Policy

Some banter from the tiny show I’m at in rural upstate New York tonight (lightly condensed): “Stick around for the other bands, tip your bartender, destroy Flock cameras.”

In an executive order signed today, President Trump established a commission to create a new academy to “educate and develop the next generation of leaders across the space domain.” Scant details so far, but it appears the academy would feed recruits and talent into both the Space Force and NASA.

TMZ first reported that the UK-born longtime right-wing internet personality was apprehended in Louisiana, and Mother Jones’ Anna Merlan (and The Verge) confirmed he’s listed in ICE custody records. In recent years, Yiannopoulos has fallen out of favor with MAGA world, and Trump ally Laura Loomer, for one, is gloating.

A notice published on the Department of Homeland Security’s website says the agency plans to spend up to $2 million on Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, as reported earlier by 404 Media. This comes just weeks after the Associated Press reported that ICE aims to spend up to $20 million on gloves that deliver electric shocks.

The executive order, which comes days after Canada announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, says Trump is changing the name to honor Lake Ontario’s “flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy.”

How is Amazon getting away with this? This isn’t a third-party seller; they’re shipped and sold by Amazon Germany. Even DJI knows the DJI Pocket 4P isn’t legal to import, but Amazon’s been offering one of the best prices to US buyers for over a week now.

I’m surprised it took this long for Nvidia to make its own PAC — something that seems like table stakes for any huge company trying to influence the US government. Well, now it’s here, according to Bloomberg. The PAC will take in voluntary contributions from employees, which is a classic way of giving big money in a distributed manner given caps on election contributions.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

It’s planning to run full-page ads in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times on Thursday, according to NYT reporter Mike Isaac, on the heels of Meta’s $17 billion settlement with state AGs. Meta is using the settlement to urge its top competitors to take on similar restrictions.

Did you know there’s a website you can check to see if Flock customers (like policing and surveillance agencies) have searched for your license plate number? Have I Been Flocked? warns users that its data is incomplete, but developer Cris van Pelt told Business Insider that visits to the database have “exploded.”

The Wall Street Journal has a rundown on the behind-the-scenes wrangling that led to the baffling settlement agreement earlier this year, and left state AGs to pursue their own case. In an unusual twist, the settlement talks happened at the White House, with the AG and the White House lawyer, before giving the states a day to decide whether to join the deal. None did.

The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are both reporting on politicians like Greg Abbott and Josh Shapiro suddenly bashing types of projects they once championed. The Washington Post has a chart showing how online posts about data centers from both Democrat and Republican politicians have shifted from being mostly positive in early 2025 to being mostly negative.

We’ve talked about outages globally and power grid issues in the US, but the place feeling the worst of it has been northwest Indiana, ever since a derecho knocked out power for more than 300,000 people starting on August 11th.

It would have been the next bellwether in the group of cases tried in a Los Angeles state court. In the first, Meta and YouTube were ordered to pay $6 million total. After settling with TikTok, the teen’s lawyer told The New York Times, she wanted to “resume her life.”

If a company says “we’re charging you more because of Trump’s tariffs” and then gets a full refund from the government, shouldn’t you get a refund? Logitech may join Sony and Nintendo in deciding that in court. In 2025, it raised prices up to 25 percent; so far it’s received $61 million in refunds it doesn’t plan to share.

When the FCC banned future foreign robots, it also banned all future foreign power inverters under its jurisdiction. Inverters are in lots of things! But it actually cares about the ones that give us energy independence, it clarified today. (To be fair, it’d suck if a foreign power managed a coordinated attack on the grid this way.)

Emperor Palpatine may have dissolved Imperial democracy, but that’s not stopping Darth Vader from appearing at a public San Diego city council meeting in defense of Flock surveillance. Once again, he definitely does not have the high ground.

The company’s lawyers are telling the judge in Epic Games v. Google that developers need around 10 more days to make the fixes he ordered. Judge Donato was not happy with the original way it looked, calling out Google for adding unnecessary “anticompetitive friction”.

The glasses “could unintentionally capture, record or transmit sensitive information, potentially compromising privacy and legal protections,” ICE acting director David Venturella said in a memo to staff, according to The New York Times. Staffers can’t wear the glasses in the “federal workspace.”

The company responded to Apple’s new App Store policies in a post on X, claiming the updated fees “do nothing to open up the mobile app ecosystem to competition” and “deliberately violate” the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

The company laid out its defense in the trial against a coalition of state AGs, previewing that it will call on their own public health officials to combat claims of social media addiction, and claiming that the states have pulled public statements out of context to claim it misled parents.

In an opening statement, California deputy AG Megan O’Neill accused Meta of doing “too little, too late” to curb teens’ problematic usage of Facebook and Instagram, while misleading the public. She also laid out the states allegations that Meta knew — but didn’t remove – many kids under 13 on its platforms.

File this under “Brendan Carr is a dummy” part… well, who knows at this point. (Buy the official Verge t-shirt!) The FCC said in response to today’s First Amendment lawsuit that ABC has conducted an “ongoing campaign of disinformation.” It would be funny were it not so sad, considering the suit clearly lays out all of the constitutionally problematic public statements from Trump and Carr.

We go to them to commune with our ancestors. To get away from the ever-present eyes and noise of daily life. To appreciate the bounty of beauty and peace that nature has to offer. Now some of these places have Flock surveillance.

Beginning at 11 AM Eastern, you can stream opening arguments in a trial where 29 attorneys general allege Meta harmed consumers through addictive design. Meta denies this, and warned damages could reach $1.4 trillion — nearing its market cap. The AGs say they’d likely be closer to $200 billion.

According to Bloomberg, a “nearly year-old investigation” is looking into the possibility that a16z “investment partners are improperly serving on the boards of competing artificial intelligence companies.” Co-founder Ben Horowitz is on the board of Databricks, while partner Martin Casado was on the board of dbt labs before it was acquired by Fivetran, where he now holds a seat.