❌

Normal view

All the news about Anthropic’s new AI fight with the White House

15 June 2026 at 20:04
Anthropic logo on an orange background.

Anthropic was already navigating one dispute with the government in its standoff with the Pentagon, and then came an order on June 12th to block off foreign access to its most recently released AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. When they launched on June 9th, Anthropic said “Fable 5’s capabilities exceed those of any model we’ve ever made generally available,” and that Claude Mythos 5 had the same underlying model, “but with the safeguards lifted in some areas.”

According to reports, the order came after conversations between Amazon and the White House about researchers saying they found ways to get Fable 5 to serve information that could be used in cyberattacks.

Anthropic responded by shutting access to both models for all customers, saying, “We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users. However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people.”

Read along below for all of the latest updates

Big Tech’s desperate last push at AI regulation

15 June 2026 at 18:44
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) arrive for a news conference with bipartisan senators on passage of the Online Privacy Protection Act at the Capitol on July 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. | Kent Nishimura/Getty Images.

For months, Big Tech's Washington lobbyists have chased after the holy grail of pro-AI legislation: preemption. This would be a comprehensive federal law, passed in Congress and signed by the president, applying one set of AI rules across the entire country and overriding the legally messy state-by-state approach to regulation. For months, lobbyists have run into roadblocks and incurred nationwide political blowback, and they now face the possibility that after the midterms, Congress will flip to hostile Democrats unwilling to work with them.

But their final, most desperate attempt at preemption is coming with new baggage, related to an ent …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Happy birthday to the Trump phone

15 June 2026 at 15:15
Photo of a sheet cake featuring a man holding the Trump Mobile phone.

From the day it was announced, on June 16th, 2025, the Trump phone sounded ridiculous. The T1 Phone 8002 (gold version), as it was officially called, was a combination of contradictory specs, product images that were clearly not photographs of a real phone, and the worrying requirement of a $100 deposit to secure a preorder of a $499 phone with no release date. But none of Trump Mobile's outlandish announcements were as bold as the claim that the phone would be "designed and built in the United States."

The US has next to no phone manufacturing infrastructure, few engineers with the required expertise, and little of the affordable, flexible …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Under-16 social media ban announced by UK government

15 June 2026 at 09:19
A robot verifying the age of a human man.

The UK is the latest country to follow Australia in implementing a total social media ban for children under 16, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced. The ban, which could take effect from early next year, will be joined by wider measures that will also prevent children from talking to strangers in online games, livestreaming, or using sexual or romantic chatbots.

"Do we truly believe that social media creates a happy environment for our children? Do we truly believe that it's a place where they can feel safe?" Starmer asked during a press conference announcing the policy. "I don't think I even need to answer those questions, do I?"

" …

Read the full story at The Verge.

China may have accessed Mythos

14 June 2026 at 19:27
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

13 June 2026 at 22:39
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

13 June 2026 at 13:55
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.

Read full article

Comments

© csfotoimages

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 “bogus.” | 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 £8 (around $10) per flight, according to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

❌