9 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Sarah Jeong

Sarah Jeong

Features Editor

Features Editor

    More From Sarah Jeong

    ‘There’s no price’ Microsoft could pay Apple to use Bing: all the spiciest parts of the Google antitrust ruling

    Finally, a legal ruling on whether TikTok is a real search engine. (It’s not.)

    Nilay Patel and Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has hired its first Chief AI Officer.

    This was mandated for all federal agencies back in March, so expect more of these kinds of announcements.

    CISA’s general ambit means this hire is a tad bit more significant than the average Chief AI Officer — the agency deals with foreign influence operations and election cybersecurity, for instance. (In 2020, the agency’s head was yeeted by Trump for saying that the election had in fact been safe and secure.)

    CISA Names First Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer | CISA

    [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA]

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    Thiel protege Blake Masters loses his primary race.

    Masters last ran (and lost) against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for his senate seat; this cycle he was angling for a House seat in Arizona.

    The other notable Peter-Thiel-protege-turned-politician is, of course, JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president.

    Abraham Hamadeh Wins G.O.P. House Primary in Arizona

    [The New York Times]

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    Trump is definitely not being weird at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention.

    You can watch all 34 minutes of the interview here.

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    It takes one to know one?

    The New York Times profiled the guy who ran Silk Road 2.0 — apparently after eight months in prison he worked for the feds as “a full-time, ankle-monitor-wearing cybercrime consultant, paid in freedom and a stipend that covered dollar pizza slices, toothpaste and subway rides.”

    Now he’s shilling his crypto compliance startup, arguing that “his criminal experience can help unmask fraud before it leads to another scam like FTX.”

    He Was an Online Drug Lord. Now He’s a Crypto Entrepreneur.

    [The New York Times]

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    German government refuses to hodl.

    German law enforcement seized over 50,000 bitcoin (worth over $2 billion at the time) while busting a movie piracy site earlier this year. Now the government is liquidating so much crypto at such a fast pace that the price of bitcoin is dropping in response.

    It’s not helping that Germany’s sell-off coincides with repayments to creditors (in crypto) by the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate.

    The German government owns around $2 billion in bitcoin — and it's freaking out crypto investors

    [CNBC]

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    The first presidential debate was very bad.

    Here’s a summary that includes tech policy issues and also some of the most unhinged stuff we heard tonight.

    Things mentioned:

    China, tariffs, semiconductor chips, Charlottesville, the border, “space age materials,” the Green New Deal, environment, election “fraud,” opioids, Twitter(???), having sex with porn stars, Hunter Biden laptop, golf handicaps(??????)

    Things not mentioned:

    TikTok, Facebook, FISA warrantless surveillance, EVs, intellectual property, broadband policy, artificial intelligence (thank god!!!)

    The 2024 election

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    In case you were wondering, this debate is supposed to run 90 minutes plus ad breaks.

    Googled that for you because we’re all thinking the same thing. And yes it has now been slightly over 90 minutes since the start.

    The Rules for the Biden-Trump Presidential Debate on CNN

    [The New York Times]

    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    Biden is gassing up what his administration has done for the semiconductor industry, likely a reference to the CHIPS Act.

    “I convinced Samsung to invest billions of dollars in the United States,” Biden adds.

    Where the CHIPS Act money has gone

    Emilia David
    Sarah Jeong
    Sarah Jeong
    To be clear, America’s opioid epidemic doesn’t stem from migrants coming over the border.

    As Gaby noted earlier this year:

    The overwhelming majority of fentanyl seized by Customs and Border Protection — more than 90 percent — is smuggled through official border crossings by US citizens, not by migrants making unauthorized border crossings.

    CBP wants to use AI to scan for fentanyl at the border

    Gaby Del Valle

    Most Popular

    Most Popular
    1. Facebook considers giving up and becoming TikTok
    2. The tech-broification of American science has officially begun
    3. Microsoft pressures LG into killing unwanted McAfee ads
    4. Meta just created a moderation nightmare for its smart glasses
    5. Boox is taking on Xteink with its own tiny e-reader