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September 21, 2025, 12:00 PM
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Karoline Leavitt / @presssec:
White House Press Secretary says the $100K H-1B fee is not an annual fee and it is a “one-time fee that applies only to the petition” in the upcoming lottery  —  To be clear: 1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It's a one-time fee that applies only to the petition. 2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter. H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
VCs and founders warn that the $100K fee will make H-1B sponsorship prohibitively expensive for startups, not Big Tech, and drive talent outside the US  —  Longtime entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are sounding the alarm over President Trump's new H-1B fee that would impact tech companies and the workers they hire from abroad.
Yun Li / CNBC:
Memos: Amazon, which has the most H-1B staff at 14K+, Google, and Microsoft tell H-1B visa holders to return to the US before September 21 and avoid travel  —  Major technology companies and foreign governments are rushing to respond after President Donald Trump late Friday announced plans …
Ben Berkowitz / Axios:
White House says the $100K H-1B fee will not apply to renewals or existing H-1B holders re-entering the US, only to future applicants in the February lottery
Elizabeth Chamberlain / iFixit News:
iPhone Air teardown: clever use of space by placing the logic board above the 12.26 Wh battery, the same cell used in Apple's MagSafe Battery pack, and more  —  iPhone Air Teardown  —  To be honest, we were holding our breath for the iPhone Air.  Thinner usually means flimsier, harder to fix, and more glued-down parts.
Rest of World:
An inside look at Léon Thévenin, the only undersea internet cable repair ship permanently stationed in Africa, operated by the French telecom company Orange  —  Undersea internet cables are critical in today's hyperconnected world.  The crew of the Léon Thévenin maintains one stretch of this global network.
More: RTÉ.  Forums: Slashdot
John Thornhill / Financial Times:
A review of Tim Berners-Lee's new book This is for Everyone, while his startup Inrupt, which aims to commercialize the Solid web protocol, struggles to scale  —  The World Wide Web inventor criticises the ‘rage bait’ of algorithms and social media — and advocates tighter user control of personal data
Forums: r/technology
Phoebe Liu / Forbes:
A profile of Edwin Chen, the CEO of Surge AI, a Scale AI rival that had $1.2B revenue in 2024, is profitable, and is reportedly raising $1B at a $30B valuation  —  This story appears in the October/November 2025 issue of Forbes Magazine.  Subscribe  —  An alum of Google, Facebook and Twitter …

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From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

More News

Earlier Picks

Ben Berkowitz / Axios:
Karoline Leavitt confirms Oracle will handle TikTok's data and security, and says the US is “100% confident” a deal is done and it “just needs to be signed”
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