Democratic voters have turned against big business, but only the progressive faction of the party has listened. This distance between voters and leaders is unusual and can't go on forever. Or can it?

It seems like I’ve had a steady stream of coffees and calls lately with general managers and executives across telecom.

Somewhere between my third Zoom of the day and realizing I’d been talking about BEAD funding or AI for two hours straight, a clear pattern emerged: most leaders fall into one of three buckets.

Donald Trump signs an executive order stopping states from enforcing their own AI guardrails, sparking backlash from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and raising concerns about weakened consumer protections. Here’s why experts say the move could have serious consequences.

2025 has been a tremendous year for the artificial intelligence industry. Stock prices for AI companies skyrocketed, soaring beyond expectations and propping up an otherwise stagnant U.S. economy. But everywhere, there’s talk of an AI bubble — one even bigger and more threatening than the 2008 housing bubble or the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s. 

What makes this bubble so different? When is it likely to pop? And if it does, what does that mean for the rest of us? 

In this episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Ed Zitron and Sruthi Pinnamaneni, journalists covering the AI frenzy, to recap the year of the AI Bubble — and predict what will happen next. 

A startup called Operation Bluebird is working to resurrect the “Twitter” and “Tweet” trademarks for use in a new social media platform called Twitter.new. 

BRUSSELS — The European Commission said it will “make sure” it receives money owed by Elon Musk’s X after the company was fined €120 million for failing to meet transparency rules.

The Commission on Friday said X has breached transparency and deceptive design obligations under the EU's platforms regulation, the Digital Services Act, and issued the €120 million penalty.

The decision set off a cascade of accusations of censorship from U.S. officials, Musk and his supporters, with some suggesting the company should refuse to pay the fine.

I learned about this on an online forum, but I found it interesting. Here’s a description from the YouTube description… Recorded on September 24, 2025. NCompass Live - https://nlc.nebraska.gov/ncompasslive/ Special monthly episodes of NCompass Live! Join the NLC’s Technology Innovation Librarian, Amanda Sweet, as she guides us through the world of library-related 'Pretty Sweet Tech'.…

• A huge federal grant, announced in 2023, is now ready to expand broadband access to an additional 200,000 homes over four years
• High-speed internet has been slow to spread in rural areas because of infrastructure costs
• Education leaders say poor internet access increases the learning divide

Efforts to expand high-speed internet across rural northern Michigan will get a  $920 million boost from a federal grant, which over the next four years is expected to make broadband available to an additional 200,000 homes and businesses.

Combined with $550 million in matching funds from providers, the almost $1.5 billion investment is a potential game-changer for rural counties, said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

As near as one can tell, the business rationale for artificial intelligence rests on the hope that it will substitute for human judgment and discretion. Given the role of big data in training AI systems, and the enormous concentrations of capital they require to develop, the AI revolution will extend the logic of oligopoly into cognition. What appears to be at stake, ultimately, is ownership of the means of thinking. This will have implications for class structure, for the legitimacy of institutions that claim authority based on expertise, and for the credentialing function of universities.

Consider some recent developments that don’t pertain to AI per se, but show the power that comes with ownership of computational infrastructure.

Since 2011, a new study finds that Chattanooga's city-owned fiber network has generated $5.3 billion in net community benefits for Hamilton County. Conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the study finds that the municipal fiber network has dramatically reshaped the regional economy, supporting 10,420 jobs from 2011 to 2024 – about 31 percent of all net new jobs created locally over the past decade.

I’ve been thinking about the long-term trajectory for satellite broadband in rural areas. I saw a recent estimate that Starlink has around 2.6 million customers in the U.S. and is still growing. I have to think that most of these customers live in places that don’t have a fast broadband alternative to satellite broadband. I…

The idea of a “right to repair” — a requirement that companies facilitate consumers’ repairs, maintenance, and modification of products — is extremely popular, even winning broad, bipartisan support in Congress. That could not, however, save it from the military–industrial complex.

Lobbyists succeeded in killing part of the National Defense Authorization Act that would have given service members the right to fix their equipment in the field without having to worry about military suppliers’ intellectual property.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren cautions that the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery to either Netflix or Paramount Skydance could reduce competition and concentrate power over what films and news American see.

The heirs of an 83-year-old Connecticut woman are suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft for wrongful death. They claim the artificial intelligence chatbot intensified her son’s “paranoid delusions” and helped direct them at his mother before he killed her.

President Donald Trump doesn’t know what 6G means, and seemingly thinks it has to do with video quality rather than faster internet.

New York has canceled a $26.1 million broadband expansion for Cayuga and Cortland counties, citing tight federal deadlines, according to The Citizen. The project aimed to build a 275-mile fiber network and reach 75% of unserved residents but faced delays in permitting and construction.

Cayuga had already committed $7 million to the effort, expecting reimbursement. Now, officials are pursuing smaller-scale projects using alternate funds, including a new $249K planning grant.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) and Public Knowledge are excited to announce the launch of the Connectivity Policy Corps (CPC), a groundbreaking program designed to shape broadband and digital inclusion policies nationwide.

This initiative centers community experience and ensures that broadband and digital inclusion policies reflect the realities faced by those addressing digital inequities every day. Real solutions start with real stories.

Generative artificial intelligence has become widely accepted as a tool that increases productivity. Yet the technology is far from mature. Large language models advance rapidly from one generation to the next, and experts can only speculate how AI will affect the workforce and peoples’ daily lives.

As a materials scientist, I am interested in how materials and the technologies that derive from them affect society. AI is one example of a technology driving global change – particularly through its demand for materials and rare minerals.

But before AI evolved to its current level, two other technologies exemplified the process created by the demand for specialized materials: cars and smartphones.