Top AI and government officials tell Axios CEO Jim VandeHei that Anthropic, OpenAI and other tech giants will soon release new models that are scary good at hacking sophisticated systems at scale.

The one to watch: Anthropic is privately warning top government officials that its not-yet-released model — currently branded "Mythos" — makes large-scale cyberattacks much more likely in 2026.

• The model allows agents to work on their own, with wild sophistication and precision, to penetrate corporate, government and municipal systems. It's a hacker's dream weapon.
• Jim reveals in his new weekly newsletter for CEOs that one source briefed on the coming models says a large-scale attack could hit this year. Businesses are ripe targets. (C-suite only: Request beta of Jim's newsletter.)

Fortune got its hands on an unpublished Anthropic blog post describing Mythos. The post said the model is "currently far ahead of any other AI model in cyber capabilities."

• The post adds that Mythos "presages an upcoming wave of models that can exploit vulnerabilities in ways that far outpace the efforts of defenders."
• So the threat is no longer theoretical, and will be exacerbated by employees testing agents without realizing they're making it easier for cybercriminals to hack their company.

Here's why this is different: The new models are even better at powering agents to think, act, reason and improvise on their own without rest or pause or limitation.

• Think of a warehouse full of the most sophisticated criminals who never sleep, learn on the fly and persist until successful — except the warehouse is infinite.
• Bad actors can now scale simply with more compute. They aren't limited by finite personnel. A single person can run campaigns that once required entire teams.

At the same time, systems are more vulnerable because so many employees are firing up Claude, Copilot or other agentic models — often at home — and creating agents of their own.

• They often connect to their internal work systems unwittingly, opening a new door for cybercriminals to enter.
• The industry has a name for this: "shadow AI." A Dark Reading poll found that 48% of cybersecurity professionals now rank agentic AI as the No. 1 attack vector for 2026 — above deepfakes, above everything else.

The bottom line: Everyone working at every company in America needs to know right now the dangers of using agents, especially unsupervised, anywhere near sensitive information.

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Big companies are scrambling to find brand-safe ways to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America's founding, Axios Communicators author Eleanor Hawkins reports.

• Why it matters: What should be a patriotic opportunity has turned into a political tightrope walk.

The celebration is being led by two different groups: the America250 Commission, a bipartisan group established by Congress in 2016, and Task Force 250, led by President Trump and established by executive order.

• Companies planning donations have to decide which group to back.

🥁 By the numbers: According to a recent M Booth survey, 62% of Americans say the 250th anniversary is personally important. 8 in 10 say it's a moment to celebrate America's history, achievements and values.

• But the celebration comes at a time when 60% say the country is more divided now than at any period in their lifetime.

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NASA is going back to the moon for the first time in 53 years. The Artemis II mission, with four astronauts aboard, won't land on the moon or even orbit it. But it's the first step toward future landings, AP reports.

• The launch window from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., opens Wednesday. There are also chances to launch over the following five days.

🧑‍🚀 Meet the astronauts — none of whom was alive for the Apollo era (left to right in photo above):

• Jeremy Hansen will be the first Canadian to fly around the moon.
• Christina Koch, the mission specialist, holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, at 328 days.
• Victor Glover, the pilot, already spent six months on the International Space Station and will be the first person of color to leave low-Earth orbit.
• Commander Reid Wiseman is a widower and solo parent with two teenage daughters at home.

Take flight: Official site.

Bruce Springsteen headlined the flagship "No Kings" protest against President Trump on the Capitol lawn in St. Paul, Minn., yesterday as millions of Americans mobilized for 3,300+ demonstrations in D.C. and all 50 states.

• 🎸 Springsteen, 76, performed "Streets of Minneapolis," which he wrote in response to the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents. Springsteen's Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, which has a "No Kings" theme, kicks off Tuesday night in Minneapolis. (AP)

🪧 Organizers said turnout was 8 million, eclipsing the 7 million the group claimed for the larger of last year's two No Kings days. The New York Times notes that in some cities, organizers' estimates were higher than those of public-safety officials.

• The top single-day protest in U.S. history was 20 million for the first Earth Day in 1970.

Above: No Kings demonstrators march across the Memorial Bridge in Washington.

A drone's-eye view shows the "No Kings" mobilization in Boston.

• "No Kings" rallies were also held in Europe (including London, Paris and Rome), Latin America and Australia. Countries with constitutional monarchies branded the protests "No Tyrants."

More photos ... Official site.

A new pro-AI political operation plans to spend more than $100 million in this year's midterms, the latest big-money push to promote a deregulation agenda, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• Why it matters: The AI lobby is set to be a colossal player in midterms — bankrolling allies who advocate deregulation and punishing critics.

The new group, Innovation Council Action, is led by Taylor Budowich, a former Trump White House deputy chief of staff.

• The group was praised by tech mogul and Trump AI adviser David Sacks. Sacks was named vice chair of the president's tech advisory council last week.

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Several school systems in areas targeted most aggressively by President Trump's immigration crackdowns have seen dramatic increases in student absences, Axios' Brittany Gibson has found.

• Enrollment data in Charlotte, Chicago, Minneapolis and California show thousands of students were suddenly absent when ICE came to town.
• Big declines in school enrollment have been reported in Florida and Texas, which have the nation's highest numbers of enforcement agreements between ICE and local authorities.

Keep reading.

More than 5 million voting-age Americans would have to drive an estimated hour or more to present citizenship documents to register to vote under the proposed SAVE America Act, Axios' Erin Davis and Alex Fitzpatrick report.

• The legislation's requirement to present documents in person to an "appropriate elections official" could effectively kill online and mail-in registration.

The average American lives about 20 minutes by car — without traffic — from their nearest election office, per an Axios analysis.

• For rural Americans in Western states, that more than doubles to 49 minutes.

🔮 What's next: The SAVE Act is stuck in the Senate. But several Republican states are pushing similar measures.

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Over a third of engaged couples now use AI in their wedding planning — a share that nearly doubled in just one year, Axios' Sami Sparber reports via new data from The Knot.

• With Canva's AI tools, for example, "couples can produce a first draft [of custom designs] in seconds, refine it, and have it printed and delivered to their door within days," the platform's Kailyn Nunn tells Axios.

The other side: "The folks I work with would probably get the 'ick' if they knew something for their wedding, the culmination of their love story … had this stamp of artificial, cookie-cutter, generic style on it," Vermont-based wedding artist Lisa Buch tells Axios.

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