Politics

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been known for banning “visible homelessness” — moving tents off the street and dropping more people in jail since he hasn’t expanded the homeless shelters like he promised he would in his campaign. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that his brother is a real estate broker who services the tech elite, and that their home valuations are skyrocketing. Alexander “Lurie estimates that by the end of May, he’ll have sold more than $100 million worth of real estate, about his entire total for all of 2025, which was, to be clear, a very good year itself.“

Paxton alleges that Meta can access WhatsApp messages despite Meta’s claims that they are end-to-end encrypted. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone says that WhatsApp “cannot access people’s encrypted communications and any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

The Director of National Intelligence confirmed her resignation on X Friday afternoon, saying, “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.” Trump announced Aaron Lukas will take over as Acting Director.

YouTuber Coffeezilla first reported the leak of customer details, now apparently fixed. Trump Mobile CEO Pat O’Brien has now confirmed to The Verge there was a breach, which he blames on “a third-party platform provider.”

As Politico reports, Trump postponed signing an executive order on government oversight and access to AI at the last minute on Thursday, saying it “could have been a blocker” for the jobs and “tremendous good” he claims AI is creating. Trump also said China was a factor:

A Brooklyn courthouse unsealed criminal complaints against two men who allegedly posted “thousands” of nonconsensual intimate AI deepfakes, according to the US Attorney’s Office. The Take It Down Act’s criminal prohibitions have been in place for a year, but platforms’ obligation to remove such deepfakes just came into force yesterday.

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:

The state became the first to enact a ban on prediction markets, but a lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is trying to keep it from taking effect, arguing it’s the domain of the federal government, NPR reports.

The Federal Trade Commission launched a new website for consumers to report alleged failures to comply with the Take It Down Act, which went into full force today. Critics fear the law will be used to censor online speech, but the website also has resources for domestic violence survivors.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced the Energy Cost Fairness and Reliability Act, which would put new requirements on “energy-intensive facilities,” in an effort to lower the strain on the energy grid. It doesn’t yet have co-sponsors, but hits on an issue that’s become central to many communities and elections.

The T1 Phone was supposed to start shipping last week. But our review units haven’t budged, and I’ve so far failed to find anyone online claiming their phone has shipped either. Maybe they’ve had to delay the launch to fix the flag.

A new investigation by the New York Times has discovered that social media influencers are collecting tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, to back candidates, endorse policies, and attack political enemies. But where that money is coming from isn’t clear, and campaigns are embracing the secrecy.

Following his summit with China’s Xi Jinping, Trump also said in an interview with Fox News that Taiwan would be “very smart to cool it a little bit.” And that China would also be “very smart to cool it a little bit.”

Apple says draft measures proposed by the EU — which would force Google to give competing AI services more access to Android — would “create profound risks” for user privacy, security, device integrity, and performance. Given Apple has long protested its own interoperability obligations, its interest in Google’s case isn’t surprising.

We already know what this hearing is about: three weeks ago, Judge Donato told Epic and Google they’d answer six specific pointed questions. The big one: would Google’s “Registered App Stores” really be better at curbing Google’s monopoly? Or should he keep forcing Google to carry rival stores inside its own?

It joins a handful of other tech companies like Snap and Microsoft in supporting the bill, while major tech groups maintain opposition. The announcement comes as a key Senate committee prepares to move forward on its version of KOSA, after a House committee passed a largely overhauled version.

Calbee, the Japanese snack company, is temporarily switching its packaging on some items to grayscale, citing “supply instability affecting certain raw materials amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.” CNN reports that it wasn’t clear what component was at risk — but it’s just the latest industry to feel the pinch as a result of the US and Israel attacking Iran in February.

The Federal Trade Commission reminded more than a dozen companies that it can soon begin enforcing the new mandate for platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a valid request. The provision is one that critics fear could be enforced selectively or used to limit speech.

The family of a victim of April’s mass shooting at Florida State University is suing OpenAI over its chatbot’s alleged role in encouraging the attack, which is already being probed by Florida’s attorney general. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri called the shooting a “tragedy” but said “ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime.” More from Pusateri:

The Trump Administration has made another website, this time a dedicated Pentagon page with “new, never-before-seen files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).

Meta argues that the UK communications regulator has “disproportionate” fine calculations — up to ten percent of the company’s global revenue for Online Safety Act breaches — that should instead be “based on the services being regulated in the countries they’re being regulated in.” The EU uses a similar methodolgy for fines.

The US Court of International Trade ruled 2-1 against the tariffs, Reuters reports. The tariffs originally went into effect in February, with Trump invoking a section of the Trade Act of 1974.