming mandatory for deployment in the U.S. market after being shown to be "effective." "Specific agentic AI tests could look for attempts to bypass safety guardrails or signs of deception, and ensure best practices, such as digitally watermarking AI-generated images and generating human-readable output tokens to understand model reasoning," Hassabis said. Further reading: Over 200 Economists Say 'We Must Act Now' On AI's Economic Impact

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a legal petition demanding it set limits on toxic Pfas "forever chemicals" in food, marking another setback for public health advocates' push to limit exposures to the dangerous compounds. The agency is refusing to set limits despite a growing body of science and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding food is the biggest source of Pfas exposure. Testing has found the levels of Pfas in single servings of some contaminated foods to be equivalent to drinking many glasses of contaminated water. While regulators have focused on reining in Pfas in water, the chemicals are widely used throughout the food system, and there was hope that the agency under Robert F Kennedy Jr would take the threat more seriously. Kennedy leads the "make America healthy again" (Maha) movement, of which eliminating toxic chemicals from food is a cornerstone. [...] The November 2023 petition called on the FDA to check for up to 30 Pfas compounds in a range of produce, fish, eggs, milk and bread. The agency did not respond within the six-month timeframe required by law, but TEJTF scaled back its petition in 2025 to ask the agency to set advisory thresholds for PFOA and Pfos, two of the most common and dangerous Pfas compounds, in seafood and milk. Recent FDA testing found 70% of seafood samples contain the chemicals, while independent milk testing found it in 12% of 50 samples, including extremely high levels in Whole Foods and Kirkland Signature brands. The FDA rejected the revised petition, stating it plans to take action on setting standards for Pfas, and there is "insufficient evidence to support [TEJTF's] request." The agency said it plans to set less non-binding "action levels" that do not require contaminated food to be removed from shelves. "Tolerance levels," or limits, make it illegal to sell food contaminated beyond a set threshold.

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The FCC plans to roll back broadband label rules that require ISPs to itemize all passthrough fees. Under the proposal, providers could instead list a single "up to" amount for location-based charges. It would also allow ISPs to link to pricing labels rather than display them prominently, while eliminating machine-readable pricing files. Ars Technica reports: ISPs routinely advertise prices much lower than those actually charged to consumers on their monthly bills. One method of raising monthly bill prices above advertised rates is to tack on fees that, ISPs claim, are used to offset charges imposed by local governments. ISPs would be well within their rights to advertise accurate monthly prices and charge those exact prices on monthly bills. But because ISPs rarely do that, the FCC has required them to make specific price disclosures to consumers for the past decade. The Biden-era FCC updated the broadband-label rules to require that ISPs "itemize on the label (PDF) all discretionary monthly fees that the provider passes through to the consumer." The change drew protest from Comcast and other ISPs that complained bitterly about the complexity of listing all the hidden fees they had chosen to charge. Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the Trump FCC has steadily whittled away at requirements imposed under Democrats. An order (PDF) released in draft form last week would eliminate the requirement to itemize passthrough fees and let ISPs list them in a single "up to" amount. The "up to" amount can include both government fees and fees charged by non-government entities such as owners of utility poles. "Rather than continuing to require providers to itemize 'passthrough fees' that can vary by location, we allow providers to display such fees in the aggregate, either as a maximum or 'up to' amount for the total fees applicable in any location where the service plan is offered, or as the exact total of such fees assessed in a particular location," the FCC draft order said. The order to be voted on later this month includes a few other changes that will please ISPs and their lobby groups. ISPs will be allowed to provide links to price labels instead of displaying the full labels prominently on ordering pages and account portals, and will be allowed to stop making the price-label information available in machine-readable spreadsheets. The FCC is also relaxing the requirement that price information be available over the phone. The FCC said the change will "allow phone sales representatives to present label information conversationally, as a summary of key label fields, rather than require verbatim recitation." The changes have been in the works since October 2025, when the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to let the public submit comments on the proposals. The outcome of that process is the draft order, which will be voted on at the FCC's July 22 meeting and take effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register. There are many types of passthrough fees that ISPs will be able to stop listing individually and roll into the "up to" amount. The FCC defined the fees as follows, saying they include just about anything that isn't a tax [...]. Another planned change will eliminate a requirement that providers archive all labels for at least two years after a service plan is no longer available. The Utility Reform Network, an advocacy group, told the FCC that the archived labels provide crucial data about how prices and services change over time, and that machine-readable labels are important for affordability research and information accessibility.

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CISA is reportedly using Anthropic's Mythos model to scan government code repositories for security vulnerabilities, with sources saying the audits have already found numerous bugs. Reuters reports: The scanning is being done by CISA's Attack Surface Evaluation team, according to one of the sources. The team is a group within CISA that conducts digital security assessments and hacking exercises across government. Two of the sources said the audits had already uncovered a large number of vulnerabilities but did not elaborate. Reuters could not establish exactly how much government code the team had gone through or the nature or severity of the bugs it discovered. [...] The National Security Agency, the U.S. government's powerful eavesdropping agency, has been using Mythos as far back as April despite the blacklist, Axios has reported. Late last month, the New York Times said that NSA analysts had been testing Mythos in classified settings and coming away impressed with its capabilities. But when Anthropic rolled out a public version of Mythos called Fable, which included what it described as cybersecurity safeguards, the White House suddenly demanded that it ban foreigners from running it. This triggered a global shutdown of the model that was lifted only last week.

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Subsea cables. Ukrainian power stations. Russian oil refineries. Even airports, water-desalination plants and Amazon data centers. They've all become targets in wartime, notes the Wall Street Journal, and around the world now arguments "are already brewing between companies and governments over new regulations and potential costs." In Germany, powerful associations representing private companies and municipal utilities have pushed back against new standards for physical protection, warning they could spell financial ruin. New Zealand's government has faced resistance from industry groups over a proposal to fine critical-infrastructure companies and their directors for cybersecurity breaches... A sign of how lines are blurring: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 32 countries last year agreed that as part of a pact to spend 5% of economic output on defense and security, 1.5% would go to military-adjacent needs including protecting critical infrastructure and networks. Spending targets range from cybersecurity and industrial capacity to railroads, bridges and ports needed for military logistics... "We need a wide concept of defense — defense is no longer just military," said Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, NATO's top military adviser. Adding to the complexity, companies now need to protect the data networks that serve as gateways to critical infrastructure. Hackers increasingly target not just computer files to steal information but also systems managing vital functions like building access and factory control, remotely causing physical damage or enabling espionage. U.S. authorities in April warned that Iranian hackers were trying to disrupt American drinking-water systems by targeting computer equipment that connects hardware with software. A year earlier, suspected Russian hackers remotely manipulated valves on a Norwegian hydroelectric dam... Another challenge will be parsing jurisdictions and liability for assets that cross international waters or are damaged in combat — such as subsea data cables or energy pipelines. Turf battles between law enforcement and militaries are already complicating efforts... "The private owner can invest in redundancy, monitoring, and repair capacity, but only governments and militaries can really deter, patrol, attribute, or respond to hostile state activity," said Marc Glasser, who worked on cybersecurity and infrastructure security for three decades at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security.... Companies say they need greater clarity from governments on what protections they will provide and subsidies to help them defend privately owned assets that provide a public good. Most governments don't provide incentives for companies to invest more than the minimum legal resilience requirements. The article notes that in May the chief executive of California's Port of Long Beach "launched a cyber-defense operations center to thwart tens of thousands of cyberattacks daily, which jeopardize computer systems and all equipment connected to them." The article also points out that the EU adopted new regulations requiring countries to reduce vulnerabilities, and new laws proposed in the U.K. now "seek to increase penalties for subsea sabotage, updating codes that date to when telegraph cables were first laid in the 19th century."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inside Climate News: A new state law limits Florida communities' aims to offset greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate and intensifying disasters such as hurricanes. Specifically, HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals. At least 10 cities and counties have implemented such policies, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Leon County, where Tallahassee, the state capital, is located. But the new law will not necessarily upend these policies, said Bradley Marshall, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an advocacy group. "It's certainly meant to scare municipalities and local governments from trying to do things to further net-zero policies," he said. "Now, its exact impact and what it exactly prohibits is probably up for some debate. Things that are adjacent to it -- emissions reductions and even climate change reduction policies -- on their face will not run afoul at all of a ban on adopting a net zero policy." The measure requires local governments to submit an affidavit annually to the state Department of Revenue verifying compliance. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the measure on April 22, Earth Day, and the law will take effect July 1. It states that "net zero policies, carbon taxes and assessments, and emission trading programs are detrimental to this state's energy security and economic interests and inconsistent with the energy policy and the environmental policy of this state." [...] HB 1217 also prevents local governments from purchasing items such as vehicles or appliances based on the fuels they use or production of the items. Local governments may not participate in carbon-trading programs or use public funds to support other organizations with net-zero policies. Cities and counties also may not charge a tax or fee tied with carbon emissions. "This bill is definitely part of a larger coordinated push by the political enablers of the fossil fuel industry to obstruct any tools -- legal or legislative tools -- to hold the industry accountable for its contributions to climate change," said Laura Peterson, senior analyst at the Union for Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. "Florida is really on the front lines. So I imagine the governor is taking this step because he sees what's coming down the pike. It's not getting better. So I can only assume that this is an effort to satisfy some of the pressures that he's getting from donors and from his party to protect the industry. And he's doing it at the expense of his constituents."

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California's Protect Our Games Act, which would require publishers to warn players before shutting down paid online games and offer refunds or continued access, failed to advance after a state Senate committee vote. Four state senators voted in favor, three voted against, and four abstained. Engadget reports: The committee unanimously voted in favor of granting the bill reconsideration, meaning it could come back before this group of state senators. Assemblymember Chris Ward introduced the bill in February and it passed the California State Assembly 43-16 in late May. That said, the abstentions prevented the bill's progression for now. "Not enough yeses means the bill stops here for this session," a volunteer with the Stop Killing Games campaign (which supported the bill) noted on Reddit. "That is the loss." The volunteer also claimed this was the movement's first attempt to nudge such legislation through in the U.S., and that the bill got this far without paid staff or an in-person lobbying campaign. They said the Entertainment Software Association -- a trade organization of major game industry publishers -- brought in a lobbyist to halt the bill's progress (including by claiming private servers for the likes of Minecraft would be "illegal") and that Stop Killing Games would be more prepared to counter that in the future. "Next session, we come back with an in-person lobbying presence, the funding to do this properly and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support," the volunteer, u/Mr_Presidentle, wrote. "We are not limiting this to California. We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures, and we are seriously looking at the federal level."

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NBC News reports: A group of companies that specialize in tracking international shipments of sensitive technologies is backing a Capitol Hill bill that would require America's most powerful AI chips to incorporate stronger security mechanisms aimed at preventing the chips from reaching China and other adversaries. The letter, signed by six companies, says the Chip Security Act (CSA) would increase American chip companies' competitiveness and close key loopholes in the U.S. export control regime. The move clashes with claims from semiconductor lobbying groups that the requirements would constrain America's booming chip industry. Sent to congressional leadership Thursday morning and seen by NBC News, the dispatch instead argues that more robust security verification would assure chip customers and manufacturers that they are abiding by sensitive restrictions on chip sales. The companies argue that the boosted confidence will "lead to increased sales, faster export approvals, larger transactions, greater access to new markets, and more expansive chip deals." Despite U.S. export control laws banning sales of advanced AI chips to certain countries, including China, loopholes in current requirements have allowed billions of dollars' worth of America's best AI chips to be sold to entities in third-party countries that can then forward them to China. In just one case in March, the Justice Department charged three people with conspiring to forward $2.5 billion of AI chips to China. The CSA aims to address those loopholes, mandating that chip exporters better track where advanced chips are sent, via either bespoke location-verification hardware or software that can run on existing hardware. That, bill proponents claim, would ensure that sensitive chips could be sold to countries like Malaysia or Indonesia without fear of further transfer to China... Experts say that because chips perform the advanced computations required for frontier AI systems, cutting off access to the chips is crucial to prevent geopolitical rivals from using AI systems for military or economic purposes.

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Norway will largely prohibit generative AI use for elementary kids ages 6 to 13 beginning with the new school year, while allowing limited, teacher-supervised use for older students. The government says the restrictions are intended to prevent children from skipping foundational reading, writing, and mathematics skills amid declining test scores. Reuters reports: Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom. Using AI increases the risk that young children skip important steps in their education, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a press conference on Friday. "The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics," Stoere said, adding that the new standards will be imposed from the new school year beginning in late August. Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added. In a related statement, the Norwegian government also said it would propose legislation to fund the use of more books in classrooms, reversing the trend towards computer tablets.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: As artificial intelligence companies reshape the economy and race toward trillion-dollar valuations, Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a sweeping transfer of wealth and power from the industry to the American public. The legislation, shown first to The Associated Press, would create a sovereign wealth fund overseen by an independent commission and financed through a one-time 50% tax on the stock of the largest AI companies. Sanders estimates that the tax would create a nearly $7 trillion fund that would generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct payments to Americans and programs such as health care, education and housing. [...] The 50% tax would apply to AI companies that reach $200 million in annual AI sales. Any new AI company that reaches that benchmark would also be subject to the tax. It would create a sovereign wealth fund -- similar to those used by countries around the world and some U.S. states -- that Sanders estimates would be worth around $7 trillion. Unlike a traditional tax, the proposal would require companies to transfer stock rather than cash, effectively making the American public a major shareholder in the country's largest AI firms. A seven-person independent commission -- nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate -- would manage the fund and use its voting shares "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," the bill summary says. Sanders proposes that a 5% annual dividend from the fund would provide direct payments of more than $1,000 to every American. If companies grow, the gains would be used for public goods such as education, housing and health care. Sanders argues taxpayers would not bear the losses if AI company valuations decline. "We're not going to lose any money, even if there is a bust in the bubble," Sanders said. The commission would be directed to "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," according to the summary. "The benefits cannot simply go to the handful of wealthy corporations. They will be shared by the American people," the independent Vermont senator said in an interview Wednesday. "The public has got to have a significant seat at the table to make sure that terrible things do not happen to ordinary people, and that in fact, AI benefits ordinary people, not hurts them," Sanders said.

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Anthropic employees say they remain confused and increasingly convinced that the Trump administration is singling out the company after officials gave it less than 90 minutes to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 over alleged national security concerns. Cybersecurity experts, however, argue that the cited behavior of helping to identify vulnerabilities in software is also available in rival models and is more valuable to defenders than attackers. The New York Times reports: Inside the company, employees' private group chats immediately lit up. Managers were instructed to prepare customers for a potential service disruption to the models, called Fable 5 and Mythos 5. But the messaging kept changing, with workers initially being told that the security problem was the ability of foreign companies to gain access to the systems, and later that a major vulnerability had been discovered in the models. In employee chats, Anthropic engineers asked one another if the company's plan to go public this year would be harmed by the White House directive. Many shared news reports that offered conflicting information about why the White House had ordered Anthropic to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals. "What are you telling your clients?" one employee asked in a chat viewed by The New York Times. Another said, "Does anyone know what to believe?" In another message, a worker said, "I don't understand what the issue is." Six days later, Anthropic's roughly 3,000 employees still have few answers. The San Francisco company is continuing to grapple with internal confusion as Dario Amodei, the chief executive, and some of his lieutenants meet with the Trump administration to try and resolve the situation. But after discussions on Monday and Tuesday, there was no breakthrough over ending the U.S. order to limit access to the company's new A.I. models. In a statement on Monday, Anthropic said it would continue meeting with government officials and pledged its "ongoing commitment to working alongside the administration." The dispute highlights how singular Anthropic has become in Washington. It was the second time in six months that the fast-growing A.I. start-up has become embroiled in a fight with the Trump administration over its powerful technologies, even as other A.I. companies offer similar models that have not received the same attention. And it has left Anthropic's employees in what they described as a holding pattern, with some wondering if they were being picked on by President Trump. "Are we being bullied based on bad vibes?" one employee asked in a chat viewed by The Times. Yesterday, TechCrunch's Zack Whittaker argued that the move sets a troubling precedent: the government can unilaterally disrupt American software products without court approval, potentially undermining trust in U.S. AI providers.

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TechCrunch's Zack Whittaker argues that the U.S. government's abrupt export-control order forcing Anthropic to pull its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models offline was "never about an AI jailbreak" threat. Instead, it was driven more by "personality differences" between the AI company and Trump administration. Security experts say the reported guardrail bypass did not justify the order and warn that the move sets a troubling precedent: the government can unilaterally disrupt American software products without court approval, potentially undermining trust in U.S. AI providers. From the report: Katie Moussouris, a cybersecurity veteran and researcher who founded Luta Security, said in a blog post that Anthropic recently shared with her a private copy of a paper written by security researchers describing an alleged guardrail bypass in Fable 5. (The Wall Street Journal reports that the paper's authors are security researchers at Amazon.) Moussouris said that Anthropic reached out to ask for her take on the paper. Moussouris' blog post described how the researchers triggered the guardrail bypass, but said that the bypass itself "should never have triggered an export control." The difference is largely between asking an AI model to "review code for security issues" versus asking it to "fix this code." The end result is largely the same, even if the questions are posed slightly differently. "The behavior described in the paper cannot meaningfully be fixed, and any attempt would only weaken the model for defense," said Moussouris, who criticized the export control directive as hasty, heavy-handed, and misguided. Moussouris and dozens of other top security researchers and experts have since called on the Trump administration to revoke the export control order, calling the move to pull advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the U.S. as "dangerous." Past administrations have made sweeping decisions on knowledge gaps. For instance, language used by the U.S. government during the 2010s to fix export law covering cybersecurity tools that could also be used for cyberattacks was so broad that inadvertently, it nearly outlawed legitimate security and vulnerability research. However, the Trump administration's directive appears retaliatory. Justin Hendrix, the editor of Tech Policy Press, said the Trump administration's move is "likely to raise alarms in foreign capitals about the reliability of American AI for critical applications." The message is that AI companies in the United States can't be trusted to operate without interference from the U.S. government. The Trump administration hasn't confirmed why it invoked its export control directive. Did the officials misread the report and freak out? Did Amazon CEO Andy Jassy say something to senior government officials that prompted the reaction, out of caution or spite? Was something lost in translation, or was this a way to pressure Anthropic, with whom the administration already has a fractious relationship? It's possible that the White House was unaware of the far-reaching consequences of the letter's demand and officials are scrambling to undo the damage of their own making. To quote Hendrix, "the climate is one of a cloud of suspicion that senior officials are picking favorites based on personal and political factors." The aftermath is that the government has set a dangerous precedent about how much control it intends to wield over the release of American-made software. This time the government took issue with Anthropic; tomorrow it could be with anyone else.

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The Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) is set to expire in September without an apparent replacement, potentially ending requirements for federal agencies to report on data-center efficiency, resilience, energy and water use, and contractor sustainability. Wired reports: Despite the public backlash, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the government agency that sets guidance for how agencies implement policies in line with the president's agenda, is not providing any plans for how federal agencies should manage the sunset or continue to implement reporting beyond the timeline of the law. This, current and former workers at OMB and the General Services Administration (GSA) say, signals that the Trump administration is set to take an even more hands-off approach to data center oversight and regulation. A replacement for the requirements laid out in FDCEA would, in other administrations, have been in the works for months ahead of its expiration. An employee with the GSA, the agency that oversees the government's IT services and helps to implement the FDCEA, says that the lack of any sort of plan is highly uncommon. The employee spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Never in the history of data center policies has a policy expired without another one having been painstakingly worked on for three years behind the scenes," says the GSA employee. "The technology has changed so much it's not about getting everything right, it's about doing the best they can and updating to a new policy. They claim they're going to make sure private companies pay their fare share, but they haven't explained how they'll do that." [...] There has been a burst of data-center-related legislation introduced in Congress this year, from bills that mandate environmental reviews of data centers to bills designed to protect local moratoriums. However, it appears that none of these bills are designed to address the requirements in FDCEA, nor do they specifically address federally run or leased data centers. [...] A search of reginfo.gov, the OMB website that contains reports on the president's Unified Agenda, also turns up nothing for the FDCEA. "By letting this expire, OMB is going to enter into this new age of prioritizing rapid AI development over any sort of centralized control or rigorous standards," says the anonymous GSA employee who spoke to Wired. "In the absence of a new policy from OMB, [GSA] has no directive or measurable standards with which to point agencies towards managing data centers efficiently."

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