SpaceX’s Starlink division confirmed yesterday that it lost contact with a satellite on Sunday and is trying to locate space debris that might have been produced by… whatever happened there.

Starlink said there appeared to be “no new risk” to other space operations and did not use the word “explosion.” But it seems that something caused a Starlink broadband satellite to break apart into at least tens of pieces. LeoLabs, which operates a radar network that can track objects in low Earth orbit, said in an X post that it “detected a fragment creation event involving SpaceX Starlink 34343,” one of the 10,000 or so Starlink satellites in orbit.

• The Trump administration recently unveiled a national policy framework for AI, but it misses a critical dynamic in AI governance around responsibility and accountability.
• Effective oversight begins with recognizing the effects of AI—its harms and risks—and the causes of those effects—power and competition
• Meaningful policy must structure power by focusing on four interlocking principles: accountability, access, agency, and action.

Tom Wheeler and Bill Baer discuss what considerations are missing from the Trump administration's new national AI policy framework.

On March 20, the Trump White House released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence. It is filled with worthy aspirations such as protecting children, promoting innovation, and ensuring American leadership.

But it sidesteps the most important question in AI governance: Who is in charge of those in charge?

A whole industry of data brokers buys up vast quantities of electronic information from cell phone apps and web browsers and sells it to advertisers who use that data to target ads. The same industry also sells that data, including bulk cell phone location data, to police departments and federal government agencies in ways that can reveal intimate details about Americans without a warrant.

Now, privacy advocates say that the best chance for Congress to close the well-known loophole around the Fourth Amendment that allows for that sort of governmental snooping is coming up in just a few weeks.

I was looking through the FCC cellular map in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where I live. For those not fully familiar with the FCC broadband maps, the agency publishes two maps: the more familiar one that shows broadband coverage and a second that shows cellular coverage. You can toggle between the two maps at the FCC's map website.

It struck me while looking at the details in the maps that rural cellular coverage is changing, and not in a good way. I started by looking at a small section of the county that is on the outer fringe of where the Asheville outer suburbs turn rural. According to the FCC cellular map, the area I selected has the following cellular coverage:

"CEO said a thing!" journalism involves parroting the claims of a business leader or executive with absolutely no context, correction, or challenge whatsoever, no matter how elaborate the delusion.

This is the 14th installment of The TechEd Revolution.

AI is often described as a tool for answering questions. But in scientific work, answering questions is only part of the challenge. The deeper work lies in how questions are framed, how methods are designed, and how knowledge is produced.

A new class of AI-enabled environments is beginning to reshape that process. This shift is already taking shape in how students and faculty engage in research.

The last major congressional overhaul of our nation’s media and telecom laws was 30 years ago. Was it a good plan, and are we still following it today?

On March 26, I testified before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology at a hearing examining the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — 30 years after it became law. The full written testimony covers issues like broadband oversight and affordability, but for Pressing Issues readers, I’ll focus on parts of the testimony tied to a recent and huge news event: the Nexstar-Tegna merger, and how it’s even worse than the Federal Communication Commission’s long-running practice of looking the other way on massive media mergers. 

The subcommittee that held this hearing is the same one that oversees the FCC and other agencies that administer laws covering TV, radio, wireless companies and internet providers. I told them that these kinds of hearings about the developments in the law and in the technologies we’ve seen come and go over three decades often look back to laugh at now quaint-sounding tech trends and touchstones.

What I wanted to do in the hearing instead was look forward to what Congress and federal agencies still must do to fulfill the Act’s goals. And to do that, I had to talk about the severe and sometimes shocking departures current FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has made from longstanding Commission practice and precedent, often thumbing his nose at Congress’ laws and the Constitution as he does.

With many Americans struggling to afford the basics, consumers and state lawmakers alike are becoming more concerned about how retailers are using algorithms — many of which rely on personal data — to price products.

One online grocery shopper got charged $3.99 for a box of Wheat Thins, while another — buying from the same store at the same time — got charged $4.89.

A consumer watchdog detected this price discrepancy during an investigation last September in Seattle. The grocery app Instacart used an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm that charged customers differently for each item by as much as 23%, Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative found. Instacart has since stopped offering grocery retailers the technology.

SpaceX emerged as a possible bidder to acquire more AWS-3 spectrum,  as a warm-up act for the upper C-band auction, in the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming auction, sparking further questions about its intent for Starlink Mobile direct-to-device services. 

First reported by Ookla analyst Mike Dano on LinkedIn, the FCC announced late last week the list of 19 companies that have applied to participate in Auction 113, which is due to start on June 2. 

Commercial data centers have become critical infrastructure, supporting everything from financial transactions to government services. And critical infrastructure is often targeted in war.

WASHINGTON, April 1, 2026 – With the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) on the cusp of finally getting off the ground, states' attempts at AI regulation may be yet another barrier to implementation. 

The administration’s actions have now halted regulation in at least two states.

Members of Louisiana state legislature withdrew their bipartisan AI regulatory bills after several legislators heard that administration officials opposed them and threatened to withhold BEAD funding, according to several legislators and reporting by NOLA. 

Hyperscale data centers have policy experts, residents and environmentalists concerned about water usage and extreme energy consumption in the Great Lakes region.

Sure, the sheer size of the hyperscale centers draws attention. An individual hyperscale data center often requires over 100 times more power to operate than a traditional data center, churning through as much as a million gallons of water per day. Still, a single data center, even a hyperscale behemoth, isn’t the issue that most concerns water experts focused on the long-term health of the Great Lakes region, home to the largest surface freshwater system on the planet and 90% of the U.S. supply of fresh water.

Blair Levin returns to reflect on the decisions that built today’s Internet—and why we may not be ready for what comes next in an AI-driven world


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Lenoir City, Tennessee officials say they’re making steady progress on their goal to deliver affordable fiber well beyond the Southern city of 12,998.

Under the collaborative umbrella of the Lenoir City Utilities Board (LCUB) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), officials say they’re leveraging century-old experience in rural electrification to help bridge the digital divide across Knox and Loudon counties.

Former FCC official Carol Mattey joins the podcast to discuss the outcome of states' revised BEAD plans, plus why she's not optimistic about USF reform.

Meta faces thousands more court cases while Congress has proposed numerous bills addressing children’s online safety, some heavily criticized.

The skies are quickly filling with communications satellites. Following is a short list of the many ventures that have or will soon be launching large numbers of broadband satellites.

Starlink now has over 10,000 operational satellites in orbit, with the ultimate announced goal of reaching 42,000 satellites. The company is not sitting still and will be introducing its new V3 satellites sometime this year, that promises to provide 10 times the download and 24 times the upload capacity of the current V2 satellites. That should mean a big boost in the capacity of the Starlink constellation and faster speeds. Starlink is likely to maintain a major advantage over competitors through its use of the reusable Starship rocket.

The Australian government has accused big tech firms like Meta, TikTok and Google of disobeying the landmark ban on under-16s using social media, after the country’s online safety office warned many children had accounts.

A survey of 900 Australian parents found around a third (31%) said their children still had one or more social media accounts after the ban, compared to 49% before the laws.

Of the total number of under 16s who had accounts on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok before the ban, 70% had maintained access, the survey found.

Vox reports... "The Supreme Court tossed out a billion-dollar verdict against an internet service provider (ISP) on Wednesday, in a closely watched case that could have severely damaged many Americans’ access to the internet if it had gone the other way.

Wednesday’s decision in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment is part of a broader pattern. It is one of a handful of recent Supreme Court cases that threatened to break the internet — or, at least, to fundamentally harm its ability to function as it has for decades. In each case, the justices took a cautious and libertarian approach. And they’ve often done so by lopsided margins. All nine justices joined the result in Cox, although Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized some of the nuances of Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion.

Some members of the Court have said explicitly that this wary approach stems from a fear that they do not understand the internet well enough to oversee it."