Big tech companies tend to make a lot of enemies — but there are none more powerful than the US government. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta are regularly called in front of Congress to fend off monopoly accusations — and lawmakers bring up bills to rein in the companies just as often. The Federal Trade Commission has taken a particularly central role, leading a lawsuit to sever Facebook and Instagram while blocking new acquisitions for Oculus and the company’s virtual reality wing. Like it or not, these regulatory fights will play a huge role in deciding the future of tech — and neither side is playing nice.
Powell’s statement says the Fed received grand jury subpoenas “threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June,” about historic building renovations. But, he said, it’s actually retaliation for setting interest rates based on “what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.”
Hundreds gathered to peacefully protest the killing of Renee Nicole Good.
Local news reports that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent has shot and wounded two people on the east side of the city. Portland has been an ongoing target of ire from the Trump administration.
An ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good yesterday in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
[opb: Oregon Public Broadcasting]
The European Commission extended an order requiring X to keep documents related to Grok through the end of the year so that it can evaluate compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), Reuters reports. X is facing international scrutiny as its AI chatbot continues virtually undressing images without consent.
Real people died while Trump treated war like a meme stock.
Carr and fellow FCC commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty are set to testify before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on January 14th for an agency oversight hearing. The trio testified before the Senate Commerce Committee last month, where Carr doubled down on his threats to broadcasters.
Biden’s national security adviser tells The Verge why the Trump-Nvidia chip deal could be catastrophic.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) board voted to wind down the 58-year-old organization after Congress slashed its funding. CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said shutting it down would “protect the integrity of the public media system ... rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.”
[Corporation for Public Broadcasting]
The MAGA-friendly television network officially filed a complaint to the FCC asking them to halt the proposed merger between television broadcast companies Nexstar and Tegna, with Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy calling it a “dangerous consolidation” that would hand them “immense control over local news and political news coverage.” Unfortunately for them, Nexstar can curry favor with the Trump administration in ways that Newsmax cannot.
Early on Saturday morning, American forces struck multiple sites inside Venezuela, including a large-scale assault on Caracas, and arrested President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. The two are expected to stand trial in New York for drug and weapons charges.
In a press conference later in the day, President Trump said that the US would “run” Venezuela for an indeterminate period of time, though no further detail was provided. He also suggested that American oil companies would be allowed to swoop in and take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
You can get all the latest updates from The New York Times, NPR, and Reuters.
As we noted about Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign, not everything can be done online, including his New Year’s Day public inauguration (following the private midnight swearing-in). Then the transition team, including former FTC boss Lina Khan, started work on the “sewer socialism” that Mamdani projects as part of “a new story” for the city.
The Verge senior photo editor, Amelia Holowaty Krales, took these photos at a block party during the event.
Political violence has become illegible, and increasingly, politics and language have too.
The Financial Times reporting on the delayed Trump Mobile phone that’s definitely not made in the USA:
Trump Mobile’s customer service team told the Financial Times that the recent US government shutdown had delayed deliveries of the phone.
Sure.
It added there was a “strong possibility” the device would not be shipped this month.
Duh.
A private swearing-in ceremony for New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will take place inside the original City Hall station at midnight on January 1st, ahead of a public ceremony at City Hall later that day. Mamdani’s subway PR continues to be a delightful vibe. In a statement to Streetsblog, he said:
“When Old City Hall Station first opened in 1904 — one of New York’s 28 original subway stations — it was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples’ lives.”
The proposed rules would be among the toughest global AI regulations if passed. Minors and elderly users would be required to register a guardian to use AI services, who’d be notified if topics like suicide come up, and chatbots would be banned from emotional manipulation and promoting violence, crime, or self-harm.
Several polls from Gallup and Pew reveal that voters overwhelmingly view the rise of AI as a net negative:
There is hardly any issue that polls lower than unchecked AI development among Americans. Gallup polling showed that 80 percent of American adults think the government should regulate AI, even if it means growing more slowly.
And much like their MAGA populist counterparts, Democrats are beginning to take notice.
Most of us have been rolling our eyes at the (likely illegally) renamed The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. But Toby Morton, a comedian who has written for Mad TV and South Park, saw the move coming and snatched up trumpkennedycenter.org and trumpkennedycenter.com a while back. Morton told the Washington Post:
“As soon as Trump began gutting the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, I thought, ‘Yep, that name’s going on the building.’”
The CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is suing Trump administration officials after they targeted him for deportation from the US because of his online content moderation work.
On Thursday morning, he announced that US District Judge Vernon Broderick granted a TRO and preliminary injunction blocking his arrest or detainment. A hearing has been scheduled for Monday.
[DocumentCloud]
The Trump administration just sanctioned five people, including Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) founder Imran Ahmed, over their work in content moderation and anti-disinformation. On Wednesday he filed a lawsuit (pdf) to stop their “unconstitutional attempt to arrest and expel him.”
Ahmed:
My life’s work is to protect children from the dangers of unregulated social media and AI and fight the spread of antisemitism online. That mission has pitted me against big tech executives – and Elon Musk in particular – multiple times. I am proud to call the United States my home. My wife and daughter are American, and instead of spending Christmas with them, I am fighting to prevent my unlawful deportation from my home country.
The feds have spent the last day or so replying to @PopBase on X and sloppily redacting documents. Now it’s claiming “The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI have informed the Department of Justice that they have uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case,” which could take weeks to release.
2025 was the year the federal government and consumer protections were gutted.
Bitcoin tried to evade the Feds. Now it wants to share a beer with them.
The administration’s top AI adviser championed Trump’s executive order preempting states from regulating the industry, but alienated everyone from kids’ safety groups to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Insiders worry that the Musk-aligned investor doesn’t understand how Washington works.
Bari Weiss killed a 60 Minutes story on CECOT, the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has been deporting people. A senior correspondent noted that the story had been cleared by Standards and Practices, as well as the company’s lawyers, calling the decision “political.”
Why does this seem familiar? I feel like maybe someone predicted this?
The Justice Department posted a large trove of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday. But on Saturday afternoon, some previously available files were suddenly missing. The desk photo, in which two photographs of Trump were visible, has now been restored. The DOJ says it was removed to make sure it didn’t show any of Epstein’s victims.
Update: The photo has been restored.
On Thursday night, the White House Live News section featured YouTuber @RealMattMoney, for reasons that remain unclear. According to Bloomberg, “The White House is aware of the incident and looking into the matter, a White House official said on the condition of anonymity.”
