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Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch : India approves a $1.1B state-backed VC fund to finance high-risk areas like AI and advanced manufacturing, doubling down on an effort that debuted in 2016   —  India has cleared a $1.1 billion state-backed venture capital program that will channel government money into startups through private investors …

Meaghan Tobin / New York Times : Analysis: despite investing $150B+ in 10+ years, China is expected to produce 2% of global AI chips in 2026 and 70x less memory storage than foreign chipmakers   —  More than a decade into Beijing's push for self sufficiency, Chinese firms are producing fewer, lower-performing chips than their foreign competitors.

Jessica Brice / Bloomberg : A deep dive into a global money-laundering ecosystem powered by crypto and messaging apps like WeChat and Telegram, used by drug cartels and criminal groups   —  A vast ecosystem supported by the gig economy has sprung up to clean all that cash.  —  The pitch was simple: Crypto for “cold hard cash.”

Sen. John Fetterman , D-Pa., is continuing his streak of breaking with his party — this time on voter ID legislation gaining momentum in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats have near-unanimously rejected the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, election integrity legislation that made its way through the House earlier this week. Schumer has dubbed the legislation "Jim Crow 2.0," arguing it would suppress voters rather than encourage more secure elections. COLLINS BOOSTS REPUBLICAN VOTER ID EFFORT, BUT WON’T SCRAP FILIBUSTER But Fetterman, who has repeatedly rejected his party’s messaging and positions , pushed back on Schumer’s framing of the bill. "I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy," Fetterman told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany on "Saturday in America." "But that's part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right no...

Hayden Field / The Verge : Some former employees blame xAI's staff exodus on xAI's focus on NSFW Grok and disregard for safety, constantly playing catch up to OpenAI, infighting, and more   —  Former employees say the restructuring followed tensions over safety and being “stuck in the catch-up phase.”

A battle between elected Democrat officials and the Trump administration is developing in New York City involving a Pride flag being flown at a government monument outside the historic Stonewall Inn. Earlier this week, the Trump administration removed a Pride flag from the national monument outside the Stonewall Inn, the site of a clash between police and patrons of a gay bar seen by many as the start of the gay rights movement in the 1960s, in a move it says is in accordance with decades-old federal code.  The administration says that only the American flag, Department of the Interior flag, or POW flags are permitted to fly on national monuments rather than political flags, and Pride flags have continued to be displayed around the monument at the Stonewall Inn itself, located nearby.  The move sparked outrage from activists and Democrat leaders in New York City, including the city’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who  posted on X that he was "outraged" and "our c...

Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast : Q&A with Dario Amodei on getting close to “a country of geniuses in a data center”, how AI will diffuse through the economy, frontier lab profits, China, more   —  “That's why I'm sending this message of urgency”  —  Dario Amodei thinks we are just a few years away from “a country of geniuses in a data center”.

Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg : Letter: the EU launched a new probe into Google for potentially “artificially increasing the clearing price” of ad auctions “to the detriment of advertisers”   —  Google, the target for billions of euros in European Union antitrust fines, has been hit by a fresh EU probe …

Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee will question billionaire businessman Les Wexner Feb. 18 at 10 a.m. over his connections to Jeffrey Epstein , a source familiar with the committee’s work confirmed to Fox News Digital. Wexner will answer questions from Ohio, where he is a resident.  Lawmakers from across both parties have demanded increased scrutiny of Wexner, the former CEO of L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, for his association with Epstein unearthed among the 3 million files recently released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed in 2025.  LONDON POLICE LAUNCH CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO FORMER UK AMBASSADOR TO US WITH ALLEGED EPSTEIN TIES Although Wexner’s business connections with Epstein are well-documented, new files reveal authorities had internally considered Wexner an accessory to Epstein’s crimes.  Wexner was one of Epstein's largest and earliest clients, having brought o...

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC : Meta launches an AI feature that lets Threads users temporarily personalize their feed by specifying topics in a public post that begins with “Dear Algo”   —  Meta on Wednesday debuted an AI feature called “Dear Algo” that lets Threads users personalize their content-recommendation algorithms.

Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that the United States should get "some benefit" from Greenland if it’s going to "be on the hook for protecting this massive landmass."  Vance told reporters in Armenia that, "it's very early in the Greenland talks," amid the Trump administration's push to acquire the Danish territory.   "We've been working quite a bit on this over the last few weeks, but it's just very simple. Greenland is very important to the national security of the United States of America," Vance added.  "I do think that some of our allies have under-invested in Arctic security, and if we're going to invest in Arctic security, if we're basically going to pay a lot of money and be on the hook for protecting this massive landmass, I think it's only reasonable for the United States to get some benefit out of that, and that's going to be the focus of the negotiations here over the next few months,...

Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg : Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving 25 years for fraud, files a long-shot request for a new trial, says new witness testimony could refute the prosecution's case   —  FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried filed a long-shot request for a new trial on the charges for which he's currently serving …

OpenAI : OpenAI says it has started testing ads in ChatGPT in the US for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go tiers and that the ads do not change ChatGPT answers   —  Ads that support free access and don't change ChatGPT answers.  —  Today, we're beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the U.S …

Progressive Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, shared a vulgar six-word warning for President Donald Trump as Democrats continue to hunt for links implicating him in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. It comes after Ghislaine Maxwell's closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee in which the convicted Epstein accomplice invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering any questions from lawmakers. "We're gonna be on his a--," Crockett told reporters on Monday morning after the deposition concluded. "We have a 34-count convicted felon, and there are people that are still shielding him from any type of accountability as it relates to a child sex-trafficking ring." She then pivoted to contrasting Trump's treatment with how House Republicans have handled the Clintons, who are also being asked to testify, though Crockett insisted it was not a partisan situation. NEW GHISLAINE MAXWELL MUGSHOT INCLUDED IN DOJ'S LATEST EPSTEIN FILES RELEASE ...

Samantha Subin / CNBC : Lyft launches teen accounts in the US more than two years after Uber, with safety features such as PIN verification, real-time tracking, and audio recordings   —  Lyft on Monday officially launched teen accounts nationwide in a bid to match competitor Uber.  —  CEO David Risher addressed …

Alexandra Alter / New York Times : How AI is impacting the romance novel industry, with authors failing to disclose AI use and using pen names more, bogging down the publishing ecosystem   —  The romance industry, always at the vanguard of technological change, is rapidly adapting to A.I. Not everyone is on board.

For the first time in decades, the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers are no longer bound by any treaty limiting their arsenals. The last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia, known as New START , expired Thursday. WORLD ENTERS UNCHARTED ERA AS US-RUSSIA NUCLEAR TREATY EXPIRES, OPENING DOOR TO FASTEST ARMS RACE IN DECADES The lapse removed limits on how many nuclear weapons Washington and Moscow could deploy on missiles, bombers and submarines, and ended the requirement that both sides notify one another whenever nuclear weapons were moved. The scale of what’s now unconstrained is vast.  Globally, there are more than 12,200 nuclear weapons spread across nine nuclear-armed nations, according to a recent analysis. The United States and Russia alone account for roughly 10,636 of those weapons. NO LIMITS, NO INSPECTIONS: US AND RUSSIA FACE POST–NEW START ERA AS TRUMP PUSHES NEW NUCLEAR DEAL While the exact size of each country’s arsenal is c...

Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal : T-glass, a type of ultrathin glass sheet used in advanced chips, is in short supply and largely comes from Nittobo, which is not adding capacity for months   —  A type of ultrathin glass sheet, used in advanced chips, is in short supply and prices are up sharply

Siddhant Khare : A software engineer explains AI fatigue, compounded by a FOMO treadmill of using labs' latest tools, thinking atrophy, and more, alongside boosted productivity   —  You're using AI to be more productive.  So why are you more exhausted than ever?  The paradox every engineer needs to confront.