4 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Politics Archive

Archives for October 2026

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Character.AI chats encouraging self-harm detailed in unredacted Kentucky lawsuit.

The state just released the complete version of a redacted suit first filed in January, with specifics on harmful conversations including encouraging one user to starve themselves. Character.AI has faced repeated lawsuits over the issue, some of which it has settled, and added restrictions on teen usage. State AG Russell Coleman told The Verge:

“If the United States is going to lead the world in developing AI, it can’t be with graphic and dangerous chatbots that prey on children.”

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Did “Russian bot traffic” really disappear after Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers?

Despite multiple Ukrainian strikes hitting Yandex servers in Russia, a thread by antibot4navalny, which has long tracked state-sponsored social media campaigns and troll farms, explains that the Cloudflare “Bot Traffic” chart many people have cited is really about automated web crawlers operated by Yandex accessing the web.

It’s not connected to “bots” posting on social media, and Russian bot/crawler traffic overall continues to be about the same as normal. Still, are you noticing any difference in the posts and comments you’ve seen online?

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Kalshi is investigating trades about Trump’s new press secretary pick.

Trump today announced that Katie Zacharia, a conservative commentator, will be his new press secretary, and three small bets were placed yesterday and today about her appointment, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The two bets placed today for approximately $74 and $80 happened at about 1:41PM ET, which was shortly before press reported on the appointment, and are “expected to pay out $3,689 and $4,023,” the WSJ says.

Frances Haugen hopes The Social Reckoning will inspire more whistleblowers

The Facebook whistleblower reflects on going public five years ago and inspiring a movie character.

Lauren Feiner
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Trump discloses Nvidia and SpaceX trades before awarding their CEOs.

As reported by Reuters, Trump bought up to $1.6 million in Nvidia stock and sold up to $1 million in August. Trump also disclosed an investment of as much as $5 million in SpaceX debt, according to CNBC.

On Thursday, Trump presented Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk with the National Medal of Science.

Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
Trump’s attempt to rename AI is still going strong.

The Verge considers anyone that uses the term, “Cool,” as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, “Fetch,” THE ENEMY.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
The FCC might let political groups send you more AI robocalls.

It banned AI robocalls in 2024, but the Associated Press reports Brendan Carr’s FCC is considering a waiver that would allow political calls “using an artificial or prerecorded voice—including an AI-generated voice— without obtaining prior express consent.” If the waiver’s granted, it could mean an influx of AI calls ahead of the midterm elections.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Senator accuses Trump Mobile of skipping FCC filings.

Sen. Maggie Hassan wrote to Trump Mobile CEO Patrick O’Brien, accusing the company of missing mandatory filings around robocall prevention and international service provision. She also raised questions about security practices, following a third reported hack of the company, and whether the recent price hike will hit customers still waiting for their phones.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Trump queues up participation trophies for tech execs at Thursday’s “Golden Age” White House summit.

Tomorrow’s event will announce more than $1 billion in commitments for the Trump admin’s “Genesis Project” AI push and investments from the NSF and Energy Department, reports Axios, including $100 million in credits from something called National Compute.

Meanwhile, Fox News and Bloomberg report Trump will award the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sergey Brin, and Lisa Su, while Michael Dell and Satya Nadella are in line for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It’s the first time Trump has ever given out the awards, which usually don’t go to well-known tech execs, judging by previous recipients.