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June 18, 2025, 10:20 AM
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Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
On a podcast, Sam Altman said Meta made “giant offers to a lot of people on our team ... like, $100M signing bonuses”, and “none of our best people” accepted  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta's …
CNN:
President Trump plans to sign an executive order this week to grant TikTok a 90-day extension in enforcement of the sale-or-ban law, marking his third extension  —  New York CNN —  —  TikTok just got another lifeline from the White House, with President Donald Trump set to delay enforcement …
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
A cyberattack claimed by pro-Israel hacktivist group Predatory Sparrow has reportedly disrupted services at Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah, including its website  —  The attack introduces a clear cyber element with immediate consequences for the country's critical infrastructure amid a growing conflict between Israel and Iran.
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
The Iranian government says it has restricted internet access in response to Israeli cyberattacks; some Western communication apps have reportedly been blocked  —  The connectivity drop appears to be a result of a decision by Iran's government, rather than due to Israeli strikes on infrastructure.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US Senate passes the GENIUS Act, which establishes the first federal regulatory framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins; the bill now heads to the House  —  The Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill that for the first time establishes federal guardrails …
Financial Times:
Sources: lobbyists for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta back a campaign for a 10-year US state AI regulation ban, a move dividing the AI industry and the GOP  —  Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party
More: AppleInsider, PYMNTS.com, and The Hill
Bluesky: @elizkolbert.  X: @pawlega.  Forums: r/artificial and r/technology
Hayden Field / The Verge:
A look at California's 52-page California Report on Frontier Policy, which proposes an AI regulatory framework based on transparency, risk assessments, and more  —  A long-awaited report says companies are “simply inadequate at fully understanding” risks and harms.
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the Catholic Church's decadelong dialogue with Silicon Valley on AI, as Pope Leo prepares to make AI's potential threat to humanity a signature issue  —  The new pope is making the potential threat of artificial intelligence to humanity a signature issue—but Silicon Valley is trying to win him over
More: TechCrunch.  Bluesky: @timkellogg.me and @lauraapollo.  Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
X: @wsj and @richraho.  Forums: r/singularity
Steve Kopack / NBC News:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company expects that “in the next few years” AI use “will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains”  —  Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the retail and tech giant “will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today.”
Bloomberg:
Sources: xAI is burning through $1B per month, expects to burn through ~$13B in 2025, and projects its revenue to be just $500M in 2025, rising to $2B+ in 2026  —  Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI is burning through $1 billion a month as the cost of building …
Tulsee Doshi / The Keyword:
Google makes Gemini 2.5 Flash and Pro generally available and introduces 2.5 Flash-Lite, which it says is its most cost-efficient and fastest 2.5 model yet
John Voorhees / MacStories:
Hands-on with Apple's new Speech framework components in the macOS Tahoe beta: the APIs deliver transcription speeds significantly faster than OpenAI's Whisper  —  Late last Tuesday night, after watching F1: The Movie at the Steve Jobs Theater, I was driving back from dropping Federico off at his hotel when I got a text:
Kristina Partsinevelos / CNBC:
AWS says Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 launched on its Trainium2 GPUs, and Project Rainier, AWS' supercomputer built for Anthropic, uses 500K+ Trainium2 chips  —  Amazon Web Services is set to announce an update to its Graviton4 chip that includes 600 gigabits per second of network bandwidth …
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel names new engineering leadership, appointing Srinivasan Iyengar, Jean-Didier Allegrucci, and Shailendra Desai, as part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's turnaround  —  Intel Corp. named new engineering leadership as part of a turnaround effort under Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan …
More: Reuters
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
X sues New York, claiming a law requiring social media companies to disclose how they deal with hate speech and disinformation violates the US Constitution  —  Elon Musk's X Corp. sued the state of New York claiming a law requiring social media companies to disclose how they deal with hate speech …
Shen Lu / Wall Street Journal:
Temu entered into a US data storage deal with Oracle last week and offered few details, but says it is part of an effort to localize more of its US operations  —  Data-storage deal with Oracle follows several states' allegations bargain site could hand over user data to Beijing
Chris Metinko / Axios:
Boston-based Maven, which builds autonomous AI agents for enterprises' customer support, raised a $50M Series B led by Dell, taking its total funding to $78M  —  Maven AGI, which builds enterprise AI agents for customer support, raised a $50 million Series B led by Dell Technologies Capital …
More: Maven AGI
Financial Times:
Netflix signs a landmark deal with French network TF1 to show linear TV for the first time; TF1 will broadcast all five channels, showing live sports and more  —  Deal will be closely watched by broadcasters, who are losing millions of viewers to streaming giants  —  Daniel Thomas and Hannah Murphy in Cannes

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From Mediagazer

Matthew Belloni / @mattbelloni:
Sources: Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers are leaving Netflix for Paramount; the deciding factor was Paramount's support for theatrical releases

Free Press:
A coalition of press freedom groups urges Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to release Atlanta journalist Mario Guevara, detained by ICE for two months

Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of TKO Group President and COO Mark Shapiro, who orchestrated a $7.7B deal to bring UFC fights to Paramount and a $1.6B deal to take WWE to ESPN

More News

Michelle Kim / Rest of World:
Ten current and former Samsung semiconductor engineers say many are leaving for SK Hynix and other rivals due to long hours, heavy workloads, and lower bonuses

Earlier Picks

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
The US Senate confirms Olivia Trusty to the FCC, giving Republicans a 2-1 majority after the recent departures of two members
Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Pano AI, which uses AI and computer vision to offer active wildfire detection, raised a $44M Series B led by Giant Ventures, bringing its total funding to $89M
More: FinTech Global, Salesforce Ventures, and Pano AI
Bluesky: @prietschka.  X: @salesforcevc.  LinkedIn: Abe Yokell and Garry Tan
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
US appeals court rules in Apple's favor by throwing out a $300M verdict that found it infringed on Optis' wireless tech patents, sending the case to a new trial
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft and AMD announce “a strategic, multi-year partnership” to “co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices”, including next-generation Xbox consoles
CNBC:
Sources: Meta and EssilorLuxottica plan AI smart glasses under the Oakley and Prada brands; they will be aimed at athletes, and the Oakleys may cost ~$360
More: Business Today, The Indian Express, Times of Oman, and Benzinga
Bluesky: @blemley.us and @sal19.  Instagram: Meta.  X: @scobleizer
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Facebook renames its Videos tab as the Reels tab and says all videos on its platform will soon be shared as reels, regardless of their length or orientation
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