Axios

I'm driving another Audi this week, downsizing from the flagship A8 to the midsize A6. The price is smaller, too: The A6 starts at $58,900, but the Prestige trim level starts at $67,100.

What's new: The A6 gets a new 3.0-liter V6 engine and a new infotainment system featuring 2 large touchscreens that operate like your smartphone.

Global automakers are pouring billions of dollars into autonomous vehicles and governments are scrambling to figure out how to manage them. Often overlooked, it seems, are the people who will use them.

Why it matters: People, not robots, will ultimately determine whether AVs succeed. Aside from learning to trust the technology, people have to decide whether self-driving cars are useful, accessible and affordable.

The looming deployment of AVs could render parking garages obsolete, which has created a conundrum for developers — whether to invest in parking garages that can be converted for other uses or stop building them entirely.

The big picture: While the need for parking is acute in cities today, parking structures are typically financed with a 30-year payback and some believe that AVs will reduce or eliminate the need for parking as soon as 2030.

Every trip to a doctor's office or hospital adds more information to a deep, comprehensive record of who you are — physically, emotionally and even financially.

Why it matters: Health care data breaches are more common than ever, putting our most sensitive personal information at risk of exposure and misuse.

The Northern Virginia housing market has tightened dramatically in anticipation of Amazon's HQ2, where buyers and sellers have been scrambling for months to lock up properties and take advantage of the new demand.

Why it matters: Amazon’s move into Arlington, VA — the first of 25,000 employees will arrive in June — comes as large tech companies are being blamed for fueling inequality and gentrification in major cities around the country.

Data is AI's jet fuel — amassing as much as possible allows tech companies to precisely target ads, or medical AI to differentiate between a benign tumor and a malignant one.

The state of play: No problem for Facebook and its gobs of data — but hard for a small clinic with few patients to learn from. Now, new AI methods are allowing companies to benefit from the collective wisdom of peers and competitors, without giving up sensitive data or trade secrets.

An altered video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that shows her speaking slowly as if drunk is spreading on social media.

Why it matters: The clip, which appears to have been slowed to make Pelosi's speech sound slurred, has found traction on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, highlighting how easily even the simplest manipulated media can mushroom on social platforms.

After dramatic U.S. moves to shut Huawei off from suppliers, the Chinese telecom manufacturer received a 90-day reprieve from the Department of Commerce Monday, placing a question mark over the broader anti-Huawei campaign.

Why it matters: A similar previous U.S.-China trade tussle flipped from confrontation to accommodation, leaving experts and lawmakers wondering what the mercurial Trump administration's endgame with Huawei will be.

Facebook said Thursday that it took down roughly 900,000 posts related to attempted drug sales or otherwise linked to drugs in the first quarter of 2019.

Why it matters: Some critics of Facebook and other social platforms say they haven't done enough to combat the opioid trade fueling a nationwide epidemic.