Data: National Center for Education Statistics; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals
America's future college pipeline is growing in the South and shrinking across the Northeast and California.
Why it matters: America's next higher-ed reckoning won't hit regions evenly. Colleges in shrinking markets will face a fierce fight for students, while those in growing regions will have to adapt to serve an expanding, more diverse student body.
Job hunting in 2026 can mean chatting with a robot, getting rejected by AI, encountering ghost jobs and competing with a flood of applicants.
Why it matters: This isn't just candidates venting on LinkedIn or TikTok. The hiring process is increasingly taking longer and application apathy could be eroding trust in America's job market.
The Justice Department and TikTok, along with parent company ByteDance, have reached a $400 million settlement to resolve allegations of violating children's online privacy laws, per an announcement first shared with Axios.
Why it matters: The Biden administration's DOJ first filed the suit in 2024. TikTok will clear the allegations it violated the Children's Online Privacy Act by paying a total of $400 million, without undergoing further litigation or admitting wrongdoing.
Prominent figures in the Make America Healthy Again movement are telling President Trump that "data centers should not become the justification for burning more coal."
The Federal Trade Commission is being urged to investigate AI companies for buying, scanning and destroying books to train AI, per a letter shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: If the FTC agrees, the fight over AI training data may move from copyright into competition.
AI-enabled bioweapons are a potentially catastrophic yet manageable risk — if government, the scientific community, the public health sector and leading tech companies can develop appropriate safeguards, a new report argues.
Why it matters: The debate over AI and public safety isn't one that the health care or research communities can ignore.
Vectus Air Defense Systems launched Friday, led by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and backed by drone-collaboration specialist Swarmer.
Why it matters: The company is taking an unorthodox tack, applying the as-a-service model, often associated with software subscriptions, to overhead defenses, like jammers, cannons and interceptors seen on the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East.
"It's clear that the threat is evolving rapidly, and the demand for a private-sector solution is very strong," Prince said in a statement to Axios.
Why it matters: The next president will inherit a fiscal reckoning decades in the making. The price it exacts — on taxes, benefits, borrowing and investment — could shape America's prosperity and power for generations.
Nathan Johnson, the Democratic nominee for Texas attorney general, is pitching a plan to examine how existing state laws can be updated to protect constituents from AI harms.
Why it matters: State attorneys general have largely focused on wielding existing law to bring lawsuits against tech companies.
Johnson wants to go a step further and get the legislature to pass laws that account for the AI age.
