Lauren Feiner is the senior policy reporter at The Verge, where she covers the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill from Washington, D.C. Prior to that, she spent five years at CNBC, where she covered the Google search antitrust trial, industry lobbying, tech Supreme Court cases, and many efforts to enact new privacy, antitrust, and content moderation laws. When she’s not writing about Congress, she’s probably catching up on her many podcasts on 2x speed. Signal: laurenfeiner.64
After 15 years at Meta, the George W. Bush White House alum is exiting, Axios reports, amid a midterm election where Democrats are expected to win back more control in Washington. Kaplan will stay through 2027 to help with the transition, though, which will include bipartisan external affairs executives.
A massive review of local contracts by NBC News found 55 places where Flock entered no-bid contracts that escaped public scrutiny by claiming its products couldn’t be compared to others on the market. Another 11 were priced just below thresholds that would have required local council votes.
Navigating local procurement laws is up to each public agency, Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel said in statement, and the company provides “sole-source letters” when requested that help agencies determine if they meet the criteria.
Update: Added statement from Flock.
The request from political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was never fulfilled, ProPublica found, but staffers were shocked at the directive not to report flaws back to the voting machine company. It demonstrates why state officials’ trust in CISA has eroded.
At a moment when voters are fearful of AI, Democrats are finding their footing.
The Facebook whistleblower reflects on going public five years ago and inspiring a movie character.
Spoiler alert: The Facebook Files are still more interesting than Aaron Sorkin’s new thriller.
Former White House AI czar David Sacks, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are among the confirmed attendees, according to a list obtained by Axios. But based on President Donald Trump’s comments, the meeting is unlikely to result in significant regulation.
