Massive Effigy of Elon Musk Raised Over Times Square to Protest Grok

The committee's 2027 defense bill would eliminate separate statutory requirements for the two acquisition organizations while advancing broader Pentagon procurement reforms
The post Senate NDAA backs plan to fold SDA, Space RCO into Space Force appeared first on SpaceNews.
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 …
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 …
Respect Henry Nowak's family’s wishes and don’t exploit his death, intoned Starmer. But when murdered Rhiannon Whyte's mother demanded an end to illegal immigration, Starmer didn't want to know, says Steven Tucker.
The post Two-Tier Tears: Don’t Politicise the Grief of Henry Nowak’s Parents, Warns Starmer – Whilst Politicising the Grief of Henry Nowak’s Parents appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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.
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 …
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 …
Assistant minister agrees concerns over resource usage are legitimate but argues Australia cannot ignore ‘consequential’ economic wave
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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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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Draft defense bill funds Pentagon at requested discretionary levels but excludes $350 billion in proposed reconciliation spending, casting doubt on Golden Dome and other space programs
The post House appropriators back $55.5 billion Space Force budget, omit reconciliation funds appeared first on SpaceNews.
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 …
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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© Composite: Reuters

© Composite: Reuters

© Composite: Reuters
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. …
The net zero economy is booming, so claims that prosperity depends on oil and gas are bunkum – unless you’re a Reform backer with fossil fuel interests, of course
Really? You want to destroy a million jobs? Vote Reform UK for mass unemployment: is that your pitch? Hammer these questions home whenever you meet a supporter of the party. Or, for that matter, a Conservative, as their party now takes an almost identical line.
The figures are stark. They were compiled not by Just Stop Oil or the Green party, but by that bastion of conservatism, the Confederation of British Industry. They show that the net zero economy now directly employs more than 300,000 full-time workers, while supporting the jobs of 1.1 million. The net zero sector is worth £100bn to the UK already, and is likely to grow by hundreds of billions more. The rest of the green economy directly employs a further 600,000.
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© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
The Tories have pledged to tear up the requirement in the Equality Act for public-sector bodies to promote equality and diversity following the murder of Henry Nowak.
The post Tories Pledge to Scrap Diversity Rule After Nowak Murder appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Amazon no longer faces a July 30 cutoff for deploying half its planned 3,232 broadband satellites, but the reprieve comes with a temporary loss of spectrum priority that could give SpaceX and other rivals more leverage in orbit.
The post FCC lets Amazon Leo miss deployment deadline with temporary spectrum penalty appeared first on SpaceNews.
We cannot afford to make the same mistake as we did with gas. If tech companies are going to use our land, energy and water for AI, they must pay their fair share of tax
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Over the past few months, tens of thousands of Australians have emailed their local MP calling for a 25% tax on gas exports. More than 2,200 people have even chipped in their own money to fund billboards promoting the idea.
Why?
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© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
John Swinney has finally admitted SNP funds raised for independence were spent on something else. This is fraud and the people of Scotland cannot shrug and move on – the reckoning must begin now.
The post The SNP Must Be Held to Account Over the Embezzlement Scandal appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

For anyone who wasn’t sure whether China was in it to win the space race and dominate the rapidly growing space economy, its filings in December for 200,000 more satellites […]
The post WRC-27: the next arena for U.S.-China space competition appeared first on SpaceNews.
