Twitter’s former Trust & Safety head details the challenges facing decentralized social platforms

Yoel Roth shares concerns about the open social web's ability to combat misinformation, spam, and other illegal content.

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Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google and other search engines

Search engines are indexing links to ChatGPT conversations that have been made sharable with a link.

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Google proposes to open Play Store to more real-money games in India

The developers are also required to submit proof that an authoritative third-party body has declared the app to be a "game of skill," the company proposed.

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Trump's Qatari Airplane Bribe Faces Federal Lawsuit

With preparations to refit a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force One "underway," a press freedom group sued the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court on Monday for failing to release the DOJ memorandum about the legality of President Donald Trump accepting the $400 million "flying palace."

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), represented by nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight, filed the lawsuit seeking the memo, which was reportedly approved by the Office of Legal Counsel and signed by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously lobbied on behalf of the Qatari government.

FPF had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the memo on May 15, and the DOJ told the group that fulfilling it would take over 600 days.

"How many flights could Trump have taken on his new plane in the same amount of time it would have taken the DOJ to release this one document?"

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Big Tech to work with Trump administration to build digital health ecosystem

The efforts will focus on two areas: creating a framework for patients and providers to easily share information, and creating more personal tools so patients can access resources needed to stay informed about their health.

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Luma and Runway expect robotics to eventually be a big revenue driver for them

Both Luma and Runway have reportedly held conversations with self-driving car and robotics companies as they look toward the future.

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Anthropic reportedly nears $170B valuation with potential $5B round

The new round is being led by Iconiq Capital, with the possibility of a co-lead investor joining.

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Idiot Senator Wants To Bring Back Stop And Frisk To NYC

Republican Senator from Louisiana John Kennedy told Fox News that New York City should bring back 'Stop and Frisk,' after the latest shooting in Manhattan.

Senator Kennedy says we have an idiot problem and not a gun problem, so how do we fix him?

"The other thing that, frankly, New York's going to have to face is the issue of whether we should bring back more aggressive stop-and-frisk, which is a perfectly legal law enforcement tactic, blessed by the Supreme Court, that de Blasio got rid of," Sen. Kennedy said.

First, no data supports the idea that S&F stops crime.

What it does do is anger communities.

In Washington, DC, only about one percent of stops between 2022 and 2023 resulted in the seizure of a gun. In New York City in 2008, that number was less than 0.2 percent. Conducting unnecessary stops that are highly unlikely to yield contraband both erodes trust in police and wastes public money.

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Flexport sells former freight unicorn Convoy’s tech two years after buying it

The assets of Convoy are now in the hands of DAT Freight & Analytics.

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New York state cyber chief calls out Trump for cybersecurity cuts

The top cybersecurity official in New York told TechCrunch in an interview that Trump's budget cuts are going to put the government at risk from cyberattacks, and will put more pressure on states to secure themselves.

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Jake Tapper Whiffs On OMB Director's Blatant Lies

OMB Director Russell Vought just outright lied about the massive, damaging cuts they've made in defiance of a court order to the National Institutes of Health, and Jake Tapper just sat there like a potted plant, as usual.

Vought made an appearance on this Sunday's State of the Union on CNN, and was asked by Tapper about the 14 Republican senators who are urging the White House to release the delayed NIH funds, and Vought responded by pretending they're only going after "wasteful spending" and DEI, and Tapper couldn't bother to counter him with anything more than asking why Republicans would be complaining if that's the case, rather than read him a list of specific cuts they've been making and ask him how they qualify as either "wasteful" or "DEI."

Here's the full exchange:

TAPPER: Quickly, if you could, I want to ask you about some medical research funding that the White House is withholding right now from the National Institutes of Health.

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'Allow Children To Do It': Fox News Host Calls To Replace Immigrants With Child Labor

Fox News host Charlie Hurt argued that President Donald Trump's administration should bring back child labor to replace undocumented immigrants.

Following a visit to a blueberry farm over the weekend, Hurt argued with Fox News hosts Rachel Campos-Duffy and Charlie Kirk about whether or not the government should be subsidizing small farms.

"And the debate, you guys, is what should government — I mean, look, it's very labor-intensive to do, for example, blueberries," Campos-Duffy said. "So what should government subsidize?"

"I would be totally fine with our government subsidizing labor, so there's more fresh fruits and vegetables, especially the organic kind for people," she insisted.

"No," Hurt replied. "No, my solution to all this is you stop paying people not to work. And when you stop paying people not to work, they have to go out and get jobs. And the first jobs they go out and get are these wonderful, rewarding jobs like picking blueberries."

"I grew up pulling tobacco," he continued. "There are wonderful jobs in farming, in construction, all of this that has sort of been handed over to largely illegal aliens allowed into the country to do all this cheap labor."

"Also, allow children to do it as summer jobs. The idea that your government, that your precious government, doesn't allow children to work summer jobs in blueberry fields is just mind-blowing to know."

Campos-Duffy noted that picking blueberries was "very difficult work."

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‘Wizard of Oz’ blown up by AI for giant Sphere screen

The massive Las Vegas venue known as Sphere will be screening its first classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” starting on August 28. And as detailed in a segment on CBS Sunday Morning, this isn’t just a matter of taking the existing movie and projecting it on Sphere’s 160,000 square foot, wraparound LED screen.

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OK School Perv Ryan Walters Had Nude Women On His TV During Meeting

Ryan Walters, the Christian Fanatic who is Oklahoma School Superintendent, is very focused on bringing bibles into every classroom. He also reportedly is a big supporter of naked women on tv....maybe porn? In meetings.

Yes, Ryan is a follower of Christ and a lover of porn. At work. On tv. In meetings. Where others can see it.

I had to read the news reports twice to make sure I got it right. Maybe it was not porn. But it was definitely naked women. ON TV. That he had been watching, maybe?

Here is the story: News9 is reporting that two State Board of Education members report that during the Thursday meeting that saw a video of NAKED WOMEN "displayed on a TV in Walters’ office during the meeting." The allegations came from two board members, Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage, who say that they were the only ones with a clear view of his screen.

Walters' communication director denied the allegations, calling them a "joke of a story."

Walters himself accused the board members of being "blatantly dishonest" and saying that "cannot hide their political agenda."

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Joe Rogan On Doctored Epstein Video: ‘Do You Think We’re Babies?’

Joe Rogan just proved that old adage about a stopped clock. Though in this case it’s a COVID-vaccine disinformer who thinks Nazi jokes are funny.

But at least Rogan has gotten wise enough to know that something is rotten in Trump and Epstein world. Last week, he put forth the deep insight that, “the same people that are pulling the strings are still pulling the strings.”

Now, he seems to have concluded that Jeffrey Epstein did not commit suicide. I’m agnostic on that score. But Rogan is right about the travesty of the “full raw” prison surveillance video that the Trump administration put out. As I wrote earlier this month, WIRED discovered that the Trump administration’s “raw” video of the night before Epstein was found dead in his prison cell had been modified.

More recently, WIRED found that nearly three minutes was missing from the “full raw” video.

Rogan was off on the amount of time missing but he was right about the gist. After attacking FBI Director Kash Patel for not “knowing” that the autopsy results were inconsistent with suicide, Rogan went after him over the video.

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U.K. starts enforcing online age check rules

A U.K. law requiring that pornography websites verify the age of their users took effect Friday.

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Astronomer winks at viral notoriety with ‘temporary spokesperson’ Gwyneth Paltrow

After spending the past week-plus in the headlines due to a seemingly inescapable social media scandal, data operations startup Astronomer is trying to shift the narrative with a tongue-in-cheek video starring actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow.

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Experts: Trump's Crypto Act May Lead To 2008 All Over Again

The Oval Office Goldfinger last week signed legislation that gave a rubber stamp to companies — including the ones owned by his kids Qusay and Uday — to issue their own digital currencies known as stablecoins. Never before has a president signed a bill that legalized his own stupid hustle. Via Rolling Stone:

Not only does this legislation enrich Trump and his crypto cronies, it will expose cryptocurrency investors and the financial system to tremendous risks — like the 2022 crypto crash that reached its peak with the collapse of the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX, but on a more massive scale.

The crypto industry poured hundreds of millions of real dollars into politics to get this bill passed and to advance another. After sending the stablecoin bill, known as the GENIUS Act, to the president’s desk, the House of Representatives also sent another dumpster fire of a crypto bill, the CLARITY Act, over to the Senate. This legislation would enact a light-touch regulatory framework for crypto tokens and markets.

[...]You can’t spend stablecoins at the bodega just yet (or maybe ever), but Congress and Trump have made sure that the rules are already rigged for the issuers because the so-called GENIUS Act has almost no meaningful protections for people that hold stablecoins or to prevent criminal money laundering or to safeguard your bank from crypto risks.

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Trump Sends In Wrong Guy To Distract From The Epstein Scandal

Aaron Rupar caught part of an interview of Senator Ron Johnson (MAGA-Moscow) on News Nation. Rupar accurately stated that it was a prime example of how Republicans flood the area with conspiracy theories in order to distract and gaslight the public.

But there is one thing that Rupar didn't mention. President Pedo didn't pick the best person to go out there to defend him. While RoJo is damn good at gaslighting, he has a problem with how he deals with sexual assault cases.

In 2014, it came out that one of RoJo's female aides had been sexually assaulted by then Wisconsin State Representative Bill Kramer. But RoJo and his staff sat on the information for nearly three years when Kramer assaulted another woman. Then RoJo got busy talking, coming up with one excuse after another for why he didn't do the right thing.

But wait. There's more. There's always more.

That wasn't RoJo's first time taking the wrong stance on sexual assault. Nor was it his worst stance.

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X to test using Community Notes to find the posts everyone likes

X is piloting a new feature that will help to identify the platform's best posts. The system is similar to how Community Notes fact-checking works.

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Chime backer Lauren Kolodny bets on AI to revolutionize estate processing

Acrew Capital's Kolodny led a $20 million Series A in Alix, a startup that uses AI to automate estate processing.

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YouTube sees a rise in ad revenue to reach nearly $10 billion

YouTube continues to lead in the streaming market, with ad revenue increasing by 13% to $9.8 billion.

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Google’s AI Overviews have 2B monthly users, AI Mode 100M in the US and India

Google shared new stats about its AI features' adoption during its Q2 earnings.

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Tesla profits pulled down by falling EV sales and regulatory credits

Tesla saw a 17% growth in its services business, but it was not enough to close the gap in falling EV sales, fewer regulatory credits, and a decline in solar and energy storage sales.

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Apple alerted Iranians to iPhone spyware attacks, say researchers

Researchers say Apple sent out threat notifications to several Iranians in recent months, saying their iPhones had been hacked. Iran is likely behind the attacks.

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Rocket Lab’s first hurdle to flying its new rocket is getting it to the pad

Rocket Lab is asking regulators to approve a temporary method to transport hardware to its new spaceport.

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Maria Bartiromo Works Overtime To Cover Up Epstein Scandal

Fox News host MAGA Queen Maria Bartiromo's new conspiracy theory is a doozy: the FBI raided Mar-A-Lago to recapture documents that would have exposed the conspiracy by President Obama to smear Trump.

If it wasn't for the kangaroo Supreme Court's ridiculous ruling shielding Trump, as well as his favorite judge Eileen Cannon, Trump would be in prison or waiting to serve time right now.

BARTIROMO: And I was told that that's why they raided Mar-a-Lago. That they wanted to find the Trump-Russia documents that indicated there was absolutely no collusion and that there was no evidence to even start such an investigation.

But Trump didn't have it there in Mar-a-Lago, but that's why they raided his house in 2022. Is that correct?

GABBARD: I don't have the details on the specifics of the Mar-a-Lago raid itself.

Those are within the possession of the FBI. But there's no question in my mind that this intelligence community assessment that President Obama ordered be published, which contained a manufactured intelligence document.

It's worse than even politicization of intelligence.

It was manufactured intelligence that sought to achieve President Obama and his team's objective, which was undermining President Trump's presidency and subverting the will of the American people.

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Fox News Host Smacks Down Guest: Trump's MAGA 'Betrayal' Drives Epstein Coverage

Fox News host Howard Kurtz pushed back on network contributor Ben Domenech after he slammed the media coverage of President Donald Trump's Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

During a Sunday panel, Domenech complained that the media were wrongly linking Trump's friendship with Epstein to his refusal to release documents about the accused sex trafficker.

"I think that one of the critical aspects of this that is being exploited currently is that they are combining these two stories in a way that we do not have the justifiable facts and reporting to say is actually the case," the Fox News panelist said. "And that to me is the thing that is irresponsible about the way that this coverage has been related... And that's irresponsible, and it's not something that I think is appropriate."

Kurtz interrupted: "But Ben, we knew that at one time, before he disowned him, Donald Trump was friendly with Jeffrey Epstein."

"I think what's driving the coverage, and feel free to disagree with this, is a sense of betrayal, fairly or unfairly, by Trump's own loyalists, by his own MAGA backers," the Fox News host added.

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Critics Bring Receipts As Don Jr Tries To Defend Dad Over WSJ Story

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted in July 2023, "Show us all the Epstein client list now!!! Why would anyone protect those scum bags? Ask yourselves this question daily and the answer becomes very apparent!!" Indeed, it is apparent. Now, it's 2025, and Coke Jr. is trying desperately to defend his father after the explosive Wall Street Journal article that's creating cracks in MAGA World.

The WSJ alleges that Trump wrote a 50th birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that included
a drawing of the outline of a naked woman containing a pair of small arcs to emphasize the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair."

Very classy, eh? About as classy as Donald signing an autograph on a young woman's tank top by her breasts during a campaign stop.

Don Jr. enters the chat.

"My father has a very specific way of speaking," he wrote on the Bad App. "People all over the world have mimicked it for decades. The insanity written in the Wall Street Journal, AIN’T IT and everyone knows it. Also in 47 years I’ve never seen him doodle once. Give me a break with the fake “journalisming."

Junior included a screenshot from another Xitter user where Grok determined that Trump has never used the word "enigma" before.

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Microsoft says it will no longer use engineers in China for Department of Defense work

Following a Pro Publica report that Microsoft was using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, the company said it’s made changes to ensure this will no longer happen.

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Astronomer CEO resigns following Coldplay concert scandal

Andy Byron, the startup executive at the center of an extraordinary social media furor, has resigned as CEO of data operations startup Astronomer.  Byron, who is married, was captured on a Coldplay concert “kiss cam” with his arms around the company’s chief people officer Kristin Cabot. After Byron and Cabot quickly tried to hide from […]

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Newsom Spox: Alcatraz Will Be Rebuilt When Epstein Files Are Released

Gavin Newsom has called the Trump administration’s bluff, joking that the notorious Alcatraz prison in northern California will reopen the same day that the so-called “Epstein files” are released. Via The Independent:

A spokesperson dismissed the idea previously touted by the president, following a visit to the island by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and embattled U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday.

“Pam Bondi will reopen Alcatraz the same day Trump lets her release the Epstein files. So, never,” Izzy Gardon, Newsom’s director of communications, told SFGATE. The visit by the two cabinet officials comes two months after Trump mulled over the idea of reopening the historic prison, announcing on Truth Social in May that he had directed the FBI and Homeland Security to look into the idea.

Democrats have blasted the idea, including California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who called it Trump’s "stupidest initiative yet."

Bondi toured Alcatraz & could hardly contain her excitement about the possibilities for more cruelty.

"It could hold anything…no one has been known to escape from Alcatraz and survive.”

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Sen. Adam Schiff: Trump Is Calling His Own Supporters 'Weaklings'

California Senator Adam Schiff called out Trump's firing of Maureen Comey, the daughter of James Comey, who prosecuted Epstein and Maxwell. Then Schiff laid into Demented Donald for creating the Epstein files, hyping it, and now shitting on his supporters.

Trump hates Schiff because he was the prosecutor during Trump's impeachment in the House of Representatives during his first term.

Sen. Schiff joined MSNBC's Jenn Psaki to discuss.

PSAKI: The daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from her job in the Southern District of New York.

And she worked, and I started the show talking about this, in the U.S. Attorney's Office for nearly a decade, where, among other things, she handled high-profile sex-trafficking prosecutions and was responsible for prosecuting both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

What's your reaction to the reporting, and what do you make of it?

SCHIFF: You know, none of this is good news for the Trump administration or the American people, for that matter, because either she was fired because she's James Comey's daughter, which would be totally inappropriate and a wrongful termination, or she was fired because she was prosecuting Epstein and his accomplices, and why would they fire her over that, and why would they fire her now?

So none of this makes any sense, or none of it has a good or innocent explanation to it, which is why they're just continuing to flounder over this.

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Dem Senators Walk Out On Sham Hearing For Emil Bove

Emil Bove is the worst judicial nomination since Robert Bork. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee broke their own rules to advance Bove.

Democrats on the committee did the only thing they had the power to do: they walked out.

“This is the world’s most deliberative body, and we can’t even debate a controversial judge, a judge that has been accused by a whistleblower of lying to the United States Senate, to lying to this committee,” Senator Cory Booker said. He continued: the country is “tilting towards authoritarianism with the complicity of Senate Republicans,” and that “the checks and balances that are clearly spelled out by the founders of our democracy are now being undermined.”

Democrats were also outraged that committee chairman Chuck Grassley violated committee and parliamentary rules to rush the vote.

"This is out of order," Booker said. "This is absolutely insane. What is the rush? Here's a guy that was given the worst ever condemnation from a judge in the SDNY for withholding exculpatory evidence as a prosecutor. With more times, the things that Mr. Bovee has done at the DOJ and throughout his career would come to light, not by elected officials, but by legitimate people whose voices should be heard. Why are we refusing to hear them? Why are we silencing those people?"

Below are excerpts from the transcript of the video above:

NBC Reporter Julie Cirkin: All the nominees were reported out, including Bovey, according to Grassley's office.

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Microsoft is buying tons of carbon removal from Xprize startup Vaulted Deep

Microsoft's data center boom has been imperiling its 2030 carbon negative pledge, so the tech giant is turning to Vaulted Deep, which operates like a reverse oil company.

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'Nothing About Epstein!' AG Pam Bondi Ducks Epstein File Questions

India eyes global quantum computer push — and QpiAI is its chosen vehicle

QpiAI, an Indian startup that integrates AI and quantum computing for enterprise use cases, has raised $32 million in a new funding round co-led by the Indian government.

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Scale AI lays off 14% of staff, largely in data-labeling business

Scale AI is cutting 14% of the company just weeks after Meta invested $14.3 billion in the startup and hired away its CEO.

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A former OpenAI engineer describes what it’s really like to work there

A senior engineer describes the thrill, chaos, and exhaustion of working at OpenAI this past year while launching its coding agent Codex.

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Meta fixes bug that could leak users’ AI prompts and generated content

The tech giant fixed the security flaw, netting a security researcher $10,000 for privately disclosing the bug.

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American Joins Russian Army For Citizenship, Gets A Big Surprise Instead

I expect this good Christian family that fled the United States to escape 'teh gays' is about to get some harsh lessons in how the world really works, especially the Russian world, their new home. Her husband Derek convinced himself that by signing his one-year contract, he'd somehow be able to use his welding skills to avoid the fighting in Ukraine. Well, turns out that was just a lie, and the Russian army already has plenty of welders. Thanks anyway. They also don't do one-year contracts for their Special Military Operation, so he's likely there for the duration. But given his two weeks of basic training, which he understood nothing, because it was all in Russian, his time in Ukraine will likely be very brief indeed. (New recruits have a life expectancy measured in weeks when sent to Ukraine.) If his wife DeAnna is lucky, she'll get Derek's body back. And if not, she'll probably get lots of views crying on their YouTube channel, Huffman Time.

Well, okie dokie.

Source: Instagram/AnalyzeEducate

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Former Sequoia partner Matt Miller raises $355M for new fund — with Sequoia’s backing

Former Sequoia partner Matt Miller has already locked in $355 million for his new fund, Evantic, which is also backed by Sequoia, TechCrunch learned.

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Following YouTube, Meta announces crackdown on ‘unoriginal’ Facebook content

Like YouTube, Meta says it won't penalize users who are engaging with other people's content, doing things like making reaction videos, joining a trend, or adding their own takes.

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Cognition, maker of the AI coding agent Devin, acquires Windsurf

Cognition, the startup behind the viral AI coding agent Devin, announced in a blog post on Monday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AI coding startup Windsurf. The announcement comes just days after Google hired away Windsurf’s CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and research leaders in a $2.4 billion deal, a […]

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Meta acquires voice startup Play AI

Meta has acquired Play AI, a startup that uses AI to generate human-sounding voices.

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Study warns of ‘significant risks’ in using AI therapy chatbots

Therapy chatbots powered by large language models may stigmatize users with mental health conditions and otherwise respond inappropriately or even dangerously, according to researchers at Stanford University.

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'You're Getting Gardeners': Fox News Confronts Kristi Noem Over Deportations

Fox News host Shannon Bream pressed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem because her agency deported day laborers instead of "the worst of the worst" criminals.

During a Sunday interview, Bream noted that a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump's administration could not detain people because of their race or for speaking Spanish.

"Well, this federal judge's ruling is ridiculous. We never ran our operations that way," Noem insisted. "We've seen this across the country over and over and over again, where judges are getting political. It's not their job. I hope they can bring some dignity back to the bench because we certainly are lacking it now for many of these federal judges."

Bream replied: "So to the point that you're going after the worst of the worst, you've got critics out there who are saying you are getting gardeners, you're getting hotel workers, you're going after you know people that have decades of roots within a particular community."

"Sixty percent of the people are being round up have no conviction or run in with the law at all," the host added.

"That's false! Absolutely false!" Noem exclaimed. "These are the individuals, over 70% of them have been convicted, or they have charges pending against them, because of the investigative work that has been done by a law enforcement officer. So it's simply not true."

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Uh Oh: Bongino May Quit The FBI After Fighting With Pam Bondi Over Epstein

MAGA is in a civil war right now over conspiracy theories surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and Pam Bondi's 180 degree turn around the supposed client list (which she now says doesn't exist). Dan Bongino, the FBI's #2 in command, is reportedly butting heads with Bondi, so much so that he has not even come to work for the last few days. And new reports are actually saying that he may actually RESIGN over the Epstein situation.

Prior to joining the Trump administration 2.0, Dan Bongino was a very successful podcaster with a heavy focus on conspiracy theories. The Jeffrey Epstein rumors were a HUGE topic on his show over the years and one of the things he touted when he accepted the role in the FBI was that he would get to the bottom of Jeffrey Epstein's death and client list, hoping to expose all the Deep State Child Molesters.

Imagine his sadness when Pam Bondi told the public that no Jeffrey Epstein client list exists.

NBC reports that “Bongino is out of control furious, This destroyed his career. He’s threatening to quit and torch Pam unless she’s fired.”

Apparently there was a huge blowout fight during which Bongino and Kash Patel were asked if they were "dissatisfied with the decision not to release any additional Epstein files."

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AI coding tools may not speed up every developer, study shows

Software engineer workflows have been transformed in recent years by an influx of AI coding tools, but However, a new study calls into question the extent to which today's AI coding tools enhance productivity for experienced developers.

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India’s richest man wants to turn every TV into a PC

Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Reliance Industries, has launched a virtual desktop service called JioPC for televisions.

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How to actually raise a seed round: Actionable advice from top investors at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

This isn’t your typical venture panel. Expect sharp insights on how to cut through the noise, structure your raise, and build relationships that last beyond a term sheet. Whether you're gearing up for your first round or advising a founder who is, this is the TC Disrupt session you don’t want to miss.

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Belkin ends support for most Wemo devices and its Wemo app

Another day, another smart device bites the dust -- or, in this case, a full lineup of smart devices. On Thursday, Belkin announced it will end technical support for its older Wemo products as of January 31, 2026, and the app used to control the devices will no longer be supported. The decision will impact a range of devices, including smart plugs, light switches, smart bulbs, baby monitors, kitchen appliances, heaters, air purifiers, motion sensors, and more.

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X’s ad business improved under departing CEO Linda Yaccarino, but it’s still tough times ahead

In the U.S., ad spending was up 62% year-over-year in the first half of 2025.

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Politicized FBI Launches Criminal Investigation Of Comey And Brennan

The knives have been out for James Comey and John Brennan (and others) for some time now, so this should come as no surprise to anyone from this criminal administration that's still trying to erase Trump's Russiagate corruption.

FBI launches criminal investigations of John Brennan, James Comey: DOJ sources:

Former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are under criminal investigation for potential wrongdoing related to the Trump–Russia probe, including allegedly making false statements to Congress, Justice Department sources told Fox News Digital.CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred evidence of wrongdoing by Brennan to FBI Director Kash Patel for potential prosecution, DOJ sources told Fox News Digital.

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SpaceX in talks to raise new funding at $400B valuation

SpaceX is in talks to raise fresh capital at a $400 billion valuation.

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Mistral is reportedly in talks to raise $1B

French AI startup Mistral is in talks to raise up to $1 billion in equity from investors including Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund, reports Bloomberg.

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ChatGPT is testing a mysterious new feature called ‘study together’

Some ChatGPT subscribers are reporting a new feature appearing in their drop-down list of available tools called “Study Together.” The mode is apparently the chatbot’s way of becoming a better educational tool. Rather than providing answers to prompts, some say it asks more questions and requires the human to answer, like OpenAI’s answer to Google’s […]

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iOS 26 beta 3 dials back Liquid Glass

The early version in the first developer beta of iOS 26 and the accompanying updates for Apple's other devices still left room for improvement in terms of usability, accessibility, and legibility.

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DeSantis Unveils Jefferson Statue Made In China As Part Of America's 250th Birthday

This newspaper report makes it sound like many levels of government coordinated to bring the statue to the Jefferson County Courthouse. In reality however, someone just placed an order to a factory in China. The exact same bronze statue is also on the University of Missouri campus, and has had issues in recent years.

Source: Tallahassee Democrat

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a statue of third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson outside the Jefferson County Courthouse in Monticello, about 27 miles east of downtown Tallahassee.

The occasion coincided with Florida celebrating 249 years of America, just two days ahead of the Fourth of July.

"As we celebrate American independence this week, it is fitting to unveil this statue of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence," Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said.

Byrd removed the cloth covering from the statue and DeSantis noted that it featured Jefferson using a quill pen to write the Declaration of Independence.

The Florida Department of State Division of Historical Resources, who acquired the statue as part of a limited production series, with the help of Jefferson County Administrator Shannon Metty, who coordinated the logistics of transporting the nearly 1,000 pound statue.

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California National Guard Is Not Available For CA Wildfires

[Above: The LA wildfires from five months ago.]

It’s tough to believe it has been almost a month since President Donald Trump illegally commandeered thousands of California National Guard troops to help with his nativist assault on Los Angeles. Now, as the state’s wildfire season kicks into high gear, the state has to rely on the whims of the Trump administration to see if it could possibly, just maybe, have its own troops back so that the state doesn’t burn down. 

Definitely what the Founding Fathers intended, right?

After first demanding the deployment of 2,000 members of the California National Guard, Trump doubled that to 4,100 in mid-June. Why, pray tell? Well, it’s not all that clear. Sure, Trump had all the generic statements about protecting federal personnel and such, but what it really looks like is that the administration now sees these troops as their own personal force to be deployed wherever they feel like it, for whatever they want. How else to explain the deployment of over 300 National Guard members to the Coachella Valley—more than 100 miles from Los Angeles—to help the Drug Enforcement Agency raid cannabis growers?

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Ask not for whom the Louvre of Bluesky tolls, it tolls for thee

It’s a sad weekend over at Bluesky, where one of the best accounts has disappeared — though we can still hope for its resurrection.

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Why Is Elon Musk Hiring Lobbyists In Texas?

by Lauren McGaughy, The Texas Newsroom

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Elon Musk’s team of Texas lobbyists during the 2025 legislative session did not rival those of huge energy and telecommunications companies, which typically employ dozens of people to represent them. But Musk and his companies still hired more lobbyists this year than any other since 2021, according to data from the Texas Ethics Commission.

Musk, the billionaire businessman behind carmaker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX, influenced several new Texas laws this year. How his lobbyists came about these wins, however, is more of a mystery.

His lobbyists, who represented Tesla, SpaceX and the social media giant X Corp., spent tens of thousands of dollars on things like gifts and meals for Texas elected officials and others during the session, according to an analysis of state ethics data. In most cases, Texas transparency laws do not require lobbyists to disclose which politicians they wined and dined or on behalf of which clients.

The Texas Newsroom reached out to all 12 of Musk’s lobbyists registered with the state this session. Only one, Carrie Simmons, a lobbyist who counts Tesla among her clients, responded, but she declined to be interviewed. She said only Musk’s companies could comment on their work this session.

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Republicans' Big Lie About Medicaid: Recipients Are Working

Sumit Agarwal, University of Michigan

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million Americans across the U.S. would lose their coverage through Medicaid – the public program that provides health insurance to low-income families and individuals – under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act making its way through Congress.

That includes 248,000 to 414,000 of my fellow residents of Michigan based on the House Reconciliation Bill in early June 2025. There are similarly deep projected cuts within the Senate version of the legislation.

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Ready-made stem cell therapies for pets could be coming

Earlier this week, San Diego startup Gallant announced $18 million in funding to bring the first FDA-approved ready-to-use stem cell therapy to veterinary medicine. If it passes regulatory muster, it could create a whole new way to treat our fur babies. It’s still an experimental field, even though people have been researching stem cells for […]

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Did Trump Release An MS-13 Gang Boss To Please A Dictator?

President Donald Trump has reportedly released a man described by the Department of Justice as a leader of the MS-13 criminal gang—who had been charged with crimes, including terrorism—as an apparent political favor to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Bukele, an authoritarian leader, has been a key ally for Trump’s mass deportations in the U.S.

The New York Times reported on Monday that the Trump administration made a deal to have U.S. charges against Vladimir Arévalo Chávez, aka “Vampiro,” dropped, then arranged for his return to El Salvador. Reportedly, in exchange, Bukele would allow Trump to deport migrants—including Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia—to El Salvador.

Sources who were part of the original prosecution of Chávez told the Times that the new deal has imperiled ongoing investigations of MS-13—even though Trump has repeatedly claimed that defeating the criminal gang is a top priority.

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We Know What You Did This Summer

In 2016, voters were offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and a lying, racist sexual predator. And 62,984,825 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, racist abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"

In 2020, voters were once again offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and that very same lying, racist, openly-fascist sexual predator who had just finished nearly wrecked the country with his corruption, incompetence and unprecedented, non-stop lying. This time 74,224,319 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, corrupt, racist, predatory abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"

In 2024, voters were yet again offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and that very same lying, racist, openly-fascist sexual predator who had now led a violent coup against the government of the United States, who promised to pardon the traitors who had tried to overthrow the government, who had been impeached twice, was credibly accused of serious federal and state crimes in multiple jurisdictions and was now a multiply-convicted felon. This time 77,302,580 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, corrupt, racist, predatory abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"

And in handing him absolute control over this country, they gave him the power to destroy it. Which he and his henchmen are, right now, in the process of doing.

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Alligator Alcatraz Flooded On Its First Day

As soon as Trump finished his tour of the migrant concentration camp in Florida called the Alligator Alcatraz, it began to rain, which caused flooding.

A little rain has already compromised the prison camp.

The Miami Herald reports:

The water seeped into the site — the one that earlier in day the state’s top emergency chief had boasted was ready to withstand the winds of a “high-end” Category 2 hurricane — and streamed all over electrical cables on the floor. “For those people that don’t think we’re taking that into consideration.

This is Florida, by the way,” Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, had told reporters earlier in the middle of Trump’s visit. “We have a hurricane plan.”

But perhaps not a plan for about an inch-and-a-half of rain, which is what fell over the site on Tuesday afternoon, according to estimates from the National Weather Service in Miami.

The storm was so loud it drowned out DeSantis' voice as he talked to reporters. Let's hope the entire camp sinks and is eaten by alligators without any detained migrants present.

This is a representation of what America DOES NOT stand for.

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TechCrunch All Stage brings back early launch prices for a limited time

We’re almost there, and ticket rates have officially rolled back with savings of up to $425. TechCrunch All Stage, the founder summit of the year, is just around the corner. On July 15, Boston becomes startup central. Are you ready to gain the insights and strategies you need to launch or scale? Now’s the moment […]

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Stripe’s first employee, the founder of fintech Increase, sort of bought a bank

Competitors to Darragh Buckley's Increase are so nervous about his ambitions to "own" a bank, someone has been trying to stop him.

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AOC ON FIRE Over 'No Tax On Tips' Scam

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought fire to the House floor over the GOP's poorly named 'Big Beautiful Bill," which is, as AOC said, "a deal with the devil."

AOC exposed the bill for what it is, while Trump is on Truth Social, falsely claiming the bill will bring "ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE," while disregarding the fact that the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June. He's gaslighting his rubes again, and AOC is well aware of that.

'You know, President Trump had issued some statements throughout this process, saying and urging, insisting that this bill does not cut Medicaid," she said. "He's also said some things, you know, he says he doesn't think I'm too much of a smart person."

"And I'll tell you one thing," she continued. "It doesn't take a smart person to know if you're being lied to."

"President Trump, you're either being lied to or you are lying to the American people because this bill represents in the text of this bill the largest and greatest loss of healthcare in American history," the New York Democrat said. "17 million Americans will lose their healthcare on this bill, not undocumented people, not quote unquote the disgusting term illegal, but 17 million Americans will have their healthcare cut from this bill on this point of tax on tips."

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Lovable on track to raise $150M at $2B valuation

Lovable released its vibe coder in late November. Within six months, the startup hit $50 million in ARR, CEO Anton Osika said.

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GOP Senate Cowards Narrowly Pass Big Ugly Bill With JD Vance Help

The Republican led Senate passed Trump's Big Ugly bill with the help of JD Vance 51-50, as Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski caved and voted yes after intimating should would not.

Murkowski was forced to lie about the bill to the NY Times, claiming that Republicans made sufficient changes to support rural health care and nutrition assistance. “Did I get everything that I wanted?” Absolutely not,” she said outside the Senate chamber."

Nobody believes you, Sen. Murkowski.

The bill is a travesty.

An albatross hanging around the necks of the working class to support the wealthy few.

It's a death knell to the health and safety of low-income and disabled Americans.

Rand Paul (R-KY), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Susan Collins (R-ME), were the only Republicans to vote no.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said what Democrats should be saying every day on every TV network and to every media outlet they can find.

"When people start losing their Medicaid, when they start losing their jobs, when their electric bills go up, when their premiums go up, when kids and parents lose SNAP funding, the people of America will remember this vote," Schumer said. The American people will remember the Republican betrayal, and Americans will pay the price for this perfidy for generations. Generations."

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