Two Democratic senators who have long overseen US intelligence say the Trump administration is illegally withholding a secret court’s findings from Congress until lawmakers renew a program that lets federal agents read Americans’ communications without a warrant.

Seven months ago, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court objected to search filters that let intelligence analysts pull Americans’ messages from intercepted data without the approvals, written justifications, or records the law requires. The court approved another year of surveillance anyway. The ruling has never been made public, and Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Adam Schiff of California say the administration’s own deadline for releasing it passed in September.

Elon Musk accused Ukraine of violating Starlink terms of service by using it for lethal drone strikes.

Musk said Ukraine used the Starlink commercial service for offensive drone strikes. Musk’s comment on Saturday came after SpaceX imposed a restriction preventing Ukraine from using the satellite technology on drones flying above certain speeds.

One current and one former Ukraine official denied Musk’s accusation and said previous limits imposed by SpaceX already prevented Ukraine’s military from using Starlink in the way Musk described. Ukraine officials have accused Musk of throttling their use of Starshield, the military variant of Starlink that Ukraine has access to through a deal with the US government.

Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over the weekend that the new satellite restrictions have been lifted, possibly ending a controversy that began almost two weeks ago.

Musk wrote on Saturday that “using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be. Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them. Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.”

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2026 — Average download speeds across state medians rose 25% in a year, but broadband rankings also exposed notable gaps in access to affordable service. 

The average reached 133.7 Megabits per second (Mbps), said Tyler Cooper, editor in chief of BroadbandNow, a broadband comparison site and research group. Median download speeds reached at least 100 Mbps in 48 of 51 jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C., up from 31 a year earlier. Cooper presented the findings Wednesday at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online session on the best and worst states for broadband.

A separate analysis by Ookla, a company that measures internet speeds and network performance, also tracked progress while highlighting rural–urban gaps. Ookla compared the share of tested users in rural and urban areas whose connections met the federal broadband benchmark of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, or 100 * 20 Mbps. Its state rankings differed from BroadbandNow’s.

I’ve seen articles lately that say that the smart home is dead. Before diving into that topic, I want to revisit the history of the smart home. More than a decade ago, the industry was abuzz with promises that everybody was going to install integrated smart home technology to make their lives easier. The smart movement can probably be traced back to the 2011 introduction of the Nest Learning Thermostat, which gave people an easy way to monitor and control energy consumption.

Within a few years after that, there was an explosion of smart home technologies hitting the market. 2014 saw the release of the Amazon Alexa and the Apple HomeKit. In that same time period, companies like Vivint, ADT, and Control4 were pushing full-house systems that integrated smart lighting, smart thermostats, smart locks, smart window shades, and automated music and video control throughout a home. Comcast entered the new industry in a big way, and by 2015 offered Xfinity Home, which integrated the best devices from multiple vendors for a basic monthly fee. Over time, indoor and outdoor smart cameras, smart appliances, and smart everything joined the technology mix.

Like with every new tech market, analysts went nuts with predictions.

The U.S. military has granted SpaceX access to some of the Pentagon’s most sensitive and confidential satellite tracking data. That’s according to The Guardian, which reports the new agreement between U.S. Space Force and Elon Musk gives SpaceX access to restricted information used to track satellites and debris on Earth’s orbit.

This follows Musk’s efforts to privatize space traffic control. Last year, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Musk, fired scores of employees at the Traffic Coordination System for Space, while the Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to gut funding to the program.

SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is in talks with at least one major cellular infrastructure company to secure a minimum of 80,000 locations across the U.S. on which to deploy cell sites for its prospective nationwide mobile network, Bloomberg reported. Sources indicate that SpaceX is in talks with Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI) along with American Tower (NYSE: AMT) and Vertical Bridge. None of the companies commented. 

At the market close on Friday, shares of Crown Castle were up nine percent, leading the three nationwide public tower companies which together averaged a nearly six percent increase for the day. By contrast, shares of mobile network operators, AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and T-Mobile US (NASDAQ: TMUS), collectively were down by an average of nearly six percent for the day, reflecting concerns about the potential new competition. 

A municipal utility’s step-by-step, engineering-led approach offers a model for community broadband. 

The Holland Board of Public Works (HBPW) has built one of the most advanced open-access fiber networks in the upper Midwest, delivering gigabit connectivity to residents and businesses across the city of Holland, Michigan.

The network is the result of steady, deliberate work. HBPW first built fiber for its own operations, then extended service to local anchor institutions and businesses. It tested the citywide concept with a downtown pilot, brought a detailed plan to the community, and moved into construction after a public vote to fund the project. At each stage, the utility made decisions that reduced financial and schedule risk.

On August 31, the Trump administration sent formal notice of a $1.42 billion grant to California to supply broadband access to 270,000 households and businesses, as authorized in the 2021 infrastructure law signed by President Biden. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until November 1 to accept the federal broadband deployment grant. 

But if Newsom accepts the award, the state must also agree to not enforce its nation-leading standards for broadband affordability and reliability for 14 years, forgoing mandatory low-income plans and other benefits that save consumers billions of dollars, as well as the strongest net neutrality and anti-throttling laws in the country.

This requirement, known as “Condition 50,” was inserted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) into the terms and conditions of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program a year ago. The enforcement restrictions don’t just apply to BEAD projects, but to all state broadband laws and regulations on any internet service provider (ISP) that receives funding, including any laws passed in the future.

If you own CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV) or Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS), Elon Musk's X feed has become required reading. His posts have jolted both stocks more than once this month.

On Sunday, Oct. 25, he posted again, and this time he had a SpaceX deal to show off.

Musk wrote on X that Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX) has closed $40 billion in debt to buy GPUs, the chips that run AI models. Then he turned to neoclouds, the smaller companies that rent those chips out.

Anthropic’s S-1 filing is hundreds of pages long—and it leaves out quite a few financial details. “Anthropic owes investors more information,” one analyst tells WIRED.

Anthropic filed its hotly anticipated IPO prospectus on Monday, spelling out parts of the company’s business, strategy, and risk profile ahead of its public debut. Though the filing, known as an S-1, is several hundred pages long, it has some notable omissions—namely, certain financial figures.

“Claude has experienced the fastest enterprise adoption of any technology in history, as demonstrated by revenue growing from $0 at commercial launch in the first quarter of 2023 to $_____ for the three months ended September 30, 2026,” reads the first of dozens of such examples.

It’s relatively common for companies to redact certain information in their S-1 filings, and Securities and Exchange Commission rules allow for a certain degree of leniency around the practice, particularly when it comes to information considered “confidential.”

Social media regulation will be a high priority for Lula after an election where Big Tech's influence was on trial, says Tech Policy Press fellow Tatiana Dias.

In an extraordinary win after the largest popular campaign in the country’s democratic history, Brazil re-elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) to another term. Lula’s victory is not only a defeat for the far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL). It is also a defeat for United States President Donald Trump — who had in Bolsonaro a subservient ally — and for Big Tech companies faced by mass accusations that they manipulated public debate and harmed Lula.

Now, anchored in a huge political victory, Brazil’s push to regulate Big Tech is set to reach a new level. In his first victory speech minutes after his re-election, Lula signaled that he will treat the regulation of large platforms as a priority. “This was an election in which we had to overcome outside interference coming in through digital platforms, which we are going to have to regulate,” he said. “We cannot have monstrous companies earning billions, paying no taxes, and trying to steer this country’s electoral outcome.”

Lula’s re-election was historic for several reasons.

The Securities and Exchange Commission‘s publication on Monday of Anthropic’s S-1 form—ahead of a heavily anticipated initial public offering—has led to plenty of discussion of whether the company’s quickly ballooning revenues will be able to overcome its even higher costs. But amid the numbers and forward-looking optimism about AI “rapidly transform[ing] every sector of the global economy in ways greater than the impact of industrialization, electricity, semiconductors, and the internet,” Anthropic also spends an inordinate amount of time in its S-1 laying out the myriad risk factors that could bring the company down.

Across 93 pages and over 70,000 words, Anthropic’s S-1 “Risk Factors” section discusses literally hundreds of potential problems that could negatively impact its business in the coming years. Many of these potential risks are the kind of standard worries about competition, costs, customer acquisition, and potential regulation that almost any business must worry about. But some risks highlight interesting potential points of failure for Anthropic specifically and the hype-filled AI bubble more generally.

After wading through Anthropic’s book-length treatise on its greatest risks, we’ve narrowed the list to the seven most surprising, interesting, or thought-provoking potential problems. Consider this a far-from-comprehensive look that potential Anthropic investors should keep in mind.

1. Beginnings

SpaceX is a national security vulnerability. Something must be done about it.

Two things up front: First, my headline is “Nationalize SpaceX,” but that’s shorthand. I don’t know that we need to “nationalize” the company, per se. Maybe we do! Or maybe it needs to be broken up! Or aggressively regulated!

So for the purposes of discussion, please treat “Nationalize SpaceX” as a catchall and not a specific policy proposal. We can talk about nationalization as we go; just understand that it’s only one tool.

That’s the first thing.

The second thing is that we should divorce the person of Elon Musk from this conversation. Musk is a uniquely dangerous individual and the fact that he controls SpaceX increases the national security risks. 

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California is urging Meta not to implement its forthcoming commercial terms on November 20, his office announced Tuesday.

In a letter sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Schiff called on the company to respond by Monday, November 2 with the specific steps it will to address user concerns.

“Forcing publishers to choose between surrendering their off-platform IP or forfeiting a primary channel of public communication is a gross abuse of Meta’s power as a powerful platform with critical access to consumers,” Schiff wrote. “Meta must not nullify federal IP protections and fair market competition through the unilateral insertion of fine print into terms of service contracts.”

Charter has asked a court to toss AT&T's 'fiber-powered' lawsuit – a fight that could decide how Charter weaves 'fiber' into its marketing messages.

Charter Communications fired back in a court case that could determine how the broadband operator can use the terms "fiber broadband network" and "fiber-powered" in its marketing, its website and its communications with customers.

On Friday (October 23), Charter filed its response to an AT&T-led lawsuit in front of a Texas district court alleging that the operator's use of those terms amounts to false advertising that misleads customers. In its motion to dismiss the case, Charter argued that there's nothing false or misleading about Charter's use of those terms and therefore the case should be tossed out.

AT&T's complaint, filed in late August, zeroes in on Charter's use of those terms to describe its widely deployed hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) network.

Highway thieves are using sophisticated digital tactics that investigators worry make it easy to rob trucks carrying millions in expensive data center equipment.

NBC News spoke to “several industry leaders, consultants, and investigators advising law enforcement” offices probing the biggest thefts yet and reported that since June, thieves have “made away with more than $100 million in data center freight.”

Here’s how they said thieves get away with it:

Direct-to-device (D2D) services are becoming table stakes for mobile operators that are seeking to fill in coverage gaps in their terrestrial networks, but those same operators are concerned that tapping certain spectrum for D2D could hamstring their core 5G businesses.

CTIA, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have asked the FCC to strip out the 2.5GHz and 3GHz bands from D2D use because it will degrade the performance of 5G rules being drafted for Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) and D2D connectivity. Naturally, any and all spectrum used for D2D would benefit others, such as Starlink, that are pushing forward with next-gen D2D platforms.