The Secretary of Defense has given an ultimatum to the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in an attempt to bully them into making their technology available to the U.S. military without any restrictions for their use. Anthropic should stick by their principles and refuse to allow their technology to be used in the two ways they have publicly stated they would not support: autonomous weapons systems and surveillance. The Department of Defense has reportedly threatened to label Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” in retribution for not lifting restrictions on how their technology is used. According to WIRED, that label would be, “a scarlet letter usually reserved for companies that do business with countries scrutinized by federal agencies, like China, which means the Pentagon would not do business with firms using Anthropic’s AI in their defense work.” Anthropic should stick by their principles and refuse to allow their technology to be used in the two ways they have publicly stated they would not support: autonomous weapons systems and surveillance. In 2025, reportedly Anthropic became the first AI company cleared for use in relation to classified operations and to handle classified information. This current controversy, however, began in January 2026 when, through a partnership with defense contractor Palantir, Anthropic came to suspect their AI had been used during the January 3 attack on Venezuela. In January 2026, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote to reiterate that surveillance against US persons and autonomous weapons systems were two “bright red lines” not to be crossed, or at least topics that needed to be handled with “extreme care and scrutiny combined with guardrails to prevent abuses.” You can also read Anthropic’s self-proclaimed core views on AI safety here, as well as their LLM, Claude’s, constitution here.  Now, the U.S. government is threatening to terminate the government’s contract with the company if it doesn’t switch gears and voluntarily jump right across those lines.   Companies, especially technology companies, often fail to live up to their public statements and internal policies related to human rights and civil liberties for all sorts of reasons, including profit. Government pressure shouldn’t be one of those reasons.  Whatever the U.S. government does to threaten Anthropic, the AI company should know that their corporate customers, the public, and the engineers who make their products are expecting them not to cave. They, and all other technology companies, would do best to refuse to become yet another tool of surveillance.

Apple complies with new age-assurance laws in the U.S. and abroad, including those that block users from downloading apps aimed at adults.

Spanish startup Multiverse Computing has released a new version of its HyperNova 60B model on Hugging Face that, it says, bests Mistral's model.

You won’t hear this on the nightly news, but the unprecedented violence currently tearing through Mexico is not some random, isolated cartel uprising. It is the catastrophic and entirely predictable blowback of the U.S. government intentionally arming, funding, and protecting the very narco-paramilitary death squads that are now setting Jalisco on fire. Yesterday, the sky …

Safe to say that Sturgill Simpson wasn’t a fan of Garth Brooks’ Chris Gaines era. It’s honestly a wonder that anyone was. The country music superstar made his out-of-left-field career turn while he was one of the most popular artists on the planet. Then he kind of went away for a while before returning to his regular, Garth Brooks ways. His alter ego experiment is one that will live on in infamy for years to come. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, Garth Brooks flipped the whole music industry on its head when he rolled out a punk/rock alter ego by the name of Chris Gaines in 1999. Some might call the idea inventive. Others might label it unintentionally hilarious and colossally embarrassing. An album titled Garth Brooks in… the Life of Chris Gaines was released in September of that year, and was supposed to be a pre-soundtrack for a movie about Gaines that was to come out in 2000. That movie, allegedly titled The Lamb, was never filmed. However, we still have the VH1 Chris Gaines special that came out, which just might be the most absurd documentary the world has ever seen. It touched on the life of Gaines, which included sex, trauma, death, car crashes, plane crashes, house fires, scandals… and pretty much every other wild thing you could think up. All in all, the endeavor by Garth Brooks was straight up weird, and it still gets talked about in the modern day. The topic was even touched on back in 2014, when Sturgill Simpson sat down on The Joe Rogan Experience for the first time shortly after his breakout album Metamodern Sounds in Country Music was released. Host Joe Rogan was talking to Simpson about how scary it would be to get trapped in one’s career, and having so much success that it ties your hands to doing only one thing. That sparked the talking point of Chris Gaines, and Rogan asked Simpson what he thought about that era of Garth’s career. The artist that’s know known as Johnny Blue Skies offered up a scathing review: “Chris Gaines man… woof. There was nobody there to say, ‘Hey, maybe you shouldn’t do this.’ He was surrounded by yes people. You just know. If someone was like, ‘Yeah, that’ll be cool.'” Chris Gaines = not cool. Johnny Blue Skies = really cool. Sturgill is probably right in saying that though. No one told Garth to pump the brakes on that big idea? Or at least approach it with a little bit less seriousness? The pair talked about Chris Gaines for a while in that 2014 episode, and eventually, Simpson capped it off with this thought: “High art man. It’s his filtered interpretation of… I think he was going for a Ryan Adams-sy sort of thing. Or he went f***ing nuts. That’s a very distinct possibility.” One of those two, for sure. Simpson went on to say that, at some point, country music turned into a “really s***** Van Halen concert,” and blamed it on the ripples that were created by Garth Brooks years earlier. Even in the early days of Sturgill’s career, he wasn’t afraid to be outspoken against the genre’s biggest stars. As they say, this one is an oldie but a goodie: The post “Surrounded By Yes People”: Sturgill Simpson Offers Scathing Review Of Garth Brook’s Chris Gaines Era On An Old Joe Rogan Podcast first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Brooks & Dunn’s iconic song “Neon Moon” is likely the greatest honky tonk bar stool heartbreak track of all time. And on this date in 1992, the duo released it as the third single from their debut album Brand New Man. A solo write by Ronnie Dunn, it eventually became the duo’s third consecutive #1 single on the country charts. It’s hard to overstate just how important the song has been within the country genre, specifically during the glorious period that was ’90s country, and it hasn’t remained an absolute timeless heartbreaker for over 30 years no for a reason. “Neon Moon” captures the essence of heartbreak and loneliness that comes along with drinking away your troubles in the glow of a dark bar under the neon light like no other country song ever has, and probably ever will. Kix explained that, of course, this is the tune that launched them to the forefront of mainstream country back in the beginning of their career: “After all these years, I hear more people say ‘Man, I love ‘Neon Moon’. I think it’s the song of the whole catalog.’ And obviously, that’s a song Ronnie wrote by himself, and I give him a hard time about, just it’s been so successful. But he’s right, the night that we won our first awards, you know big awards, we won two ACM’s that night. It was the same week that ‘Neon Moon’ went #1. And the next week our sales doubled. And it really started blowing up. And then ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ was the single after that. Those two years after that were as exciting as you could ever dream about when you’re learnin’ to tune a guitar.” In the most Texas way possible, Ronnie added that he doesn’t think it could’ve been anymore incredible to watch their career grow the way it did as a result of this song: “That’s as fast as a horse can run.” This one has of course been covered countless times over the years, and even reimagined by Brooks & Dunn themselves with a different generation of country stars, and I think the fact that it continues to stand the test of time goes to show how brilliant, and relatable, it is. The lyrics speak to people from all over the world, with all kinds of different backgrounds, because we all know what it feels like to get your heart broken, and Ronnie Dunn captured that in a way that’s never been done before or since with this song. Nothing compares to the timeless original, but there are some great renditions that have been done over the years, and I think you might find at least a couple you’ve never heard before on this list that give the song a really different, but classic, feel with a totally different spin. Cigarettes After Sex Cigarettes After Sex is an American dream pop from in El Paso, Texas, that was started in 2008 by Greg Gonzalez in 2008. His voice has been describes as “androgynous,” which is definitely the right word and it’s incredibly unique in terms of the sound and tone. They put out this super cool version of “Neon Moon” in 2018, and it’s definitely not the country heartbreaker we’re used to hearing, but I think music fans who appreciate artistry and different interpretations of classic songs will find this version really interesting… it’s definitely “Neon Moon” like you’ve never heard it before. Carrie Underwood Carrie Underwood performed “Neon Moon” for ACM Presents: Brooks & Dunn — The Last Rodeo in 2010, which was a televised CBS tribute concert honoring the duo. Plenty of stars sang their hits, but of course, Carrie stole the show with the song she’s been signing since she was just eight years old. Leon Bridges Leon Bridges is a R&B star, but he was raised in Texas, so of course, he knows his country music too, and he has worked with artists like Miranda Lambert, Luke Combs and Charley Crockett before, so I think it’s safe to say he knows is stuff. This one is really cool, too: @leonbridgesofficial Taking Neon Moon for a spin. Always been a favorite. #neonmoon #cover @Brooks & Dunn #leontour #leonbridges #lb4 #ontour #livemusic #newmusic #brooksanddunn ♬ Neon Moon – Brooks & Dunn Morgan Wallen The most recent version on this list, Morgan Wallen teamed up with Brooks & Dunn as part of their 2024 Reboot II album, which featured re-recordings of their hits with guest vocals from other artists. They allowed the artists to really run with it in terms of changing up the production or any other aspects of the songs, but Morgan stayed pretty true to the original and they sound great together: Kacey Musgraves Kacey Musgraves was the first one to reimagine this song for the first edition of Reboot which was released in 2019. It was the same concept of the 2024 version, just with different artists, and Kacey’s version of “Neon Moon” with Kix and Ronnie remains my favorite out of both projects to this day. There’s something so melancholy and vibey about what she did with the production, and it has something I just can’t put my finger on that makes it so alluring. I normally would never want to hear such a classic with any sort of new production, but she really nailed this and I still listen to it all the time. It’s easily my favorite “new” version of “Neon Moon” I’ve ever heard, and I don’t think that will ever change. Nothing beats the original, though… The post Top 5 Covers Of Brooks & Dunn’s “Neon Moon” In Honor Of The Country Classic Turning 34 first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Thorn in his side. The post Gene Vincent’s excruciating steel leg secret first appeared on Far Out Magazine.