Techmeme
September 18, 2026, 6:45 PM

Top News

CNN:
Sources: the US “almost started a war” after an AI-assisted report hallucinated that a Chinese ship in the Middle East was carrying nuclear weapons components  —  The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran …
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Security researchers in OpenAI's bug bounty program hacked OpenAI in July and accessed its “monorepo” on GitHub, using Opus 4.8 for cybersecurity and Opus 5  —  A bug-hunting independent security research team was able to access OpenAI's internal code system, exposing growing risks in automated cyber threats
Anthropic:
Anthropic partners with Accenture to embed evaluators within Anthropic, including red teaming models and conducting alignment assessments  —  We're partnering with Accenture on independent evaluation of frontier AI.  This is an important step toward the commitment, made in our CEO's essay …
Reuters:
Anthropic Life Sciences Head Eric Kauderer-Abrams says the AI startup set up a Bay Area wet lab for physical biology work, as it pushes into disease treatment  —  Anthropic has quietly set up a laboratory to do physical biology work as it pushes its artificial-intelligence ambitions into the world of drug science.
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signs an EO to slow down data center approvals, create an AI task force to evaluate workforce displacement, and more  —  Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed an executive order addressing data canters and AI risks. … Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) …
Reuters:
Bloomberg:
Governor Gavin Newsom signs an EO directing a working group to provide a guide in two months with measures to boost California's AI safety and security laws  —  California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Friday pushing to implement guardrails on artificial intelligence …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney hires former Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand as its first CTO; about a year ago, Disney accused Character.AI of infringing its copyrights  —  Disney chief Josh D'Amaro, in a move that shows he's trying to position the Mouse House as a tech-forward entertainment company …
CoinDesk:
Singapore-licensed dtcpay, which offers stablecoin payments across Europe, Hong Kong, Australia, and North America, raised a $25M Series A  —  Stablecoin payments firm dtcpay announced today the formal completion of its $25 million Series A funding round, securing a strategic investment from Japan's financial giant, the SBI Group.
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
The US Treasury sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, saying it sent hundreds of millions to the IRGC and helped Iran operate a Strait of Hormuz toll booth  —  Iran has spent this year charging tankers between $1 million and $2 million to cross the Strait of Hormuz …
Lydia Beyoud / Bloomberg:
The US CFTC exempts “passive software” providers from broker registration if they never hold user assets, expanding crypto and prediction market online trading  —  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission moved to expand crypto and prediction market trading via online platforms …

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Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
Financial Times: