News-June-19-2026
June 19, 2026 — State AI legislation remained active across June sessions, a federal appeals court restored Ohio's parental-consent law for minors' social-media accounts, OpenAI hired former White House AI adviser Dean Ball for frontier-policy strategy, and federal energy regulators directed grid operators to revise interconnection rules for AI data centers, Norway moved to sharply restrict generative-AI use in schools, and President Donald Trump said he no longer views Anthropic as a national-security threat after a G7 meeting with CEO Dario Amodei, while the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner resigned after a workplace investigation at the data and AI regulator.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Contents
[edit]- Transparency Coalition tracks state AI bills moving through June sessions
- Ohio appeals court restores social-media parental-consent law
- OpenAI hires former White House AI adviser for frontier-policy role
- FERC tells grid operators to fast-track AI data-center interconnection rules
- Norway restricts generative AI in schools
- Trump says Anthropic no longer viewed as national-security threat
- UK information commissioner resigns after workplace investigation
Transparency Coalition tracks state AI bills moving through June sessions
[edit]Transparency Coalition's June 19 update reported that Arizona HB 2311, a chatbot-safety bill, had passed final Senate passage 22-7 and final House passage 37-19 before being transmitted to Governor Katie Hobbs on June 12.[3] The same update said California had 30 remaining AI bills after crossover, including bills on copyright documentation for AI training data, customer-service chatbots, healthcare AI, worker-impact assessments, companion-chatbot restrictions, AI disclosure in advertisements, and digital-replica impersonation.[3] The update also summarized enacted Colorado measures, reporting that Governor Jared Polis signed SB 189 revising Colorado's 2024 AI Act on May 14, signed HB 1263 on chatbot safety on May 29, signed HB 1195 on AI-related psychotherapy services on June 3, and signed HB 1139 on healthcare AI on June 2.[3] Transparency Coalition further reported that Illinois lawmakers sent five AI-related bills to Governor J.B. Pritzker after the legislature adjourned sine die on June 1, including SB 315, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, and measures on ticket-buying bots, rental-property price fixing, teacher evaluations, and healthcare approvals.[3]
Ohio appeals court restores social-media parental-consent law
[edit]The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction that had blocked Ohio from enforcing the Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, which requires covered online platforms to obtain parental consent before allowing users under 16 to create accounts.[4] The Sixth Circuit held that NetChoice had not shown a likelihood of success on its First Amendment facial challenge under the Supreme Court's platform-regulation framework in Moody v. NetChoice, and remanded the case for further proceedings.[4] The dispute is relevant to AI-law coverage because state child-safety and platform-design statutes increasingly overlap with chatbot, recommender-system, and minor-safety rules applied to AI-mediated services.[3]
OpenAI hires former White House AI adviser for frontier-policy role
[edit]TechCrunch reported that OpenAI hired Dean Ball, a former White House AI policy adviser, to lead a Strategic Futures team focused on frontier AI policy and internal governance.[5] The same report said OpenAI added Ball during the same week it hired Transformer co-inventor Noam Shazeer from Google DeepMind, positioning the company to add senior technical and policy capacity before a potential public offering.[5] The policy hire is notable for AI governance because frontier-model developers are increasingly building internal teams to shape safety, regulatory, and government-relations strategy around high-capability systems.[5]
FERC tells grid operators to fast-track AI data-center interconnection rules
[edit]TechCrunch reported that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directed regional grid operators to create faster interconnection procedures for large loads such as AI data centers.[6] The Hill reported that FERC's orders told grid operators to reform processes for connecting large electricity users and to address cost-allocation issues raised by AI data-center growth.[7] The development is relevant to AI-law coverage because federal infrastructure and energy regulators are beginning to impose sector-specific procedural requirements around AI compute deployment rather than regulating only model behavior or consumer-facing AI systems.[6][7]
Norway restricts generative AI in schools
[edit]Reuters reported that Norway is imposing a near-ban on generative-AI tools for elementary-school pupils and restricting their use for older students.[2] Reuters reported that the policy is intended to prevent negative effects on learning as schools respond to classroom use of generative AI.[2] The development is relevant to AI-law coverage because it is an education-sector restriction on generative-AI deployment by a national government, rather than a voluntary school-district policy or private platform rule.[2]
Trump says Anthropic no longer viewed as national-security threat
[edit]President Donald Trump told Axios in a pretaped interview that he no longer viewed Anthropic as a national-security threat after meeting CEO Dario Amodei at the G7 summit.[8][9] The Next Web reported that Trump said Anthropic had behaved "very responsibly" and signaled that restrictions on its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models could ease after the meeting.[8] Reuters summarized the same Axios interview as Trump saying he no longer views Anthropic as a national-security threat.[9]
UK information commissioner resigns after workplace investigation
[edit]John Edwards resigned as the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner on June 19, 2026, after a workplace investigation, and the Information Commissioner's Office confirmed that he had stepped down from both the commissioner and chair roles effective immediately.[1]
BBC News reported that the ICO is responsible for regulating AI in the United Kingdom, overseeing data-protection regulation, and administering freedom-of-information law.[1] Science Secretary Liz Kendall said she had reviewed evidence of vulgar and highly sexualized language in Edwards' interactions with staff, while Edwards said he had exercised poor judgment and made inappropriate attempts at humor that caused offense.[1]
The resignation creates a leadership change at the UK data and AI regulator while the office continues regulatory work through its board and executive team, and BBC News quoted data-protection specialist Jon Baines describing the resignation as unprecedented among UK Information Commissioners since 1984.[1]
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 BBC News, "ICO boss John Edwards announces resignation following investigation" (June 19, 2026).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Reuters, "Norway imposes near-ban on AI in elementary school" (June 19, 2026).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Transparency Coalition, "AI Legislative Update: June 19, 2026" (June 19, 2026).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 24-3455, opinion (June 18, 2026).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 TechCrunch, "OpenAI is bringing on some big guns in the lead-up to its IPO" (June 18, 2026).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 TechCrunch, "AI data centers just got a government-mandated fast lane to the grid" (June 18, 2026).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 The Hill, "FERC lays out AI data center, grid operator reforms" (June 18, 2026).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 The Next Web, "Trump says he no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat after G7 meeting with CEO" (June 19, 2026).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Reuters, "Trump tells Axios he no longer views Anthropic as national security threat" (June 19, 2026).