In a widely expected move, a committee organized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has voted to endorse removing restrictions on the manufacture of peptides for human use. Thursday's panel meeting saw a sharply divided group recommend lifting limits on four peptides; votes on three additional peptides are scheduled for today. The move comes despite a continuing lack of evidence regarding their safety and effectiveness.

The move had been telegraphed months earlier as peptide enthusiast and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took steps to ensure this outcome.

Like proteins, peptides are composed of amino acids that are chemically linked into a chain. Peptides differ merely by length; they're often 10–20 amino acids long, in contrast to proteins, which can be hundreds or thousands. Some of them, such as insulin, are specifically made by targeted processing of a protein into shorter fragments, and the resulting peptide interacts with receptors that have evolved to send signals to cells based on its levels.

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Meta avoided a closely watched social media addiction trial after the plaintiff dropped the remaining claim, leaving broader questions over platform design unresolved.

The post Why Meta Escaped a Landmark Social Media Lawsuit appeared first on TechRepublic.

France will ban social media for children under 15, requiring nationwide age checks and raising privacy and platform compliance concerns.

The post France Bans Social Media for Under-15s, Requires Age Checks appeared first on TechRepublic.

Trump administration AI testing chief Chris Fall resigned after just 90 days, leaving CAISI under interim leadership during a critical period for AI safety standards.

The post Trump’s AI Safety Chief Is Out — After Just 90 Days on the Job appeared first on TechRepublic.

On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released preliminary findings verifying Elon Musk’s and Tesla’s claims that a driver involved in a fatal Texas crash that killed a grandmother overrode Full Self Driving in the moments ahead of impact.

Last month, 44-year-old Michael Butler told police that the autopilot feature was engaged at the time of the crash. On X, Musk disputed the claim, writing that Butler must have overridden the feature because “FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets, and this was a high-speed crash!” Moving to back Musk’s claim, Tesla’s vice president of AI software, Ashok Elluswamy, said that internal data showed “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100 percent of the accel pedal in this residential area.”

NTSB’s preliminary report, which does not yet determine what caused the crash, confirmed Tesla’s claims. Its probe found that FSD was engaged at the time of the crash, but electronic data showed “the driver manually overrode FSD (Supervised) by pressing the accelerator pedal to 100 percent.”

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The UK plans a midnight-to-6 a.m. social media curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds, with autoplay and personalised feeds switched off by default from spring 2027.

The post UK to Introduce Midnight Social Media Curfew for Older Teens appeared first on TechRepublic.

A number of social media posts claim that GPT-5.6 Sol deleted files and data without warning. OpenAI had basically disclosed the problem in June.

EU regulators preliminarily found Meta’s Facebook and Instagram design addictive, raising the prospect of app changes and a potential $12.1 billion fine.

The post Meta Faces EU Breach Finding Over Addictive Facebook, Instagram Design appeared first on TechRepublic.

OpenAI has doubled its top bio bounty to $50,000 for researchers who can develop a universal jailbreak against its biological safety challenge. The ongoing private program begins with GPT-5.6 and keeps GPT-5.5 in scope through July 27, 2026.

The post OpenAI Raises Bio Bounty to $50,000 for Universal Jailbreaks appeared first on TechRepublic.

The European Union is ramping up pressure on Meta to make big changes to Facebook and Instagram after the European Commission preliminarily found that features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and highly personalized content recommendations were addictive.

On Thursday, the EC said its investigation indicated that “Meta did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults.”

“These features fuel the user's urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode,' contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use,” the commission said.

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Meta’s Cheyenne AI data center project was linked to the presence of rare bacteria in reclaimed irrigation water, adding scrutiny to local data center wastewater rules.

The post Meta AI Data Center Linked to Rare Bacteria Water Scare appeared first on TechRepublic.

One of the most horrific cases of allegedly Grok-generated child sex images was shared in a proposed class action lawsuit that was expanded Tuesday. Now, young girls not only accuse X and xAI of building toxic AI "nudify" tools but also of shielding child predators by obstructing police investigations into Grok-generated child sex abuse materials (CSAM).

In March, a girl’s stepfather took his own life after cops discovered that he had used Grok to create 7,000 sexually explicit images using one photo taken when his stepdaughter was 11 years old, the amended complaint alleged.

Grok allowed the man to generate extreme images depicting incest and rape without flagging any harmful behavior, the complaint said. Seemingly, xAI’s child safety system only intervened after the man input a prompt for “gang rape.” That request sent a CyberTip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which alerted law enforcement to the AI CSAM.

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