Claude will apply invisible watermarks to AI text and images
Claude will apply invisible watermarks to AI text and images

Anthropic has pledged to start marking Claude-generated text and images with machine-readable data, in an effort to comply with European rules for AI transparency. “Generated text will carry embedded watermarks, and generated files will include digitally signed provenance metadata where supported,” Anthropic says on a new Claude support page. The changes are invisible to human […]

Can Tariffs Boost U.S. Solar Component Production?

This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at who gets electricity when the grid is under strain and boom times for clean energy investment

Space mirrors could ruin astronomy — and your eyes
Space mirrors could ruin astronomy — and your eyes

Solar energy, at any time of day or night – that’s the dream of space mirror projects. Futurists have been imagining satellite mirrors that could reflect the sun’s light onto the Earth’s surface for over a century. Russian scientists experimented with the concept in the ’90s with the Znamya project. The idea is to put […]

Buc-ee’s dodges John Oliver to sue another small business
Buc-ee’s dodges John Oliver to sue another small business

Buc-ee’s became something of a viral sensation during the World Cup, but it has a troubling history of suing small gas stations and convenience stores. On a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver literally begged the company to sue him for selling merch featuring his squirrel mascot, Mr. Nutterbutter, with branding that reads […]

How ideas of a vast censorship network moved from the online fringe to Trump policy
How ideas of a vast censorship network moved from the online fringe to Trump policy

This article was produced in partnership with Type Investigations, with support from the Wayne Barrett Project. One morning in April 2025, employees of a small office in the US State Department got the email many of them had been dreading.  For months, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had been cutting a wide swath through…

Meta ordered to pay an additional $567 million in public nuisance ruling
Meta ordered to pay an additional $567 million in public nuisance ruling

Meta has been ordered to pay $567 million in the second phase of New Mexico’s landmark child safety case, bringing total charges to nearly $1 billion for being a “public nuisance.” In a ruling published on Thursday, the Santa Fe district court found that Meta’s platforms are a “significant contributing cause” of a teen mental […]

Brendan Carr officially unleashes broadcast consolidation
Brendan Carr officially unleashes broadcast consolidation

The era of set broadcast ownership limits is officially over, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to end the national ownership cap rule. The agency’s two Republicans, Chair Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty, voted to end the ownership cap, which restricts broadcast owners from holding stations that reach a combined more than […]

TikTok blames ‘moderator error’ on slow response to Perez Hilton livestream
TikTok blames ‘moderator error’ on slow response to Perez Hilton livestream

TikTok says a “moderator error” delayed the removal of a livestream that appeared to show blogger Perez Hilton harming himself, as reported earlier by Wired. Jamie Favazza, a spokesperson for TikTok US, tells The Verge that the platform notified law enforcement about the situation and banned Hilton’s account for violating its community guidelines. Hilton, or […]

SoftBank donated $50 million to Trump’s library months before federal data center deal
SoftBank donated $50 million to Trump’s library months before federal data center deal

SoftBank contributed $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library in January, just months before announcing that it’s leasing land from the federal government to build a sprawling data center in Ohio. The Japanese company revealed the timing in response to a June letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Melanie […]

The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers
The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers

Today, I’m talking with Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, about the growing backlash against AI data centers.  Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a yearlong moratorium on data center construction. She attended a protest there organized by a […]