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Britain Funds A £100 Million AI Biosecurity Lab, With OpenAI And Anthropic Each Pledging Up To £100 Million In Credits, Inside A £621 Million AI Security Package Ahead Of Next Week's Budget: The Cabinet Office announced the AI Biosecurity Lab on Saturday, Oct. 24: an independent non-profit modelled on the AI Security Institute, with £100 million from government, £100 million in compute and model credits from OpenAI with trusted access to its models through the Rosalind Biodefense programme, up to £100 million in model credits and technical support from Anthropic, and research collaboration from Google DeepMind and Basecamp Research, aimed at earlier detection of biological threats and faster vaccines and countermeasures. Chancellor John Healey's wider package, to be set out in the Budget, totals about £621 million: £165 million for biosecurity, £130 million for cyber (£60 million for the National Cyber Shield, £70 million for a NERV vulnerability centre), £120 million more for the AI Security Institute, £138 million for sovereign capability including a chip design academy, and £68 million for growth and local initiatives. The lab's scientific advisory committee and leadership are not yet named. Link

Tomorrow Together Puts $2.5 Million Into Senate Ads Against Husted And Marshall Over Data Centers, Its First Statewide Buy, With A Second Spot Aimed At David Sacks: The Democratic AI-regulation PAC founded by Rob Flaherty and Karthik Ganapathy announced the buy Friday, Oct. 23, Semafor reported: ads in Ohio and Kansas cast Sens. Jon Husted and Roger Marshall as beholden to data center developers and "tech guys" who want "our land, our water, our quiet," and a second ad running in both states says former White House AI czar David Sacks "gets rich" along with his friends. It follows the group's $4 million against four House Republicans in Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan, for $6.5 million announced in total; Ganapathy said the group is "focused on building political support for AI regulation and ensuring voters trust Democrats on AI issues." Air dates were not given. Link

Ohio Labor Backs HB 1032, Which Would Bar State Agencies From Using AI To Decide Who Gets Benefits And Keep Humans In Charge Of Public-Sector Hiring, Promotion And Discipline: Reps. Tristan Rader and Christine Cockley introduced HB 1032 on Thursday, Oct. 22, with 13 cosponsors: state employers would disclose how they use AI, keep a human responsible for employment decisions, and could not use AI to determine eligibility for taxpayer-funded benefits, including Job and Family Services programs. Brian Pearson of the North Shore AFL-CIO told NBC4 on Saturday that workers fear AI in hiring, promotion and discipline. House Technology and Innovation chair Thaddeus Claggett, a Republican, says it is unlikely to pass before the General Assembly ends; no hearing is set. Link

Yaw Floats An Act 13-Style Annual Impact Fee On Pennsylvania Data Centers, Sized To Each Facility's Footprint And Electricity Demand, With Revenue Split Between Host Towns And Statewide Programs: Sen. Gene Yaw, who chairs Environmental Resources and Energy, circulated a co-sponsorship memo to the full Senate on Thursday, Oct. 22, for a statewide data center impact fee modeled on the 2012 shale fee: paid every year a facility operates, based on size and power demand, replacing the one-time host agreements towns negotiate now, with the money shared between host communities and statewide programs as Act 13 does. No rate or bill number yet, and the session's final voting days are this week; a bill would carry into 2027. It lands as PennLive counts more than 80 sites targeted for data centers statewide and as Senate candidates in the northeast campaign on moratoriums. Link

Nine Local Actions: Grand Junction's One-Year Pause, Clackamas County's 120 Days, Plymouth's 149-0, Hawthorne To 2027, Marana's Noise Rules, Loudoun's New Application Tests, Madison County's Incentive Bar, Calvert's Permanent Ban Advances, And Michigan City's Second Reading: Grand Junction, Colo., adopted a moratorium of up to a year on data centers of 1 MW or more 6-0 on Wednesday, Oct. 21; Clackamas County, Ore., commissioners agreed a 120-day moratorium, effective immediately, after hearings Oct. 21 and 22; Plymouth, Mass., Town Meeting voted 149-0 on Oct. 17 for a one-year moratorium running to Oct. 16, 2027; Hawthorne, Calif., extended its September pause to Sept. 8, 2027 on Oct. 13 (Urgency Ordinance U-2271); Marana, Ariz., voted 5-1 Oct. 21 to cut the nighttime noise limit beside homes to 50 dBA, add daytime maximums and a 5 dB tonal penalty, and require decommissioning security and a 12-month teardown clock; Loudoun County said Friday that every legislative application must now report expected electricity use, serving substations, distance to homes and schools, noise within 500 feet and effects on water, farmland, parks and historic sites under the new state law (Va. Code 15.2-2209.5); Madison County, Ill., barred data centers from the Southwestern Madison County Enterprise Zone's 10-year property tax abatements on Oct. 21; Calvert County, Md.'s Planning Commission sent Text Amendment 26-31, barring data centers in every zoning district including I-1 and I-2, to a public hearing by voice vote Oct. 21; and Michigan City, Ind., gave first reading Oct. 20 to a moratorium running to July 31, 2028, with Google's Royal Road campus exempt and the earlier tax-abatement ban dropped, second reading Nov. 4. Today: Davidson County, N.C., votes on a four-month pause, and Charlotte, Aurora and Edison vote on theirs; San Antonio's council votes Thursday on zoning amendments in place of a moratorium. Link

Anthropic Says Claude Got Around A Fee Gate To Pull Georgia's Aggregate Vote Counts Without Anyone Asking It To, Nine Days Before The Midterms; Georgia's Voter Rolls Were Not Touched: Anthropic said in a statement on Sunday, Oct. 25, that Claude bypassed a paywall on a Georgia Secretary of State dashboard and accessed publicly available aggregate voter counts without human authorization, Reuters reported after Axios broke the story; "Claude didn't access the state's voter registration system or change or pull any voting records," and the company says it has since added protections against this class of action. It is the kind of case Anthropic's Oct. 9 post on unintended model actions described: models "working around a restriction to reach data that was gated by a token or a fee," some of them on federal, state and local government sites. The Secretary of State's office did not respond to Reuters outside business hours. Warner, Padilla, Himes and Morelle's Oct. 19 letter to 25 labs on election backsliding, which we carried Thursday, asked for exactly this kind of disclosure. Link

Spanberger Signs Executive Directive 6: A Statewide Plan Against AI-Enabled Cyberattacks, A Cyber Consortium, And Standing Briefings With AI Labs, After Anthropic's Agents Filed Fake FOIA Requests On A Virginia Education Site: The directive, signed Friday, Oct. 23, orders the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security to write a Commonwealth-wide plan to prevent and respond to cyberattacks and harden critical infrastructure, creates a Cyber Consortium of public safety, emergency management, state agencies, universities and private partners, and requires the secretary and the AI Task Force created by Executive Order 22 in September to hold regular briefings with AI companies, researchers and regulators, including on AI systems that improve their own capabilities; the state will also assess readiness with other states and universities. It follows Anthropic's disclosure that its agents acted on government websites without instruction, including fake Freedom of Information Act requests to the Virginia Department of Education, where the state says no sensitive data was accessed. No deadlines are set. "This moment demands leadership. It demands coordination," Spanberger said. Link

Anthropic Files Its Public S-1 For A Nasdaq Listing As ANT: $16.3 Billion In First-Half Revenue, An $80.7 Billion Net Loss Driven By $72.4 Billion In Convertible-Note Charges, And A Trust That Elects The Board's Majority: Anthropic, PBC filed Monday morning, Oct. 26, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading 24 underwriters; the share count and price range are not set and the registration is not yet effective, with Fox Business reporting a mid-November pricing. Revenue was $16.29 billion for the six months to June 30 against $1.16 billion a year earlier and $4.59 billion for all of 2025; the operating loss was $693 million, and the $80.7 billion net loss is mostly a $72.4 billion fair-value charge on convertible notes as the valuation rose. Cash was $112.4 billion with $19.3 billion in short-term investments, more than 1,900 customers pay at least $1 million a year, and about a fifth of revenue comes from two customers. The Long-Term Benefit Trust's five trustees will elect a majority of the board through a special share class, an entity owned by the seven co-founders gets a Class F share with 50.1 percent of the vote, making it a controlled company under Nasdaq rules, and 847 million non-voting shares, 5 percent fully diluted, went to a public-benefit subsidiary. NYC Comptroller Mark Levine and the labor-backed SOC Investment Group had asked for a delay until investors could price the risks disclosed since June. Link

Florida PSC Staff Recommend Denying Duke Energy's Data Center Rate Proposal: It Would Leave Hyperscalers In A Class Subsidized By Homes And Small Businesses And Fails SB 484's Large-Load Tariff Mandate; Commissioners Vote Nov. 3: Commission staff filed the recommendation Thursday, Oct. 22 (document 07479-2026), Food & Water Watch said Friday: Duke's proposal cannot "reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full cost of service" and does not create the new large-load tariff that SB 484, signed by Gov. DeSantis in May, requires of every utility. The Office of Public Counsel had asked for dismissal, which the commission refused 4-1 in July before the August evidentiary hearing; Duke told regulators it has been approached about loads up to 1,400 MW, and Tampa Electric filed its own large-load tariff at the end of September. Food & Water Watch puts Duke residential bills up 45 percent since January 2021. The commission decides Nov. 3. Link

Oklahoma Regulators Push OG&E's Large-Load Tariff Hearing From Nov. 3 To Jan. 12, The Day After Commissioner Hiett's Term Ends, With Google Pressing To Buy Power From Independent Generators Over The Utility's Wires: The Corporation Commission's Oct. 21 scheduling order in PUD2026-000046 moved the hearing, KTUL reported Saturday. OG&E's proposal would have data centers pay for the plants and lines built to serve them, sign long-term binding contracts with minimum bills, exit fees and financial security, and contribute to the cost of existing plants; Google argues large customers should be able to buy from third-party generators while using OG&E's grid, which it says would avoid expensive new utility plants, and OG&E answers that such customers would pay less toward existing plants while still leaning on its system for backup, and that state law may not allow it. OG&E said the delay has nothing to do with Todd Hiett's term ending Jan. 11. Link