Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.
Donald Trump and congressional Republicans spent years waging a culture war against EVs. Now, record gas prices and a foreign war are leaving voters stuck footing the bill at the pump.
Data centers, AI safety, and billionaire taxes are at stake.
The pro-data center Republican Byron Donalds has won the race for governor, according to the AP. He beat Democrat David Jolly with just over 50 percent of the vote — a far tighter margin than predecessor Ron DeSantis in 2022.
Democratic candidates touted their credentials taking on the tech industry far more than in prior election cycles, an analysis by public policy group Reset Tech finds. Between 2020 and 2024, only two Democratic ads used the phrase “Big Tech.” From 2025 to 2026, that number was 154.
A county election official asked the election board for approval to rescan ballots from two scanners experiencing equipment issues. One scanner seemed to wrongly display that it had a paper jam, CBS News reports, while another displayed an error after a voter accidentally rolled over its cable with a wheelchair.
The nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition says it’s received over 8,000 hotline calls today, but the reported concerns are fairly standard for large elections. Rev. Dr. Katie Sexton Wood, executive director of the Arizona Faith Network, says there’s been no verified reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) near Arizona polling spots.
It’s Election Day in the United States, and data centers have become a core issue in some of the country’s most important midterm races. The Verge’s Adi Robertson explains why people are uniting against data centers, why they’ve become a proxy for all kinds of other fights, and how this year’s results might change the AI industry going forward.
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State officials got reports that DOJ monitors asked poll workers in Dearborn for their training materials, Michigan Attorney General office spokesperson Danny Wimmer confirms. The DOJ’s team overseeing Michigan monitors told state officials such actions were not part of their training, Wimmer says, and that the team would follow up.
But in a statement to The Verge, DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels says the questions monitors asked were “typical questions about election official training” that are standard on forms provided to monitors and the same as those asked under the previous administration. Pels added that the DOJ has not confimed that monitors have asked for training materials, but told Michigan officials they’d remind monitors they can ask about training, but “don’t need to request training materials.”
Update: Added DOJ statement.
In Florida, more than 20 polling sites are being moved due to intense flooding. Storms in the Southwest have also impacted some polling locations in Colorado, Newsweek reports, while Utah will let some voters impacted by flooding return ballots electronically, and Arizona officials are warning voters to check travel updates.
Polling sites across Westchester County are experiencing an issue with their voting machines, but officials say residents can still safely cast their ballots. Election officials have a backup protocol in place to ensure voting can continue.
[New York Times]
The nonpartisan coalition running the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline says the calls range from asking about general information, to reporting long lines, lack of signage, or voting equipment issues. Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York account for the most calls. So far, no calls about federal agents at the polls.
Federal election monitors are a standard procedure, but this year the Trump administration has expanded it to the “largest monitoring effort in history.” States have prepared to make sure they don’t interfere, as the administration has taken several steps this year to assert more oversight of state-run elections.
It was the last defendant in a case brought by two young social media users. Meta, TikTok, and YouTube previously settled their claims, and opening arguments were set to begin this week. But the companies will be back in court soon, with the next bellwether cases scheduled for March 2027.
Bipartisan outrage has been growing for months — but Republicans’ many advantages could still help them win.
Meta settled the latest set of claims about how its design affected a teen’s mental health, the parties confirm. YouTube and TikTok previously settled, leaving Snap the last defendant standing. Meta spokesperson Liza Crenshaw says settlements like this are common in this process. There’s plenty more left to be tried.
[The New York Times]
As tech billionaires pour record millions into Maine’s high-stakes Senate race, rural voters push back against the resource strain, rising utility costs, and phantom jobs of the AI data center boom.
“Starting 2 years from now, we will only allow for Test Labs to be based in the U.S or “Reciprocal Economies,” i.e. those places that are willing to recognize U.S.-based testing,” writes FCC chair Brendan Carr. His stated reasoning makes some sense, but it also omits important context: today’s test labs are concentrated in China because that’s where gadgets are made.
In July, the LAPD suspended its use of Flock’s cameras over concerns about how the company was handling its data. Now it’s rolling out hundreds of ALPRs from competitor Axon. The company has so far escaped the backlash Flock faced, but it’ll likely face growing scrutiny as it fills the gaps left by canceled Flock contracts.
These alerts, which Meta first brought to Instagram in February, also apply to conversations about self-harm with its AI chatbot across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.
If you or anyone you know is considering self-harm or needs to talk, contact the following people who want to help: In the US, text or call 988. Outside the US, contact https://www.iasp.info/.
On Wednesday, the nonprofit DDoSecrets published a database of more than 41,000 employee records stolen from the DHS. Bluesky, which has strict policies against sharing someone’s personal information, tells Wired that it’s blocking links to the archive because they contain people’s email addresses and phone numbers “shared without their authorization.”
The New York Times reports that US intelligence officials believe an executive at one of Nvidia’s data center customers, Megaspeed, may be a “Chinese intelligence asset,” and has a “close relationship” with Nvidia CEO Huang. Details are sparse in the article, especially on how close that relationship was — Nvidia says she’s just one of “thousands of customer executives” Huang meets every year.
[The New York Times]
JerryRigEverything belatedly got hold of a Trump phone for a midterm special durability test, including a blunt recounting of the president’s track record so far. It features more evidence that the T1 Phone is an HTC in disguise, including a repeat of iFixit’s clever trick of swapping motherboards to prove the phones are identical inside and out.
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
It also asked airlines and retailers for detailed descriptions of how they use customer information to determine what prices to show. The non-enforcement probe is similar to one launched during the Biden administration, but the Republican-led FTC criticized the prior approach as “mistaken” because of its focus on middlemen.
[Federal Trade Commission]
The US Department of Justice has “made inquiries” about the $13 billion deal, including how it could affect competition in the AI industry, according to a report from Reuters. It adds to existing regulatory scrutiny surrounding Nvidia, as it’s also reportedly facing a DOJ investigation over its AI chip dominance.
“The Gemini app answers this question more fully but this isn’t the most helpful response on Search,” Google says in a response to the Bluesky user who posted the unhelpful search answer. “We’re looking into this and working to address it.”
A few of us at The Verge weren’t able to recreate it, but Ars Technica has a good rundown of the situation with some of its own testing.
Constellation Energy will receive the funds to expand capacity at eight nuclear plants by 1.1 gigawatts. Most, if not all, of that additional capacity has already been claimed by Google, Meta, or Amazon for their data centers, according to TechCrunch.
