Anthropic and Gov. Newsom forge deal allowing California government to use Claude at half price

TechCrunch - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 11:10
As Anthropic forges a closer relationship with the state of California, the federal government has made an enemy out of the OpenAI rival.
Categories: Nerd News

South Korean tech giants commit over $550B to ease ‘ RAMageddon’

TechCrunch - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 11:07
The world's two largest memory chip companies vow to build more memory lab fabs as South Korea positions itself as an AI tech powerhouse country.
Categories: Nerd News

Monday morning traffic: Highway 9 closures, fire near Hwy 1, hit and run

Lookout Santa Cruz - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 11:06

Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…

Map of A map showing the locations of road incidents from today's newsletter

▼︎ new incidents   ▼︎ long-term incidents

Road incidents as of 11:30 a.m. on June 29
  • There was a report of a fire with black smoke visible on the ocean side near Highway 1 and Wilder Ranch State Park in the Bonny Doon and Davenport area. The incident was reported today.
     
  • A hit and run crash happened at the intersection of Soquel Ave. and Soquel Dr in the Eastside / Live Oak area. No one was hurt, but the reporting party’s car had damage to the rear bumper. The other car, a BMW, left before officers arrived. The incident was reported today.
     
  • Highway 9 is facing closures in both directions at Pool Drive in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure will last until 5:59 a.m. on July 2.
     
  • Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley has one-way traffic due to ongoing work. This closure will last until August 31 at 7:01 a.m.
     
  • A lane on westbound SR-152 at Clifford Drive/Ohlone Parkway in Watsonville/Pajaro is closed for asphalt paving. The closure will last until 5:59 a.m. on July 3.
     
  • A lane on North Highway 9 at Two Bar Road in San Lorenzo Valley is closed for bridge work. The closure will last until July 2 at 6:01 a.m.
     
  • Alternating lanes are closed on Highway 9 at Riverdale Park in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure will last until April 30 at 6:59 a.m.
     
  • A lane on Highway 1 at Ocean Avenue in the Bonny Doon and Davenport area is closed for utility work. The closure is expected to end at 3:59 p.m. today.
     
  • South Highway 1 is facing closures at Buena Vista Drive in Watsonville / Pajaro for drainage work. The closure is expected to end at 3:59 p.m. today.
     
  • A lane is closed on eastbound and westbound SR-129 at Highway 1 in Watsonville and Pajaro for curb, gutter, and sidewalk work. The closure will end today at 2:59 p.m.
     
  • A lane is closed on SR-129 at Salsipueda Creek Bridge in the Watsonville / Pajaro area for curb, gutter, and sidewalk work. The closure is expected to end at 2:59 p.m. today.
     
  • A lane is closed on westbound SR-129 at the Walker St. railroad crossing in Watsonville/Pajaro because of utility work. The closure will end today at 3:30 p.m.
     
  • Southbound Highway 17 in Scotts Valley is facing closures for asphalt paving. The closure will end at 6:01 a.m. today.
     
  • One lane is closed on South Highway 9 at Graham Hill/Bennett St. in San Lorenzo Valley because of shoulder work. The closure will end at 3:59 p.m. today.
     
  • Alternating lanes are closed on East and West SR-129 at Coolidge Avenue in Watsonville and Pajaro because of striping work. The closure is expected to end at 5:59 a.m. today.
     
  • CHP helped with construction at 1100 Mm9 N Scr 11.00 in San Lorenzo Valley. The assistance was scheduled to last until 3:30 p.m. today.
     
  • There is one-way traffic on SR-236 at Moon Drive in San Lorenzo Valley because of tree removal. This is expected to end at 1:30 p.m. today.
     
  • A vehicle was parked with its wheels blocking the pedestrian and bike path at 23850 E Cliff Dr in Eastside / Live Oak, creating a traffic hazard. This was reported today.
     
Long-term projects

These have been going on for a while, but are still worth keeping in mind.

  • A section of Coolidge Drive between High Street and Hagar Road will be closed to northbound traffic from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day from today through July 1 to allow County crews to do pavement work.
     
  • Soquel Drive between State Park Drive and Trout Gulch Road in Aptos will be closed on July 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the annual Aptos 4th of July Parade.
     
  • Playa Boulevard will be closed between Palma Avenue and Benito Avenue in La Selva Beach on July 4 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. for the annual La Selva Beach 4th of July Parade.
     
  • Mill St. between Main St. and Highway 9 in Ben Lomond will be closed on July 4, August 1, September 5, and October 3 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day for scheduled events or activities. Emergency and local driveway access will still be available.
     
  • Pine St. (between Hwy 236 and Harmon St.) and Lomond St. (between Pine St. and Railroad Ave.) in Boulder Creek will be closed for the Boulder Creek 4th of July Parade.
     

The post Monday morning traffic: Highway 9 closures, fire near Hwy 1, hit and run appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to the BIS

The Register - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:55
The central bank for central banks is concerned about the eye-watering sums being invested into AI, and it's raising the specter of a global recession should the bubble burst. In its annual report for 2026, the Bank for International Settlements compared the current craze to historical events, including canal and British railway mania in the 1800s, electrification exuberance of the 1920s, and the dotcom boom of the 1990s. The report states: “all shared one common trait: a genuine technological breakthrough that attracted capital in excess of what commercial returns could ultimately justify. “These episodes ended with an eventual reversal in investment, inducing economy-wide recessions. The scale and pace of the current AI investment boom accompanied by expectations of large productivity payoffs bear resemblance to these precedents, highlighting potential downside risks in the near term.” The Register has already reported that Amazon forecasts capital expenditures of $200 billion for 2026, Microsoft is projecting $190 billion, Google some $180 billon and Meta up to $140 billion. Oracle is also betting big on AI. BIS estimates the five largest hyperscalers are set to spend more than a trillion dollars on AI-related capex in 2026 – and given the inflationary conditions regarding memory and that each rival is trying to outdo each other, that seems plausible. “These commitments are outpacing earnings and the free cash flow of these firms, leading some to issue debt to raise additional financing. This investment race may be partly driven by the perception that only a small number of players with superior technology will ultimately dominate the market shares." Intense competition is leading to the risk of the tech giants overcommitting resources to “investment projects with still uncertain returns, leaving all firms vulnerable to disappointments in AI payoffs.” This is because as competitive pressure drives spending ever higher, the net economic surplus for the tech industry declines and “could turn negative in adverse scenarios.” “Disappointment in returns could trigger a sudden pullback in financing and turn the capex boom into a protracted investment bust with potential knock-on effects on the financial conditions,” the annual report continues. The report also cited concerns about a looming "supply side roadblock" around issues like electricity availability, chip shortages and grid connection bottlenecks. AI datacenters are already putting pressure on energy prices and input costs with “potential spillovers to inflation.” “Looking ahead, these temporary shortages may also amplify over-investment, as firms attempt to lock in future capacity through long-dated contracts that further expose them to any disappointments in demand.” Should inflation spike or AI-led investment collapse, the macroeconomic consequences could be amplified by “existing financial vulnerabilities.” Policy rates being tightened to get a hold on inflation may precipitate a “sharp pullback in asset prices after a prolonged period of exuberant risk-taking, triggering disruptive macro-financial feedback loops.” Given AI companies' “rising leverage” and a “growing footprint in credit markets”, a major change in optimistic sentiments towards these businesses could have serious financial knock-on effects. ”Vulnerabilities extend to their supplier ecosystem, including engineering, procurement and construction contractors whose balance sheets are comparatively weak, leaving them exposed to any Capex pullback by hyperscalers.” The “opacity” of AI-sector financing is compounding vulnerabilities as corporations create a web of private arrangements – circular financing – and the terms of datacenter facility leases are often not fully disclosed, BIS adds. The backdrop to all of this is that, while enterprises running pilots report some efficiency gains at a employee level, few report discernible productivity gains from AI projects that went into production environments at scale. The Register has long discussed concerns about the dynamics of the AI industry, as outlined in the many links in this article above. It now seems that suits in the finance industry are waking up to the potential pitfalls too. ®

MAGA Erupts as Even Amy Coney Barrett Rules Republicans Went Too Far

The New Republic - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:52

MAGA world is incensed after Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Comey Barrett sided with the liberal justices—and even wrote the majority opinion—rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to gut mail-in voting.

The court on Monday ruled to uphold a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after the election, so long as they were postmarked by Election Day. The decision effectively saves similar grace periods around the country, especially in big Democratic states. That was enough to set off Republicans.

“A shockingly wrong opinion,” wrote Republican Senator Eric Schmitt. “Justice Barrett joins with the liberal justices to hold that federal election law does not preempt states who allow late mail-in ballots to be counted. This is terrible for election integrity. Another reason we must pass the full SAVE American [sic] Act.”

“Remember Election Day?” said GOP Representative Abe Hamadeh. “This disastrous SCOTUS decision, authored by Justice Barrett, guarantees we’ll keep drifting away from it—as our sacred elections get bogged down by endless mail-in ballots and never-ending counts.”

Trump supporters outside of Congress made their discontent clear, as well.

“Barrett. AGAIN. WTF,” former Fox News host Megyn Kelly wrote.

“Amy Coney Barrett was a gigantic fucking disaster of a Supreme Court appointment. Absolutely horrible in the long run. She totally forgot who appointed her to the Court,” right-wing influencer Joey Mannarino said. “Scum of the earth.”

“Barrett is the biggest conservative judicial disaster since Souter,” conservative writer Hans Mahnke commented. “The difference is that few conservatives expected much from Souter whereas Barrett was supposed to be the future of the Court. The worst part is that she’ll be there pushing leftist policies for another 40 years.”

This isn’t the first time the Trump appointee has seemingly backstabbed the movement that put her in position to be nominated for the Supreme Court. Conservatives also raged against Barrett last year after she joined the court’s liberal justices in dissenting against a decision granting Trump emergency relief to use the “Alien Enemies Act” to deport immigrants at whim.

Categories: Political News

Arena, the AI leaderboard everyone uses, is now a $100M business

TechCrunch - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:39
The startup, which runs a popular free AI leaderboard, launched its commercial service just last September.
Categories: Nerd News

Trump Goes Berserk Over Supreme Court’s E. Jean Carroll Decision

The New Republic - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:35

President Donald Trump crashed out Monday after the Supreme Court wouldn’t let him off the hook for the $5 million he owes E. Jean Carroll.

In a tirade on Truth Social Monday, Trump lamented the Supreme Court’s decision to reject Trump’s appeal of a verdict finding him guilty of sexually abusing and then defaming Carroll.

“Surprisingly, the Supreme Court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me by a woman I never met (Decades old celebrity photo line, standing with her husband, does not count!),” Trump wrote.

“This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for, and should never be allowed to happen to another President, or Candidate to be!” Trump continued.

Of course, the case has nothing to do with America, but about Trump’s specific actions. Carroll, a former writer, accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in 1996. When she spoke out publicly against him, he claimed the case was “a complete con job” and a “hoax and a lie.” In 2022, she sued him for both sexual abuse and defamation, seeking damages, and the jury agreed with Carroll that Trump was liable.

Trump had appealed the decision, claiming the case was tainted by the inclusion of “highly inflammatory” evidence—including testimony from two other women who claimed Trump assaulted them, and the infamous Access Hollywood tape.

Trump also railed against the state of New York for creating a temporary law that allowed adult sexual assault survivors in New York to file a civil case against an abuser, no matter when the assault took place, “in order to wrongfully ‘nab’” him.

“It was tailormade, and this Injustice cannot be allowed to stand!” he wrote on Monday.

Categories: Political News

Mageia 10 keeps the 32-bit Linux flame alive

The Register - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:32
Mageia 10 marks 15 years since the distribution's first release in June 2011. The project began the previous year as a fork of Mandriva, itself formerly known as Mandrake Linux. We last looked at Mageia alongside the other Mandrake descendants in 2022. What sets Mageia apart from OpenMandriva Lx, PCLinuxOS, and Russia's ROSA Linux is its continued support for 32-bit x86 PCs. Its GNOME and KDE Plasma live images are available only for x86-64, while the Xfce edition comes in both x86-64 and x86-32 versions. There is also a "Classic Installer" ISO, which lets you choose your own desktop from nine different desktop environments, plus another 16 window managers, as detailed in the release notes. Both the standard GNOME session and GNOME Classic are available, while Liquidshell provides a lightweight alternative to KDE Plasma. Mandrake Linux started out in 1998 as an easier version of Red Hat Linux using the new KDE desktop, which, at that time, Red Hat refused to incorporate due to concerns over the licence of KDE's Qt toolkit. Nearly three decades later, Mageia remains an RPM-based distro. Version 10 offers two RPM package-management tools: Mageia's urpmi command and DNF. urpmi also has its own graphical wrapper called Rpmdrake, but Fedora's dnfdragora is an optional install. Since RHEL and the RHELatives, Fedora, SUSE and openSUSE all use RPM as well, packages of big-name apps such as Google Chrome are available – but Mageia is a different distro, whose common ancestry dates back more than 25 years, and packages for Fedora or openSUSE may not install or work correctly. It comes with Flatpak preinstalled, although no Flatpak applications are installed by default. As with other niche distros, Flatpak may help when you can't find a native package of something. For those with the 32-bit edition, though, we suspect that few Flatpaks support that architecture. Mageia 10 is a polished, friendly graphical Linux, built from recent components such as kernel 6.18. True, it does feel a little old-fashioned in some ways: for instance, it uses separate root and user accounts – although sudo is installed, it's not configured for use. However, it's a solid choice if you want to get away from the Debian/Fedora mainstream – and if you have a capable 32-bit machine, like a Windows 10 32-bit box, or some other need to run a 32-bit OS such as specific hardware support, then this is one of the best choices around today. The Welcome screen is rich and very helpful, offering the ability to install extra apps, switch repositories, and more. Alongside it is the Mageia Control Center, which can manage most aspects of the OS without going near a command line. The distro is also well documented, with a substantial Mageia wiki. It does use systemd, but, even so, it's relatively lightweight. In our testing on a 32-bit VirtualBox VM, the Xfce edition used just 633 MB of RAM at idle, which is low by modern standards, and 7.8 GB of disk space. If you choose the KDE Plasma desktop, you get Plasma 6.5.5 with a choice of X11 or Wayland. The installation occupies about the same amount of disk space, although the RAM usage rises sharply: about 1.7 GB at idle. Xfce has an unusual GNOME 2-style two-panel setup, while the Plasma layout is clean and simple. We installed the Liquidshell desktop to have a look, but it's very basic and rather clunky. Mageia forked from Mandriva in 2011, before the company closed down, while OpenMandriva did so afterwards. They are still quite similar distributions, though, and we really wish that the two teams could settle their differences and merge the distros. Either way, Mageia's 32-bit edition is an increasingly rare offering in an increasingly 64-bit world, which might win it some new admirers. ®

RFK Jr.’s CDC doesn’t care if its policies kill

Daily Kos - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:30

There’s really no better way to put it than that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants people who use drugs to die. Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped new guidance on health programs at state, local, and tribal levels, demanding they agree to a list of “priorities” by July 1. One of those will lead us to abandon efforts we know can…

Source

Categories: Political News

The Roberts Court Just Put Trump in Charge of Independent Agencies, Vastly Expanding His Powers

Mother Jones - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:29

The Supreme Court on Monday gave the president the authority to remove the leadership of most agencies that Congress had set up to act independently of presidential control. The ruling in Trump v. Slaughter may seem technical, but it represents a radical change in how our American government has functioned since the 1930s and, in some cases, since the founding, by creating agencies that operate with independence from presidential control and the expediency of presidential politics. Rather than allow Congress to decide how much control the president can exercise over an agency that Congress creates, the Supreme Court has seized that power for itself. Starting today, nine justices will decide which agency heads can be fired by the president and which cannot.

Today’s decision overturns a 91-year-old precedent, called Humphrey’s Executor, in which a unanimous Supreme Court upheld Congress’ authority to give independent commissioners protection from presidential removal. In his majority decision, Chief Justice Roberts derides this critical precedent while downplaying the gravity of overturning it. “If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it,” Roberts stated in his 6-3 opinion joined by other GOP appointees. “Humphrey’s has for decades been a result in search of a rationale.”

“The one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow.”

The decision stems from President Donald Trump’s illegal firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a President Joe Biden appointee to the Federal Trade Commission. At the onset of his second term, Trump began firing Democratic appointees to independent agencies in violation of federal law, which protected their removal except for sufficient cause. He removed Biden appointees at the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit System Protection Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, among others. These agencies are designed to be insulated from immediate presidential control. They are run by a bipartisan board of commissioners who serve staggered terms. And unlike appointees to cabinet departments, the president cannot remove them over policy differences. The power to remove is the power to control. An impending firing can sway the decision-making of commissioners—and if it doesn’t, they can get the boot.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that chaos will ensue. “Today, the majority reshapes our Government,” she wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President’s hands.” It does this, she wrote, in the service of the majority’s “half-baked theory of executive power that is simultaneously all encompassing yet also subject to necessary but undefined exceptions. The one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow.”

The Roberts Court had already chipped away at Humphrey’s Executor, and it was clear that in their quest to realize a so-called unitary executive with dangerous amounts of power and vanishing guardrails around him, it would use this case to knock down the precedent. Roberts does this with gusto. His opinion is a sweeping recitation of all the history he has mustered in his march toward a unitary executive, and relies on his own prior opinions inching toward this very moment—treating his decision as inevitable and right, rather than the result of his own political crusade. Legal historians have long complained that Roberts’ history is a house of cards. This opinion is “embarrassingly thin, full of historical errors and cherry-picked sources,” posted Boston University law professor Jed Schugerman, “reverse engineered from unitary ideology.”

The tricky task for the Republican-appointed majority, however, was how to exempt the Federal Reserve Board, an independent agency upon which rests the stability of the entire economy and which, under presidential control, could tank the markets and plunge the country into even more economic chaos. Indeed, the court in deciding this case while also deliberating whether the president can invent a bogus “cause” to remove a member of the Fed whom he doesn’t like in a blatant attempt to seize control of the agency. Roberts issued that opinion Monday as well, arguing that the Fed is different because of its allegedly unique history and therefore Trump cannot fire targeted governor Lisa Cook without following proper procedures. Roberts left to another day whether the charges against Cook are sufficient, but did reinforce his decision that the Fed’s independence should be maintained.

The solution to this problem—the desire to hand Trump almost unlimited firing power but not when it would cause brutal economic fallout—is to strip Congress of its power to decide when an agency it creates is independent and instead hand that policy determination to themselves. The decision sets up a new regime whereby the justices themselves decide when firing protections are constitutional based on whether an agency’s work falls “within the President’s ‘general administrative control'”—an amorphous standard that surely can be manipulated as the justices see fit. That allows the 6-3 majority today to allow Trump to fire commissioners at the FTC, but preserve Fed independence.

There are other agencies whose independent status and the removability of their commissioners are now uncertain. Congress could try to weigh in, but its decisions are now relegated to suggestions. Roberts’ decision oozes disdain for Congress and alleges that its attempt to insulate agencies from presidential control was an unconstitutional power grab. He cloaks the unitary executive theory as a democratic approach, making all government administration accountable to one man and, ultimately, the people who elect him, even though the Founders intended Congress to be the most democratic branch. The chief justice disagrees. “Placing the power to administer laws in officers who enjoy ‘freedom from Presidential oversight (and protection),'” Roberts writes, “often results only in an ‘increased subservience to congressional direction.'” He continued to accuse Congress of using Humphrey’s Executor to take “more power for itself.”

“The Court takes one of the oldest debates in American history and decides that the six Justices in the majority, alone, ought to be the ones to settle it for all time.”

But in Monday’s opinion, it is the court that hijacks Congress’ power for itself. Now, the justices will decide the fate of each agency’s independent status on a case-by-case basis. This is undoubtedly a question for Congress to decide, but the six justices seize that policy-making authority for themselves. As Sotomayor stated in her dissent, “The Court takes one of the oldest debates in American history and decides that the six Justices in the majority, alone, ought to be the ones to settle it for all time.”

Trump v. Slaughter follows the clear modus operandi of the Roberts Court: disempower Congress, give more power to the president to buck the laws, and leave the nine justices as the only people who can shut down the president’s actions. The most infamous example is the court’s grant of criminal immunity to the president. Just as presidential immunity breeds corruption and political weaponization, this one will likewise turbocharge Trump’s ability to reward allies and donors and punish political enemies at the expense of good governance.

From approving mergers and regulating Wall Street and Crypto to determining which toys are safe for babies, independent agencies play a critical role in regulating the economy, the environment, our jobs, and the objects we rely on every day. Handing these decisions to donors or weaponizing them for political gain will line some pockets but almost certainly harm the public.

The Roberts Court claims to be an originalist court, basing its constitutional rulings on the document’s original public meaning. But ever since the Roberts Court’s hard turn toward unitary executive theory—the idea that the president has unrestricted authority over the entire executive branch—and its movements against independent agencies, scholars have gone back to the archives to investigate the originalist bona fides of these related judicial trends. It turns out that there is little historical evidence for a unitary executive (and mountains of evidence against) and that there are many instances of independent agencies in the founding era and the 19th century. They are not an invention of the New Deal, even though that is the time in which they grew in number and significance—and is indeed the era this court seeks to erase from the law books.

In her dissent, Sotomayor recounts the history that the majority eschews, demonstrating how Roberts’ opinion relies more on discredited fictions than sound history. “From the start, the majority’s theory rested on shaky ground,” she wrote. “Over time, its arguments have grown weaker still, as historical evidence has undermined key pillars of its theory. Today, the Court faced a choice: plow ahead… Unfortunately, the Court repeats and expands upon several prior errors that require correction.”

The historical anomaly is not independent agencies or presidents with limited authority, as Roberts asserts. It’s this court and the Trump actions it blesses.

Categories: Political News

Here Are the Politicians Americans Actually Like

The New Republic - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:06

A new poll has revealed that Americans’ favorite politicians are also the ones that conservatives bellyache about the most.

A Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll published Monday asked Americans to rate a dozen contemporary political figures on a scale of zero through 100, with the bottom of the scale representing “coldness” and the top of the scale representing “warmth.” The winners, by and large, were Democrats.

Leading the popularity contest was former President Barack Obama, with an average rating of 54 on the reputation thermometer. Behind the 44th president was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party at large, and Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in that order.

Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also polled high, earning a 42 and 41 rating, respectively.

Two Democrats fell towards the bottom of the poll: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who received a 36 rating, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who came in last in his party with a 30 rating.

Republicans generally fared much worse than Democrats. Among them, State Secretary Marco Rubio came in first with a 41 rating. Behind him was Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump, who each received an average rating of 38.

Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and ex-Fox News star Tucker Carlson fared even worse than the team in the White House, and scored less than 36 across the board.

Per our new polling out today, the most popular politicians in America are…

Barack Obama
Bernie Sanders
Zohran Mamdani
Pete Buttigieg
Jon Ossoff
& Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Trump is tied with Elon Musk and Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer and Carlson in lasthttps://t.co/vGWqUvS0Pk pic.twitter.com/9Zmb1SHxki

— G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) June 29, 2026

The poll follows a pivotal moment for the burgeoning Democratic Socialists of America, which saw two of its New York-area candidates win big in primaries across the state last week: Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez. Both of them, as well as Mamdani-endorsed Brad Lander, beat out candidates endorsed by Democratic leaders such as Jeffries and Schumer. Their success underscores a new chapter in left-wing politics in the U.S., and illustrates that candidates tied to Democratic leadership have lost their sway with traditionally Democrat voters.

Categories: Political News

Cursor now has a mobile app for guiding your coding agent on the go

TechCrunch - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 10:03
Cursor has launched a new mobile app for remote oversight over coding agents.
Categories: Nerd News

Trump administration threatens 92 GW of new electricity supply with red tape

TechCrunch - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:58
The Trump administration's moves threaten $121 billion in new solar and wind power, two energy sources that are the biggest contributors to new capacity in the U.S.
Categories: Nerd News

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Attempt to Fire Fed’s Lisa Cook

Mother Jones - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:49

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, dealing a setback to Trump’s campaign to take control of monetary policy. The court’s 5-4 decision preserves Cook’s job as she continues to fight her removal, but it is not the final word on Trump’s bid to fire her. The narrow decision almost guarantees that this same dispute will return to the high court soon.

The majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts expresses explicit support for Fed independence. As an independent bank regulator, the Fed is run by a board of presidentially appointed governors who serve 14 year terms and are only removable for cause. The Trump administration argued that it had cause and that the Supreme Court could not review its removal decision. But the majority found the government’s arguments at odds with an independent Fed.

“To accept any one of those arguments would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference,” Roberts wrote.

The decision comes at a time when the future of Fed independence is in doubt. Trump’s pick for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, is awaiting confirmation by the Senate. Keeping Cook in her seat steadies the ship, if only a little. The majority’s decision, however, is explicitly “narrow.” It requires that Cook be given proper notice of the cause of her removal and an opportunity to contest those charges. The decision does not lay out what that process looks like. And it saves for another day—which will almost certainly come soon—a court decision on whether Trump’s obviously pretextual allegations will be enough to remove Cook.

In a post on Truth Social Monday, Trump called the Cook ruling “strictly procedural” and pledged to “take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”

In short, this is a loss for Trump at this stage—but it may not be a permanent one.

In its ruling, the court declined to define what for-cause protection requires in order for a firing to be valid. Indeed, it hints that rather than leave it up to the president, it may ultimately be the final arbiter of what constitutes cause on a case-by-case basis. “Only after Cook has had the opportunity to respond to the charges made against her…may a final decision be made…And only then can the courts assess the validity and sufficiency of such charges,” Roberts wrote.

“To be clear, the ultimate question of whether the President can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts,” the chief justice added. “In this opinion, we have not addressed the facts.”

Here are those facts, as we know them.

Last August, the president posted a criminal referral against Cook on Truth Social, his social media platform, and demanded she resign. The accusation—created by Bill Pulte, Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency director—is that Cook claimed primary residency on two different mortgage applications. If this charge sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same one Pulte cooked up against two other Democrats—and it has yet to win the day against any of the president’s targets because, at most, Pulte appears to have discovered clerical errors. Five days after Trump’s social media post, the president announced in another post that he was firing Cook.

Trump claimed that the mortgage document discrepancy dug up by a political lackey was sufficient cause to fire Cook, and that the courts couldn’t review his decision to boot her, anyway. In other words, Trump’s argument is that he can state any cause for removal he likes, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s an obviously absurd argument because it renders the “for cause” removal restriction meaningless. Cook sued, and a district court judge blocked her removal, as did the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump turned to the Supreme Court, which agreed to decide whether Trump could temporarily remove Cook while her legal challenge to her firing moves forward.

The Supreme Court handed down its ruling Monday in conjunction with a related case—Trump v. Slaughter—in which the court gave Trump the power to remove the commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission and other formerly independent agencies. That decision follows a string of cases in which the court’s this conservative majority found that the president’s power over the executive branch trumped Congress’ attempt to insulate agencies from political pressure. During Trump’s second term, the court had already waved through firings of Democratic commissioners on the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, and Consumer Product Safety Commission on its shadow docket.

Logically, it’s hard to reconcile the court’s Cook decision with its rulings in Slaughter and other cases allowing Trump to fire independent agency commissioners. But the Federal Reserve Board’s independence is a pillar of the United States’ economy, and the US’s dominant global position makes that independence critical to the world economy, as well. Allowing Trump to turn interest rates, loans, bailouts, and access to the US banking system into political weapons would fundamentally reshape the economy and our democratic order. The Fed, in other words, is too important for one man to control.

To get out of this bind, Roberts—who wrote both the Cook and Slaughter decisions—insists that the Fed is simply different. Roberts’ opinion cites a history of independent bank regulators going back to the country’s founding and finds this history is relevant in determining whether it should uphold Congress’ legislative choice to make the Fed independent. “We see no reason to leave the public in limbo, or to sow doubt as to the status of one of our Nation’s (and the world’s) most important financial institutions,” Roberts wrote. “We would not so quickly unsettle this ‘special arrangement sanctioned by history.’”

This entire adventure stems from the Roberts Court’s own crusade to empower the president and hinder regulations disliked by big industry. The GOP-appointed majority has pushed forward its view of a “unitary executive” who controls all aspects of the executive branch, creating a roadmap for Trump to turn federal agencies into political weapons. Today, the court blesses Trump’s attempts to take control of most of the regulatory work that Congress deemed should be independent. But, at least to an extent, the Fed will be insulated from the consequences of that crusade.

Categories: Political News

Thanks, GOP: Student borrowers face massive bills this week

Daily Kos - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:30

Millions of student borrowers will see their bills significantly increase on July 1 as new regulations put in place by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans go into effect. On that day, the Trump administration’s Repayment Assistance Plan will go into effect, replacing the Saving on a Valuable Education plan put in place in 2023 under former President Joe Biden.

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Categories: Political News

TIDAL cracks down on AI music by cutting off monetization

TechCrunch - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:29
TIDAL's new policy will prevent AI-generated music from making money on its service.
Categories: Nerd News

Gold member

Daily Kos - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:29

A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Trump set to make another historic celebration all about himself…

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Categories: Political News

Supreme Court Rules Fourth Amendment Covers Your Location Data

The New Republic - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:19

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Fourth Amendment protects individuals’ right to privacy when it comes to their phone location data.

The justices ruled 6–3 to send a Virginia bank robbery case back to the lower courts for review in light of its decision. In 2019, Okello Chatrie was convicted of robbing a credit union after police saw him using his phone in the security camera footage of the bank. They then used a “geofence warrant,” which compels tech companies to provide law enforcement with data from all devices at a specific place and time, to identify Chatrie.

Geofence warrants are regularly used, and let the government demand location data and records from anyone near a crime scene, without needing to identify an individual target.

Government lawyers argued to the court that Chatrie did not have a “reasonable expectation” of privacy, since he had willingly shared his location with Google.

But the Supreme Court rejected that argument. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for the majority, and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts joined.

“A cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do,” Kagan wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred, writing, “even short-term monitoring” of a person’s physical movements can provide “a wealth of detail about [his] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.”

The ruling is a win for data privacy, and will make it harder for the federal government to access personal information stored in the cloud without getting a specific warrant.

Categories: Political News

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’s 3 In the Works with IT: CHAPTER 2 Writer

The Nerdist - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:11
⚡ Quick Take
  • Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 is happening with Gary Dauberman, the writer behind IT: Chapter 2, penning its script.

Five Nights at Freddy’s gave video game fans two box office smashes that brought Freddy and his friends to the big screen. So, it is not at all shocking that there’s a Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 in the works with writer Gary Dauberman on board. Dauberman is behind films like 2017’s IT and IT: Chapter 2 as well as The Nun. 

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 trailer image of Freddy FazbearUniversal Pictures

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it is not clear if the previous film’s stars will return for this next installment. But it is pretty likely that we will see Mike and Abby again. And, with Vanessa being possessed by the Marionette and the suit with William’s body activating at the end of the second film, there’s more story to tell with them too. These films have come out in relatively rapid succession, with the first two being released in 2023 and 2025, respectively.

RELATED ARTICLE

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’s 2 Unleashes More Animatronic Horror in New Trailer

So it would not be shocking to see a late 2027 release for the Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 film. We don’t mind a two year schedule in a world where the next chapter of everything seems to take 84 years. (The exception is The Pitt, which comes out every year and absolutely rules.) We can’t wait to see what Freddy Fazebear, Bonnie, and those other creepy animatronics will get into next. 

The post FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’s 3 In the Works with IT: CHAPTER 2 Writer appeared first on Nerdist.

Categories: Nerd News

Rocket Lab buys its way into the satellite big league with $8B Iridium deal

The Register - Mon, 06/29/2026 - 09:08
Rocket Lab has agreed to acquire Iridium Communications in an $8 billion cash-and-stock deal, potentially creating another challenger to SpaceX and Amazon for vertically integrated satellite broadband. Both Rocket Lab and Iridium's boards unanimously agreed to the deal, which was jointly announced on Monday and is expected to close by the middle of next year. Rocket Lab separately described the move in an investor slide deck [PDF] as positioning it as a "fully integrated, self-launching, tier-1 space power" alongside the forces of Amazon/Globalstar and SpaceX/EchoStar. Amazon agreed to acquire Globalstar earlier this year to help serve its nascent Leo satellite operation, while SpaceX agreed to buy spectrum licences from EchoStar in a transaction partly funded with SpaceX shares. Iridium currently operates a constellation of 80 satellites, 66 of which are active and the rest are on-orbit spares. The satellites use L-band frequencies for user communications and Ka-band frequencies for links between satellites and ground gateways. L-band offers lower data rates but is more resistant to weather interference. Iridium offers service around the world, including in the polar regions (as does Starlink), and claims to have more than 2.55 million global subscribers. The soon-to-be-absorbed satellite operator already has a wide customer base across several sectors, serving the US government and military, as well as customers in the maritime, aviation, and telecommunications sectors. One major question is how Rocket Lab would accommodate an influx of customers given the relatively small size of Iridium's constellation (Starlink has close to 10,000 satellites in orbit). Rocket Lab said it plans to expand Iridium's direct-to-device cellular offering to compete with Starlink and Amazon Leo when the latter opens to customers. "This is our entrance into recurring applications revenue from space, but it's not the finish line," Rocket Lab said in its investor deck. "Rather than simply continuing Iridium's network, we will build upon it to scale into untapped markets and pioneer new space-based services." Rocket Lab is likely to increase launch activity as it expands the Iridium constellation and seeks more customers. The proposed deal would make Rocket Lab a more direct competitor to SpaceX in vertically integrated launch and satellite communications, with Amazon playing a distant third as it has yet to realize its Leo ambition. To add to the risk for SpaceX, Rocket Lab recently achieved a record speed launch for the Space Force, putting its Pioneer space vehicle in orbit just 17 hours after receiving orders for a rapid launch tactical space mission. SpaceX, meanwhile, has pursued heavy-lift capability with Starship but has been repeatedly grounded for failing to meet launch objectives safely. Rocket Lab does not yet operate a rocket with payload capacity comparable to SpaceX's Falcon 9, and development of its planned competitor, Neutron, hasn't been without setbacks. Rocket Lab is still unlikely to displace SpaceX, whose operations have become so closely entwined with the US government that officials have reportedly deemed them difficult to disentangle. SpaceX also has roughly a year to extend its lead while the Iridium deal undergoes shareholder and regulatory review. ®

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