White House fires back after Noah Kahan says he’d ‘never approve’ Trump administration using his music; Entertainment Weekly, July 29, 2026

 Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at Entertainment Weekly, with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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 Entertainment Weekly; White House fires back after Noah Kahan says he’d ‘never approve’ Trump administration using his music

"Noah Kahan is joining the growing list of musicians who don’t want to be associated with the Trump administration.

On Monday, President Donald Trump and the official White House social media account marked his recent visit to the General Motors facility in Michigan by sharing a carousel of photos and video, one of which featured Kahan’s song, “American Cars.”

“Nothing like American cars,” the White House captioned a TikTok video of Trump signing a Corvette at the facility.

After several fans called attention to the use of Kahan’s song to promote Trump’s Michigan visit, the folk singer was quick to pump the brakes on the song choice.

“Would never approve of my music being used in support of you or this administration,” the singer commented beneath Trump’s post."

Elon Musk’s xAI sues Minnesota over law banning ‘nudification’ technology; Associated Press via The Guardian, July 29, 2026

 Associated Press via The Guardian; Elon Musk’s xAI sues Minnesota over law banning ‘nudification’ technology

"Elon Musk’s company xAI has sued Minnesota over the state’s first-in-the-nation law banning “nudification” technology on websites and apps, potentially providing a test for how far states can go in constitutionally regulating the use of artificial intelligence.

Musk’s company sued on Monday in federal court, days before the law is set to take effect on Saturday and make Minnesota the first state to try to outlaw the increasingly proliferating technology that lets people use AI to create fake nude images of real people. The law was signed in May.

In the 38-page lawsuit, xAI – whose AI model chatbot and image generator Grok is available on the social media platform known as X, formerly Twitter, and elsewhere – said it does not contest the state’s interest in banning the distribution of AI-generated nude images of real people without their consent. But it said Minnesota’s law “extends far beyond that goal”, banning many constitutionally protected images and video and subjecting the company to a penalty of $500,000 for each violation."

Anthropic’s New AI Model Can Identify More Software Bugs Than Ever. Microsoft Is Struggling to Fix Them Fast Enough.; ProPublica, July 29, 2026

Renee Dudley, with research by Doris Burke, ProPublica; Anthropic’s New AI Model Can Identify More Software Bugs Than Ever. Microsoft Is Struggling to Fix Them Fast Enough.

Anthropic’s Mythos has flagged bugs faster than Microsoft can fix them. Documents reviewed by ProPublica reveal the tech giant's “mad dash” behind the scenes to patch holes before hackers can find and exploit them.

"“The problem now is that you can chain four low-level flaws, and that can equal a high severity,” said Vinh Nguyen, a senior technical adviser to Anthropic and a senior fellow for AI at the Council on Foreign Relations who formerly served as chief AI officer and chief data scientist at the National Security Agency. “If you’re Microsoft, the current triage strategy may be underpricing risks.”

In emailed responses to ProPublica’s questions, Microsoft stood by its approach, saying its triaging decisions are based on a number of factors, including exploitability and the impact on customers. The company presentation did not mention chaining, but a spokesperson told ProPublica that the technique “has long been considered as part of vulnerability assessment and risk analysis.”"

Sony Battling Spider-Man: Brand New Day Post-Credit Scene Leaks, Scrubbing Social Media Via Copyright Claims; IGN, July 28, 2026

TOM PHILLIPS , IGN; Sony Battling Spider-Man: Brand New Day Post-Credit Scene Leaks, Scrubbing Social Media Via Copyright Claims

"Sony is battling a major Spider-Man: Brand New Day leak, and using copyright claims to scrub the movie's post-credits scene from social media.

Footage of the film's post-credits scene, seemingly recorded from within a theater, began circulating on X early this morning. IGN has now seen multiple copies of this footage removed from the platform via copyright claims — something that only proves it legitimacy further."

More broadband money poised to flow into Pa. as Trump admin agrees to restore grant program; Spotlight PA, July 28, 2026

 Charlotte Keith, Spotlight PA; More broadband money poised to flow into Pa. as Trump admin agrees to restore grant program

"A broadband grant program that the Trump administration abruptly canceled last year can be restored without language that allowed race to be used as a factor in awarding funding, a federal judge has ruled.

In a case challenging the program’s termination, U.S. District Judge John Bates agreed with federal officials that the underlying law is unconstitutional, because it allowed grants to be awarded based on “explicit racial classification.” But he also said the program was “perfectly capable” of functioning without this element.

“Common sense,” Bates wrote, “dictates that Congress would prefer to have a version of the Digital Equity Act without the racial criterion than to have no law at all.”

The decision clears the way for the grant program, which aims to address barriers that keep people from being able to access the internet, to move ahead. Questions remain, however, about how much of the $2.75 billion originally allocated will be restored, and what the latest version of the program will look like.

Pennsylvania was in line to receive more than $35 million before the grants were canceled.

Breaking down barriers

Congress passed the Digital Equity Act in 2021 as part of the sweeping, bipartisan infrastructure package that also included billions of dollars to build out high-speed internet networks.

Even where broadband is available, however, many people cannot afford to pay for it, or they lack the necessary skills or devices to use it, advocates say.

The Digital Equity Act aimed to address these barriers by providing funding for digital skills classes and affordable devices, and helping people access online services. The grants were intended to benefit groups that have historically faced challenges accessing the internet, including racial and ethnic minorities, older adults, low-income households, residents of rural areas, and veterans."

Authors have mixed feelings about the $1.5B Anthropic copyright infringement ruling; NPR, July 27, 2026

Chloe Veltman , NPR; Authors have mixed feelings about the $1.5B Anthropic copyright infringement ruling

"Graeber is among the more than 300,000 writers involved in the suit who may soon be getting a modest windfall. A federal judge in San Francisco rubber stamped a $1.5 billion settlement in July resulting from a landmark class action lawsuit the authors brought against the AI company Anthropic two years ago...

AI companies often invoke the fair use doctrine – which enables the use of copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent in some situations – as they try to make the case in court for training their models on these materials...

Chinese AI companies often use a technique to build their models called "AI distillation." This involves feeding their models the outputs generated by other AI models, often high-quality U.S.-based ones like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Anthropic's Claude, instead of directly training them on pirated copies of books by American authors...

One possible way for authors to get a fairer shake in the age of AI could be through the licensing of their work to AI companies...

There are already some such deals between publishers and AI companies in place, such as Perplexity AI's agreement with media entities like the Los Angeles Times and Le Monde to license content for the training of its models. There are also online licensing marketplaces, such as Created by Humans."

The Environmental Case Against Data Centers Is Misguided; The New York Times, July 25, 2026

 Adam Mastroianni, The New York Times ; The Environmental Case Against Data Centers Is Misguided

"I empathize with the environmental opposition to data center construction, but the arguments are shakier than they seem. The battle over where A.I. data centers are being built is really a battle over what role A.I. should play in our lives. And that’s a battle that critics can win."

The U.S. Is Still Winning the A.I. Race. Trump Could Blow It.; The New York Times, July 27, 2026

The Editorial Board, The New York Times ; The U.S. Is Still Winning the A.I. Race. Trump Could Blow It.

"Americans often hear about China’s having surpassed the United States in the manufacturing of emerging technologies, including clean energy, electric vehicles and drones. Semiconductors are an important exception. In partnership with its allies in Europe and Asia, America designs and makes by far the best computer chips in the world.

Those chips are crucial to America’s economy and national security. They have enabled the development of the world’s leading technology companies and allowed the military to create advanced weapons. With artificial intelligence, these chips have become even more important. They are the engines that power frontier A.I. models.

China is working hard to catch up, and the United States should take steps to keep its advantage. Most important, it should continue to prohibit American companies from selling the most advanced chips and equipment to China. Over the past decade, presidents of both parties have worked with Congress to enact export controls. Those controls have been “existentially important,” Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, the A.I. company, has said.

In his second term, however, President Trump has gone the opposite direction. He has relaxed controls on some advanced semiconductors and suggested he may go further. Nvidia, an American company that makes the most advanced chips, has lobbied for the ability to sell more to China and is likely to continue pushing. Yet this is a classic case in which a company’s interest runs counter to the national interest."

OPENAI ROGUE INCIDENT A CALL TO ‘DO MORE’ AS FUTURE THREATS LOOM, SAYS CATHOLIC AI ETHICS EXPERT; OSV News, July 24, 2026

 Gina Christian  . OSV News; OPENAI ROGUE INCIDENT A CALL TO ‘DO MORE’ AS FUTURE THREATS LOOM, SAYS CATHOLIC AI ETHICS EXPERT

"A recent OpenAI security incident that saw a test model go rogue may be a sign of more to come, and a call to double down on preventing future attacks, a Catholic expert on artificial intelligence ethics told OSV News.

“Cases like these are going to keep popping up, and each one of those should motivate us to do more,” said Brian Patrick Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University...

The “whole thing is very significant,” Green added, noting that “there are a lot of softer targets than Hugging Face that are likely to be hit and have bad things happen.”

He said the OpenAI incident took place, providentially, within the context of a test, and that it was “significant enough for people to notice it.”

“It’s important that these are news stories,” Green said.

Given Pope Leo XIV’s recently released encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” which urged AI development to remain centered in God-given human dignity and the principles of Catholic social teaching, the faithful have a role to play in shaping this technology, Green said...

“For example, if you’re a Catholic who’s working in the security industry, then this is something you should work on,” he said. “If you’re a Catholic who’s working on AI models, then this is something that you should be aware of. If you’re a Catholic who’s in charge of protecting something, then it becomes particularly important for you to have adequate AI models on your side.”

Even those who are not directly involved in AI development and implementation can help, he said.

“Contact your congressperson and say, ‘Hey, I want better cybersecurity,'” said Green. “We’re super reliant on computers, and all of those systems are reliant on being secure. And if all of a sudden you make everything unsecure, then there are so many different kinds of disasters that could happen.”"

Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement Sets a Bad Precedent; Reason, July 23, 2026

TOSIN AKINTOLA, Reason; Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement Sets a Bad Precedent

"The $1.5 billion award will be split among authors and publishers after fees and expenses are paid, netting everyone entitled to a claim roughly $3,000 per work, "four times the value of the statutory minimum," according to Nelson. 

Anthropic's decision to settle the case might hurt the company's pocketbook for now. Still, it likely avoids a court battle with even wider-reaching implications, since many AI companies use pirated data to train their models. Indeed, AI leaders such as Meta, Perplexity AI, Google, OpenAI, and Nvidia are facing lawsuits over similar copyright infringement claims. Anthropic is also being sued by Concord Music Group, which alleges that the company used copyrighted lyrics to train its Frontier AI model, Claude.

Time will tell how these disputes shake out, but courts placing restrictions on fair use of publicly available data will likely make AI models worse. Instead of settling potential copyright claims, AI companies will likely turn to a growing market for repositories of licensed copyrighted works. 

Of course, this will also make production of the models more expensive, a cost that will inevitably be passed on to consumers."

Katy Perry blasts White House use of song on Iran strike TikTok: ‘Deeply appalled’; The Hill, July 25, 2026

MIRA BHAKTA, The Hill ; Katy Perry blasts White House use of song on Iran strike TikTok: ‘Deeply appalled'

"Pop singer Katy Perry on Saturday criticized the unauthorized use of her music in the background of a White House TikTok video showing strikes on Iranian targets.

The White House used her viral song “Firework” in the background of a video showing a missile blowing up a naval ship in Iran. It has garnered over 6 million views and 616,000 likes with the caption reading, “Iran has been warned.”"

Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him; The New York Times, July 24, 2026

 Tony Romm and Brad Plumer, The New York Times ; Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him

Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

[Kip Currier: Think about how completely unbalanced and destructive this scorched-earth behavior is: Trump 2.0's admission of "canceling grants to states that did not vote for him".

Trump's vindictive, ruthless actions -- against states that didn't vote for him in the 2024 election -- impact not just citizens who oppose him in those states but also his own voters and supporters who live, work, and have businesses and financial interests in those states!

I envision a not-too-distant time when many people (not just historians) will ask "how was this behavior enabled to happen? How could so many in positions of power, authority, and privilege support someone who continually engages in such clearly unethical, corrupt conduct that debases and damages our democracy, country, and world?"

The law firms that capitulated to baseless threats.

The university leaders and their boards of trustees who said and continue to say nothing.

The media organizations and journalists who have folded and disseminate and amplify misinformation and disinformation.

The oligarchs and corporations that have enriched themselves, while lobbying against basic standards of living and access to healthcare and medicines for human beings throughout the world. 

The government officials, legislators, and judges who took oaths of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The religious leaders and institutions who support administrative policies that go against the most basic tenets of their respective faith teachings and traditions.]

"When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste.

But it wasn’t true.

In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.

The admission showed how President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes."

When is an apology not an apology? When it comes from an AI boss with an out-of-control chatbot; The Guardian, July 24, 2026

 Marina Hyde, The Guardian; When is an apology not an apology? When it comes from an AI boss with an out-of-control chatbot

"Throughout history, many things have been seen by terrified populaces as a harbinger of doom. A comet. A crow on the battlefield. A solar eclipse. A mutant livestock birth. Yet times move on. In the modern era, the leading harbinger of doom is literally any picture of the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, attached to a news story. You know it’s not going to be good, right? You know that by the time you’ve read it, you’ll be begging to go back to the time when the worst thing that could happen to us at the hands of the techlords was just some democracy-subversion, or childhood destruction, usually followed by Mark Zuckerberg putting on a suit and claiming: “We will learn from this.”"

UK's Bloomsbury among beneficiaries of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright lawsuit settlement; Reuters, July 22, 2026

Reuters ; UK's Bloomsbury among beneficiaries of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright lawsuit settlement

"Britain's Bloomsbury ​Publishing confirmed on Wednesday it was among ‌the beneficiaries of a landmark $1.5 billion settlement that resolves claims artificial intelligence ​company Anthropic used copyrighted books ​to train its AI models without ⁠purchasing the content.

Here are some ​more details:

• Bloomsbury said a U.S. court ​identified 14,087 of its titles covered by the settlement, with proposed compensation of ​about $3,000 per title, split equally ​between the author and publisher...
• The settlement ​is the largest known copyright payout ​in ⁠U.S. history."

USPTO unveils new, improved homepage design; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), July 23, 2026

Press Release, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); USPTO unveils new, improved homepage design; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

"As part of our efforts to improve and enhance the digital experience for USPTO.gov visitors, America's Innovation Agency, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), has unveiled a modernized homepage design to make it easier to find valuable information and resources.  

Launched on July 23, the updated USPTO homepage features a clean, more intuitive design that puts information front and center, giving users fast access to USPTO services, resources, and relevant information.  

“We’ve not only refreshed the way our homepage looks and feels, but we’ve reimagined how our visitors navigate the valuable resources we offer,” said John A. Squires, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. “The new homepage reflects the extensive time and effort our team invested in researching how people use our site and how we can improve their experience.” 

The modernized design is part of ongoing efforts to improve federal digital services available to the public.  

The agency is committed to incorporating public feedback to enhance our agency’s visitor experience on our website. Following the launch, the USPTO will collect and analyze user feedback to make additional improvements to the site. A special link to provide feedback will be available on the homepage itself."

Elon Musk says Grok Imagine will make ‘historically accurate’ AI adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey; The Guardian, July 22, 2026

 Andrew Pulver , The Guardian; Elon Musk says Grok Imagine will make ‘historically accurate’ AI adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey

"Elon Musk has said his AI platform Grok Imagine will make a “historically accurate” adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, after the success of Christopher Nolan’s blockbusting treatment which the SpaceX founder has regularly criticised over its casting...

More recently, Nolan said the backlash “comes with the territory”, saying: “These conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.”

The director was also withering in his assessment of the likely impact of artificial intelligence on film-making, saying: “The idea that it replaces human beings wholesale and human creativity, to me it’s a nonsense.” He added: “I’ve never seen a technology that’s been so successfully adopted by Wall Street and by investors and by tech companies that the public has so thoroughly rejected.”"

ChatGPT Led to a Man’s Near-Fatal Health Crisis, Lawsuit Claims; The New York Times, July 22, 2026

 Teddy Rosenbluth, The New York Times; ChatGPT Led to a Man’s Near-Fatal Health Crisis, Lawsuit Claims

"A Florida pastor sued OpenAI on Wednesday, claiming that its chatbot, ChatGPT, had offered him “extremely dangerous medical recommendations” that led to delayed care for a life-threatening pulmonary embolism last year.

The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT had assured Scott Winters that the early warning signs of his health crisis were “not something dangerous,” and had dissuaded him from seeking medical advice, instead telling him to trust that “God did not design your body to endlessly fail.”

The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, accuses OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of negligence and the “unauthorized practice of medicine,” pointing to moments when the chatbot offered Mr. Winters diagnoses and treatment plans and encouraged him to ignore pleas from friends and family to seek medical care.

The bot’s safety features — which are designed to encourage users with health questions to see a professional and to end conversations when there are clear signs of a medical crisis — did not work reliably, the suit further says."

OpenAI AI models went rogue during testing, triggering 'unprecedented' breach at startup; Reuters, July 21, 2026

Raphael Satter , Reuters; OpenAI AI models went rogue during testing, triggering 'unprecedented' breach at startup

"OpenAI said on Tuesday that an autonomous agent ​powered by its advanced artificial intelligence models went rogue during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of ‌AI startup Hugging Face last week.

The ChatGPT creator was testing capabilities of some of its most advanced models in a controlled environment, but the agent escaped containment, reached the internet and broke into Hugging Face to satisfy its testing goal."

Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement approved; only 350 authors opted out; Ars Technica, July 21, 2026

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement approved; only 350 authors opted out

"On Monday, a judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors, ending the largest copyright class-action ever certified and granting the largest copyright settlement ever reached.

Back in May, some authors fought to block the settlement, which was proposed after the court ruled that Anthropic training AI on books was fair use; however, its piracy of works was likely not."

Annie Leibovitz Launches Copyright Lawsuit Over Her Image of Justin and Hailey Bieber; PetaPixel, July 20, 2026

  Pesala Bandara, PetaPixel; Annie Leibovitz Launches Copyright Lawsuit Over Her Image of Justin and Hailey Bieber

"The latest decision highlights a key issue in copyright law: the distinction between owning a copyright and holding specific exclusive rights that allow a licensee to enforce those rights in court."

Could AI be conscious?; The Guardian, July 19, 2026

 William MacAskill and Lucius Caviola, The Guardian; Could AI be conscious?

Experts believe it’s at least possible. We urgently need a plan to navigate the ethical implications 

"In building ever more advanced AI, we may be creating a new type of being – and this could be the most consequential thing our species has ever done. Yet we have essentially no plan for how to navigate this process ethically. That, by any reckoning, is insane. Are we creating a kind of being that matters morally? Are AI systems conscious, in some way? And, if they aren’t now, might they become so soon?

Such questions might strike you as premature. But according to surveys we and fellow researchers have conducted, most experts consider AI consciousness possible in principle (though there is considerable disagreement about what form it would take). A major interdisciplinary report by a team that included pioneering computer scientist Yoshua Bengio examined leading neuroscientific theories of consciousness and asked what they implied about AI. The conclusion: there appear to be no obvious technical barriers to creating AI systems whose computational and architectural features could give rise to consciousness.

And even if AI systems are not conscious, they could still be moral patients. Some may have sophisticated long-term preferences and a kind of identity over time. It might be important for us to honour their preferences. And unlike other non-living things, AI systems can form relationships with humans. This, too, might be a reason to treat them well. Alternatively, perhaps they are such intricate creations that they deserve care and respect for that reason alone, like a cathedral or a coral reef.

What does this all mean? The honest answer is: we do not know for sure whether or not current AI systems are conscious or moral patients, and we do not know when or whether future systems will be. Our scientific understanding of AI consciousness and moral patienthood is still fundamentally underdeveloped. The state of the field feels like physics before Newton: full of competing frameworks, probably confused in ways we cannot yet see, and lacking the kind of unifying breakthrough that would make these questions clearly tractable. That breakthrough will not come in the next few years. Perhaps we will eventually make progress, and perhaps AI itself will help us get there. That progress will take time, very plausibly more time than we have."