2 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Policy Archive

Archives for October 2026

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Rhode Island is suing Meta for turning a blind eye to scam ads.

The state’s Attorney General Peter Neronha filed the suit in Providence Superior Court, accusing Meta of making billions in profits from scam ads, while simultaneously telling users it was working hard to protect them. The suit cites reporting on leaked Meta documents from Reuters that said:

… it was earning ​far more from high-risk scam ads than it expected to pay in fines for allowing them.

According to those documents, Meta displays around 15 billion “higher risk” scam ads to users every day, and earned roughly ​10% of its 2024 revenue from fraudulent e-commerce, dubious health products and other banned marketing.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Google’s AI overview led some people to think they were donating to James Talarico when they weren’t.

Instead, their money went to a political action committee that funneled the money to the reelection campaign of Colorado’s Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper. According to The Atlantic:

The mix-up wasn’t all AI’s fault. The link led to a misleading donation page that carried Talarico’s name and picture, and specified only at the bottom that the money would go to Hickenlooper. But Google’s AI tool evidently didn’t read the fine print. And perhaps no one would have clicked on it had Google not highlighted the page in an authoritative-sounding AI response.

Bill Gates says to prepare for 20 years of ‘tumultuous’ AI disruption
Play

The Microsoft cofounder isn’t an AI doomer, but he says it’s still “the most dangerous weapon of all time.”

Nilay Patel
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Australia orders Apple to open the iPhone to third-party app stores.

The court-ordered change takes effect from March 1st 2027, following similar rulings in the EU, Japan, and Brazil. Apple will have to let Fortnite back in the App Store too — one of the last holdouts after a global return — and allow developers to offer alternative payment methods. Apple told Reuters it plans to appeal.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Meta made a deal to keep Mark Zuckerberg from leaving California over its billionaire tax.

It said in a filing that Zuckerberg “was evaluating relocating his primary residence” if California’s Proposition 40 passes. As Bloomberg reports, Meta’s board issued special shares so that he wouldn’t have to leave:

Zuckerberg gets non-voting shares he can sell for liquidity without reducing his voting control. In return, he has committed to remain in California — or wherever Meta is headquartered — for eight years while he remains in a full-time leadership role.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Trump says paying communities a “dividend” could make data centers more popular.

Continuing to push the widely unpopular data center projects, Trump said in a Truth Social post that some of them “have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck.” His plan sounds lot like Meta’s approach on the Hyperion project in Louisiana, where Mark Zuckerberg has touted $50,000 bonus checks for teachers despite a secretive approval process residents didn’t know much about.

As the President of the United States, I have been watching Data Centers very closely, and have come to a very strong conclusion. New and large, in some cases gigantic, Data Centers are mandated by me to make their own electricity, and give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid, and therefore there is electric price increase. In fact, there could be a substantial decrease. Other elements likewise! If companies want to make their Data Centers popular, pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a “dividend.” I have watched the process closely, and Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area, have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck. MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!! GREAT FOR THE U.S.A. President DJT
Screenshot: Truth Social
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Who slowed down Ukraine’s Starlink? Trump and Musk call not-it.

After Ukraine said a Starshield slowdown had interrupted its military operations, Elon Musk claimed any limits “are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” Then the president told reporters, “It wasn’t me... and I don’t think it was Elon.”

Now WSJ sources are pointing the finger back at Musk, with some claiming “Musk acted unilaterally.”

Can you see everything?

What three hours of a documentary looks like to someone who spent four months at the Holmes trial.

Elizabeth Lopatto