In 2019, a 36-year-old Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), newly elected to Congress, was photographed for the inaugural Time 100 Next List, wearing a dashing eye patch and looking upwards with hope. A Harvard-educated Navy SEAL who’d lost an eye while fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, Crenshaw was in rarefied company, listed among the magazine’s candidates […]
Los Angeles deserves its reputation as the quintessential car city—the rhythms of its 2,200 square miles are dictated by wide boulevards and concrete arcs of freeways. But it once had a world-class rail transit system, and for the last three decades, the city has been rebuilding a network of trolleys and subways. In May, a…
Palantir CEO Alex Karp is a man in charge of one of the most important and frightening companies in the world. Karp’s new book, cowritten with Nicholas Zamiska, is called The Technological Republic. After claiming “because we get asked a lot,” Palantir posted a 22-point summary of the book that reads like a corporate manifesto. […]
Ask Americans how they feel about AI and most say they have concerns. Communities have mounted resistance to data center projects, stalling them across the US. On social media, anger at AI companies and executives is unrestrained – sometimes to the point of condoning violence. But look at the issues that most campaigns are focused […]
Though Tim Cook is shedding his CEO title for the role of Apple’s executive chairman, it appears he’ll keep one of his most important duties: that of the company’s Trump whisperer. “As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world,” Apple writes in a press […]
On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta revealed the evidence of alleged price-fixing by Amazon. The state filed a request to the Supreme Court in February for a preliminary injunction to stop Amazon’s behavior while the lawsuit it originally filed in 2022 proceeds, and is now making that 16-page document available, “largely unredacted.” It lays […]
Though it’s very common for entertainment writers to describe some narrative elements of the films and shows that they’re covering, a Japanese court has determined that the practice can sometimes be tantamount to copyright infringement. Last Thursday, the Tokyo District Court ruled that 39-year-old Wataru Takeuchi was guilty of violating Japanese law that prohibits the […]
This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at whether urbanists should embrace robotaxis and how the Middle East war may impact the renewable energy transition
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more stories on Big Tech versus politics in Washington, DC, follow Tina Nguyen and read Regulator. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started A long time […]
Jorge L. Alonso, a federal district court judge for the Northern District of Illinois, said that the Trump Administration violated the First Amendment when it pressured Facebook and Apple to remove ICE-tracking groups and apps. Judge Alonso granted the plaintiffs, Kassandra Rosado, who runs the ICE Sightings – Chicagoland Facebook group, and Kreisau Group, the […]