Madison Square Garden's James Dolan Is Spending Big on New York's Governor Race James Dolan has put surveillance at the center of his sports and entertainment empire. Now he's getting involved in GOP politics by backing a candidate who supports Flock, ICE, and AI data centers. Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for New York governor, promised last November to erect a wall of spy gear, license plate readers, and biometric surveillance between the city and the suburbs. He has since received millions of dollars in donations from the family and businesses of James Dolan, the owner of Madison Square Garden, where a network of cameras capture the faces of (nearly) every patron who walks in the arena and corporate security forces hunt for critics of the boss. Dolan's support of Blakeman, the executive of suburban Nassau County, could be seen as something of a counterintuitive move in a state long run by Democrats, and in a year when political surveys are picking up indications of a blue wave.

Andy Burnham once kept Palantir out of Greater Manchester. His first test as prime minister is whether to cut the company's £330 million NHS contract--and risk a rupture with Big Tech and Washington. When Andy Burnham sat in his office in Manchester as the regional mayor, building an unrivaled power base on Britain's left that ultimately catapulted him into the prime minister's office, he did so in the only region of England that refused Palantir access to its data. Now, as Burnham enters his first parliamentary session as British leader, Palantir could prove to be his first major test in office, as sources in Westminster tell WIRED the prime minister is under significant pressure from his new colleagues to break the company's contentious contract with the National Health Service. The dispute could become the first major crisis of Burnham's premiership, with those sources saying pressure is mounting on him to decide the future of Palantir's growing role across the British state in the coming weeks.

Charlie Kirk Was Shot a Year Ago. Experts say conspiracy theorizing about the identity and motive of Charlie Kirk's killer will likely continue for a long time to come. In the days after the assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point cofounder Charlie Kirk, the online reaction was a mess. Graphic videos of the shooting were everywhere within minutes of his death, far-right figures called for violence and vengeance, and right-wing lawmakers and influencers called for the cancellation --and worse--of anyone celebrating. Then, the conspiracy theories began .

UK Lawmakers Are Freaking Out Over AI's Summer of Chaos As AI agents go rogue and fears of superintelligence grow, politicians are raising the alarm over its potential harm to human existence. A leading British politician has urged the United Nations to intervene in "the unsafe development of super intelligence" after an Anthropic team leader posted: "We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!" Whether "marketing hype" or signposting of a genuine extinction threat, "governments must step in," Labour MP Darren Jones wrote in an open letter also addressed to the UK prime minister and international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Jones is the latest lawmaker scrambling to find ways to protect the British public from AI threats to safety. Just one day earlier, Labour MP Alex Sobel had introduced a parliamentary bill proposing to ban the "development, deployment, and operation of artificial superintelligence"--systems which can fully replace and outmatch humans at any task.

Why China Is the Bogeyman Data Center Enthusiasts Just Can't Quit Polls show that overwhelming majorities of Americans hate data centers. China makes a perfect scapegoat for tech leaders and their allies--the only problem is a lack of evidence. Welcome to the first edition of Power Play! From now until the midterms, senior writer Molly Taft will be sharing their thoughts every Sunday on this political season's hottest issue: data centers. We welcome reader comments, and will be answering questions from the comments section in future editions. Be sure to catch WIRED's first livestream on data centers this Thursday, September 10, featuring Molly, senior politics correspondent Hugo Lowell, and senior business writer Max Zeff!

The company is reducing pressure on workers to use artificial intelligence tools while encouraging them to experiment with Hatch, its most advanced AI project yet. Meta is formally ending what amounted to a tokenmaxxing incentive program for employees. In an internal announcement this week, the social media giant told workers that their performance evaluations would no longer be dependent upon how much they used AI tools, three employees who received the message tell WIRED. But as Meta workers simultaneously begin testing a new agentic AI tool known as Hatch, they say their token consumption continues to surge. Almost a year ago, Meta had said workers would be graded on their AI-driven impact," which in practice meant evaluating the extent to which they used chatbots and agents to improve their day-to-day work, Business Insider reported at the time . Usage correlated with employees receiving labels such as "AI Native," "AI First," or "AI Enabled," according to a lawsuit filed in July by about two dozen employees arguing that Meta violated US antidiscrimination laws when laying them off in May. New guidance for performance reviews unveiled this week replaces references to evaluating employees based on criteria like "usage of AI" and their "AI Native" designation, with looser wording, which caveats that "these outcomes can be supported by AI or other means." It restores Meta's focus to grading employees on their impact, with less regard to how it is achieved. Some Meta employees tell WIRED the changes are subtle but welcome, freeing them from feeling pressured to use AI in situations in which it doesn't make sense. Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton tells WIRED that the updates this week aim to emphasize what has always been the case--Meta evaluates employees based on their contributions. He adds that labels such as "AI Native" were never used for performance evaluation. Engineers across the company were told this week that the company "will not use AI adoption dashboards or token counts to evaluate impact," The Information reported on Wednesday. "Are you a current or former Meta employee who wants to talk about what's happening?

The US government wrote a letter in support of OpenAI's argument that training AI on others' intellectual property is fair use. The Trump Administration just took OpenAI's side in the artificial intelligence company's legal battle with the New York Times. Now, the government has stepped in, arguing that OpenAI's actions were within bounds. "Constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility," lawyers for the government wrote. While the letter focuses on the New York Times and OpenAI, the government noted that its arguments apply to all of the parties in this case and related cases, including other publishers and authors.

You Know Who Really Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters Of the Glassdoor reviews from claims adjusters that mentioned AI, a staggering 98 percent were negative. "AI is just a tool," one person tells WIRED. "It should never be given the keys." On the job review platform Glassdoor, one faction hates artificial intelligence more than any other. "Pushing AI to the point that you are asking humans not to use their thoughts and brains is such a turn off," reads one representative review.

The unexpected interruption came hours before the president wrote a congratulatory post on Truth Social about the company's most recent earnings report. US President Donald Trump listens as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the White House during an event on "Investing in America" on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump interrupted Nvidia's all-hands staff meeting on Thursday morning when he called CEO Jensen Huang midway through, three sources who witnessed the interaction tell WIRED. Nvidia's all-hands meetings typically involve Huang presenting or answering questions, on stage, to in-person staff at the company's Santa Clara, California, headquarters, while thousands of remote employees tune in to a virtual livestream. During the meeting on Thursday, Huang received a call on his mobile phone, which he stepped aside to take.

Alpharetta, Georgia, cops share data with thousands of Flock users, ranging from federal agencies to a fish and wildlife commission. The reasons why show how vast--and invasive--the network has become. Alpharetta, a prosperous suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, is home to about 67,000 people, served by about 120 local police officers. It also hosts several dozen cameras sold by Flock Safety, the increasingly controversial surveillance company that collects license plate data and other information and makes it searchable by police. WIRED has made this article free for all to read because it is primarily based on reporting from public records requests. Please consider subscribing to support our journalism.