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The Scoop The US government Friday lifted its block on Anthropic’s powerful Claude Mythos 5 AI model, allowing the company to release it to more than 100 US institutions, including major companies and government agencies. The decision, in a letter sent Friday afternoon to Anthropic, is a major de-escalation in the confrontation between the Trump Administration and one of the world’s most valuable private companies. Two weeks ago the administration imposed export controls on Mythos, leading to a shut down of the model and its cousin Fable 5 after warnings from Amazon and other companies that they could be “jailbroken” for malicious purposes. The letter is silent on Fable 5, a weaker version of Mythos that was briefly the most powerful AI model widely available to consumers. People close to the talks said they are moving toward releasing Fable as well, though that timeline is unclear. “I have determined that appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 Model,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to Anthropic’s chief compute officer Tom Brown Friday, citing “significant progress” in the intense, daily talks between the government and the company since the block went into effect. “Anthropic has committed to work with the U.S. government on protocols and standards and releases” for its models, Lutnick wrote. The move comes the same day that Anthropic’s leading competitor, OpenAI, released its latest model, GPT-5.6, to a short list of government-approved partners. Under the new Anthropic arrangement, “a license will no longer be required to export, reexport, or in-country transfer (including deemed exports and reexports) the Claude Mythos 5 Model to entities identified in Annex A to this letter and their foreign national employees, or to Anthropic’s foreign national employees.” Know More Lutnick’s letter marks the beginnings of a new regulatory regime that gives the US government control over the release of frontier AI models. Though the leaders of frontier labs have bridled at the possibility of losing time in the intense global AI race, Commerce Department spokesman Benno Kass cited the speed with which the government acted to address its concerns about Anthropic. “In just two weeks, we have worked diligently to ensure America remains the global leader in AI while safeguarding our security,” Kass said. The framework for overseeing AI is being built on the fly, and many users of the powerful tools — from non-US governments and companies to consumers — remain in the dark as to when they will get access to Mythos and Fable. European officials and other US allies have expressed frustration at their new dependence on decisions in Washington. As Semafor first reported, the US expressed concern that Mythos had been released to partners too closely linked to China, reportedly referring to a South Korean telecommunications provider.

26th June 2026 We're beginning a limited preview of the GPT‑5.6 series: Sol, our flagship model; Terra, a balanced model for everyday work; and Luna, a fast and affordable model. Terra has competitive performance to GPT‑5.5 while being 2x cheaper and Luna brings strong capability at our lowest cost. [...] We believe in broad access, and we plan to make GPT‑5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna generally available in the coming weeks. As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models’ capabilities ahead of today’s launch. At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly. [...] GPT‑5.6 is priced per 1M tokens across three model sizes: Sol is $5 input / $30 output; Terra is $2.50 input / $15 output; and Luna is $1 input / $6 output. GPT‑5.6 also introduces more predictable prompt caching, including support for explicit cache breakpoints and a 30-minute minimum cache life. For GPT‑5.6 and later models, cache writes are billed at 1.25x the model’s uncached input rate, while cache reads continue to receive the 90% cached-input discount. — OpenAI, Previewing GPT‑5.6 Sol: a next-generation model Recent articles - Porting the Moebius 0.2B image inpainting model to run in the browser with Claude Code - 22nd June 2026 - sqlite-utils 4.0rc1 adds migrations and nested transactions - 21st June 2026 - Datasette Apps: Host custom HTML applications inside Datasette - 18th June 2026

By Dan Walsh at the annual meeting of Wexford County Council on Friday

“I must make a very hard decision. Whether it be for better or worse, to resign from the Fianna Fáil Party and remain in the Council for the remainder of this term as an Independent councillor working for the people of the Gorey Kilmuckridge Municipal District, not a decision I took lightly but one that was forced on me”; that was the shock announcement made at Friday’s annual meeting of Wexford County Council held in the Council Chamber, County Hall, Wexford, by outgoing Cathaoirleach Cllr Joe Sullivan.

The meeting was aware that Cllr Sullivan would make a serious announcement, but the members and officials were unsure what it was? But Cllr Sullivan told the members that he had shared his details with local media outlets.

Cllr Sullivan concluded his Cathaoirleach duties with dignity today, gathered his papers and briefcase, walked to the rear of the chamber and took up a new position on the Independent benches.

WexfordLocal.com received a press release with the heading; “I will now outline in more detail my reasons for resigning from Fianna Fail, signed Cllr Joe Sullivan. Here it goes;

1) At the July 2025 meeting of Wexford County Council, Cllr Jim Codd brought a motion calling for the retention of the Triple Lock. I was in total agreement with the motion. If I might quote Micheál Martin, An Taoiseach, from February 2020 as stating the “The Triple Lock is at the core of our Neutrality”. It would appear now that Fianna Fail have changed their policy on this matter and their programme for government states that they wish to reform the Triple Lock, but in my opinion, they intend to do away with it.

“I would ask for a referendum on the matter as it should be a matter for the people of Ireland of how our military are deployed. One can refer to the referendum of the Nice Treaty 2001 and look at the Seville Declarations of 2002 which solidify Ireland triple lock resulting in the referendum being passed in the second time of asking in 2002.

“As with the Nice Treaty in 2001, the Lisbon Treaty was rejected in 2008 and was only passed in 2009 with legal guarantees that Ireland’s neutrality was guaranteed. I believe that Ireland neutrality and the Triple Lock are joined and that neither can be altered without the consent of the Irish people via a referendum.

“The case of the UN Security Council Veto has been made but there is a UN General Assembly whereby Irish troops can be deployed on peacekeeping missions. Wexford Fianna Fáil councillors voted against the motion and as I had the casting vote the motion was carried.

2) At the special Presidential Council meeting of September 19^th 2025, the Fianna Fáil councillors voted not to permit Wexford County Council to nominate a candidate for the forthcoming Presidential Election. I was totally at variance with this decision as I believe that the facility of nominating a presidential candidate is one of the very few powers County Councillors have and with the subsequent shambolic performance of Fianna Fáil where their candidate withdrew from the contest vindicated my position and highlighted the ineptness of the Fianna Fáil councillors on Wexford County Council and their inability to read the political mood as it was unfolding and indeed did feed into one of the greatest political embarrassments ever to befall the State owing to Fianna Fáil ineptness at all levels right up to the top, who later acknowledged that the whole affair was a complete shambles!

3) Mercusor: Early January 2026 saw the signing of the Mercusor Deal on a vote of EU countries of 21 For and 5 Against with one abstention. Ireland did vote against the deal for fears over the beef industry. The decision to vote against the deal was only taken at the last minute as the Irish Beef Industry and general Agricultural Sector brought as much pressure as possible to bear on the Irish Government. In the European Parliament, three Irish MEP’s voted to support the deal; notably, all three are urban based, two government MEP’s and one Labour.

“As Wexford is a county steeped in agriculture and produces unquestionably the best food in Ireland and indeed the world, I, as Chairman of Wexford County Council was happy and glad to stand with the agricultural sector in opposition to Mercusor and agree with the farmers in their concerns around the quality of produce coming into Ireland; the EU from the   countries and the standards that they were expected to meet not being as high as the produce produced in Ireland and the EU. The Fianna Fáil Councillors were less than enthusiastic in supporting the farmers on this issue, more inclined to seek direction from HQ rather than stand with their own people.

4) January February 2026 also saw the Bord Bia Larry Murrin controversy raise its head when a company attached to Mr Murrin’s business was found to be allegedly importing some beef from Brazil while Mr Murrin, as Chairman of Bord Bia was holding Irish farmers to the highest standard in their production of beef and other food products. Wexford IFA was very prominent in the 36-day protest inside and outside the Bord Bia Headquarters in Dublin. Again, Wexford Fianna Fáil Councillors failed to support the beef producers and call for Mr Murrin to resign.

5) Fuel Protest. During February and March 2026, as a result of the USA-Iran war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the price of fuel went up considerably bringing out hauliers, farmers and contractors onto the roads to protest. Co Wexford was no different to any other county due the impact of rising fuel costs and significant protests took place in the county, the biggest being at Rosslare Europort.

“At Wexford County Council meeting of March 13^th 2026, a deputation was in attendance of the fuel protestors. Their presence at the meeting was hotly contested by some members of the council who directed their ire at me. I had sympathy with the protestors and was supportive of them. Some councillors said they felt intimidated and threatened by the presence of the protestors in the chamber.

“I saw or heard nothing that warranted asking them to leave the meeting. I came in for a torrent of abuse from councillors during the meeting, being called a “disgrace” by one councillor, while another councillor saw fit to go on local radio and muse over whether a vote of no confidence be called in my chairmanship as well as describing the meeting as a fiasco and chaotic.

“This councillor subsequently brought a motion to the next council meeting on May 11^th, 2026, calling on members and I to up our standards. This councillor also called on me to reflect on my position at the meeting. I felt hurt, let down and my chairmanship undermined by this member. I got absolutely no support whatsoever from Fianna Fáil councillors, in fact one learned councillor chipped in to offer his support to my detractors.

“As can be seen from the above examples, I can no longer stay in the Fianna Fail Party as there is no forum to discuss my issues nor do I have the support from my two district Cllrs Breen or Kenny or my Party TD, Malcolm Byrne”.: Thank you. Joe Sullivan Cllr.

By Dan Walsh at the annual meeting of Wexford County Council

Long serving Cllr Lisa McDonald (Fianna Fáil) has been elected Cathaoirleach of Wexford County Council at the annual meeting held in the Council Chamber, County Hall, Wexford, on Friday afternoon.

Cllr McDonald, proposed by Cllr Barbara-Anne Murphy (Fianna Fail) and seconded by Cllr Ger Carthy (Independent) defeated Cllr Pat Barden (Independent) proposed by Cllr Paddy Kavanagh (Independent) and seconded by Cllr Tom Forde (Sinn Fein), 22 votes to 12.

A native of Piercestown living in Murrintown, Cllr Lisa McDonald runs a solicitors practice in Wexford town and was first elected to Wexford County Council in 2004.

She contested the 2007 General Election receiving 6,400 first preference votes. She served in Seanad Éireann from 2007 to 2011 after which she took a sabbatical from politics to build her business and rear her young children.

She was co-opted to Wexford County Council in July 2016 and has been re-elected every time since.

Cllr McDonald thanked her “wonderful group of supporters” and said she was “absolutely delighted” at becoming Cathaoirleach.

Cllr McDonald named a number of her priorities but outlined that “delivery matters – people want action and not words – our strength is in our communities. “I will promote Wexford as the best place to work rest and play, and we have to work and challenge to deliver,” concluded Cllr McDonald.

Cllr Bridín Murphy (Fine Gael) proposed by Cllr Trish Byrne (Fine Gael) and seconded by Cllr John Fleming, a Fianna Fail ‘neighbour and friend’ was elected Leas-Cathaoirleach. Cllr Murphy defeated Cllr AoifeRose O’Brien (Sinn Fein) proposed by Cllr Jim Codd (Independent) and seconded by Cllr John Dwyer (Independent); 20 votes to 13.

It was pointed out that this is the first time ever that the Cathaoirleach and Leas-Cathaoirlech are both women and with Cllr Mary Farrell elected in Gorey Kilmuckridge District the Women’s Coalition are celebrating a victory and Cllr Murphy concluded; “We are deeply honoured.”

Incidentally, Cllr McDonald is only the fourth woman to hold the position of Cathaoirleach – others were the late Anna Fenlon, Kathleen Codd-Nolan and Cllr Barbara-Anne Murphy.

Tributes were paid by fellow councillors and officials.

Attendance at the meeting included Minister James Browne TD, Deputies George Lawlor, Malcolm Byrne and Brian Brennan (via zoom), Senator Cathal Byrne, former TDs Tony Dempsey and Hugh Byrne, former Cllr Willie Kavanagh, Cllr McDonald’s husband Richard Simpson, their children -Cormac and Caragh – prents Eddie and Marjorie McDonald, friends, neighbours and supporters.

Outgoing Cathaoirleach Cllr Joe Sullivan said he was elected on June 23^rd, 2025; “It was a position I enjoyed and discharged with the best of my ability” and then he went on to highlight events that made the term memorable for him.

Like, Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann which took place in Wexford over the first week of August 2025 was very successful and a credit to Wexford County Council for their level of organisation and Wexford Festival Opera 2025.

Other highlights included securing of lands at Ballynagee, Wexford, for the provision of a third level campus and other educational facilities. The ongoing development of Rosslare Europort progress being made with the Oylegate to Rosslare Motorway and the Kennedy Summer School that attracted the very best in Irish and international political, arts, sporting and cultural figures to New Ross to give their views across a whole series of issues affecting modern Ireland and the World.

“In March 2026, I was happy and honoured to lead the Wexford Delegation to Savannah, Georgia to celebrate St Patricks Day with the Wexford diaspora there,” said Cllr Sullivan, who added; “These are just some of the highlights of a busy and fulfilling term of office. I would like to pay tribute to the executive of Wexford County Council who guided me through the role of Cathaoirleach.

He thanked Eamonn Hore: Director of Services for Roads and Environment; Carolyne Godkin: Director of Services for Housing; Liz Hore: Director of Services for Planning, Senior planner, Diarmuid Houston and Lynda Lacey: Director of Finance who oversees a budget for 2026 of €183.7 million and Alan Quirke: Director of Services for Special Projects and HR is the newest member of the executive and is making his mark in the delivery of special projects countywide. Chief Executive Eddie Taaffe and County Secretary, Michael Drea were also acknowledged.

“In conclusion, I would like to thank my fellow councillors. It would be remiss of me not to mention the challenges to my position and authority”, said Cllr Sullivan who concluded; “Thanks again to those who supported me and made the position of Cathaoirleach enjoyable and fulfilling and I was honoured to serve the people of Wexford for the past year.”