Zuckerberg Announces Meta ‘Superintelligence' Effort, More Hires
Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced a major restructuring of the company's artificial intelligence group, including a commitment to developing AI 'superintelligence,' or systems that can complete tasks as well as or even better than humans.
Zuckerberg wrote Monday to employees that Meta's AI efforts will fall under a new group called Meta Superintelligence Labs, which will be led by Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of data-labeling startup Scale AI, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg. Wang, whom Zuckerberg called the 'most impressive founder of his generation,' will serve as chief AI officer.
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15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mike Lee Shoves Another Bad Land Sale Provision into the Senate's Final Budget Bill
UPDATE: Facing overwhelming opposition from all Democrats and a growing number in his own party, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee tonight withdrew his proposal to sell millions of acres of public land to help balance the federal budget. Universally reviled legislation that will sell up to 1.25 million acres of BLM land around the West starting this fall has been placed in the Senate's final budget bill which will face floor votes as early as today. Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that oversees the Interior Department's budget, released new language Friday night that doubles down on his longstanding desire to reduce the federal estate, using veiled language that justifies land sales to alleviate housing shortages in fast-growing Western cities. The bill's latest draft tightens problematic language of earlier versions that risked being flagged by the Senate parliamentarian as non-conforming for a reconciliation bill, say sources who reviewed Lee's draft late last night. But it contains the most unacceptable provisions to public-land advocates, and could open some of the West's most remote and cherished public lands for sale. Because it now includes unallocated mineral leases, it could also balloon the amount of land eligible for sale. Specifically, the final draft expands the definition of eligible BLM land, which Lee says is designed to promote affordable housing and urban infrastructure, by prioritizing federal land sales within five miles of the border of 'population centers.' Instead of using the commonly accepted definition of a population center as a municipality of 2,500 or more people, the new draft defines a population center as 'a census-designated place or incorporated municipality with a population of not less than 1,000 persons.' This provision greatly expands the eligibility of BLM land that could be sold surrounding unincorporated rural communities. Last night's draft also now allows leasing of some previously protected lands, omitting national preserves, national seashores, lakeshores, national historic sites, and national memorials and battlefields from the categories of land that could not be considered for sale. It includes unallocated subsurface mineral leasing as a qualifying covenant for land sales, along with earlier drafts that omit active surface uses and BLM land with active livestock-grazing leases from sale consideration. This allowance of unsubscribed mineral rights could greatly increase the number of eligible acres for sale to something over 3 million, say sources. That's because the BLM administers subsurface mineral rights on some 700 million onshore and offshore acres. If millions of those acres now qualify for sale because of Lee's new language 'we could be talking about the sale of way more than 1.25 million acres,' says a land-use expert who was still researching the question as of this morning. 'We could be talking 3 million and more, depending on the answer to the question of whether the BLM owns those rights or simply administers them.' Lee's latest draft also changes the definition of who can bid on this 'surplused' public land. Nominations for tracts can come from what Lee defines as 'qualified bidders.' That term is not defined in the bill. The bill extends the mandatory sale deadline from five to 10 years and increases the amount of federal money that will be used to execute these sales from $5 million to $15 million. But what's especially galling to critics of the bill, who note the many loopholes that allow disposal of federal land for purposes other than affordable housing, is that the new draft adds criteria for disposal of our most valuable lands to include a mechanism for consolidating large ranches and for including 'isolated tracts that are difficult to manage.' That last provision could list for sale some of the most valuable hunting and fishing acreage in the West. Sources noted, with rising alarm, that Lee's latest draft appears to be calibrated to make it through Senate parliamentary scrutiny. 'This appears to be an effort to try and survive parliamentarian review,' says David Willms, associate vice president for public lands for the National Wildlife Federation. 'Adding a priority of selling the highest value lands, and including subsurface rights along with the surface rights seems to be an effort to sell the provision as one with primarily budget impacts, which is necessary to survive the Byrd Rule' that requires items in reconciliation bills to have budgetary, rather than policy, implications. 'Obviously, to anyone that cares about public lands, however, that's simply a smokescreen to sell an area more than twice the size of Rocky Mountain National Park to an as-yet-undefined 'qualified bidder,'' says Willms. 'But it's also an indication of the sloppy and haphazard nature of this latest bill.' Lee's new draft is so contrary to and tone-deaf to the hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, and emails to congressional offices over the past week that some critics of the bill suggest that it's designed to fail in full Senate voting that starts today. In an Instagram reel, New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich (D) noted that the groundswell of calls to congressional offices is the 'broadest and deepest coalition that I have ever seen for public lands in my life. Keep it up. We are winning.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Senator Martin Heinrich (@senatormartinheinrich) Fellow Republican Senators, including Montana's Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy and Idaho's Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, have publicly stated their opposition to the bill. The news site NOTUS yesterday reported that Daines has the votes to kill Lee's draft in the budget reconciliation process. That's the expedited process that requires only a simple majority in both the House and Senate for passage. Republicans hold a 3-vote majority in both chambers. At least five Republicans in the House of Representatives have said they won't vote for any version of the budget bill that contains the land-sale provision. They include Montana's Ryan Zinke, Mike Simpson from Idaho, Dan Newhouse from Washington, Oregon's Cliff Bentz, and David Valadao from California — all Westerners with large public-land holdings in their congressional districts. 'At the end of the day, I would bet on this [bill language] getting kicked out, but it's gonna be a slog,' says a public-land advocate who asked not to be named as they were still reviewing the bill draft. 'I'm still wondering if, in the long run, Lee is doing more to help public lands, by inspiring so much advocacy, than to hurt them.' Land Tawney, whose group American Hunters and Anglers has been a vocal opponent of the land-sale legislation, says the latest draft confirms Lee's inability to read the national mood. Read Next: Silencer Deregulation Plan Fails in the Senate 'Regardless of how Mike Lee polishes his public lands sell off proposal, it's still a piece of shit,' says Tawney. 'Not a square inch of our public lands should be used to pay off tax breaks for billionaires.'
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Breaking: Mike Lee's Public Land Sale Plan Is Dead
Facing overwhelming opposition from all Democrats and a growing number in his own party, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee tonight withdrew his proposal to sell millions of acres of public land to help balance the federal budget. In a statement issued by his office, Lee said that because of the 'strict constraints of the budget reconciliation process, I was unable to secure clear, enforceable safeguards to guarantee that these lands would be sold only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests. For that reason I've made the decision to withdraw the federal land sales provision from the bill.' Lee's language, a central part of the omnibus federal budget bill, would have put more than a million acres of BLM land on the auction block starting later this year. Senate leaders, hurriedly working to get the budget to a floor vote this weekend, gave Lee the opportunity to pull his provision, pages 202 to 211 of the thousand-page Big Beautiful Bill, knowing that it would have faced certain defeat by the Republican-majority Senate. That language would have forced the sale of BLM land in 11 Western states to offset tax cuts and royalty rebates to gas and oil drillers. The language in those pages, sponsored and revised over the last two weeks by Lee, would have created the largest disposal of public land since the Homestead Act. Tens of thousands of hunters, anglers, hikers, and public-land recreationists have pummeled the offices of their congressional delegations with increasingly strident demands to kill Lee's bill. That continued pressure from a broad and vocal coalition of rural hunters, suburban hikers, livestock producers, Main Street business owners, anglers, dirtbag climbers, and whitewater rafters made the difference, says Montanan Randy Newberg, host of Fresh Tracks and a vocal public-land advocate. 'Mike Lee did something that we've not been able to do, to have all Americans become focused on one issue, no partisanship, no Rs, no Ds, and in the process I hope they have sent a message that public lands are that third rail of American politics,' says Newberg, one of several social-media personalities who rallied his audience around defending public lands. 'I think you could also say the same of the Senate, they put partisanship aside to kill this bad idea.' Newberg singled out the work of New Mexico Democrat Martin Heinrich for his ability to keep all Democrats aligned on killing Lee's bill, and working across the aisle to convince fellow Western Republicans that it was bad for their constituents. While calls for the removal of the land-sale language from the mega bill was nearly unanimous, Lee kept digging in, making revisions that increased the amount of land that could be sold and adding vague language that seemed to stray from what he said was his intention: to allow Western municipalities to buy surrounding federal land in order to grow and build affordable housing for their residents. But in the most recent iteration, released by Lee's office last night in order to satisfy the Senate's budgetary rules, the highest priority for would-be disposed BLM lands was their appraised value. That highly valued land would likely have been bought by amenity purchasers, not cash-strapped Western cities. By adding lands with unallocated subsurface mineral rights to the total, the latest draft of the bill alarmed conservationists —— as much as 3 million acres of BLM land might have been available for sale to private industries, speculators, and even foreign governments. The Senate's budget reconciliation process allows the omnibus budget package to pass by a simple majority. Republicans have only a 3-seat majority in both the Senate and House, but four Western Republicans had indicated they wouldn't support the budget bill if it contained Lee's land sales provision. Sources report that the roster of Republicans quietly in opposition to the measure was large and growing, causing the Senate leadership to strike Lee's language in order to move the rest of the Big Beautiful Bill, which among other things could make tax cuts permanent for the wealthiest Americans and also includes cuts to Medicaid, public-lands management agencies, and federal reimbursements to rural hospitals. The Senate's death blow to Lee's bill removes pressure on the House of Representatives to kill the language. The House had been considered the 'backwall' in efforts to make sure the land-sale provision didn't advance to President Trump, who had indicated strong support for the proposal.
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
DOGE Cancels ‘Take Me Fishing,' Even Though It Was Funded by Anglers
This month the Department of Governmental Efficiency canceled funding to the nonprofit organization that offers learn-to-fish programs all across America. As a result, the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation has been forced to pause programs like Take Me Fishing and events with state fish and game agencies. Grant funding for many conservation-based organizations was frozen earlier this year, and sources say RBFF and other fishing industry stakeholders struggled to receive clarity on the funding. As a result, RBFF had to furlough eight of its 16 employees on June 6, just days before the Department of the Interior announced it was terminating the grant award, which the agency has been receiving and distributing since 1998. 'We kept some [employees] in place because we were hopeful the funds would come through, but we're not sure what that looks like now that we received a termination letter,' says RBFF chief operating officer Stephanie Vatalaro. 'At some point soon, we'll run out of the remaining funds and those of us left will move on.' While RBFF did receive $13.7 million in federal funding in 2024, according to the organization's most recent financial statement, none of those funds come from general taxpayer dollars. Instead, the RBFF is funded through the much-celebrated excise tax on fishing tackle and boating equipment. In fact, the RBFF was established to cooperate with the USFWS in compliance with a federal law established 27 years ago; RBFF has worked closely with the sportfishing industry and state agencies to grow fishing participation and reinvest in the outdoor economy. RBFF says its has helped increase fishing participation to record-high levels last year and contributed to the sportfishing and boating industries, which both contribute $230 billion apiece in economic impact, along with nearly 2 million total jobs and billions in tax revenue. 'Alarmingly, in just the past few months since RBFF's funding has been terminated, fishing license sales are down 8.6 percent across 16 states, representing the loss of over $590 million in angler spending and 5,600 jobs,' RBFF told Outdoor Life in a statement. 'These figures signal that the industry and the economic activity it drives could be at severe risk.' The grant funding terminated by DOGE cannot help offset the national debt without an act of Congress. 'The industry really looks to RBFF to promote fishing,' says American Sportfishing Association public affairs manager Rob Shane. 'Participation is huge for the industry because license sales and the self-imposed excise tax dollars really fund a lot of the conservation that happens at the state and tribal and territory level. With less people fishing, you're going to have less fishing licenses, you're going to have less excise taxes on sportfishing equipment. And all that is going to result in less, or lost access to fisheries — both in the form of physical access … and access in the sense that people aren't going to know how to fish. [This will eventually] result in less access, less conservation dollars, less habitat restoration, less stocking, less research — less you name it.' On June 10 the Department of the Interior officially terminated the RBFF's grant in a letter that appeared to emphasize that the awarded funding 'no longer meets program goals or DOI priorities.' 'We were working very hard behind the scenes, with members of Congress, their staff, and staff at Interior to figure out where the funding was, whether it was going to be released, and when it was going to be released. That time table kept getting pushed back and back and back,' says Shane. 'That was our frustration in some respects, this all happened without any transparent or open communication with RBFF and with the industry.' At least one lawmaker on the DOGE Caucus told Fox News, which broke the story of the grant funding cuts Monday, that she had taken issue with RBFF's $2 million contract with Disney and a $5 million contract with a Minnesota creative agency, Colle McVoy. 'I am proud to have exposed bloated overhead costs and worked with Secretary Burgum to ensure tax dollars collected to boost fishing are not siphoned into the pockets of slick D.C.-based consultants,' Senate DOGE Caucus chairwoman and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst (R) told the outlet.'There's more pork in the sea, and I am going to keep fishing for it!' She also objected to the salaries of some RBFF executives, which range from $102,000 to $274,900 at the highest level, and are comparable (or in many cases, substantially less than) the salaries of other conservation org executives. Ernst's own salary, which is funded by general taxpayers, is $174,000 annually. Ernst's office did not respond to a request for comment Monday; neither did the DOGE Caucus. But to Vatalaro of RBFF, those contracts have historically proven essential to help her team fulfill the terms of the grant they've been awarded for nearly three decades. For instance, a PSA about fishing — the Find Your Best Self campaign created by that Minnesota-based creative agency — won Best Total Campaign in AdWeek last year. 'If you're running a national integrated marketing campaign, it's absolutely critical to have an agency on board. We are a small group of 16 people. It extends our staff and gives us knowledge we don't have … We also have what's called a corporate alliance agreement with Disney. We know that youth are super important to fishing participation.' Research by RBFF, which also specializes in key research for the sportfishing industry, has shown that 'if you don't start fishing by the age of 12, it's basically not going to happen as an adult,' says Vatalaro. 'If you want to reach kids, Disney is the place to go. They're all watching their programs, there is an advertising component, and there are fishing locations inside Disney World where guests can [get a] charter and go bass fishing, and they get packet of information so when they go home, they have resources to learn to fish … If you look at a Nike or Coca Cola, they'd probably spend what we spend in a year on, I don't know, one Easter campaign.' Vatalaro notes that the RBFF is already subject to extensive oversight and accountability. 'One thing that's been challenging for us is we have been put in a light that we may not jive with agency priorities … We're governed by a 25-member board made up of state and industry leaders. We undergo annual audits, federal reporting, quarterly meetings with our federal partners — and we feel like we've done a very good job of meeting their needs and being as efficient as possible.' It's also not immediately clear how much, if any, of the funding cuts were related to what officials deemed frivolous expenses, or if the grant termination was related to the Trump Administration's executive order to roll back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming. RBFF programming includes opportunities for urban fishing and a Spanish-language version of Take Me Fishing, called Vamos a Pescar. (In addition to federal funding through sportfishing excise taxes, Vamos a Pescar is partially funded by a George H.W. Bush education fund that Bass Pro Shops helped establish.) Vatalaro says the only communication RBFF received from DOGE was the agency's June 10 letter. Marine Retailers Association of the Americas president Matt Gruhn says he was 'deeply disappointed' to see the termination of the grant, which RBFF has 'successfully executed for more than 25 years.' 'RBFF has been a responsible steward of these boat fuel taxes paid by our industry from the very beginning with oversight from the very stakeholders that paid into the fund that RBFF's grant originates from,' Gruhn told OL in an emailed statement, 'as well as passing every audit with flying colors.' The fishing industry stands to lose much more than they gain with feds clawing back a few million dollars in contracts, according to sources. Currently 95 percent of boats sold in America are made in America, according to RBFF, and the boating industry alone creates $26.9 billion in tax revenue. RBFF hopes to reapply for the same grant with a refined proposal that the organization tailored to meet DOGE's concerns, but they have not yet had an opportunity to do so. 'We're prepared to meet the priorities of the current administration, who is looking for efficiency, lower costs, etcetera. It's just bee a little disappointing we haven't had that opportunity,' says Vatalaro. 'At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. Which is a stronger outdoor economy, broader participation, and really robust conservation funding for that next generation of participations. So we'd like to collaborate and keep things going so we can do even more in the future.' In the meantime 27 years of institutional knowledge is at risk, points out Shane. While the American Sportfishing Association isn't opposed to innovation or shaking things up, the RBFF has successfully reinvested in the sportfishing industry — and developed a thriving working relationship with all 50 state agencies and the industry. That will take time to recreate, says Shane, which the fishing industry may not have to spare. Read Next: Breaking: Mike Lee's Public Land Sale Plan Is Dead 'We just saw Congress try to sell off millions of acres of public land without transparent or appropriate processes, and it was hunters and anglers and other sportsmen who show up for something like that and tell them 'No.' And if we lose those hunters and anglers over the course of how many years before that proposal comes up again? The fewer people you have who care about those resources and participate in those resources, fewer people are going to stick up for those resources when that proposal comes back. Because we know it will.'
