Anthropic's valuation soars while authors who trained its models pocket pocket change. The AI gold rush has a accountability problem.

• Snap, YouTube, and TikTok settle suit over harm to students
Snap, YouTube, and TikTok have settled a landmark lawsuit brought by a Kentucky school district alleging social media addiction drained school budgets and fueled a student mental health crisis. Meta still faces trial in the same case, which is seen as a bellwether for over 1,200 similar suits nationwide.

• Sony tries to explain that its AI Camera Assistant doesn’t suck
Sony is defending its AI Camera Assistant feature on the Xperia 1 XIII after sample photos went viral for looking terrible, but a second round of examples still isn't winning anyone over.

• NPR’s Manoush Zomorodi talks about living with too much tech
NPR host and author Manoush Zomorodi discusses her new book 'Body Electric,' a collaboration with Columbia University Medical Center examining how constant tech use is damaging our physical health.

• The haves and have nots of the AI gold rush
A Menlo Ventures partner is sounding the alarm on a deepening wealth divide in San Francisco's AI boom, where roughly 10,000 insiders are cashing out with $20M-plus while the broader tech workforce faces layoffs and existential career uncertainty.

• Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo
AI marketing platform Nectar Social raised a $30M Series A led by Menlo Ventures to expand its agentic operating system that helps brands manage social media, creator workflows, and commerce conversations end-to-end.

• Research repository ArXiv will ban authors for a year if they let AI do all the work
ArXiv, the go-to preprint repository for computer science and math research, will ban authors for one year if they submit papers with clear evidence of unchecked AI-generated content, such as hallucinated references or visible LLM prompts.

• The US is betting on AI to catch insider trading in prediction markets
The CFTC is deploying AI-powered surveillance tools to hunt down insider traders on prediction markets like Polymarket, signaling a serious regulatory crackdown after a year of rampant suspicious trading.

• Russia pressures university students to become wartime drone pilots
Russia is recruiting university students as drone pilots with promises of free tuition and up to $70,000, but at least one 23-year-old recruit has already been killed in combat just three months into his training.

• Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement is getting messy as judge delays approval
A federal judge has delayed final approval of Anthropic's $1.5 billion AI copyright settlement after authors objected that lawyers are pocketing over $320 million while individual creators receive just $3,000 each.

• FlatironDragados advances $518M Virginia floodwater project
FlatironDragados is moving forward on a $518 million floodwater management project in Virginia, marking a major infr