An SNL Icon Retires Fans of Saturday Night Live have long wondered: What happens behind the scenes of the sketch-comedy show? In 2024, we got a glimpse with Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, which showcased just how stressful producing weekly live sketch comedy can be.  After 50 years of constructing Saturday Night Live’s sets for their various sketches, Stephen “Demo” DeMaria is retiring at age 87. And while DeMaria likely felt stressed out at times leading a team of carpenters for such a large-scale production on a time crunch, he says, “I didn’t have a bored day in my life. Never.”  “According to the report, DeMaria’s schedule at the start of each new fall season included starting his Thursdays at 1 a.m., receiving the week’s set design sketches by 2 a.m., and then splitting the work among five teams of approximately 50 total carpenters.”  Read more at Entertainment Weekly American Idol Crowns Its Latest Winner One of the most intriguing aspects of the early 2000s era of reality TV was fan voting. I remember crowding around the TV with my mom and sisters, watching The Voice, and pulling out our phones every chance we could vote for our favorite contestants.  American Idol has stood the test of time, as it has been producing stars since 2002. Season 23 of American Idol declared its new champion, 27-year-old Jamal Roberts, on May 18. The physical education teacher from Mississippi has shined all season, landing him in the final three, alongside John Foster and Breanna Nix.  “The crooner, who excelled across all the genres, is the second Black male artist to win the competition after Ruben Studdard took the title during the show’s second season in 2003.” Read more at CNN Sesame Street Gets a New Home Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Elmo’s home is now on Netflix. Following Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision not to renew Sesame Street on HBO Max, Netflix secured a deal with Sesame Workshop to keep the educational children’s show alive.  Notably, when the show was premiering on HBO Max, the streaming service was the only way to watch new episodes. In the wake of budget cuts to public broadcast, which resulted in countless layoffs and furloughs, Netflix is partnering up with PBS to release episodes to public broadcast the same day that they premiere on Netflix.  PBS, where Sesame Street aired originally, has provided accessible educational programming for children in low-income households for over 55 years. Sesame Workshop CEO, Sherri Westin, said in a statement that Netflix will showcase Sesame Street to a global audience, and thanks to this unique public-private deal, new episodes will be accessible in the U.S. for free through public TV.  “The deal with Netflix and PBS not only provides much needed financial stability for the non-profit (it is slated to host its annual fundraiser next week), but also provides expanded access to the program for free, an extremely unusual arrangement for Netflix.”  Read more at The Hollywood Reporter Sebastián Lelio Makes Waves at the Cannes Film Festival Lelio spoke with Deadline at the festival following the premiere of his newest project, The Wave (La Ola)— a movie musical that surrounds the Chilean feminist wave in 2018. 2018 marked a year of mass protests, strikes and civil unrest in Chile, mostly carried out by university and high school students in response to sexism and violence against women in educational institutions. This movie comes at a culturally significant time, as there has been an increase in student-led protests.  You might be thinking: Why is this a musical? After the mixed-to-negative response to Emilia Pérez, a movie musical that is also in Spanish, viewers may be weary to give this new movie musical a chance.  In his interview with Deadline, Lelio makes it clear that the use of music and performance in this movie are intentional. He described the musical element of the movie as “more of depiction of political cacophony.”  “Daniela López stars in the film – which debuted in Cannes Premiere – as a music student who joins the cause, haunted by an incident with her voice teacher’s assistant. She is joined in the cast by a raft of young Chilean acting talents including Paulina Cortés, Lola Bravo and Avril Aurora.”  Read more at Deadline  Latest Kristen Stewart Project Gets a Streaming Release Date Even if you love Kristen Stewart, you might not have appreciated her starring role as a weather buoy in the 2024 post-apocalyptic romance, Love Me. If you left the theater with mixed feelings in 2024, or just overall confusion, you’ll be happy to know that on June 16 the film will be available for streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.  “The movie, which follows a buoy and a satellite who meet online long after human extinction (yes, you read that right), will be available on Paramount+ with Showtime via Bleecker Street’s continuous partnership with the service. During their journey together, Me/Deja (Stewart) and Iam/Liam (Yeun) discover what life on earth was like for humans and in the process find out who they are, and what it means to love and live (and, presumably, laugh).”  Read more at MovieWeb

All throughout 2025, I've been bursting with podcast recommendations (which might not be surprising, given writing a podcast recommendation newsletter is part of my job). I've shared my lists of the best podcasts about liars and scammers, podcasts that expose the nonsense in politics and pop culture, and podcasts you'll like if you miss Heavyweight. But then I awoke and realized that we are almost halfway through the year, and I haven't spent nearly enough time talking about my favorite new shows that debuted this year. June is a great time to take stock of all the new podcasts from the first half of the year. These are the shows that made my jaw drop, made me laugh, and inspired me to subscribe—and pester all of my friends to do the same. I think you'll like them, too. Alternate Realities (Embedded) Credit: Podcast logo Embedded recently produced a 3-part series, Alternate Realities, focused on a bet between reporter Zach Mack and his father, who intended to determine once and for all who was right about the other having been lost to conspiracy theories. Zach’s father had started to believe in chemtrails, that the government controls the weather, that ANTIFA staged the Jan. 6 riots, that a cabal called the globalists is controlling the world. Zach…did not believe those things. In early 2024 the two agreed: Zach’s dad would make a list of 10 prophesies that he was 100% sure would happen, (i.e. a bunch of democrats would be convicted of treason and/or murder, the U.S. would come under martial law), and on Jan. 1, 2025, Zach would have to give his father $1,000 for every one that came to pass. For every one that didn’t, Zach would get the same. It’s a zingy idea for a series, but also a dark family story—the bet is the make-or-break thing for not just Zach and his dad, but for the entire family. Beyond the money, the stakes are high.Debt Heads Credit: Podcast logo Friends Jamie Alyson Feldman (@realgirlproject) and Rachel Gayle Webster (@webbythefox) are using storytelling, research, springiness, humor, and fun audio elements in their podcast Debt Heads, which examines Jamie’s deeply ingrained issues with debt and uses them as an entry point into the question of why so many young people are in the same boat. It's a fascinating dive into the issue of millennials and their money—harrowing and fascinating and occasionally funny, and a rich listening experience even if you (like me) want to crawl under a table when the conversation turns to money.Our Ancestors Were Messy Credit: Podcast logo If you love the way Normal Gossip pulls you into the juicy drama of strangers, and especially if you also love history, you’ll get sucked right in to Our Ancestors Were Messy, Nichole Hill’s show about the gossip, scandals, and pop culture that made headlines in historical Black newspapers across America. Nichole tells true stories from the past (a Victorian-era love triangle that hit DC elites, a mystery concerning a tabloid sensation in Harlem) with help from a guest, placing you inside of a vintage scandal, providing the context you need to understand why it was a scandal at all, and fleshing out the characters involved with the skill of a novelist. Nichole’s storytelling is descriptive, funny, conversational, and crisp, and she uses amazing sound production that pumps it all into life. Why Is Amy in the Bath? Credit: Podcast logo Have you ever noticed that Amy Adams seems to do a lot of bathtub and shower scenes in her films? After listening to this show, you won’t be able to un-notice it. Certainly that fact stuck out to Brandon R. Reynolds and Gabby Lombardo, who spun the observation into the podcast Why Is Amy in the Bath? In six episodes they ask: Is Amy, who has never won an Oscar, doing all these bathtub scenes because they offer the opportunity for the kind of dramatic acting that earns the biggest, golden-est prizes? Brandon and Gabby went through 1,500 movies, including all the Best Actress Oscar nominees, to see if there was a correlation to tub scenes, and their conclusions are the stuff of the best conspiracy theories.What We Spend Credit: Podcast logo If you love Refinery 29's Money Diaries, or if you’re just a nosy person, you’re going to salivate over What We Spend, in which regular people take us, day by day and purchase by purchase, through what they spend in a week. It's like looking inside their wallets, flipping through their credit card statements, and hearing the personal stories behind the financial decisions they make. One person is scared about having to pay for a cat funeral. A 35-year-old asks her dad to pay her bills for a month. In each episode, the subject realizes, along with us, that there are usually deeply rooted personal issues underneath their money issues and the anxieties they bring up. Listeners can contact the hosts for a spot on the show, but that's a huge no thanks from me! But I’ll be listening. Text Me Back Credit: Podcast logo If you’re looking for a chat show that will have you laughing out loud without making you feel like you just lost a bunch of brain cells, try Text Me Back. Bestselling writer Lindy West and democracy policy expert Meagan Hatcher-Maysget are childhood friends who get on the mic for convos that range from off the rails goofy stories to insightful pop-culture and political commentary, with an irresistible friendship vibe flowing throughout. Their chemistry is nothing that could be rehearsed or planned, and they are both such good storytellers, they can spin gold out of the most mundane things that happened to them in a given week. Text Me Back will be a balm for listeners who still miss the iconic podcast Call Your Girlfriend (RIP.) The Final Days of Sgt. Tibbs Credit: Podcast logo Delivered in four short episodes, The Final Days of Sgt. Tibbs explores the fate of the titular geriatric cat, who went missing in Manchester, New Hampshire, then turned up dead, causing a huge blowup in the community he left behind. Rose, Sgt. Tibbs’ owner, was devastated when Tibbs went missing, and infuriated to learn that he might not have actually been missing at all, but in the hands of neighbors, the mother/daughter duo of Debbie and Sabrina, who claim to have saved the cat's life. We going in knowing that Tibbs has died. The question is, what happened? Todd Bookman puts a microscope to the kitty's last days, and finds a story of adults behaving badly and a community torn apart. At one point, Todd wonders if there are better things he could be doing with his time (and microphone). “But imagine something more important than something you love disappearing and dying," he says. "It seems worth every second trying to figure out what happened.” Pet lovers get it. RIP, Sgt. Tibbs.We Came to the Forest Credit: Podcast logo We Came to the Forest introduces you to Vienna Forrest, an environmental crusader remembering her life living in the forest with a bunch of other activists as they protested the construction of Atlanta’s Cop City, one of the biggest police training facilities in the country. She speaks intimately about her partner Tortuguita (Manuel Esteban Paez Terán,) another protester or “forest defender” who was allegedly shot and killed by Atlanta law enforcement. We Came to the Forest revolves around Tortuguita’s murder and everything that led up to it. What seems obvious (Tortuguita was shot by the police) is tough to prove. A cop was also shot, but who shot him? There is no body cam footage to prove what happened. Through storytelling and interviews, the show will make you think about how fast things can turn sideways when law enforcement gets involved in a situation, and how thin the line can be between safety and danger.CRAMPED Credit: Podcast logo Kate Downey has been having debilitating period pain every month since she was14 years old. Debilitating period pain is common, yet something nobody seems to want to talk about or research—and certainly nobody is trying to have fun with it. But Kate is doing all of the above with CRAMPED, which is somehow boisterous and dead serious at the same time. It's full of fascinating interviews, illuminating info, and helpful tips for anyone with a uterus. She gets smart, funny people on the mic to talk about their that-time-of-the-month experiences, what is really going on in their bodies and why nobody cares, and why Kate hasn’t been able to get an answers from a doctor after 20 years of asking questions. Suave (Season 2) Credit: Podcast logo In its first season, Suave won a Pulitzer Prize-winning for telling the story of Luis "Suave" Gonzalez, a convicted man who turned his life around in prison, and his relationship with journalist Maria Hinojosa. The show is assembled from years of recordings of their conversations, an audio document of the highs and lows of Suave's life both in and out of jail, and the mother/son bond that develops between the two. At the end, Suave is released, and we are left to wonder what freedom really means. That’s where season two picks up: Suave is now “Mr. Pulitzer,” but life on the outside is very hard. Proxy Credit: Podcast logo With her beautiful show Proxy, "emotional journalist" Yowei Shaw investigates and solves deeply intimate conundrums by proxy—she finds people with unresolved relationship issues and links them up with a stranger who can help them better understand what's going on. (Recently she connected a man whose wife left him for a woman with a woman who'd left her husband for a woman.) Yowei also appears on the massively popular NPR podcast Invisibilia, so you know you can trust her to deliver a good story that will be professionally structured. It's a space for unique conversations the likes of which I have never heard before. Sea of Lies (Uncover) Credit: Podcast logo On Sea of Lies (available on the Uncover podcast feed) Sam Mullins (Wild Boys) tells the tale of one of the most wanted men in the world, Albert Walker, who is arrested for fraud after a dead body wearing a recognizable watch washes ashore. The globe-spanning saga gets wilder from there, always zagging left when you think it will go right. Via meticulous reporting, Sea of Lies skirts around Walker’s manipulative tactics to get to the psychological questions at the root of his crimes. 

Trump to host investors in his cryptocurrency despite ethical concerns 4 hours agoLily JamaliNorth America Technology Correspondent•@lilyjamaliReporting fromSan FranciscoGetty ImagesUS President Donald Trump will host top purchasers of the cryptocurrency that bears his name at a gala dinner on Thursday.$TRUMP was launched shortly before his inauguration in January, initially rocketing in value before falling sharply shortly afterwards."It's fundamentally corrupt -- a way to buy access to the President," Democrat senator Chris Murphy wrote on X, one of a number of people to question the ethics of the event.Some have also suggested the expected attendance of many foreign investors poses a threat to national security.But the White House has batted away such allegations, saying Trump is only motivated by public serviceWhat is $TRUMP?$TRUMP is what is known as a meme coin - a type of cryptocurrency inspired by internet memes or viral online trends. Its price peaked at $75 in January before plummeting to less than $8 in April - it was trading at around $12.50 at the time of writing.Experts question the value of such assets."This is something that doesn't have obvious utility. It's not being used for payments. It's not being used as a store of value," said Rob Hadick, General Partner of Dragonfly, a crypto venture fund.The dinner - which is being held at Trump's golf course near the nation's capital - is advertised on the website gettrumpmemes.com as "the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World."The top 220 purchasers of the meme coin, viewable on a leaderboard, received invitations to the "black-tie optional" event.The top investor in the $TRUMP meme coin is billionaire crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun who was charged with fraud and market manipulation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden Administration.In February, the Trump administration paused the case.Sun said this week on the social media platform X that he planned to attend the dinner, calling himself Trump's "TOP fan!"From crypto critic to investorTrump's views on cryptocurrency have undergone radical change in recent years.In 2021, he called Bitcoin a "scam."Now, he's not just in charge of regulating cryptocurrencies in the US – he and his family are active industry participants.In addition to the meme coin, the Trump family also holds a majority stake in the crypto exchange World Liberty Financial, which was launched just prior to the election.Trump expressed his desire to be the nation's first "Crypto President" while campaigning for president and was a major beneficiary of campaign contributions from the crypto industry in the 2024 election.Many crypto assets have leapt in value under his presidency. On Thursday, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of almost $112,000 per coin.According to a report by the group State Democracy Defenders Action, Trump's investments in crypto have helped boost his net worth by as much as $2.9 billion."As a stakeholder in crypto assets, President Trump will likely profit from the very policies he is pursuing," the report states.Three days into his term, Trump issued an Executive Order to establish a regulatory framework that promotes the growth of digital currencies.A Trump administration official told the BBC that the meme coin has nothing to do with the White House.White House spokesperson Anna Kelly pushed back on concerns about potential conflicts."The President is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself," Kelly said in a statement. But one former financial regulator likened the meme coin to gambling."It's like selling membership cards for his personal fan club which are then traded," said Timothy Massad, Director of the Digital Asset Policy Project at Harvard. "They have no value. But people speculate on the price and those purchases and that trading enriches him."ReutersU.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) speaks on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., August 21, 2024. REUTERS/Mike SegarAt a Senate committee hearing this week, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) grilled Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the lack of transparency regarding who will attend Thursday night's dinner.Mr Murphy cited reports that many of the attendees at the invite-only event were expected to be foreigners."There's clearly a way around the State Department for foreign individuals of significant influence and wealth to be able to directly lobby the president of the United States," Mr Murphy said."I don't have any concern that the president having dinner with someone is going to contravene the security of the United States," responded Mr Rubio, who said he was unaware of the dinner.On Thursday afternoon, Mr Murphy and certain other Democratic members of Congress planned a protest against the dinner to be livestreamed."The Members will demand Trump release the list of individuals attending the dinner and what favors they will be getting for the millions of dollars they invested in Trump's meme coin," the group said in a statement.Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.BitcoinCryptocurrency

May 22, 20255 min readDisaster-Struck States Waiting for Weeks for Trump’s Sign-Off on FEMA AidStates and cities struck by deadly tornadoes and floods are begging the Trump administration for disaster aidBy Thomas Frank & E&E News A man is comforted by a family friend while cleaning up the debris of his house on May 18, 2025 in the community of Sunshine Hills outside of London, Kentucky. A tornado struck the neighborhood of Sunshine Hills just after midnight on May 17, 2025 in London, Kentucky. Michael Swensen/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | Public officials have started pleading with the Trump administration for help in recovering from deadly disasters as President Donald Trump triggers frustration in states struck by tornadoes, floods and storms by taking no action on requests for aid.Trump has left states, counties and tribes in limbo as he delays making decisions on formal requests for millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Some areas that are still reeling from extreme weather are unable to start cleanup.“We’re at a standstill and waiting on a declaration from FEMA,” said Royce McKee, emergency management director in Walthall County, Mississippi, which was hit by tornadoes in mid-March.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The county of 13,000 people can’t afford to clean up acres of debris, McKee said, and is waiting for Trump to act on a disaster request that was submitted by Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, on April 1 after the tornadoes killed seven people, destroyed or damaged 671 homes, and caused $18.2 million in public damage.“I’m disappointed, especially for the people that lost their houses,” McKee said.Trump himself assailed FEMA in January for being “very slow.”The frustration over Trump’s handling of disasters is the latest upheaval involving FEMA. Trump recently canceled two FEMA grant programs that gave states billions of dollars a year to pay for protective measures against disasters. The move drew protests from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.On May 8, Trump fired FEMA leader Cameron Hamilton and replaced him with David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer who has no experience in emergency management.At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, pleaded with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to push Trump to approve three disaster requests that Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, had sent to Trump beginning April 2.“We are desperate for assistance in Missouri,” Hawley said as Noem pledged to help. Her department oversees FEMA.St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer, whose city was badly damaged by tornadoes earlier this week, told MSNBC: “What we need right now is federal assistance. This is where FEMA and the federal government have got to come in and help communities. Our city can’t shoulder this alone.”U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press on January 24, 2025 as he prepares to travel to North Carolina, California, Nevada and Florida over the weekend.Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesTrump has not acted on 17 disaster requests, a high number for this time of year, according to a FEMA daily report released Wednesday. On the same date eight years ago, during Trump’s first presidency, only three disaster requests were awaiting presidential action, the FEMA report from May 21, 2017, shows.Eleven of the 17 pending disaster requests were sent to Trump more than a month ago.“This looks to me like, until FEMA’s role is clarified, then we’re just going to sit on it,” said a former senior FEMA official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.Trump has indicated that he wants to shrink the agency, which distributes about $45 billion in disaster aid a year, helps with as many as 100 disasters at a time and, he said, “has been a very big disappointment.”“It’s very bureaucratic and very slow,” Trump said in January during a visit to disaster-stricken western North Carolina.The Trump administration has made no announcements about how it is handling requests for disaster aid, leaving governors, local officials and individuals uncertain about what to expect.“A disaster survivor that’s waiting for relief — that’s the hard part about this,” the former FEMA official said.In a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration wants state and local governments “to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged.”Trump handles disaster requests “with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters,” Jackson said.'Death and destruction'Despite the absence of an announced policy change, Trump’s actions on a handful of disasters indicate that he is making it harder for states to receive FEMA aid for cleanup and rebuilding.There is no indication of partisan considerations in Trump’s actions. Only three of the 17 pending disaster requests came from Democratic governors. Trump made national headlines in April when he denied a request by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican who was the White House press secretary during his first presidency.The denial of Sanders’ request for aid to clean up debris and repair electric cooperatives after a tornado outbreak in mid-March exemplifies Trump’s new direction. Sanders calculated that the tornadoes caused $11.6 million in public damage, which is more than enough to qualify for FEMA aid.Under long-standing FEMA policy, the agency sets a population-based damage threshold that states must exceed in order to get money for cleanup and rebuilding. In Arkansas, the threshold is slightly more than $5.8 million — and the state’s damage was twice that amount.Sanders appealed the denial, but Trump again rejected her request for repair money, although he did agree to help 249 households pay for temporary housing and minor home repairs with FEMA aid. The federal funding will amount to about $1 million.Trump took the same action on aid requests from West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrissey, a Republican, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, after flooding struck their states in February and April, respectively. In both cases, Trump approved money for households and rejected their funding requests for public rebuilding.When Trump rejected Washington state’s April request for aid to help rebuild public infrastructure following a November flood, Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, noted that the damage easily exceeded the threshold to qualify for federal money.“There are very clear criteria to qualify for these emergency relief funds. Washington’s application met all of them,” Ferguson said after Trump’s denial. Communities “have been waiting for months” for federal aid, “and this decision will cause further delay.”On Tuesday, Beshear sent Trump a new disaster request after tornadoes killed 19 Kentucky residents and caused extensive property damage. Beshear is seeking an “expedited major disaster” declaration, which presidents typically approve in a day or two.“This tornado event is devastating. There’s no other way to describe the death and destruction this has brought to the community,” Beshear said at a news briefing Tuesday.Although the request did not calculate the cost of the damage, Kentucky Division of Emergency Management Director Eric Gibson said Tuesday, “We met a number that is clearly easy for anyone to see that this disaster needs some federal assistance.”Beshear said Trump called him Sunday after the outbreak and "pledged to be there for the people of Kentucky."Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesMicrosoft has quietly implemented a policy blocking employee emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” or “genocide” on its internal Exchange servers, according to No Azure for Apartheid, a group of pro-Palestine Microsoft employees. The automated filter, which silently prevents such emails from reaching recipients was first detected on Wednesday—just after Microsoft’s Build developer conference faced repeated disruptions by the activist group.Microsoft has been rocked by internal dissent over its collaboration with the Israeli military and government amid the ongoing assault on Gaza. The company has faced disruptions to its events, including protests from employees over its provision of cloud services and other critical infrastructure used by the Israeli military.Now, the company appears to be tightening its grip on internal discourse. The terms “Israel” and “P4lestine” do not trigger a block, the group said. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Last week, Microsoft attempted to do damage control over its alleged involvement in the genocide. Ahead of the annual Build event, which is aimed at developers and tech enthusiasts from all over the world, the company issued a report claiming that an internal investigation found that Microsoft’s operations did not cause harm to civilians in Gaza.Microsoft’s provision of technology to the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MOD) was first reported by Drop Site News, alongside The Guardian and the magazine +972, based on a trove of internal documents. The reports revealed that Microsoft actively pursued contracts with the Israeli defense ministry, offering them tailored proposals and significant discounts on cloud and AI services. These deals, negotiated and escalated over months, positioned Microsoft as a key technology provider during Israeli military operations in Gaza.Microsoft did not dispute the authenticity of the documents or the reporting, but days before its major annual events released a statement saying that it conducted an internal review and “found no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people.” According to internal documents and emails reviewed by Drop Site, however, just days after the October 7, 2023 attack and the start of Israeli offensive in Gaza, Microsoft started pitching to the Israeli military, anticipating major military spending. Over the next few months, Israeli military became one of Microsoft’s top 500 global customers.On Monday, No Azure for Apartheid said, an employee who disrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote at the flagship Build conference was fired. On Tuesday, during a speech by Jay Parikh, head of CoreAI, a worker shouted, “Jay! My people are suffering! Cut ties with Israel! No Azure for apartheid! Free, free Palestine!” before being swiftly removed by security.Leave a comment

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The data center boom in the desert In the high desert east of Reno, Nevada, construction crews are flattening the golden foothills of the Virginia Range, laying the foundations of a data center city.Google, Tract, Switch, EdgeCore, Novva, Vantage, and PowerHouse are all operating, building, or expanding huge facilities nearby. Meanwhile, Microsoft has acquired more than 225 acres of undeveloped property, and Apple is expanding its existing data center just across the Truckee River from the industrial park. The corporate race to amass computing resources to train and run artificial intelligence models and store information in the cloud has sparked a data center boom in the desert—and it’s just far enough away from Nevada’s communities to elude wide notice and, some fear, adequate scrutiny. Read the full story. —James Temple This story is part of Power Hungry: AI and our energy future—our new series shining a light on the energy demands and carbon costs of the artificial intelligence revolution. Check out the rest of the package here. A new atomic clock in space could help us measure elevations on Earth In 2003, engineers from Germany and Switzerland began building a bridge across the Rhine River simultaneously from both sides. Months into construction, they found that the two sides did not meet. The German side hovered 54 centimeters above the Swiss one. The misalignment happened because they measured elevation from sea level differently. To prevent such costly construction errors, in 2015 scientists in the International Association of Geodesy voted to adopt the International Height Reference Frame, or IHRF, a worldwide standard for elevation.Now, a decade after its adoption, scientists are looking to update the standard—by using the most precise clock ever to fly in space. Read the full story. —Sophia Chen Three takeaways about AI’s energy use and climate impacts —Casey CrownhartThis week, we published Power Hungry, a package all about AI and energy. At the center of this package is the most comprehensive look yet at AI’s growing power demand, if I do say so myself. This data-heavy story is the result of over six months of reporting by me and my colleague James O’Donnell (and the work of many others on our team). Over that time, with the help of leading researchers, we quantified the energy and emissions impacts of individual queries to AI models and tallied what it all adds up to, both right now and for the years ahead. There’s a lot of data to dig through, and I hope you’ll take the time to explore the whole story. But in the meantime, here are three of my biggest takeaways from working on this project. Read the full story.This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. MIT Technology Review Narrated: Congress used to evaluate emerging technologies. Let’s do it again. Artificial intelligence comes with a shimmer and a sheen of magical thinking. And if we’re not careful, politicians, employers, and other decision-makers may accept at face value the idea that machines can and should replace human judgment and discretion. One way to combat that might be resurrecting the Office of Technology Assessment, a Congressional think tank that detected lies and tested tech until it was shuttered in 1995. This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI startupThe former Apple design guru will work with Sam Altman to design an entirely new range of devices. (NYT $)+ The deal is worth a whopping $6.5 billion. (Bloomberg $)+ Altman gave OpenAI staff a preview of its AI ‘companion’ devices. (WSJ $)+ AI products to date have failed to set the world alight. (The Atlantic $) 2 Microsoft has blocked employee emails containing ‘Gaza’ or ‘Palestine’Although the term ‘Israel’ does not trigger such a block. (The Verge)+ Protest group No Azure for Apartheid has accused the company of censorship. (Fortune $) 3 DOGE needs to do its work in secretThat’s what the Trump administration is claiming to the Supreme Court, at least. (Ars Technica)+ It’s trying to avoid being forced to hand over internal documents. (NYT $)+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review) 4 US banks are racing to embrace cryptocurrencyAhead of new stablecoin legislation. (The Information $)+ Attendees at Trump’s crypto dinner paid over $1 million for the privilege. (NBC News)+ Bitcoin has surged to an all-time peak yet again. (Reuters) 5 China is making huge technological leapsThanks to the billions it’s poured into narrowing the gap between it and the US. (WSJ $)+ Nvidia’s CEO has branded America’s chip curbs on China ‘a failure.’ (FT $)+ There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race. (MIT Technology Review) 6 Disordered eating content is rife on TikTokBut a pocket of creators are dedicated to debunking the worst of it. (Wired $) 7 The US military is interested in the world’s largest aircraftThe gigantic WindRunner plane will have an 80-metre wingspan. (New Scientist $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review) 8 How AI is shaking up animationNew tools are slashing the costs of creating episodes by up to 90%. (NYT $)+ Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review) 9 Tesla’s Cybertruck is a flopSorry, Elon. (Fast Company $)+ The vehicles’ resale value is plummeting. (The Daily Beast) 10 Google’s new AI video generator loves this terrible jokeWhich appears to originate from a Reddit post. (404 Media)+ What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “It feels like we are marching off a cliff.” —An unnamed software engineering vice president jokes that future developers conferences will be attended by the AI agents companies like Microsoft are racing to deploy, Semafor reports. One more thing What does GPT-3 “know” about me?One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it.These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s former AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found. We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.) + Don’t shoot the messenger, but it seems like there’s a new pizza king in town ($)+ Ranked: every Final Destination film, from worst to best.+ Who knew that jelly could help to preserve coral reefs? Not I.+ A new generation of space archaeologists are beavering away to document our journeys to the stars.

Chinese automaker BYD sold more electric vehicles in Europe than Tesla for the first time, according to a report by JATO Dynamics, as an aging model lineup and CEO Elon Musk’s politics hurt demand for the U.S. EV maker’s cars. BYD, which also makes plug-in hybrid vehicles, registered 7,231 battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV) in Europe in April, while Tesla registered 7,165 units, the market research firm said. “This is a watershed moment for Europe’s car market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the European BEV market for years, while BYD only officially began operations beyond Norway and the Netherlands in late 2022,” JATO Dynamics’ global analyst Felipe Munoz said. Demand for electric vehicles in Europe remains steady. BEV registrations surged 28% in April from last year, largely driven by Chinese car brands. Despite the EU’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, registrations of such cars increased 59% in the month from a year earlier, while carmakers from Europe, Japan, South Korea and the United States recorded 26% growth. WEAK TESLA DEMAND The company reported its first drop in annual deliveries last year, and analysts expect another fall this year after a 13% decline in the first quarter. Musk said earlier this week that Tesla had already turned around sales, and demand was strong in regions apart from Europe. His political views have triggered waves of protests against Tesla in the U.S. and Europe, leading to a slump in sales. Additionally, production halts to retool factories to make the redesigned Model Y crossover globally caused a drop in manufacturing and sales in the first quarter. Analysts have also attributed lower sales to customers waiting for less-expensive versions of the new Model Y, Tesla’s best-selling vehicle, to become more widely available. —Akash Sriram in Bengaluru, Reuters

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The data center boom in the desert In the high desert east of Reno, Nevada, construction crews are flattening the golden foothills of the Virginia Range, laying the foundations of a data center city. Google, Tract, Switch, EdgeCore, Novva, Vantage, and PowerHouse are all operating, building, or expanding huge facilities nearby. Meanwhile, Microsoft has acquired more than 225 acres of undeveloped property, and Apple is expanding its existing data center just across the Truckee River from the industrial park.The corporate race to amass computing resources to train and run artificial intelligence models and store information in the cloud has sparked a data center boom in the desert—and it’s just far enough away from Nevada’s communities to elude wide notice and, some fear, adequate scrutiny. Read the full story. —James Temple This story is part of Power Hungry: AI and our energy future—our new series shining a light on the energy demands and carbon costs of the artificial intelligence revolution. Check out the rest of the package here. A new atomic clock in space could help us measure elevations on Earth In 2003, engineers from Germany and Switzerland began building a bridge across the Rhine River simultaneously from both sides. Months into construction, they found that the two sides did not meet. The German side hovered 54 centimeters above the Swiss one. The misalignment happened because they measured elevation from sea level differently. To prevent such costly construction errors, in 2015 scientists in the International Association of Geodesy voted to adopt the International Height Reference Frame, or IHRF, a worldwide standard for elevation. Now, a decade after its adoption, scientists are looking to update the standard—by using the most precise clock ever to fly in space. Read the full story. —Sophia Chen Three takeaways about AI’s energy use and climate impacts —Casey Crownhart This week, we published Power Hungry, a package all about AI and energy. At the center of this package is the most comprehensive look yet at AI’s growing power demand, if I do say so myself. This data-heavy story is the result of over six months of reporting by me and my colleague James O’Donnell (and the work of many others on our team). Over that time, with the help of leading researchers, we quantified the energy and emissions impacts of individual queries to AI models and tallied what it all adds up to, both right now and for the years ahead. There’s a lot of data to dig through, and I hope you’ll take the time to explore the whole story. But in the meantime, here are three of my biggest takeaways from working on this project. Read the full story.This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. MIT Technology Review Narrated: Congress used to evaluate emerging technologies. Let’s do it again. Artificial intelligence comes with a shimmer and a sheen of magical thinking. And if we’re not careful, politicians, employers, and other decision-makers may accept at face value the idea that machines can and should replace human judgment and discretion. One way to combat that might be resurrecting the Office of Technology Assessment, a Congressional think tank that detected lies and tested tech until it was shuttered in 1995. This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI startup The former Apple design guru will work with Sam Altman to design an entirely new range of devices. (NYT $)+ The deal is worth a whopping $6.5 billion. (Bloomberg $)+ Altman gave OpenAI staff a preview of its AI ‘companion’ devices. (WSJ $)+ AI products to date have failed to set the world alight. (The Atlantic $)2 Microsoft has blocked employee emails containing ‘Gaza’ or ‘Palestine’ Although the term ‘Israel’ does not trigger such a block. (The Verge)+ Protest group No Azure for Apartheid has accused the company of censorship. (Fortune $) 3 DOGE needs to do its work in secret That’s what the Trump administration is claiming to the Supreme Court, at least. (Ars Technica)+ It’s trying to avoid being forced to hand over internal documents. (NYT $)+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)4 US banks are racing to embrace cryptocurrency Ahead of new stablecoin legislation. (The Information $)+ Attendees at Trump’s crypto dinner paid over $1 million for the privilege. (NBC News)+ Bitcoin has surged to an all-time peak yet again. (Reuters)5 China is making huge technological leaps Thanks to the billions it’s poured into narrowing the gap between it and the US. (WSJ $)+ Nvidia’s CEO has branded America’s chip curbs on China ‘a failure.’ (FT $)+ There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race. (MIT Technology Review)6 Disordered eating content is rife on TikTokBut a pocket of creators are dedicated to debunking the worst of it. (Wired $) 7 The US military is interested in the world’s largest aircraftThe gigantic WindRunner plane will have an 80-metre wingspan. (New Scientist $) + Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 How AI is shaking up animationNew tools are slashing the costs of creating episodes by up to 90%. (NYT $) + Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review)9 Tesla’s Cybertruck is a flop Sorry, Elon. (Fast Company $)+ The vehicles’ resale value is plummeting. (The Daily Beast)10 Google’s new AI video generator loves this terrible joke Which appears to originate from a Reddit post. (404 Media)+ What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “It feels like we are marching off a cliff.” —An unnamed software engineering vice president jokes that future developers conferences will be attended by the AI agents companies like Microsoft are racing to deploy, Semafor reports. One more thing What does GPT-3 “know” about me?One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it. These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s former AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found.We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Don’t shoot the messenger, but it seems like there’s a new pizza king in town 🍕 ($)+ Ranked: every Final Destination film, from worst to best.+ Who knew that jelly could help to preserve coral reefs? Not I.+ A new generation of space archaeologists are beavering away to document our journeys to the stars.

DOGE in court Trump admin tells Supreme Court: DOGE needs to do its work in secret DOJ complains of "sweeping, intrusive discovery" after DOGE refused FOIA requests. Jon Brodkin – May 21, 2025 5:08 pm | 88 A protest over DOGE's reductions to the federal workforce outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building on March 19, 2025 in New York City. Credit: Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago A protest over DOGE's reductions to the federal workforce outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building on March 19, 2025 in New York City. Credit: Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The Department of Justice today asked the Supreme Court to block a ruling that requires DOGE to provide information about its government cost-cutting operations as part of court-ordered discovery. President Trump's Justice Department sought an immediate halt to orders issued by US District Court for the District of Columbia. US Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the Department of Government Efficiency is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as a presidential advisory body and not an official "agency." The district court "ordered USDS [US Doge Service] to submit to sweeping, intrusive discovery just to determine if USDS is subject to FOIA in the first place," Sauer wrote. "That order turns FOIA on its head, effectively giving respondent a win on the merits of its FOIA suit under the guise of figuring out whether FOIA even applies. And that order clearly violates the separation of powers, subjecting a presidential advisory body to intrusive discovery and threatening the confidentiality and candor of its advice, putatively to address a legal question that never should have necessitated discovery in this case at all." The nonprofit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed FOIA requests seeking information about DOGE and sued after DOGE officials refused to provide the requested records. US District Judge Christopher Cooper has so far sided with CREW. Cooper decided in March that "USDS is likely covered by FOIA and that the public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay in unearthing the records CREW seeks," ordering DOGE "to process CREW's request on an expedited timetable." Judge: DOGE is not just an advisor DOGE then asked the district court for a summary judgment in its favor, and CREW responded by filing a motion for expedited discovery "seeking information relevant to whether USDS wields substantial authority independent of the President and is therefore subject to FOIA." In an April 15 order, Cooper ruled that CREW is entitled to limited discovery into the question of whether DOGE is wielding authority sufficient to bring it within the purview of FOIA. Cooper hasn't yet ruled on the motion for summary judgment. "The structure of USDS and the scope of its authority are critical to determining whether the agency is 'wield[ing] substantial authority independently of the President,'" the judge wrote. "And the answers to those questions are unclear from the record." Trump's executive orders appear to support CREW's argument by suggesting "that USDS is exercising substantial independent authority," Cooper wrote. "As the Court already noted, the executive order establishing USDS 'to implement the President's DOGE Agenda' appears to give USDS the authority to carry out that agenda, 'not just to advise the President in doing so.'" Not satisfied with the outcome, the Trump administration tried to get Cooper's ruling overturned in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeals court ruled against DOGE last week. The appeals court temporarily stayed the district court order in April, but dissolved the stay on May 14 and denied the government's petition. "The government contends that the district court's order permitting narrow discovery impermissibly intrudes upon the President's constitutional prerogatives," the appeals court said. But "the discovery here is modest in scope and does not target the President or any close adviser personally. The government retains every conventional tool to raise privilege objections on the limited question-by-question basis foreseen here on a narrow and discrete ground." US argues for secrecy A three-judge panel at the appeals court was unswayed by the government's claim that this process is too burdensome. "Although the government protests that any such assertion of privilege would be burdensome, the only identified burdens are limited both by time and reach, covering as they do records within USDS's control generated since January 20," the ruling said. "It does not provide any specific details as to why accessing its own records or submitting to two depositions would pose an unbearable burden." Yesterday, the District Court set a discovery schedule requiring the government to produce all responsive documents within 14 days and complete depositions within 24 days. In its petition to the Supreme Court today, the Trump administration argued that DOGE's recommendations to the president should be kept secret: The district court's requirement that USDS turn over the substance of its recommendations—even when the recommendations were "purely advisory"—epitomizes the order's overbreadth and intrusiveness. The court's order compels USDS to identify every "federal agency contract, grant, lease or similar instrument that any DOGE employee or DOGE Team member recommended that federal agencies cancel or rescind," and every "federal agency employee or position that any DOGE employee or DOGE team member recommended" for termination or placement on administrative leave. Further, USDS must state "whether [each] recommendation was followed." It is difficult to imagine a more grievous intrusion and burden on a presidential advisory body. Providing recommendations is the core of what USDS does. Because USDS coordinates with agencies across the Executive Branch on an ongoing basis, that request requires USDS to review multitudes of discussions that USDS has had every day since the start of this Administration. And such information likely falls within the deliberative-process privilege almost by definition, as internal executive-branch recommendations are inherently "pre-decisional" and "deliberative." Lawsuit: “No meaningful transparency” into DOGE The US further said the discovery "is unnecessary to answer the legal question whether USDS qualifies as an 'agency' that is subject to FOIA," and is merely "a fishing expedition into USDS's advisory activities under the guise of determining whether USDS engages in non-advisory activities—an approach to discovery that would be improper in any circumstance." CREW, like others that have sued the government over DOGE's operations, says the entity exercises significant power without proper oversight and transparency. DOGE "has worked in the shadows—a cadre of largely unidentified actors, whose status as government employees is unclear, controlling major government functions with no oversight," CREW's lawsuit said. "USDS has provided no meaningful transparency into its operations or assurances that it is maintaining proper records of its unprecedented and legally dubious work." The Trump administration is fighting numerous DOGE-related lawsuits at multiple levels of the court system. Earlier this month, the administration asked the Supreme Court to restore DOGE's access to Social Security Administration records after losing on the issue in both a district court and appeals court. That request to the Supreme Court is pending. There was also a dispute over discovery when 14 states sued the federal government over Trump "delegat[ing] virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities." A federal judge ruled that the states could serve written discovery requests on Musk and DOGE, but the DC Circuit appeals court blocked the discovery order. In that case, appeals court judges said the lower-court judge should have ruled on a motion to dismiss before allowing discovery. Jon Brodkin Senior IT Reporter Jon Brodkin Senior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 88 Comments

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The data center boom in the desert In the high desert east of Reno, Nevada, construction crews are flattening the golden foothills of the Virginia Range, laying the foundations of a data center city. Google, Tract, Switch, EdgeCore, Novva, Vantage, and PowerHouse are all operating, building, or expanding huge facilities nearby. Meanwhile, Microsoft has acquired more than 225 acres of undeveloped property, and Apple is expanding its existing data center just across the Truckee River from the industrial park.The corporate race to amass computing resources to train and run artificial intelligence models and store information in the cloud has sparked a data center boom in the desert—and it’s just far enough away from Nevada’s communities to elude wide notice and, some fear, adequate scrutiny. Read the full story. —James Temple This story is part of Power Hungry: AI and our energy future—our new series shining a light on the energy demands and carbon costs of the artificial intelligence revolution. Check out the rest of the package here. A new atomic clock in space could help us measure elevations on Earth In 2003, engineers from Germany and Switzerland began building a bridge across the Rhine River simultaneously from both sides. Months into construction, they found that the two sides did not meet. The German side hovered 54 centimeters above the Swiss one. The misalignment happened because they measured elevation from sea level differently. To prevent such costly construction errors, in 2015 scientists in the International Association of Geodesy voted to adopt the International Height Reference Frame, or IHRF, a worldwide standard for elevation. Now, a decade after its adoption, scientists are looking to update the standard—by using the most precise clock ever to fly in space. Read the full story. —Sophia Chen Three takeaways about AI’s energy use and climate impacts —Casey Crownhart This week, we published Power Hungry, a package all about AI and energy. At the center of this package is the most comprehensive look yet at AI’s growing power demand, if I do say so myself. This data-heavy story is the result of over six months of reporting by me and my colleague James O’Donnell (and the work of many others on our team). Over that time, with the help of leading researchers, we quantified the energy and emissions impacts of individual queries to AI models and tallied what it all adds up to, both right now and for the years ahead. There’s a lot of data to dig through, and I hope you’ll take the time to explore the whole story. But in the meantime, here are three of my biggest takeaways from working on this project. Read the full story.This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. MIT Technology Review Narrated: Congress used to evaluate emerging technologies. Let’s do it again. Artificial intelligence comes with a shimmer and a sheen of magical thinking. And if we’re not careful, politicians, employers, and other decision-makers may accept at face value the idea that machines can and should replace human judgment and discretion. One way to combat that might be resurrecting the Office of Technology Assessment, a Congressional think tank that detected lies and tested tech until it was shuttered in 1995. This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI startup The former Apple design guru will work with Sam Altman to design an entirely new range of devices. (NYT $)+ The deal is worth a whopping $6.5 billion. (Bloomberg $)+ Altman gave OpenAI staff a preview of its AI ‘companion’ devices. (WSJ $)+ AI products to date have failed to set the world alight. (The Atlantic $)2 Microsoft has blocked employee emails containing ‘Gaza’ or ‘Palestine’ Although the term ‘Israel’ does not trigger such a block. (The Verge)+ Protest group No Azure for Apartheid has accused the company of censorship. (Fortune $) 3 DOGE needs to do its work in secret That’s what the Trump administration is claiming to the Supreme Court, at least. (Ars Technica)+ It’s trying to avoid being forced to hand over internal documents. (NYT $)+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)4 US banks are racing to embrace cryptocurrency Ahead of new stablecoin legislation. (The Information $)+ Attendees at Trump’s crypto dinner paid over $1 million for the privilege. (NBC News)+ Bitcoin has surged to an all-time peak yet again. (Reuters)5 China is making huge technological leaps Thanks to the billions it’s poured into narrowing the gap between it and the US. (WSJ $)+ Nvidia’s CEO has branded America’s chip curbs on China ‘a failure.’ (FT $)+ There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race. (MIT Technology Review)6 Disordered eating content is rife on TikTokBut a pocket of creators are dedicated to debunking the worst of it. (Wired $) 7 The US military is interested in the world’s largest aircraftThe gigantic WindRunner plane will have an 80-metre wingspan. (New Scientist $) + Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 How AI is shaking up animationNew tools are slashing the costs of creating episodes by up to 90%. (NYT $) + Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review)9 Tesla’s Cybertruck is a flop Sorry, Elon. (Fast Company $)+ The vehicles’ resale value is plummeting. (The Daily Beast)10 Google’s new AI video generator loves this terrible joke Which appears to originate from a Reddit post. (404 Media)+ What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “It feels like we are marching off a cliff.” —An unnamed software engineering vice president jokes that future developers conferences will be attended by the AI agents companies like Microsoft are racing to deploy, Semafor reports. One more thing What does GPT-3 “know” about me?One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it. These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s former AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found.We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Don’t shoot the messenger, but it seems like there’s a new pizza king in town 🍕 ($)+ Ranked: every Final Destination film, from worst to best.+ Who knew that jelly could help to preserve coral reefs? Not I.+ A new generation of space archaeologists are beavering away to document our journeys to the stars.