Crypto industry backs CLARITY Act yield compromise, pushes Senate Banking for markup

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

Crypto trade groups called for a markup of key market structure legislation within hours of U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) releasing a compromise text Friday on stablecoin yield in the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the final major sticking point in the bill.The text bars crypto firms from paying interest or yield on stablecoin balances in a manner economically or functionally equivalent to a bank deposit.It carves out rewards programs tied to “bona fide activities or bona fide transactions,” and directs Treasury and the CFTC to write rules within a year of enactment.Blockchain Association CEO Summer…

Media & Culture

A Journalism Tax Is a New Front in Australia’s War on American Tech

The Australian government, which has already imposed strict regulations on American tech firms operating in the country, now expects these companies to pay taxes to support Australian journalism. On Tuesday, Australia unveiled draft legislation for a “News Bargaining Incentive,” which would require major tech companies, including Meta, Google, and TikTok, to make commercial deals with news organizations or face a 2.25 percent tax on local revenue, reports The Wall Street Journal. Companies would be incentivized to comply by receiving offsets of either 150 or 170 percent, effectively reducing the tax. The legislation would not apply to AI companies. Prime Minister…

People attend the funeral of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil in Baissariyeh, Lebanon, April 23, 2026. Photo: AAli Hashisho/Xinhua/Alamy This Sunday is World Press Freedom Day. Like International Women’s Day, every day should really be World Press Freedom Day. Journalists are powerful watchdogs and protecting them should be a baseline requirement for a free society. But given how woeful the state of media freedom is right now – the number of murdered journalists being at a record high – a day of focus is clearly much needed. So too is a monument. The UK will have its first one dedicated to journalists killed in conflict zones next year, the design of which has just been revealed. Former Index trustee Sarah Sands spoke to us about it. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), run by Jodie Ginsberg who used to to work at Index, is calling for an independent global body to support investigations into attacks on the media. Veteran foreign correspondent Christina Lamb echoed these calls, speaking days after Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike. That there are many people working hard to address the dire situation is welcome. At Index these threats impact us on several levels. They feed into our campaigning programmes, while the editorial team work with people very much at the coal face. I joined the organisation in 2017 and one of the first articles I edited featured an interview with a Mexican journalist called Javier Valdez. A few months later Valdez was dead, shot 12 times by an unidentified gunman in broad daylight. That same year, and for several years after, I was in regular email correspondence with Andrei Aleksandrau, a former Index colleague and journalist from Belarus. In 2021 he was arrested in Minsk. A year later, another one of our contributors, Larysa Shchyrakova, was arrested. Fortunately Shchyrakova is out of jail and you can read about her experiences here. Aleksandrau is still being held. We also published Victoria Roschyna from Ukraine who was killed in 2024. I could list many similar examples, suffice to say the Index archive is a treasure trove, but it’s also a space where the words of the murdered and the wrongfully detained stand still, ossified, a sad and damning testament to the perils of simply observing. As I said, World Press Freedom Day should be every day and we work on media freedom issues 24/7. Still, we have commissioned a trilogy of pieces this week with the date in mind: Oren Persico writes from Israel on the media ecosystem there; Nedim Turfent, a former political prisoner in Turkey, talks about the threats directed at exiled media in Europe; and Dahlia Kholaif speaks to people on the ground in the Gulf about how the Iran war has amplified the ugly authoritarian reality of these states. Are journalists the canary in the coalmine, the first to be attacked during a democratic backslide? Perhaps, though I’ve heard artists and minority groups claim the same. What’s true is that journalists are the much needed fourth estate. They are a vital check on governments and the powerful. Journalists risk their lives to inform ordinary citizens about what is happening – and they’re now under unprecedented attack around the world. That fact should shame us all. READ MORE

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Politics

DHS Funded

Media & Culture

DHS funded. Congress has passed a spending bill that ends the monthslong shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On Thursday, the House approved a bill that funds the department—except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.…

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