Bigger and bigger data centers are leading to proposals for massive electric power transmission lines, sometimes across hundreds of miles. These high-voltage power lines cost tens of billions of dollars a year and are the latest front line in the battle over tech giants' massive operations. Artificial intelligence advances are seen by President Donald Trump as critical to the nation’s economic and national security. But their energy needs are threatening to overwhelm the power grid and the transmission expansion is drawing opposition from landowners, conservationists, local officials, consumer advocates and states.

A deluge of misrepresented or fabricated videos has spread widely online since the Iran war began last weekend, fueled in part by state-linked propaganda influence campaigns — particularly around who is winning the war and how bad casualties have been. Artificial intelligence has helped fuel misinformation in ways that weren’t possible during past conflicts, even just a few years ago. Coupled with state-linked disinformation and censorship, this creates an even wider vacuum in which the truth can get lost.

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The Trump administration is following through with its threat to designate artificial intelligence company Anthropic as a supply chain risk in an unprecedented move that could force other government contractors to stop using the AI chatbot Claude. The Pentagon said in a statement Thursday it has “officially informed Anthropic leadership the company and its products are deemed a supply chain risk, effective immediately.” The decision appeared to shut down opportunity for further negotiation with Anthropic, nearly a week after President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the company of endangering national security.

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On its own, the phrase “Christ is king” sums up a core tenet of the Christian faith, that Jesus is the divine ruler of the universe. Many churches celebrate a Christ the King Sunday each year. But the ancient proclamation can morph into something political, controversial or even sinister, depending on the context. In recent years, “Christ is king” and similar phrases have been chanted at political rallies, posted on social media and proclaimed in speeches by voices on the right. At times the phrase is used to support the notion of America as a Christian nation. At other times, activists have paired the phrase with anti-Zionist or negative Jewish stereotypes.

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Jurors in a bellwether trial about the impacts of social media on children are studying a deposition from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Shown in a New Mexico courtroom on Wednesday, the video interview with Zuckerberg explores research and company discussions about negative experiences among young users of Instagram and other Meta social media platforms. Prosecutors say Meta failed to disclose what it knows about the harmful effects of its platforms, in violation of state consumer protection laws. Meta says the company discloses risks and makes efforts to weed out harmful content. Depositions from Zuckerberg and Instagram leader Adam Mosseri are centerpieces of the case.

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A defiant Elon Musk on Wednesday took the stand in a jury trial to defend himself against accusations that he engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter before he finally completed the takeover. The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share. The case revolves around allegations that Musk violated federal securities laws that unfairly harmed Twitter shareholders between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022.

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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its first construction permit for a commercial nuclear reactor in eight years. The commission granted the permit Wednesday for a Bill Gates-backed company to build a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in western Wyoming. The company filed for the permit in 2024. Construction of the reactor 130 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, Utah, is expected to begin within weeks, with a completion target of 2030. Gates is eyeing next-generation nuclear plants as a power source for the electricity-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence. He is a founder of and primary investor in TerraPower, the company building the plant.

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Anthropic’s moral stand on U.S. military use of artificial intelligence is reshaping the competition between leading AI companies but also exposing a growing awareness that maybe chatbots just aren’t capable enough for acts of war. Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude, for the first time outpaced its better-known rival ChatGPT in phone app downloads in the United States this week, a signal of growing interest from consumers siding with Anthropic in its standoff with the Pentagon. But while many military and human rights experts have applauded Amodei for standing up for ethical principles, some are also frustrated by years of AI industry marketing that persuaded the government to apply AI on high-stakes tasks.