Verizon acquires Frontier, Publishers prevail in lawsuit, Starliner home without its crew on Friday, and The Cosmos Institute launche grant programs

Some major consolidation is afoot in the world of internet communications — and it will have implications for competition and consumer internet access in U.S. On Thursday, Verizon announced that it would gobble up Frontier Communications for $20 billion — more than double Frontier’s market cap at the close of trading the night before; A long-running lawsuit over the Internet Archive’s “emergency” ebook lending practices during the COVID-19 pandemic has ended in a loss for the website and a victory for publishers. The lawsuit concerned the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library, a program it established at the beginning of the pandemic to allow wider access to some 1.3 million ebooks; These final maneuvers will bring to a close a troubled first crewed mission for the Boeing-made Starliner; The Cosmos Institute, a nonprofit whose founding fellows include Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and former Defense Department technologist Brendan McCord, has announced a venture program and research initiatives to — in the organization’s words — “cultivate a new generation of technologists and entrepreneurs equipped with deep philosophical thinking to navigate the uncharted territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices