Top Republican lawmakers have asked Jensen Huang to appear before Congress to answer questions after it was reported that US intelligence officials believe Nvidia’s chief executive has been targeted by a Chinese spying operation.

The chairs of the House committees on China, foreign affairs, and intelligence wrote to Huang this week asking him to appear before a joint closed-door briefing for their committees on November 18.

“Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the People’s Republic of China’s access to sensitive US technology and information,” representatives John Moolenaar, Brian Mast, and Rick Crawford wrote.

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/11/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-summoned-by-congress-over-chinese-espionage-concerns/

On August 9, 2026, Dartmouth College provost Santiago Schnell wrote a Washington Post op-ed called “Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there’s a deeper problem.” This week, Schnell discovered the depths of the problem himself as he resigned from the university after an advisory committee found that he failed to disclose significant AI use in an academic paper and in the Washington Post op-ed, even though publishers required such disclosure.

Schnell didn’t make it especially easy for the committee to investigate his AI use; the report uses the term “insufficient cooperation.” He did turn over his Dartmouth laptop, but he did not turn over logs from his personal LLM accounts related to the writings in question. Nor did he agree to meet with the committee.

The committee did get access to the Claude enterprise account Schnell had used through Dartmouth, though. This shows him using the LLM as a tool for revising his papers, finding and fixing bugs in code, and editing or generating figures. For instance, Schnell would run his papers through Claude and ask things like:

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/dartmouths-provost-warned-us-about-ai-cheating-but-his-own-ai-use-cost-him-his-job/

The US has charged five individuals as part of the first broad federal crackdown on “ghost students”—fraudsters who steal the identities of hundreds of Americans to pose as fake college students and steal student loans.

In a press release Thursday, the Department of Justice said it had uncovered a large-scale scheme relying partly on AI. The DOJ seized more than $750,000 in cryptocurrency from “a network associated with Kenyan nationals” after data analysis helped flag likely fraudsters. Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division credited new fraud-detection measures implemented by the Trump administration for the arrests. He said that “this is the first international seizure of its kind in Kenya,” while warning fraudsters that the crackdown has only just begun.

“If you steal American identities, if you steal taxpayer dollars, if you exploit programs meant to help students build a future—we will find you,” McDonald said. “Whether you are in Nebraska, New Jersey, Virginia, or Nairobi, we will pursue you.”

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/doj-exposes-ghost-students-using-ai-to-complete-courses-steal-student-loans/

The Pentagon inspector general’s office declined a request from US senators to investigate restrictions recently imposed on the Ukraine military’s use of SpaceX’s satellite network.

Ukraine, which uses SpaceX’s Starlink service and the military version known as Starshield, said earlier this month that military drones lost satellite connectivity when traveling above 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour). The limit was removed after about 10 days.

Five Democratic and four Republican senators sent an October 15 letter to Department of Defense Inspector General Platte Moring, asking for a probe into the reported disruptions of Starlink and Starshield. The letter asked, among other things, “whether any restrictions on Starlink or Starshield services were directed, authorized, or implemented by SpaceX, the Department of Defense, or other US government entities; whether such restrictions were consistent with applicable US government contracts, and what actions, if any, the Department of Defense took in response.”

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Donald Trump apparently is so aligned with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—who has become the president’s key advisor on AI—that he ignored intelligence indicating that Huang was the target of a “Chinese spy plot,” and did so partly to protect Nvidia’s stock.

The New York Times spoke with people briefed on US intelligence agencies’ surveillance and granted them anonymity to discuss findings drawn from “classified intelligence.” According to sources, about a year ago, Trump was briefed that “Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access” to Huang. That “someone” was Alice Huang, or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and former top executive at a Singapore cloud company called Megaspeed.

According to sources, the US had already suspected that Alice Huang—who is not related to Jensen Huang—was helping China evade export controls to gain access to high-end Nvidia chips through Megaspeed. But it alarmed investigators to discover that she may have used her role at Megaspeed to gain direct access to Jensen Huang. It’s now believed she may have leveraged that closeness to feed China intel not only on one of America’s leading AI companies, but also to influence Trump’s thinking on AI. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted last month ahead of Trump’s AI talks with China President Xi Jinping, “the president is completely aligned with Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia.”

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Shelby determined the text of US law makes it clear that state regulation is not forbidden. US law states that CFTC jurisdiction does not “supersede or limit the jurisdiction conferred on courts of the United States or any State,” and “explicitly provides for State regulation of its gaming laws in all but a few specified cases,” he wrote.

“Congress is aware that some States permit gambling while others do not, and the CEA explicitly provides for State jurisdiction,” Shelby wrote.

Most states in US want Supreme Court to rule

Kalshi is now appealing its loss to the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit but was unable to obtain an injunction preventing enforcement of the state gambling ban while that litigation continues. On September 8, Tenth Circuit judges denied Kalshi’s emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal. Utah filed its lawsuit seeking a shutdown of Kalshi about six weeks later.

The CFTC lawsuit against Utah makes arguments similar to the ones already rejected by the district court, although some other courts have ruled otherwise.

“Utah is not the first State that has attempted to invade the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction over swaps,” the CFTC lawsuit said. “Already, several federal courts—including the Third Circuit—have swiftly responded by issuing or affirming temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions barring the States from enforcing their gambling laws against CFTC-regulated exchanges that offer sports-related or other event contracts.”

The Third Circuit appeals court ruled that New Jersey cannot regulate sports bets on prediction markets. But Kalshi lost similar cases in the Sixth Circuit and Ninth Circuit in rulings that went in favor of Ohio, Tennessee, and Nevada.

Because circuit appeals courts are divided on the issue, it is likely that the Supreme Court will take up the case and determine whether states can apply their gambling laws to prediction markets. New Jersey petitioned the Supreme Court to resolve the circuit split, and 39 other states and the District of Columbia filed a brief supporting New Jersey’s petition.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/trump-admin-sues-utah-to-save-kalshi-from-the-states-total-ban-on-gambling/

“Elon Musk claims that Ukraine allegedly violated Starlink’s terms of use and used the system on combat drones. As someone who was inside the process at the Ministry of Defense, I can say with certainty that this is not true,” Sternenko wrote. “In February of this year, whitelists were introduced. Stationary terminals could be registered by both military personnel and civilians. But for any satellite terminal to work while on the move, it had to be added to a special list and connected to the military Starshield system. Otherwise, no satellite communication terminals in Ukraine would work. In other words, using civilian Starlink for drone missions was technically impossible. All drone missions that required satellite communication could only be carried out using Starshield.”

Musk: Starshield limits are up to POTUS

Musk initially responded to the controversy by stating that, unlike the Starlink commercial service, “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” Musk added that “Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action,” but did not at first accuse Ukraine of violating that restriction.

President Trump denied making the decision to limit Ukraine’s satellite connectivity and reportedly called Musk to ask him to lift the restrictions.

SpaceX confirmed in 2023 that it had blocked Ukraine from using Starlink with military drones, saying its contract with Ukraine did not allow offensive uses. In May 2026, Musk said that US military suicide drones set up by a contractor incorrectly used Starlink instead of Starshield.

On Saturday, Musk wrote that “Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/musk-accuses-ukraine-of-violating-starlink-terms-with-deadly-drone-strikes/

Highway thieves are using sophisticated digital tactics that investigators worry make it easy to rob trucks carrying millions in expensive data center equipment.

NBC News spoke to “several industry leaders, consultants, and investigators advising law enforcement” offices probing the biggest thefts yet and reported that since June, thieves have “made away with more than $100 million in data center freight.”

Here’s how they said thieves get away with it: First, thieves hack freight brokers’ accounts on shipment-listing websites and post fake shipments to lure real bids, then send a malicious link to any trucking companies that respond. Once victims click, thieves install software to take control of their accounts and start bidding on real shipments. Sometimes, a real delivery driver is hired to collect the cargo, unaware of the scam, and other times fake driver’s licenses are used to get accomplices hired. Either way, the goods are eventually transferred to a driver working with the thieves to resell the gear, and, in one of the largest thefts, tracking coordinates were spoofed to prevent digital monitoring.

Equipment commonly targeted includes “servers, fiber-optic cables, computer memory chips, copper wires, and bitcoin mining machines,” NBC News reported.

Some trailers hit seem to be carrying only data center equipment, like two stolen freights found in Illinois. The Cook County Sheriff’s Office estimated those contained $300,000 worth of copper wire spools and about $1 million in “custom-made data center modular power solutions equipment,” NBC News reported. Other trucks impacted were carrying additional freight, like a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department case where “data center cooling equipment” bound for Deepcool AI was recovered among nicotine pouches, televisions, shoes, printers, speakers, and skin care cosmetics. Experts worry that means Americans may be broadly harmed by the thefts, not just the AI industry.

Taking out off-duty cop escorts

While some stolen goods have been recovered, in two of the largest thefts that NBC News found, none of the equipment was found, and off-duty cops hired to escort the shipments were targeted in hit-and-runs.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/highway-thieves-are-spoofing-gps-to-steal-millions-in-data-center-bound-cargo/

“All Department of War personnel are prohibited from engaging in financial transactions using nonpublic information, either directly or indirectly through a third party… Violations may result in administrative, disciplinary, and, where appropriate, criminal action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and/or applicable federal law,” Hegseth wrote.

The memo said betting on military matters related to a person’s job can warp one’s judgment. “Beyond operational security, financial stakes can warp judgment,” he wrote. “A logistician with money riding on a strike date has an interest in that date. An analyst with a position on an outcome has an interest in that outcome.”

Kalshi and Polymarket both prohibit insider trading. But criminal charges of the sort described by Hegseth are sure to be a bigger deterrent than being banned from the Kalshi or Polymarket platforms.

White House issued warning after suspicious bets

This was not the first warning issued internally by the Trump administration, The Associated Press wrote yesterday.

“A group of new accounts on Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the US and Iran would reach a ceasefire just before President Donald Trump announced it in April, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for the new customers,” the AP wrote. “The White House warned staff against using private information to trade on prediction markets the same day the report came out.”

In another incident, a Trump teleprompter aide reportedly made $100,000 on Kalshi by betting on what Trump would say in prepared remarks.

Prediction markets have flourished under the Trump administration’s light-touch approach to regulation. The Trump administration is also trying to stop state governments from regulating the markets, arguing that state laws are preempted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction. Courts have reached different conclusions, and state governments want the Supreme Court to uphold their right to impose restrictions on prediction-market gambling.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/pentagon-memo-on-prediction-markets-says-insider-bets-put-troops-lives-at-risk/

“Ring orders, designs, and measurements can take time, and not every coaching staff for every defending champion gets its rings on ring night… The Knicks assistants were told they would receive championship rings eventually, but many longtime employees at Madison Square Garden, including some who work in the Knicks’ business operations, will not receive rings at all, team sources told The Athletic,” Vardon wrote.

MSG employee hopes were raised “at the end of September when the Knicks sent an email to a long list of employees, which gave recipients a first glimpse at their would-be championship rings,” Vardon wrote. The email included “a graphic of two differently styled rings” that the lucky employees could supposedly choose from, the article said.

“(Employee name), this one is on the house. MSG is issuing a complimentary employee championship ring. The same jeweler, the same craftsmanship, personalized with your name. No cost to you,” the email said. “There are two designs to choose from: Championship Gold and Garden Classic. Reserve the one you want below.”

Vardon wrote that “multiple team sources” confirmed the email was a phishing test. It’s not clear how many employees clicked the link, and it wasn’t immediately clear how many employees will eventually get some type of championship ring.

We contacted the Madison Square Garden Sports organization with these questions and received a statement after this article was published. The statement called the phishing test “an unfortunate mistake,” and detailed plans to give rings to staff.

MSG’s statement said the company “sent out an email to its corporate team as a simulation of a phishing attack designed to strengthen our security against hackers. MSG was recently hacked and extorted using an employee login and password obtained through a similar phishing attack. Using the rings as a lure to gain employees’ attention was an unfortunate mistake.”

As for the ring-distribution plan, MSG said it “is gifting more than 275 championship rings and jewelry to players, coaches, employees and other members of the Knicks family, worth more than $3.7 million, in recognition of their contributions and celebrating this achievement.”

This article was updated with MSG’s statement.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/knicks-sent-employees-fake-offer-of-championship-rings-in-phishing-test-report/