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Senate NDAA backs plan to fold SDA, Space RCO into Space Force

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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Open Cosmos seeks deadline extension for broadband constellation

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.

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iFixit Trump phone teardown confirms it’s an HTC dupe

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.

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

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.

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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 ‘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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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

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House appropriators back $55.5 billion Space Force budget, omit reconciliation funds

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.

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

(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.

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

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

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WhatsApp ordered to host rival AI assistants for free

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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A question for Nigel Farage – why is your nationalist party so obsessed with destroying British jobs? | George Monbiot

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

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Tories Pledge to Scrap Diversity Rule After Nowak Murder

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.

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FCC lets Amazon Leo miss deployment deadline with temporary spectrum penalty

Schwarz at SmallSat Symposium 2026

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.

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If Australian data centres are going to power the AI revolution, we deserve a fair return | David Pocock

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

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

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The SNP Must Be Held to Account Over the Embezzlement Scandal

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.

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Northern Thai residents march for action on polluted rivers. ‘This is an emergency’

BANGKOK — More than 600 residents of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces embarked May 31 on a roughly 68-kilometer, six-day ‘peace walk’ to demand the Thai government take action on the river pollution crisis that has seen Thai rivers polluted with heavy metals. The ensemble of affected residents, civil society groups, monks and students marched from Tha Ton subdistrict in Chiang Mai to the city of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand, reaching their destination on June 5, World Environment Day. For more than a year, Thailand’s Pollution Control Department has reported dangerous levels of arsenic, mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals in rivers across northern Thailand, with mining operations across eastern Myanmar suspected to be responsible for the pollution. “We are walking because our rivers are slowly dying,” Pianporn Deetes, executive director of the Rivers and Rights Foundation, which helped to organize the peace walk, told Mongabay by phone. “Toxic contamination from unregulated mining upstream is already affecting water, fish, food, livelihoods, and public health. We do not want to wait until more people become sick. This is an emergency.” Pianporn said the walk (42 miles) was about taking collective action to share information, document impacts and build public pressure in a bid to force the government to address the issue, which Pianporn said has, so far, been lacking. “Monitoring has improved, but action has not matched the scale of the crisis,” she said. “We need urgent diplomatic engagement with neighboring countries, stronger health monitoring, transparency, and action to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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