The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules to unleash submarine cable deployment for the United States. Submarine cable systems move the vast majority of the world’s internet traffic and strengthen the nation’s capacity to maintain secure, dependable communications across consumer, commercial, and defense sectors. The new rules adopted will speed up the rollout of submarine cables—the backbone and unsung heroes of the global internet. They also support the essential capacity for the increasing computing demands and connectivity for artificial intelligence. The Report and Order enhances submarine cable security and adopts a range of measures to streamline and accelerate the deployment of secure submarine cable infrastructure. Specifically, the rules presumptively exempt cable applications from the rigorous Team Telecom licensing review when licensees can certify to high security standards that are structured to increase certainty, predictability, and faster timelines for the licensing process.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said that ABC is running a “campaign of misinformation” about the regulatory agency’s inquiry into the network’s daytime talk show “The View.” Disney’s ABC recently launched a campaign in opposition to the FCC’s investigation into whether “The View” should be subject to its “equal time” rules, which require a network that features a candidate during election season to offer similar airtime to rival contenders. The network started running spots during “The View” that told viewers the FCC “wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show.” ABC urged viewers to weigh in in support of “The View” by filing comments on the FCC’s website. In his remarks following the agency’s June monthly meeting, Chairman Carr said the FCC isn’t trying to control who goes on the show but is “enforcing the provisions” passed by Congress.

Communities in Island, Kitsap, and Okanogan (WA) counties will receive a combined $5.1 million for four broadband projects to enhance online education, telehealth, public safety and local economic development opportunities, while extending reliable, high-speed broadband access to unserved or underserved households and businesses. The funding is from the Coronavirus Capital Project Fund and was awarded by the Washington State Public Works Board. Awards:

• Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation: $2,630,787 grant to build 5 miles of fiber to 205 residences and 10 commercial businesses. The project area includes three low-income housing clusters managed by Colville Indian Housing Authority. This project will help the community achieve its goal to bring reliable and affordable high-speed broadband to all residents and businesses on the Colville Reservation.
• Public Utility District No. 1 of Kitsap County: $992,760 grant to expand reliable broadband access to Kitsap County’s workforce, which has a strong connection to remote work, naval and defense-related employment, small businesses and tourism-based economies. This project will also significantly improve access to online learning for any households with students in the North Kitsap, Central Kitsap, South Kitsap and Bainbridge Island School Districts.
• Public Utility District No. 1 of Okanogan County: $717,900 grant to upgrade the district’s broadband infrastructure to a high-speed transport network, alleviating existing and anticipated bottlenecks along critical connectivity paths. By reducing structural cost barriers and enabling competitive retail markets, the investment supports long-term broadband affordability for low-income households while remaining consistent with the district’s wholesale open access mission.
• Whidbey Telephone Company: $758,553 grant to build fiber to the home network to areas throughout Coupeville without access to high-speed internet service. The project will directly serve about 144 homes and locations.

Lawmakers across the nation are increasingly looking to a new tool to protect people’s personal data online: A public repository of the companies collecting, selling and sharing people’s phone numbers, addresses, and shopping habits. Four states currently have laws on the books requiring so-called data brokers—the companies that collect and sell millions of people’s information—to register in a public database, serving as a directory for people to send data deletion requests and potential targets for enforcers. Connecticut became the latest state in May to pass such a law (though, it won’t take effect until 2027), and lawmakers in Washington are considering similar requirements in the Republican-backed SECURE Data Act and the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s bipartisan agreement on kids’ safety legislation. The registries have strong bipartisan support, meaning states are likely to continue adopting similar laws if Congress doesn’t. In Connecticut, the bill to update the state’s data privacy law to include a data broker registry passed overwhelmingly and cleared both chambers before being signed by the governor, said its co-sponsor, Sen. James Maroney (D-CT).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming woven into the everyday lives of American kids. For advocates in the youth education space, there aren't enough safeguards for the AI platforms kids are using. The 2026 Common Sense Media Census: AI Teens and Tweens is the first in a series of studies intended to track young people’s experiences with AI over time. Common Sense considers the knowledge and experience that kids aged 9 to 17 (or "teens and tweens") have with AI, including how often they use it, what they use it for, and the questions and advice they seek. Ultimately, Common Sense finds that AI use is widespread and serves a range of needs for teens and tweens, from cognitive to emotional, but may not always meet those needs safely or fully.

AI is moving from chat and web search to delegated work. The frontier AI labs have spent years promising that effective AI agents will act as our minions in the workplace and at home, and that might soon be a reality. Use of Codex—OpenAI's agentic coding and work platform—is accelerating, according to a new report from OpenAI, Columbia, Duke, and the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers separate Codex users into three categories: OpenAI employees, outside organizations, and individual users. Then they measured usage of Codex versus ChatGPT, by tokens.

• 99.8% of OpenAI employees' output tokens were produced with Codex, compared with 63% for organizations and 16.5% for individuals.
• OpenAI's own Codex use is meant to represent how users might turn to agents when cost, access, training and buy-in are mostly removed.
• Among active users of ChatGPT and Codex at organizations outside OpenAI, just above 0% used Codex in August 2025. That share is now around 17%.

The number of individuals using Codex is still small, but those who use it use it a lot, per the report.

Stanley Woodward, a top Justice Department official, has told antitrust enforcers he prefers they stop taking cases to trial and settle them instead. Some lawyers at the department interpreted the comments from the department’s third-ranking official as a directive to resolve any litigation against companies and avoid future litigation. Woodward, who now directly oversees antitrust enforcement, has said internally that he favors avoiding drawn-out, manpower-intensive litigation. Woodward’s posture could weaken the department’s ability to challenge anticompetitive mergers and could put settlements of monopolization lawsuits on a faster track. The Justice Department is actively battling Apple and Visa in federal court over monopolization claims.