4 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Politics Archive

Archives for August 2026

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Consumer protection watchdog won’t file lawsuits about disparate impacts on racial groups.

The Federal Trade Commission issued a policy statement Friday formalizing its stance against bringing claims based on “unfair discrimination.” One example where the FTC already abandoned such claims was when it dropped allegations that salespeople charged Black and Latino buyers more than white buyers for add-on car products, per Reuters.

FTC Ditches ‘Disparate Impact’

[Federal Trade Commission]

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
FDA approves first mRNA flu vaccine from Moderna.

Despite the preferences of some, Moderna announced that after years of work, mFLUSIVA (mRNA-1010) has been approved for use in adults aged 50 to 64, with an accelerated approval for adults 65 and up as they wait for the results of a follow-up study.

While Moderna plans to roll it out by this fall, the WSJ notes it’s still unclear what RFK Jr.‘s vaccine recommendation panel will say about this use of the Nobel Prize-winning approach.

The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers
Play

Data center bans in states like Florida reveal how the anti-AI movement is channeling bipartisan backlash.

Nilay Patel
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
I love Nextdoor, a social network I do not post on.

Mostly because I find it hilarious to watch people say out-of-pocket shit to under their own government names to people they are going to see at the farmer’s market and everywhere else. (The problem of people being mean online is not, it turns out, anonymity.) Here’s one woman’s story of the local consequences of a post.

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:

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
KOSA gets another shot in the Senate, but still has a long way to go.

The Senate Commerce Committee passed a version of the Kids Online Safety Act that includes the hallmark duty of care, which the House stripped from the version its committee passed. It’s a significant — but limited — step, since the bill got stuck in the House last time it passed the Senate.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
The FCC might ban optical transceivers from China.

Sources tell Reuters that the Trump administration is considering blocking Chinese imports of the component due to security concerns. Optical transceivers are used across data centers and the telecommunications industry to quickly transmit information, with China’s Zhongji Innolight currently making up 27 percent of the transceiver market, according to Counterpoint.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
David Ellison promises he’s not going to ruin CNN.
Robert Hart
Robert Hart
15 AGs tell OpenAI to preserve records on Hugging Face hack.

In a letter to CEO Sam Altman, a coalition of red-state attorneys general demanded the company retain information and halt risky cybersecurity testing after an AI agent escaped confinement and went on a hacking spree during testing. “OpenAI’s inability or unwillingness to ensure the safety of its products poses an imminent risk of substantial harm to our States,” the AGs wrote.

The request comes as the White House reportedly briefs tech leaders on a voluntary model testing framework.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Capital One says it closed Trump ⁠Organization accounts over money laundering concerns.

In 2021, the bank closed over 300 accounts affiliated with the Trump family business. The reasons why weren’t made public at the time. Last year, the organization filed suit claiming the closures were politically motivated, but in a filing this week, Capital One revealed that they resulted from an anti-money laundering review.

“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by ‌Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance … The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Truth Social’s priority access subscription goes live and raises corruption concerns.

Trump Media announced the plan earlier this month for paid, real-time access to its most influential accounts. Today the API went live, with subscriptions as high as $100,000 per month. Other platforms offer similar API services, but none of those count the sitting US president as its most influential user and its largest shareholder.