The Supreme Court just placed once-independent agencies more firmly under presidential control. The court ruled in Trump v. Slaughter with a 6-3 vote that President Donald Trump had the authority to fire the Federal Trade Commission’s two Democratic commissioners, even though it broke with decades of prior legal precedent at the time. The justices have […]
This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at America lagging in EVs and charging infrastructure, and Sunrun’s transformation into a company
A sneaky rule change has the potential to blow up scientific research in the United States. But there’s still time to fight it. On May 29th, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a 412-page proposal to revise federal financial assistance. The language is a combination of distinctly Trumpian attacks on “woke” policies and […]
China’s Zhipu AI (Z.ai) released its open-weight GLM-5.2, and some researchers have claimed that it matches Mythos in certain bug-finding and cybersecurity scenarios. While GLM lags behind models from Anthropic and OpenAI in other, more general tasks, it seems that China has dramatically reduced the gap in the capabilities between its models and those of […]
Jonathan Rinderknecht was facing arson charges for setting a fire on New Year’s Day in 2025, which became one of the deadliest wildfires in LA history. To make their case, prosecutors turned to location data from his iPhone, security camera footage, and witness testimony. But they also turned to his ChatGPT logs. Prosecutors said that […]
Apple is looking to alleviate some of the pressure on its supply chain by seeking an exception from the Trump administration to buy RAM chips from CXMT, a company blacklisted by the Pentagon over ties to the People’s Liberation Army, according to the Financial Times. The skyrocketing prices of RAM and storage have driven Apple […]
Kai Wright is the co-host of Stateside with Kai and Carter over at the Guardian. But Wright has been bringing his unique insights to listeners for years. He’s also hosted Notes From America, The United States of Anxiety, and Indivisible. He’s a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has profiled powerful men, explored what it means to […]
While European tourists marvel at ranch dressing, Buc-ee’s, and other wonders of Middle America, would-be World Cup attendees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have experienced a different American pastime: exclusion. President Donald Trump’s nakedly racist immigration policies have prevented scores of people from traveling to the United States for the event – even, […]
Less than 24 hours after news broke that OpenAI would stagger its next model release at the request of the Trump administration, that model, GPT-5.6, is here. On Friday, the company unveiled the limited preview of its new GPT 5.6 model suite: Sol, the flagship; Terra, a medium-tier model for “high-volume work”; and Luna, a […]
It’s been two weeks since Anthropic took its Mythos-class models offline after a Friday evening ultimatum from the Trump administration. The company sprang into action immediately, sending a barrage of executives to Washington, DC. But updates have been suspiciously lacking, with no resolution in sight. Anthropic declined to comment multiple times this week about the […]