Good morning. A federal judge on Monday invalidated the Trump administration’s new fees for H-1B visas, saying officials overreached in applying a $100,000 charge for new applicants to the popular program for foreign professionals. 

• States win: U.S. Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts declared the fee unlawful, siding with a coalition of states that challenged the policy and argued it hurt their ability to staff publicly run colleges and universities, primary and secondary schools, and healthcare systems. Sorokin, an appointee of President Barack Obama, found that President Trump and his top officials had acted beyond the scope of their powers, as well as their authority under immigration laws passed by Congress, and administrative law. “The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” he wrote.
   
• No payment necessary: The judge also said that he was voiding the payment requirement, using a procedure in the Administrative Procedure Act that effectively undoes the policy nationwide and dismissing arguments from the Trump administration that he could only offer limited relief under that law.
   
• Chaotic rollout: The fee sparked concern and chaos when it was rolled out last fall, especially among the biggest tech companies that frequently use H-1B visas to hire in-demand skilled workers. Some companies frantically scrambled to bring workers back to the U.S. before the Trump administration clarified that the changes would only apply to new visa petitions, not renewals for people who currently hold an H-1B.
   
• Not over yet: A White House spokeswoman indicated that the administration planned to appeal the decision from Sorokin. “President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did,” said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers.

Democrats unveil flood of AI proposals in potential challenge to tech giants.

A top Senate Democrat is introducing a bill to restrict how the Pentagon uses artificial intelligence, adding to a flood of AI proposals that offer a preview of the oversight tech companies can expect if Democrats win back control of Congress.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) is proposing a bill that would ensure a human is involved when the Pentagon uses AI in weapons and protects against the technology’s use for domestic surveillance. The bill expands on existing Defense Department protocols.

The proposal follows legislation that is similar in some ways to bills put forward recently by Sens. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) and Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.). Many of the bills were spurred by AI developer Anthropic’s recent spat with the Pentagon, which raised questions about the Defense Department’s guardrails for keeping a human involved when AI is used.

• U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on technology companies to implement checks on their devices to prevent children from sharing intimate images, the latest salvo from a European leader against Big Tech over how to protect young users.
   
• Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted co-founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has formally applied for a presidential pardon, more than two years after receiving his 25-year prison sentence.
   
• Risk Journal reports: Simpler climate reporting rules could save investment firms £20 million ($26.6 million) a year, according to the U.K.’s financial watchdog. (free link)

How SpaceX became embedded in America’s war machine.

SpaceX’s years of courting the national-security establishment are paying off.

The U.S. government is SpaceX’s largest single client, which the 24-year-old company identified as “Customer A” in securities filings ahead of its planned initial public offering. Revenue from the government, which totaled around $4 billion in 2025, is set to sharply climb over the next few years.

The Elon Musk-led company has combined its ability to pump out satellites and quickly launch rockets with savvy maneuvering of the Pentagon to secure high-value deals. Those agreements are putting SpaceX at the center of military and intelligence agencies’ plans for space.

Trump struggled to rein in Netanyahu’s strikes on Iran.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed how to respond to waves of Iranian missile attacks Sunday night, President Trump called with a message: Stand down.

But as it became clear the Israeli leader wouldn’t ignore a direct attack, Trump shifted his tone. Keep it limited, and don’t let it escalate, he said according to people familiar with the conversation.

Trump had hoped to contain the flare-up in fighting to keep it from disrupting work on a peace deal he is trying to hammer out with Tehran. His struggle to squelch Israel’s retaliatory strikes shows the difficulty of managing a situation in which the U.S. and Israel’s priorities are diverging sharply, particularly over Lebanon, as he tries to wind down the war.

• Iran’s Attack on Israel Reveals New and Aggressive Regional Ambitions
• Lebanon Is Teetering at the Abyss of a New Civil War

• Germany has pulled out of a stalled stealth-fighter project with France and Spain whose lack of progress has become a symbol for the hurdles Europe faces in rebuilding its militaries as the U.S. reduces its presence on the continent.
   
• Vail Resorts once again cut its outlook for the year, citing historically challenging weather conditions across the western U.S. that have continually damped demand.
   
• Nvidia is teaming up with leading South Korean technology companies to build large-scale artificial-intelligence infrastructure in Asia, seeking to solidify its data-center footprint and expand its AI ecosystem into robotics and other industrial sectors.
   
• Perrigo Chief Executive Patrick Lockwood-Taylor has resigned after the board found his personal conduct had violated company code.
   
• When the New England Patriots blocked a field goal in this year’s AFC Championship game, putting the team on the cusp of a Super Bowl trip, Austin Sagan wasn’t cheering like his Patriots-obsessed dad. He was thinking about gate constraints at Logan International Airport.
   
• Confidence among U.S. small businesses fell in May as higher fuel prices pressured margins and weakened plans for hiring.
   
• The worldwide surge in demand for artificial intelligence is driving a wave of exports from China, keeping the world’s second-largest economy humming despite turmoil from the war in Iran.
   
• Indonesia’s central bank raised interest rates in an off-schedule decision on Tuesday, pulling an emergency lever as mounting external and domestic pressures weighed on the country’s currency.

U.S. expands list of Chinese tech companies it says assist Beijing’s military.

The Pentagon on Monday updated its list of Chinese businesses the U.S. has identified as aiding Beijing’s military, designating around two dozen new companies, including tech giants Alibaba Group and Baidu, limiting their operations in America.

The list of Chinese military-linked companies, which the Defense Department revises annually, is an expansion from last year underscoring the view from U.S. national security officials that China leverages its private sector to build and improve military technology. New additions this year include a range of Chinese consumer and tech companies, including electric carmaker BYD, pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec and humanoid robotics company Unitree.

• President Trump is encountering headwinds on a top national-security priority for his administration with several Republicans joining Democrats in refusing to greenlight a federal spy program ahead of a deadline this week.
   
• Melanie Walker was a confidante to Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein. When Gates appears before Congress this week, the mysterious role played by Walker​ will come under scrutiny for the first time.
   
• Forget about learning to code. Meta Platforms says it’s time to pick up a wrench. The company is starting a “workforce academy” to train Americans to build its data centers as skilled trade workers become a sought-after commodity.
   
• OpenAI, which kick-started the artificial-intelligence boom with the 2022 release of ChatGPT, is officially preparing to stage an initial public offering that will test the appetite of investors for AI companies.
   
• A 26,000-pound box truck loaded with Doritos and Frito-Lay chips rolls out of a distribution center, bound for a Walmart store about 4 miles away. It looks like any other truck, but there is no one at the wheel.

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