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China may have accessed Mythos

Anthropic logo on an orange and grey background.

According to a new report from Semafor, the White House's decision to impose export restrictions on Anthropic's Mythos was driven in part by fears that it had been accessed by a group linked to China. If the Chinese government actually had access to Mythos 5 or Fable 5, it would present a serious national security risk. The government could also attempt to reverse engineer the model through distillation, a method in which a "student" AI is trained on a more advanced model to replicate its behavior.

The White House has not confirmed this report, and a post on X by Trump adviser David Sacks did not mention China. Instead, Sacks focused on a r …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon security research reportedly led to the White House’s Anthropic Fable ban

Anthropic logo on an orange and grey background.

According to the The Wall Street Journal, the export control directive that led to Anthropic cutting off access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 was triggered in part by cybersecurity research from Amazon and conversations between CEO Andy Jassy and the White House. According to the report, the paper from Amazon claims that, through a series of prompts, it was able to get Fable 5 to serve up information that could be used in cyberattacks. Amazon has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Shortly after Jassy shared the company's findings with the government, it made the call to block its use by foreign nationals. Complicating this issue is that man …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order

Anthropic logo on an orange background.

On Friday evening, the government ordered Anthropic to block access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nations, both inside and outside the US, due to national security concerns. That order included employees of Anthropic. To meet those demands, the company has completely cut off access to the models for all customers.

In a statement, Anthropic said that while it was complying with the order, the government "did not provide specific details of its national security concern." Instead, it claims that any evidence of potential jailbreak was provided verbally, and that the vulnerabilities discovered were minor and available via other model …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Have politics finally come for the National Academies of Science?

12 June 2026 at 19:31

Founded during the US Civil War to provide advice to the government, the National Academies of Science have become one of the most prestigious scientific organizations. Its primary function is to prepare comprehensive reports on scientific and technological issues, aided by its ability to attract top talent from across the country.

Those reports have not been afraid to weigh in on matters of public controversy and risk offending powerful groups, which it has managed to do without losing the respect of the governmental organizations that fund these reports. But this year, there have been increasing signs that the Academies' ability to dodge political firestorms has reached its limit. Yesterday, a deeply reported story from Politico explained the breakdown between the National Academies and Republican politicians.

The National Academies is preparing an expert report on attribution of weather events to human-driven climate change, and fossil fuel companies are worried it will lead to findings of liability in the many cases where those companies are being sued.

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The US Is Requiring Foreign Influencers to Get Work Visas for the 2026 World Cup

12 June 2026 at 11:00
FIFA announced agreements with platforms such as TikTok and YouTube that include the participation of dozens of international influencers to generate content in the three host countries.

The bill that would let Jimmy Kimmel sue Brendan Carr is here

11 June 2026 at 18:23
Digital photo illustration of FCC chair Brendan Carr.

Under a new bipartisan bill, Americans could sue for damages if a government official illegally tries to coerce a social media, AI, or broadcasting company to remove their post - regardless of whether the platform actually does it.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the JAWBONE Act on Thursday, which, in addition to letting individuals sue for these kinds of damages, would create new transparency requirements for government communications with social media, AI, and broadcast companies.

That could empower someone like Jimmy Kimmel to sue Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Elon Musk is encouraging race riots on the eve of SpaceX’s IPO

11 June 2026 at 16:51
Elon Musk in front of a background of geometric shapes.

Elon Musk, on the verge of becoming the world's first trillionaire, is whipping up anti-immigration tensions amid ongoing riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Following a knife attack in the city on Monday, Musk declared support for Restore Britain, a hard-right populist political party that advocates for large-scale migrant deportation in the UK. He reposted statements from party leader Rupert Lowe calling for "a vast number of people" to be forced out of the country, as well as a promise from Lowe to "prosecute officials and politicians who knowingly placed dangerous third world savages in our communities." "This is the way," Musk added to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Open Cosmos seeks deadline extension for broadband constellation

11 June 2026 at 13:43

British small satellite specialist Open Cosmos is seeking more time to deploy its proposed sovereign broadband constellation for Europe after running into launch issues.

The post Open Cosmos seeks deadline extension for broadband constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.

iFixit Trump phone teardown confirms it’s an HTC dupe

11 June 2026 at 11:40
Promotional image of the redesigned Trump Mobile T1 Phone on a beige background
This is the Trump phone, but it could just as easily be an HTC. | Image: Trump Mobile

After getting its hands on a Trump phone and tearing it apart, iFixit has confirmed what I first reported back in February: the T1 Phone is an almost exact duplicate of the HTC U24 Pro.

iFixit partnered with NBC to get hold of the network's media sample of the Trump phone, along with a U24 Pro. They ran the phones through a CT scanner, tore them down to parts, and even put them back together into a functional Frankenstein phone with the U24 Pro's board inside the T1 Phone's chassis, confirming along the way that the two phones are functionally identical.

There are minor differences: The flash has been moved slightly, the speaker grille was …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Ryanair is under investigation over charging parents to sit with their kids

11 June 2026 at 09:59
A Ryanair low cost carrier Boeing 737-800 aircraft spotted taking off from Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands.
Ryanair said the CMA’s investigation is β€œbogus.” | Photo by Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty Images

European economy airline Ryanair is under investigation in the UK for charging parents mandatory fees to sit with their children. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was looking into whether the seating fees, which may be charging parents for the airline to meet its child safety and disability‑related obligations, are "unfair" under consumer law.

Under Ryanair's terms and conditions, at least one parent or guardian is required to sit with children aged between 2 and 11 when they fly, which the airline calls a "mandatory family seat." This approach to seating imposes a fee - typically Β£8 (around $10) per flight, according to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Labor to set terms for datacentre and AI growth as it vows not to repeat mistakes of resources boom

Assistant minister agrees concerns over resource usage are legitimate but argues Australia cannot ignore β€˜consequential’ economic wave

Australia should learn from the mistakes of the resources boom and set the terms for the AI and datacentres boom, the assistant minister for the digital economy, Andrew Charlton says.

Growth in datacentres has exploded in the past two years, Charlton told the Sydney Institute on Wednesday night, with 44 projects in the pipeline in New South Wales alone seeking 11GW of capacity on the electricity grid.

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Β© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Β© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Β© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The future of AI regulation is courting the strangest, most anxious bedfellows

10 June 2026 at 18:38
(L-R) Sen. Mike Rounds, Pamela Brown, Chris Malachowsky, Kevin O'Leary, Gabriele Caccia, Tammy Haddad, Michele L. Jawando, Sen. Mark Warner, Michael Kelly and Major General Patrick Ellis attend the Second Annual AI Honors. | Getty Images for Washington AI N

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about tech politics, tech influence, and tech shenanigans in Washington, DC. (If you're not a subscriber, you can get on board here.) We're back after a two-week hiatus, during most of which I was gallivanting in the Netherlands for a family wedding, and a trip to the Heineken Experience, which is, truly, an ~experience~.

Before I left, I asked everyone in Washington to please chill out while I was gone. This clearly did not happen, and I have returned to a political landscape that can be best described as that meme from Community where the room is on fire. Let's get into th …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The rightwing campaign to control how US judges view the climate crisis

10 June 2026 at 13:00

US energy secretary Chris Wright featured in seminars to judges when he was a fracking executive

As cities and states sue big oil for billions in damages over allegations that it covered up the dangers of its products, rightwing organizations are attempting to discredit the wave of litigation. They claim the lawyers behind it are teaming up with an environmentally focused legal education non-profit to bias federal judges against oil companies.

But it is actually fossil fuel-backed organizations that are attempting to sway the judiciary in their favor, one of those law firms is countering. Evidence of this includes judicial seminars hosted by one such group featuring pro-industry speakers such as the current energy secretary, Chris Wright, in his former occupation as a fracking executive.

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Β© Composite: Reuters

Β© Composite: Reuters

Β© Composite: Reuters

WhatsApp ordered to host rival AI assistants for free

10 June 2026 at 09:40
The WhatsApp logo against a green, white, and black background.

Meta has been ordered by the European Commission to restore free WhatsApp access for chatbots made by rival AI providers while the regulator finishes its antitrust investigation. The rare interim measure announced on Tuesday was deemed necessary "to prevent serious and irreparable damage to competition" in the general-purpose AI assistant market.

This is only the second time that the EU has used the emergency power in more than 20 years, Politico reports. It follows the launch of a formal investigation in December 2025 into whether Meta was abusing its market dominance by banning third-party AI chatbots from its WhatsApp messaging platform. …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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