2 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
Skip to main content

Politics Archive

Archives for June 2026

Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband

BEAD was a once-in-a-generation chance to fix the digital divide — then turned into a gift for tech moguls.

Karl Bode and Sean Gonsalves
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Of course campaign workers are making money on Polymarket using insider information.

Politicians have been caught betting on their races, and a Google employee was charged with insider trading. So it makes sense that campaign workers are looking to make a little extra cash based on what they know about the candidates they work for. Watch the clip from NPR below.

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
US cybersecurity coordinator finally got access to Mythos Preview, report says.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) gained access to the limited release cybersecurity-focused model last week, Nextgov/FCW reports. It’s just a little late, since the rest of the world has mostly moved onto the drama around the Trump administration’s block of the safeguarded public version of the model, Fable.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This week in the big AI data center buildout.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
The Trump phone just got its first full review.

We’ve had unboxings, hands-ons, and teardowns, but Bloomberg is the first publication to give the T1 Phone a detailed review. It might be kinder than you expect — Verge alumnus Chris Welch admits the specs aren’t bad — but still reaches the obvious conclusion: “It’s easy to find a better phone than this.”

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Grok is our first line of defense.

The Justice Department argues that xAI’s Mississippi data center should be allowed to pollute the air because it’s “critical” for military operations, which honestly explains a lot.

Nicholi:

How are we going to keep losing the war against Iran without Grok?

Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Here’s a preview of Google’s next arguments in Epic v. Google.

As we discussed, Epic and Google will be back in court July 16th to answer six specific questions from the court — as it decides whether to force Google to carry rival stores inside its own app store, or let it adopt “Registered App Stores” in the US instead. What do you think of the embedded arguments?

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
xAI’s gas-powered data center is necessary for national security, DOJ argues.

The Justice Department is trying to intervene and dismiss a case from the NAACP alleging xAI’s use of gas turbines in Mississippi are illegally polluting the air. Preventing xAI from using them would endanger national security, DOJ argues, because “Grok provides critical support for the Department of War’s military operations.”