Axios

The deadline for companies to help remove AI-generated pornography under the Take It Down Act passed this week, but advocates say companies will have to be taken to court to secure strong implementation.

Why it matters: The Take It Down Act is Congress' first attempt to tackle child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual intimate images of adults online — content that has proliferated with AI.

Open-source AI firm Reflection AI is partnering with the Department of Energy to help power the Genesis Mission, a federal scientific research initiative, per an announcement shared exclusively with Axios.

Why it matters: The partnership is a big advancement for a company that's trying to get the U.S. to embrace open-source models.

President Trump's week started in triumph when he took out a pair of Republican adversaries up for reelection — but it's ending in a rare moment of Republican resistance, largely of his own making.

Why it matters: Trump has spent the better part of a decade steamrolling congressional Republicans, but the costs of his revenge campaign — and some politically toxic priorities — have caught up with him.

Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin is facing a surge of anger and even some calls to resign from congressional Democrats following the release of the DNC's 2024 election autopsy on Thursday.

Why it matters: The chaotic handling of the report builds on concerns among Democrats about Martin's leadership and the DNC's anemic fundraising numbers compared to its GOP counterpart.

A record number of Americans will hit the road over Memorial Day weekend — and they'll pay an average of $1.34 more per gallon at the pump compared to a year ago.

Why it matters: Holiday car trips are proving to be resilient, even as President Trump's war with Iran pushes gas prices sharply higher.

Everything seemed set for a photo op with tech and AI CEOs surrounding President Trump on Thursday as he signed a much-anticipated executive order on AI and cybersecurity.

• But it fell apart hours before the order was to be signed, as a top Trump adviser and some tech executives gave it a big thumbs down. And the president didn't really want to regulate AI in the first place.

Why it matters: Any further delay of the order means more time for infighting and for the text to get bogged down in disagreements among different parts of the government and industry.

House GOP leadership pulled a scheduled vote Thursday to rein in President Trump's military campaign in Iran after it became clear they did not have the votes to defeat it.

Why it matters: It would have been Congress' first successful rebuke of Trump's Iran war effort after multiple Democratic-led war powers attempts had failed.

The U.S. will send an additional 5,000 troops ​to Poland, President Trump said Thursday.

Why it matters: Trump's surprise announcement came a week after the Pentagon abruptly canceled a planned deployment of 4,000 troops to Poland.

The White House plans to start counting people who were quickly removed after crossing the border in its deportation statistics, a change that will put it closer to its goal of one million deportations a year.

Why it matters: Republicans fumed that former President Obama was "cooking the books" when he used the same playbook to tout record deportations during his administration.

$72 billion in funding for ICE and Border Patrol is now in limbo after GOP senators revolted against President Trump's $1.776B "anti-weaponization fund" on Thursday.

Why it matters: The fund was dropped like "a bomb in the middle of a pretty well planned out reconciliation bill," Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters.