A slew of top Oscar contenders won ACE Eddie Awards for the best in editing on Friday night, affirming their positioning as top Oscar contenders as final Academy voting has just gotten underway.
When it came to top best-picture candidates One Battle After Anotherand Sinners, at least, the American Cinema Editors guild did not have to decide, with One Battle’s Andy Jurgensen and Sinners’ Michael P. Shawver, respectively, winning the theatrical comedy and theatrical drama categories. The Oscars only have one editing category, of course, and both ACE Eddie winners are nominated there alongside Sentimental Value, Marty Supreme and F1 — all of which were nominated for ACE Eddies between their two main theatrical categories.
Netflix dominated the rest of the feature-film lineup, with KPop Demon Hunters’ Nathan Schaufwinning for animation and The Perfect Neighbor’s Viridiana Lieberman taking home the documentary award. Both movies continue to cruise to Oscar night, where they’re heavily favored to win — though The Perfect Neighbor’s biggest competition, BAFTA doc winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin, was not nominated here.
Moving to TV, Mark Strand of awards juggernaut The Pittwon in drama, overtaking Andor, which actually won the equivalent Emmy back in the fall. The Studiostayed strong in comedy, with Eric Kissack winning the ACE Eddie for the series premiere “The Promotion,” just as he did at the Emmys.
The limited series race was of particular interest, since the single-take-driven Adolescence wasn’t nominated here (just as it wasn’t in the Emmys’ editing race). While The Penguinhad three of the five Emmy-nominated episodes, it lost with the Television Academy to Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, likely a result of vote-splitting. Here, ACE nominated only Henk van Eeghen for the series finale, and he has managed to win. It’s oddly late recognition of the drama, which aired way back in 2024 — in fact, despite its single season, this is the second straight year of ACE Eddie noms for the show because the finale fit within an extended eligibility period.
Taking place at UCLA’s Royce Hall, the ACE Eddie Awards were hosted by Asif Ali and featured several special award presentations: The ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award went to Ang Lee; YouTube’s Kim Larson received the ACE Visionary Award; and Arthur Forney and Robert Leighton won ACE Career Achievement awards. See below for the full list of winners.
EDITED FEATURE FILM (Drama, Theatrical):
Sinners Michael P. Shawver
BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (Comedy, Theatrical):
One Battle After Another Andy Jurgensen
BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
KPop Demon Hunters Nathan Schauf
BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:
The Perfect Neighbor Viridiana Lieberman
BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Pee-wee as Himself – Part One Damian Rodriguez
BEST EDITED MULTI-CAMERA COMEDY SERIES:
Frasier (Murder Most Finch) Russell Griffin, ACE
BEST EDITED SINGLE CAMERA COMEDY SERIES:
The Studio (The Promotion) Eric Kissack, ACE
BEST EDITED DRAMA SERIES:
The Pitt (6 p.m.) Mark Strand, ACE
BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (NON-THEATRICAL):
A Winter’s Song Yvette M. Amirian, ACE
BEST EDITED LIMITED SERIES:
The Penguin (A Great or Little Thing) Henk van Eeghen, ACE
BEST EDITED REALITY SERIES:
Conan O’Brien Must Go (Austria) Matthew Shaw, ACE Brad Roelandt
BEST EDITED VARIETY TALK/SKETCH SHOW OR SPECIAL:
Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special Paul Del Gesso Christopher Salerno Ryan Spears Sean Mcilraith, ACE Ryan Mcilraith Daniel Garcia
BEST EDITED ANIMATED SERIES:
South Park, “Twisted Christian” David List Nate Pellettieri
BEST EDITED SHORT:
All The Empty Rooms Erin Casper, ACE Stephen Maing Jeremy Medoff
ANNE V. COATES AWARD FOR STUDENT EDITING:
Luis Barragan – California State University, Fullerton
PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest
products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying
decisions and get more from technology.
A RUSI paper based on a public-private roundtable discussion has called for greater collaboration between privacy tool developers and law enforcement.
Participants at the roundtable repeatedly stressed that banning privacy solutions, such as privacy pools and ZK-proofs, would simply make illicit activity harder to detect.
The paper highlights several legitimate uses for privacy solutions, including company confidentiality and protection for potential wrench attacks.
A report from the world’s oldest defense and security think tank has warned against banning blockchain-based privacy tools, arguing that blanket prohibition would merely result in bad actors using noncompliant services.
In a paper titled, ‘Privacy-Enhancing Technologies in the Crypto Industry,’ the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) highlighted a “need to balance compliance objectives” with the growing role of privacy-related protocols and platforms in the cryptocurrency sector.
It observed that growing demand for privacy solutions currently derives from four legitimate sources. They include individuals and entities wanting to avoid targeting by hackers, privacy concerns in the face of AI-related data mining by companies; privacy concerns of cryptocurrency businesses; and reducing the risk that high-net-worth and/or prominent individuals will be targeted by criminals or authoritarian governments.
Based on roundtable discussions convened by the UK Home Office and National Economic Crime Centre in July 2025, the report highlights several blockchain-based privacy technologies, including zero-knowledge proofs, confidential stablecoins and privacy pools.
While acknowledging that illicit actors are naturally attracted to privacy tools and “succeed by taking advantage of innovation,” the paper reports that roundtable participants—which included industry players as well as regulators and enforcement agencies—made the point “several times” that there was a “need to not ban” privacy solutions.
“The participants highlighted that banning the technology would result in illicit actors using unregulated services,” the report reads. “As a result, law enforcement would have fewer entities to reach out to and request information from, subsequently limiting options for further investigations.”
Instead, the roundtable participants agreed on the value of expanding collaboration between officials and providers, and of using privacy-enhancing technologies to aid law enforcement practices and “improve detection of illicit activity.”
Crypto privacy and compliance
The report’s author, RUSI Associate Fellow Allison Owen, told Decrypt that it’s important for policymakers and enforcement agencies to work together with developers to ensure that privacy solutions integrate compliance features.
“From the roundtable, it is clear that the participating companies that integrate PETs and compliance features are willing to engage with the public sector,” she said.
While accepting that there will always be individuals with bad intentions, Owen emphasized that this shouldn’t “cloud the possibility of responsible actors using the technology to benefit society.”
Indeed, the report focuses almost exclusively on the legitimate uses of privacy solutions, highlighting their utility in the context of increasingly frequent “$5 wrench attacks,” which in 2025 claimed record losses of $41 million.
It also discusses other drivers of usage, such as cryptocurrency firms wanting to keep crypto-based salaries confidential, as well as wanting to keep their business practices and fund flows private from competitors.
Based on such practices, the roundtable’s participants generally believed that privacy-enhancing mechanisms “will continue to grow,” with zero-knowledge proofs in particular being integrated increasingly into business practices by the end of this year.
However, despite this optimism Owen herself told Decrypt that “extensive” collaboration between developers and the public sector needs to happen before trust in crypto-related privacy solutions reaches a critical mass.
“Building trust through the integration of compliance features will ultimately expand the use of the technology,” she said. “The roundtable reflects a step forward in driving these discussions around how to balance compliance and user privacy.”
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
United States President Donald Trump said he is directing every federal agency to immediately cease work with artificial intelligence lab Anthropic, adding there would be a six-month phaseout for the Department of Defense and other agencies that use the company’s products.
“I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Trump’s directive came during a weeks-long feud between the Pentagon and the San Francisco-based startup over concerns about how the military could use AI at war.
Spokespeople for Anthropic, which has a $200m contract with the Pentagon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s decision stopped short of threats issued by the Pentagon, including that it could invoke the Defense Production Act to require Anthropic’s compliance.
The Pentagon had also said it considered making Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a designation that previously targeted businesses tied to foreign adversaries.
Trump’s comments came just over an hour before the Pentagon’s deadline for Anthropic to allow unrestricted military use of its AI technology or face consequences – and nearly 24 hours after CEO Dario Amodei said his company “cannot in good conscience accede” to the Defense Department’s demands.
Calling the company “left-wing nut jobs”, the president said Anthropic made a mistake trying to strong-arm the Pentagon. Trump wrote on Truth Social that most agencies must immediately stop using Anthropic’s AI, but gave the Pentagon a six-month period to phase out the technology that is already embedded in military platforms.
“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump wrote.
At issue in the defence contract was a clash over AI’s role in national security. Anthropic had said it sought narrow assurances from the Pentagon that Claude won’t be used for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. But after months of private talks exploded into public debate, it said in a Thursday statement that new contract language “framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will”.
Trump threatened further action if Anthropic did not cooperate with the phaseout. Trump warned he would use “the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow” if Anthropic did not help in the phaseout period.
‘Threatening’ move
The setback comes as AI leader Anthropic raced to win a fierce competition selling novel technology to businesses and government, particularly for national security, ahead of its widely expected initial public offering. The company has said it has not finalised an IPO decision.
Anthropic was the first frontier AI lab to put its models on classified networks via cloud provider Amazon.com and the first to build customised models for national security customers, the startup has said.
Its product, Claude, is in use across the intelligence community and armed services.
US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, criticised the action taken by Trump, a Republican.
“The president’s directive to halt the use of a leading American AI company across the federal government, combined with inflammatory rhetoric attacking that company, raises serious concerns about whether national security decisions are being driven by careful analysis or political considerations.”
The conflict is the latest eruption in a saga that dates back at least to 2018. That year, employees at Alphabet’s Google protested the Pentagon’s use of the company’s AI to analyse drone footage, straining relations between Silicon Valley and Washington. A rapprochement ensued, with companies including Amazon and Microsoft jostling for defence business, and still more CEOs pledging cooperation last year with the Trump administration.
The dispute stunned AI developers in Silicon Valley, where a growing number of workers from Anthropic’s top rivals, OpenAI and Google, voiced support for Amodei’s stand in open letters and other forums.
“The Pentagon is negotiating with Google and OpenAI to try to get them to agree to what Anthropic has refused,” says the open letter from some OpenAI and Google employees. “They’re trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in.”
And in a surprise move from one of Amodei’s fiercest rivals, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Friday sided with Anthropic and, in a CNBC interview, questioned the Pentagon’s “threatening” move, suggesting that OpenAI and most of the AI field share the same red lines. Amodei once worked for OpenAI before he and other OpenAI leaders quit to form Anthropic in 2021.
“For all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company, and I think they really do care about safety,” Altman told CNBC.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has broadened its prosecution of the protesters involved in a church demonstration to 39 people, up from nine.
The demonstration was part of a backlash to Trump’s deadly immigration surge in the Midwestern state of Minnesota, but officials have sought to frame the protest as an attack on religious freedom.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the expanded indictment on Friday in a message posted to social media.
“Today, [the Justice Department] unsealed an indictment charging 30 more people who took part in the attack on Cities Church in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote. “At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day.”
She added a warning to other protesters who might seek to disrupt a religious service.
“YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP,” Bondi said. “If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you. This Department of Justice STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith.”
Appealing to Christian voters
Since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought to appeal to Christian conservatives by launching initiatives, for example, to root out anti-Christian bias and prevent alleged acts of Christian persecution, both domestically and in countries like Nigeria.
But critics have accused his administration of attempting to stifle opposition through its prosecution of the Minnesota protest attendees.
Some of those indicted deny even being a part of the January 18 protest. Defendants like former CNN anchor Don Lemon and reporter Georgia Fort say they attended in their capacity as journalists.
Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges and have publicly questioned whether their prosecution is an attempt to curtail freedom of the press.
The superseding indictment, filed on Thursday, levies two counts against the 39 defendants, accusing them of conspiracy against the right of religious freedom and efforts to injure, intimidate or interfere with the exercise of religious freedom.
“While inside the Church, defendants collectively oppressed, threatened and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors by physically occupying the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the church,” the indictment reads
It also describes the protesters as “engaging in menacing and threatening behavior” by “chanting and yelling loudly” and obstructing exits.
A magistrate judge on January 22 initially rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to charge nine attendees who were at the protest.
But the department sought a grand jury indictment instead, which was filed on January 29 and made public the next day.
A reaction to Trump’s immigration surge
The protest, dubbed “Operation Pullup”, was conceived as a response to the violent immigration crackdown that had unfolded in Minnesota.
Many of the enforcement efforts centred on the metropolitan area that includes the Twin Cities: St Paul and Minneapolis.
Trump had repeatedly blamed the area’s large Somali American population for a welfare fraud scandal involving government funds for programmes like Medicaid and school lunches.
In December, the Trump administration surged federal immigration agents to the region, nicknaming the effort Operation Metro Surge. At its height, as many as 3,000 agents were in the Minneapolis-St Paul area.
But the effort was plagued by reports of excessive violence towards detainees and protesters alike. Videos circulated of officers breaking the car windows of legal observers, pepper-spraying protesters and beating people.
Officers also engaged in the practice of entering homes forcibly without a judicial warrant, which advocates described as a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Cases of unlawful arrests were also reported.
But a turning point came on January 7, when an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was caught on camera shooting into the vehicle of 37-year-old mother Renee Good. She died, and her killing triggered nationwide protests.
Operation Pullup took place at Cities Church in St Paul less than two weeks later.
It was intended as a demonstration against the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, who serves as a local official for ICE.
Several protesters have indicated that they are prepared to fight the government’s charges over the incident, citing their First Amendment rights to free speech.
Some also said that they intended to remain vigilant towards government immigration operations, even after Trump administration officials announced Operation Metro Surge was winding down in mid-February.
“This is not the time to be Minnesota Nice,” one protester, civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong, wrote on social media last week. “It’s time for truth, justice, and freedom to prevail.”
Is the 1977 album “The Beach Boys Love You” a classic and essential part of this great American band’s catalog, or a lark? It’s so different from virtually every other album the group ever recorded over a nearly 50-year period, there will always be some split over that — maybe even internally, because even core member Al Jardine says he wasn’t that high on the record until relatively recently. But it’s fair to say that if you are really, really, really into the recorded output of Brian Wilson, there’s an outstanding chance you have consumed whatever Kool-Aid is necessary to have joined the choir of fans who have been singing the praises of “Love You” ever since it came out and flopped.
Now, it’s getting its due and then some. Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band — which is essentially the group that toured with Brian Wilson as a solo artist for many years — have been doing tour dates where they’ve performed most of the “Love You” album live. On Friday night, for the very first time ever, the ensemble will play the entire record, not leaving out a single track. Anyone who has heard them perform any of this material live will know it’s well worth the pilgrimage… as is any set of theirs that’s mostly limited to the core canon, given how faithfully they have been bringing any Brian song to full-fleshed life for decades before and months since the pop genius’ death.
Before a different SoCal show recently, Variety caught up backstage with Jardine and one of the key architects of the Brian Wilson/Pet Sounds Band, Darian Sahanaja, who was known as a member of the L.A. group the Wondermints before he began training virtually all his passion onto the Wilson ouevre. Following is an edited version of that conversation.
In the meantime, for anyone reading this before Friday night’s show, it takes place at the United Theater on Broadway in downtown L.A. at 8 p.m. Tickets can be found here. For an itinerary of other upcoming shows, in which a good chunk of “Love You” might still be played, check here.
(For those who can’t make it to a show — or those who can — there is also a new boxed set out from UMe that focuses on the “Love You” album and its outtakes, along with material from right before and after that project. Read more about that collection in Variety‘s previous coverage here.)
Al Jardine: We should bring in some of the fellas in the band, because it’s fascinating from their point of view. They’re the ones that talked me into doing this “Love You” album. It’s a pretty big deal. They call Darian the librarian. He’s got all this stuff in the back of his head, and he wanted to do this in a bad way. And I thought it was a great way to put the band back together, after Brian passed. Well, even before Brian passed, we’d been trying to get the band back together.
Did it help, in reforming Brian’s band, to have kind of an excuse to do something different than what you were doing when he was around?
Jardine: Yeah, it gave us a focus a priority, this long-awaited completion of the idea to do the “Love You” album and bring it to the forefront of our activity, musically. The band hadn’t worked since ’22, and I just wanted to to get it back together. Thanks to Darian, we’d been sharing this idea for quite a while, but for some reason, it just never happened while Brian was with us, even though it was a very personal thing for him, especially. Who knows why. But it’s happening. [To Darian] I’m so glad you convinced me, because we kept going back and forth. He said, “If you do this, if we accomplish this, people are gonna come out of the cities, they’re gonna come out of the woods, Al…”
Darian Sahanaja: Yeah, you were doubtful. I think you were kind of like, “Really? People like that album?”
Jardine: Well, it was very, very understated, and my participation in it was (just) as a vocalist, coming out of the woods in Big Sur to come down to do a session. It was a major thing in itself, just physically and mentally getting into the process of recording it, and it didn’t sound like a Beach Boy album to me. It was great, but it seemed like more of a Brian project, which of course it was. It was dedicated to him by his brothers, and particularly Carl (Wilson). Carl was the de facto producer, really, and pulled us all together so that Brian would be at ease, writing these songs.
Sahanaja: He was coming out of an era when he was sort of hiding out in his room and not really doing much. Well, there was that whole “Brian’s back” campaign, right?
Jardine: With “15 Big Ones” [the album immediately preceding “The Beach Boys Love You”]. And he wasn’t really entirely back. It was a big promotion that Mike (Love) put together with his brother, trying to make something out of nothing, quite honestly.
Sahanaja: But the way you described how Brian put this music together and brought you guys in sort of in the late stage to sing on it, I don’t know why, but I see that as a very similar — maybe in a completely different context —to the way you did “Pet Sounds” [in the mid-‘60s]. Because in the same way, you guys were on tour, so it was very personal for Brian at the time. He put all the tracks together, and then the guys came into town and you laid down the tracks. I almost see that as a similar approach for Brian. And that’s why I consider “Love You” probably Brian’s second-most-personal album, after “Pet Sounds,” because basically, he wrote all the songs. I mean, even more personal in a way, because he wrote most of the lyrics. With “Pet Sounds,” he had Tony (Asher as lyricist), as you know.
Jardine: Of course, Mike and I did write a couple songs, but they pale in comparison to his personal stuff. It’s just remarkable. And I admit I didn’t really appreciate it, because we were in the hit mode. We were on tour all the time. We were like, “We gotta have another hit. We gotta have another single.” And this wasn’t about that.
Sahanaja: Well, that’s why Brian is an artist. He takes risks, he does things… If they fail, they fail. If they’re successful, they’re successful.
Jardine: I mean, I don’t even remember singing some of this stuff. I don’t remember singing on “Solar System,” for instance.
Sahanaja: You are in that vocal stack.
Jardine: Am I? Are you sure? You would know. He (Sahanaja) knows how to pull this stuff out. But who writes a song with that kind of context, about the planets? t’s just beautiful.
Sahanaja: Very sincere, very childlike.
Jardine: You know, “Airplane.” Oh my God. “Airplane” is one of my favorites of all time.Now I’m completely…
Sahanaja: Well, this was my favorite thing in the process of all this, is how he was skeptical at first, and just to watch him become reoriented with this music again and discovering it… maybe because the first time, it wasn’t successful, so onto the next… I love seeing him getting really, really into the music and realizing, “God, these are really, really beautiful songs.” And of course, in the wake of us losing Brian, it’s just his soul and his spirit are with us…
Jardine: He’s right there. He’s right there.
Sahanaja: That’s how we feel on stage. Every time we play these songs. I’m just like, ahhh, you can feel Brian’s soul.
Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band at Cerritos Center
Chris Willman/Variety
Jardine: The guys in the band carry these leads really well, and do it justice. You carry Carl’s leads amazingly. How you do that? “God, please let us go on this way…” You won’t believe that, his performance, how he carries the spirit of Carl. Dennis (Wilson)…
Sahanaja: I don’t do Dennis. “I Want to Pick You Up”… I can’t really sing that like Dennis. … To be fair, I’ve met people who maybe are not big fans of the record for one reason or another, but I would imagine a lot of it is because the way it’s executed is very raw…
Jardine: Well, the amazing thing, it’s a synth-driven record, right? And your peers relate to that. Brian was in the forefront of all that stuff. He didn’t use bass guitars on this. He had a Moog synthesizer [as the bass]. It was a different style of production than the Beach Boys were accustomed to. And he literally brought that world to us, and so I’m sitting there with a guitar and going, “What the hell am I supposed to do?” So I really didn’t relate in that sense musically to it at first. Now I get it, because it’s so cleverly written.
Sahanaja: With all the synths and really odd sort of production decision-making on it, I think it appealed to that next generation, especially going into the ‘80s and beyond, because it’s got that synth-pop thing going on. But, typical Brian: he wasn’t intellectualizing it at all. He wasn’t calculating it. He was like, “This sounds good to me and I could do this. I can just grab a keyboard and play these notes, and there it is. I’m happy.” But the way it all came together in that sort of DIY approach, little did he know…
Jardine: But at the same time, he writes a song called “Roller Skating Child,” which is totally Beach Boys. That almost harkens back to the days. And “Honkin’ Down the Highway,” those two that are like that, I could relate to, and I sing the lead on (“Honkin’”). It just feels natural to me when you feel Brian’s.ability to go backwards and forwards, or retro and future. Amazing. I learned a new chord, by the way, the other day, in my book. Did you know there’s a sus4 in “Roller Skating Child”?
Sahanaja: Is there?
Jardine: That’s what it says. I found a little book in my stack of memorabilia called “The Beach Boys: Volume One.” It’s got all the songs that we wrote, and “The Beach Boys Love You” is in it, of all things. So, look at me. showing him some new chords.
Sahanaja: I’ve gotta take a look.I’ll have to check that. Because Brian didn’t like sus; he didn’t like sustained chords.
Jardine: Well, maybe the book’s wrong, then!
Darian Sahanaja
Scott Dudelson
When you guys are playing the “Love You” songs now, have you rearranged it to fit in a little more with the other classic Beach Boys stuff that doesn’t sound anything like that, or are you trying to recreate the original synthy sounds?
Sahanaja: It’s one thing is to say recreating. Another thing is just to embody the spirit and feel of the record, the original sensibilities of the record, which was Brian’s … It’s like when we do “Pet Sounds.” You can cut corners and simplify the chords and all that, but that’s not what Brian wrote, and that’s not what he came up with in the studio. So you can say, “Yeah, let’s get the exact paint-by-numbers thing,” but if you do paint by numbers but if it’s not done with the right feel and the spirit of it…
Jardine: They nail it. This band, they nail it.
Paul Von Mertens (multi-instrumentalist and musical director): I remember during “Pet Sounds” (on a tour performing that entire album), we would even debate in rehearsal … There’s a funny banjo entrance. You know, is that a mistake or intentional? “No, let’s keep it because it’s on there.”
Sahanaja: And even one in this record. How about “Johnny Carson”? It’s so clearly a mistake. There’s this errant symbol crash that’s completely not (right), and we just love it, because, again, I picture Brian just going, “Pssssh, that’s it! That sounds great.Keep it.”
Jardine: Well, how about in the third verse? Is it the third verse where he goes “da-da-da” and he does the resolve.
Sahanaja: Yes, yes, you’re right.
Jardine: And Bob (in the Pet Sounds Band) plays it just like it! He plays the mistake, perfectly.
Sahanaja: I gives it an out-of-the-box feel. It’s just like, what? But when you listen back to even the golden-era Beach Boys recordings of Brian conducting the studio musicians (in the mid-‘60s), many times they’ll play something and say, “Is that right?” And Brian will go, “Yeah, that’s great. Just keep that,” because he just loves the vibe of it.
Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band joined by Weird Al Yankovic and Eric Idle in concert in Cerritos, Calif, with Rob Bonfiglio.
Scott Dudelson
It feels like there might be different audiences coming to shows like this. There are some people coming who really just want to hear “The Beach Boys Love You.” And then at most of these shows, there will be people who don’t know the albu at all. Do you feel like there’s kinda like two audiences that you’re playing for?
Jardine: Probably, I’m sure.
Sahanaja: I don’t know. In the spirit of Brian Wilson, I like the idea that we just forge ahead and be bold.
Von Mertens: I think that the idea is partly to bring the audience along with us. I can remember on the “Smile” tour, we were playing a festival in Belgium, and it was kind of drizzling on a soccer field, and there were beer stands encircling the entire field where the audience was. We hadn’t been playing “Smile” for very long. and we’re playing this outdoor festival and people are sliding around in the mud. And I remember the whole band — Jeff (Foskett) in particular — was like, “We can’t do ‘Smile.’ They’re gonna kill us! They’re gonna hate it.” And finally we just like bit the bullet and said, “OK, we’re gonna do it and we’re just gonna throw down like we always do.” When we finished the set, we left the stage and the audience was singing that soccer chant that they do that’s like an audio equivalent of a standing ovation. They were all going, “Ohhh-wayyyy-ooh,” and we were like, “OK. I guess, I guess it worked.”
Sahanaja: Exactly. I always believe that if the material is really good and it’s performed well with love and care, it doesn’t matter if an audience is familiar with the music. I think they walk away feeling like, “Wow, that was really good.”
Jardine: But I do like the first note of the show… It’s an anthem, “California Girls,” and as soon as you hit that first ding.
Sahanaja: You’re making me sentimental because, because our dearly departed guitarist, Nick Walusko, I remember when I met him in 1983. And Nick would always say, “What Brian could do with just one note. Like the intro of ‘California Girls,’ listen, I know it’s one note, but it’s like a whole atmosphere in that one note.” And I totally understood that.
How many members of the Brian Wilson Band have carried over to this band now?
Jardine: There’s 12 on stage. All of us.
Sahanaja: Almost everybody; one of us, Probyn (Gregory), couldn’t do this tour because he was out with “Weird Al” Yankovic on that incredible, successful tour. So we have another fellow filling in for him named Emeen Zarookian, who plays with Micky Dolenz. It’s been really fun. … Just to go back really quickly to the audiences: I love that this new music, us performing the “Love You” material, is just because of its kind of DIY approach in the synths, and we’re getting a lot of young people coming out to the shows, and freaking out. We just see them chanting and jamming along and jumping and up and down. It’s insane. It’s great, because I know what they’re excited about: Brian being Brian, which is somebody eccentric…
Jardine: The big sing-along is a tune called “Ding Dang.” You know the album. It’s 52 seconds long, right? But it gets the audience; they go crazy immediately with the biggest reaction, and they start going “woo” with this, just carrying on like a bunch of kids. It’s really a childlike experience. We add a little extra, actually, at the end. We actually have a chord change now. We will surprise you with it.
The official “Survivor” podcast is hitting pause for Season 50.
“‘Survivor’ 50 was designed as a celebration, and it features one of the most exciting game designs we’ve ever done,” Probst said in a statement to Variety. “Because of that, we made a conscious decision not to immediately pull back the curtain while it was happening. We wanted fans to discover it on their own and experience it in real time. Then at the live finale, we’ll have the opportunity to reflect on all parts of the season together.”
“On Fire With Jeff Probst” debuted at the start of Season 44 in 2023. Each week, directly after a new episode aired on CBS, a new episode would reveal Probst giving listeners a look behind the curtain at the making of “Survivor,” sharing his view as the executive producer, showrunner and host.
Rick Devens joined Probst and producer Jay Wolff as co-host for Season 45; Dee Valladares co-hosted for 46; Charlie Davis joined for Season 47; Rachel LaMont took over for 48; and Jeremy Collins joined for 49.
“Survivor” 50 premiered on Feb. 25 and averaged 5.06 million viewers over its three-hour debut — the biggest same-day audience for Season 45’s penultimate episode in December 2023. It became CBS’ best Wednesday night performance since the Season 42 finale of “Survivor” in 2022.
The milestone “Survivor” is a huge one for CBS and Probst, as they introduce new twists, fan voting and celebrity twists. During the premiere, a Billie Eilish idol was revealed; a Jimmy Fallon twist and integration of Zac Brown and Mr. Beast will come later in the season — but the game won’t change, Probst promises.
“I think it’s a legitimate concern when you start adding layers like celebrities, that they can overshadow the game and take it off course,” he told Variety. “Our job was to make sure that we stayed true to what we’re doing on ‘Survivor,’ which is exploring this continuous social experiment. And now we’re adding another layer.”
The Federal Communications Commission has given the go ahead for two of the US’ biggest cable providers, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, to merge. Charter announced its intention to acquire Cox for $34.5 billion in May 2025, with specific plans to inherit Cox’s managed IT, commercial fiber and cloud businesses, while folding the company’s residential cable service into a subsidiary.
“By approving this deal, the FCC ensures big wins for Americans,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement. “This deal means that jobs are coming back to America that had been shipped overseas. It means that modern, high-speed networks will get built out in more communities across rural America. And it means that customers will get access to lower priced plans. On top of this, the deal enshrines protections against DEI discrimination.”
The FCC claims that Charter plans to invest “billions” to upgrade its network following the closure of the deal, leading to “faster broadband and lower prices.” The company’s “Rural Construction Initiative” will also extend those improvements to rural states lacking in consistent internet service, a project the FCC was heavily invested in during the Biden administration, but has been pulling back from since President Donald Trump appointed Carr. The FCC also claims Charter will onshore jobs currently handled off-shore by Cox employees and commit to “new safeguards to protect against DEI discrimination,” which essentially amounts to hiring, recruiting and promoting employees based on “skills, qualifications, and experience.”
While Carr’s FCC paints a rosy picture of Charter’s acquisition, history has provided multiple examples of mergers having the opposite effect on jobs and pricing. For example, redundancies created when T-Mobile merged with Sprint in 2020 led to a wave of layoffs at the carrier. And funnily enough in 2018, not long after Charter’s merger with Time Warner Cable was approved by the FCC, the company raised prices on its Spectrum service by over $91 a year.
The FCC’s obsession with diversity, equity and inclusion as part of the deal is stranger, if only because it appears to fall outside of the commission’s purpose of maintaining fair competition in the telecommunications industry. It does fit with other mergers the FCC has approved under Carr, however. Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount was approved in 2025 under the condition it wouldn’t establish any DEI programs.
President Donald Trump has ordered all US government agencies to stop using Claude and other Anthropic services, escalating an already volatile feud between the Department of Defense and company over AI safeguards. Taking to Truth Social on Friday afternoon, the president said there would be a six-month phase out period for federal agencies, including the Defense Department, to migrate off of Anthropic’s products.
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,” the president wrote. “Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.”
Before today, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had threatened to label Anthropic a “supply chain risk” if it did not agree to withdraw safeguards that insist Claude not be used for mass surveillance against Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. In a post on X published after President Trump’s statement, Hegseth said he was “directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
Anthropic did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. Earlier in the day, a spokesperson for the company said the contract Anthropic received after CEO Dario Amodei outlined Anthropic’s position made “virtually no progress” on preventing the outlined misuses.
“New language framed as a compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months,” the spokesperson said. “We remain ready to continue talks and committed to operational continuity for the Department and America’s warfighters.”
Advocacy groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) quickly came out against the president’s threats. “This action sets a dangerous precedent. It chills private companies’ ability to engage frankly with the government about appropriate uses of their technology, which is especially important in national security settings that so often have reduced public visibility,” said CDT President and CEO Alexandra Givens, in a statement shared with Engadget. “These threats undermine the integrity of the innovation ecosystem, distort market incentives and normalize an expansive view of executive power that should worry Americans all across the political spectrum.”
For now, it appears the AI industry is united behind Anthropic. On Friday, hundreds of Google and OpenAI employees signed an open letter urging their companies to stand in “solidarity” with the lab. According to an internal memo seen by Axios, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the ChatGPT maker would draw the same red line as Anthropic.
In a blog post published late on Friday, Anthropic vowed to “challenge any supply chain risk designation in court,” and assured its customers that only work related to the Defense Department would be affected. The company’s full statement is available here, an excerpt is below:
Designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk would be an unprecedented action—one historically reserved for US adversaries, never before publicly applied to an American company. We are deeply saddened by these developments. As the first frontier AI company to deploy models in the US government’s classified networks, Anthropic has supported American warfighters since June 2024 and has every intention of continuing to do so.
We believe this designation would both be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.
No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.
Update, February 27, 9PM ET: This story was updated twice after publish. First at 6PM ET to include a link to and quotes from Hegseth about the designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk. Later, a quote from Anthropic was added, along with a link to the company’s blog post on the subject.
Vitalik Buterin has outlined Ethereum upgrades linked to its upcoming Glamsterdam hardfork.
The developments generally aim to increase scalability, security and user experience on the blockchain.
ETH has fallen below $2K following wider market events.
Ethereum creator and co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined 8 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that comprise the upcoming Glamsterdam hardfork scheduled for the first half of 2026.
Ethereum: 2026 Glamsterdam hardfork
The proposals follow Ethereum’s three-track roadmap enshrined in its 2025 “predictable engineering delivery model” and comprising:
Scalability.
Improved user experience.
Heightened security, censorship-resistance, and quantum-resistance.
More specifically, block building will now take place directly on Ethereum rather than external relays. This increases decentralization and transaction verification time for validators.
Additionally, the upgrade will pave the way for parallel block verification, effectively increasing the network’s transaction processing speed. Users will also enjoy a 78.6% reduction in gas fees for both simple and complex smart contracts, and the ability to run nodes at a lower bandwidth.
Developers, on the other hand, would be financially incentivized to write leaner code on the network’s database, aka “The State.” They would also experience fewer memory-related errors during code compilation and fewer smart contract security risks.
