Techmeme
September 18, 2026, 4:15 PM

Top News

Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Security researchers in OpenAI's bug bounty program hacked OpenAI in July and accessed its “monorepo” on GitHub, using Opus 4.8 for cybersecurity and Opus 5  —  A bug-hunting independent security research team was able to access OpenAI's internal code system, exposing growing risks in automated cyber threats
CNN:
Sources: the US “almost started a war” after an AI-assisted report hallucinated that a Chinese ship in the Middle East was carrying nuclear weapons components  —  The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran …
Reuters:
Anthropic Life Sciences Head Eric Kauderer-Abrams says the AI startup set up a Bay Area wet lab for physical biology work, as it pushes into disease treatment  —  Anthropic has quietly set up a laboratory to do physical biology work as it pushes its artificial-intelligence ambitions into the world of drug science.
Reuters:
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signs an EO to slow down data center approvals, create an AI task force to evaluate workforce displacement, and more  —  Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed an executive order addressing data canters and AI risks. … Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) …
CoinDesk:
Singapore-licensed dtcpay, which offers stablecoin payments across Europe, Hong Kong, Australia, and North America, raised a $25M Series A  —  Stablecoin payments firm dtcpay announced today the formal completion of its $25 million Series A funding round, securing a strategic investment from Japan's financial giant, the SBI Group.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney hires former Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand as its first CTO; about a year ago, Disney accused Character.AI of infringing its copyrights  —  Disney chief Josh D'Amaro, in a move that shows he's trying to position the Mouse House as a tech-forward entertainment company …
Bloomberg:
Governor Gavin Newsom signs an EO directing a working group to provide a guide in two months with measures to boost California's AI safety and security laws  —  California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Friday pushing to implement guardrails on artificial intelligence …
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
The US Treasury sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, saying it sent hundreds of millions to the IRGC and helped Iran operate a Strait of Hormuz toll booth  —  Iran has spent this year charging tankers between $1 million and $2 million to cross the Strait of Hormuz …
Lydia Beyoud / Bloomberg:
The US CFTC exempts “passive software” providers from broker registration if they never hold user assets, expanding crypto and prediction market online trading  —  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission moved to expand crypto and prediction market trading via online platforms …
Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
PrismML releases Bonsai 2 27B, which compresses Alibaba's Qwen3.8 27B to 5.9 GB, small enough for smartphones, while retaining 98.2% of Qwen's benchmark scores  —  If AI lab PrismML isn't on your radar yet, it should be — not because it's raised gobs of money (it hasn't yet …

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Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Claude:
Financial Times: