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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday that he “cannot in good conscience accede to [the Pentagon’s] request” to give the military unrestricted access to its AI systems. “Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions,” Amodei wrote in a statement. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do.” The two cases are: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons with no human in the loop. The Pentagon believes…

Iowa lawmakers voted to advance state House bill 751 last week, legislation that would ensure farmers in the state can freely repair their own agricultural equipment, like tractors. This Tuesday, the bill was renamed to House File 2709, and it will be voted on again. Should the political winds align, it will go through the Iowa House and Senate before the Iowa Legislature adjourns on April 21.The bill is the first of nearly 57 state bills supported by repair advocates across the country in 2026. Many of them focus on farm equipment in states like Oklahoma, Wyoming, Delaware, and West…

In a flurry of hundred-billion-dollar-deal offers, the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery is over. David Ellison-owned Paramount will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that Paramount Skydance’s newest offer of $31 a share was a “superior proposal,” giving Netflix four business days to counter. Netflix then said it would not raise its $82.7 billion all-cash bid for the legacy studio, and would walk away from the deal. “The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” said Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters in a statement Thursday.…

Google just debuted Nano Banana 2, an updated version of its AI image generator. It combines the abilities of Google’s previous release, Nano Banana Pro—like text rendering and web searching—with speedier image generation. This tool will be the new default in Google’s Gemini chatbot.The first image model from Google under the Nano Banana moniker dropped last August, and the Pro version arrived three months later. The AI tool was widely adopted online to alter photos of real people, from generating custom action figures to nostalgic images of people hugging younger versions of themselves.Nano Banana 2 is not only faster at…

Jack Dorsey has long been an open admirer of Elon Musk. Now, it seems, he may have been taking notes. On Thursday, Dorsey announced that Block, the payments company he founded that operates Square, Cash App, and Tidal, is cutting more than 4,000 employees, nearly half its global workforce, taking it from over 10,000 workers down to just under 6,000. Investors responded enthusiastically, sending the stock up more than 24% in after-hours trading. It isn’t the first time a major tech company has done something of the sort. In November 2022, Musk slashed roughly 50% of Twitter’s staff in a…

Guys, before we go to break, there’s something very near and dear to my heart that WIRED wrote about this week. It’s something I love even more than biathlon. It is undersea internet cables.Leah Feiger: I love when you talk about this. I think that the first time you brought this up to me was approximately one week into your tenure as executive editor, and you’re like, “Leah, do you know what I love?” and it’s undersea internet cables.Brian Barrett: Yeah. I was like, “Number one, undersea internet cables. Number two, my children. Number three …” that was sort of…

WPP chief executive (CEO) Cindy Rose has unveiled a $676 million (£500 million) annual cost-cutting plan to get the business back on track, reorganizing it around four AI-backed divisions: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production, and WPP Enterprise Solutions.The three-year strategic reboot, called “Elevate28,” comes as WPP posted its worst annual financial results since the Covid-19 pandemic, with 2025 revenue less pass-through costs down 5.4% year-on-year to $13.6 billion (£10.1 billion). WPP’s shares were down almost 10% at market open on Thursday (Feb. 26).On a call with journalists ahead of the network’s annual investor presentation, Rose declared WPP was “no…

PayPal may not be pursuing an acquisition, Semafor reported, citing people familiar with the matter.  Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Stripe expressed interest in buying some or all of PayPal Holdings, which includes the flagship product PayPal and its services, as well as other companies like Venmo. Stripe declined to comment on the news.  But unnamed sources tell Semafor that the company has been working with bankers in preparation for a possible activist investor campaign or a hostile takeover. The bankers were working with Alex Chriss, PayPal’s now-ousted CEO, the outlet reported. The company’s new CEO starts next week,…

Hearing someone talk about digital censorship in China is always either extremely boring or extremely interesting. Most of the time, people are still regurgitating the same talking points from 20 years ago about how the Chinese internet is like living in George Orwell’s 1984. But occasionally, someone discovers something new about how the Chinese government exerts control over emerging technologies, revealing how the censorship machine is a constantly evolving beast.A new paper by scholars from Stanford University and Princeton University about Chinese artificial intelligence belongs to the second category. The researchers fed the same 145 politically sensitive questions to four…

Are you still watching? Because the Netflix/WBD/Paramount saga has reached its next episode.On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that Paramount Skydance’s updated merger proposal of $31 per WBD share is a “Company Superior Proposal.” Netflix, which previously entered into an agreement with WBD, now has four business days to match.WBD says its board of directors consulted independent financial and legal advisors for the decision. Among the highlights, Paramount’s offer includes the $31 purchase price in cash, a daily ticking fee of $0.25 per share per quarter (effective after Sept. 30, 2026), and a $7 billion termination fee payable by Paramount…

Google announced earlier this week that it was building a new data center in Minnesota that would be powered by a mix of wind, solar, and a very unique battery built by startup Form Energy that’s capable of discharging for days on end. Now we know the price tag for that feat of electrochemical engineering: about $1 billion, according to The Information. Form Energy’s massive iron-air battery is capable of delivering a continuous 300 megawatts of electricity over 100 hours. It works by breathing, in a sense — oxygen pumped into the cells rusts iron, which releases electrons. The battery…

AI agents like OpenClaw have recently exploded in popularity precisely because they can take the reins of your digital life. Whether you want a personalized morning news digest, a proxy that can fight with your cable company’s customer service, or a to-do list auditor that will do some tasks for you and prod you to resolve the rest, agentic assistants are built to access your digital accounts and carry out your commands. This is helpful—but has also caused a lot of chaos. The bots are out there mass-deleting emails they’ve been instructed to preserve, writing hit pieces over perceived snubs,…

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir and CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil closed out the week of February 16 with no viewership declines in total viewers or the Adults 25-54 demo.However, World News Tonight was the only evening newscast to record week-to-week gains in both measured categories. Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas saw across-the-board declines for the just concluded week, but it continued to be the most-watched broadcast in the advertiser-coveted demo, benefiting from NBC’s coverage of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics.Note: The weekly averages of ABC World News Tonight and CBS Evening News are based…

Could Meta be preparing to launch a Prada version of its Meta AI glasses? That’s the speculation after Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla, were spotted sitting in the front row of Prada’s Fall/Winter 2026 Fashion Week show in Milan Thursday. The social media exec was seen chatting with his seatmate, Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s Chief Merchandising Officer and son of head designer Miuccia Prada. While Zuckerberg has been working to polish his image in recent years, including with upgraded threads, it’s likely that the social media exec wasn’t at Prada for the fashion, but rather because of an upcoming collaboration…

Other Wireless Headphones We’ve TestedWireless headphones are the default these days, and there are roughly 1 gazillion of them (and counting). We do our best to test them all, but not everything we test can make the big list. Here are some other good options worth trying.Sony Linkbuds Clip for $230: Sony’s new clip-on open earbuds are solid performers at a premium price. While I found their call quality subpar, they provide clear and accessible audio playback, good controls, and features like a 10-band EQ and audio presets to tailor your experience. Their full price is a tall ask for…

This is TVNewser’s basic cable network ranker and cable news report for the week of Feb. 16, 2026.Week-to-week declines were registered by all three cable networks in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo during primetime and total day. The primetime demo had all three cable networks posting double-digit declines, but MS NOW in the other dayparts only saw single-digit drops.NETWORKS:According to Nielsen big data + panel for the week of February 16, Fox News averaged 2.483 million total viewers and 235,000 A25-54 viewers during primetime. The network was down -10% in total viewers and -18% in the demo compared…