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The European Commission on Tuesday exempted wearable tech from rules requiring removable batteries, clearing a major hurdle for Meta’s smart glasses to take on the EU market following pressure from the United States.

Smart glasses are in European regulators’ and lawmakers’ crosshairs over privacy and surveillance concerns. But the bloc’s batteries regulation also held up the EU rollout of Meta’s latest model in recent months because the glasses’ built-in batteries cannot be easily removed and replaced.

U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder came to Meta’s defense at an event in March, where he called the EU’s rules “so broad and so restrictive that it prevents the sale of this wonderful, jointly developed, U.S.-European product from being sold in the European Union” and praised the smart glasses as being “very stylish” and “very wonderful.”

“You have to focus on allowing businesses to grow and allowing businesses to innovate,” Puzder then said about the European hurdles to Meta’s product.

The Commission on Tuesday presented a legislative tweak known as a delegated act that exempts connected products including smartwatches, smart glasses, fitness trackers and electric toys from the batteries regulation.

A Commission spokesperson said in a statement that it “has not given in to anyone’s pressure,” adding that its proposals “follow a broad public consultation with consumer associations, industry stakeholders and the Member States.” The spokesperson added that the proposal for the exemption “is not about regulating one specific product” but “to ensure safer consumer and industrial products in cases where opening a device could create safety risks or where technical limits make consumer access unrealistic.”

The European Parliament and national governments have 20 days to object to the tweak; if they don’t, the bill will enter into force.

The change is a major boon for Meta, which has bet big on the new spectacle technology but felt held back in reaching European consumers with its eye-catching product. The battery rule exemption may also benefit other companies like Samsung and Google , and Apple which are planning their own smart glasses launches.

Earlier financial results from the French-Italian eyewear company EssilorLuxottica that owns the RayBan brand noted that Meta smart glasses sales are ramping up “exponentially” in the U.S.

While Meta has launched its AI glasses in the EU, the financial results said the distribution rollout is still slow in the EMEA region, with “more than half” of sales points still not served. More than 7 million pairs of Meta smart glasses were sold worldwide in 2025.

The smart glasses still face fierce privacy pushback, regardless of the change in batteries rules.

Cláudio Texeira, the head of digital policy at Europe’s largest consumer protection group BEUC, said: “Europe should not dilute consumer protections. Smart glasses are already raising important concerns about privacy, security and consumer choice. Exemptions from EU battery removability rules should remain exactly that: genuine exceptions based on clear technical and safety evidence, not industry pressure. Exempting these devices … risks setting a dangerous precedent.”

When Meta launched the first iteration of its RayBan smart glasses in Europe in 2021, the product immediately sparked concerns with Irish and Italian privacy watchdogs over whether the specs made it obvious enough to people that they are being filmed.

And earlier this year, concerns peaked again when Swedish media reported that subcontractors for Meta in Kenya were reviewing “deeply private” footage captured by the firm’s smart glasses to help annotate the content to train artificial intelligence models. It included recordings of people’s bathroom visits, banking details, or even them having sex.

The European Data Protection Board, which gathers privacy regulators across Europe, has ordered a report into smart glasses which should be finalized this summer, chair Anu Talus told POLITICO earlier. She added that the board will look at actions from there.

A Meta spokesperson told POLITICO last month that its glasses include built-in privacy safeguards and that the company has “teams dedicated to evolving these measures so that we can continue to deliver safe, secure products that enhance people’s lives.”

“Unlike smartphones, our glasses have an LED light that activates when someone prompts the glasses to take a photo or video that will be saved to their gallery. The glasses feature tamper detection technology to prevent people from covering that light. Unless users choose to share media they’ve captured with Meta, that media also stays on the device,” they said.

The U.S. Mission to the EU declined to comment.

Meta didn’t respond to POLITICO’s request for a comment.

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The Trump administration is barring American citizens who were recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is an ongoing Ebola outbreak, from returning to the U.S. until they’ve spent 21 days in a third country, a U.S. official confirmed to POLITICO Tuesday.

In an effort to prevent Ebola from entering the U.S., the Trump administration began using federal transportation law on Monday to “place any American citizens who have been in the DRC on a Do-Not-Board list for any commercial flights heading into the United States,” the official said.

Reuters first reported the news . POLITICO granted the official anonymity in order to confirm Reuters’ report.

Do-not-board lists are generally intended to prevent travelers “known or suspected to have a contagious disease” that poses a public health threat from taking commercial flights, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

The decision follows a pattern of the Trump administration imposing unusually stringent travel restrictions related to the outbreak. In May, the administration blocked green card holders reentering the U.S. if they had recently been in the Congo. The administration also took an unusually stringent approach in quarantining Americans who’d been aboard a cruise ship with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus this spring. They were kept at a government facility in Nebraska for weeks. One passenger who wanted to leave said she was held against her will.

During an outbreak in West Africa that started in 2013 and grew to be the largest on record, the Obama administration did not implement travel bans, only diverting travelers who were recently in affected countries to certain airports for screening. The Trump administration had been doing the same for U.S. citizen travelers, naming in May four airports in Virginia, New York, Texas and Georgia that could screen arriving passengers.

The administration’s approach has reignited a debate over travel restrictions and infectious disease. Many global health bodies, including the World Health Organization, argue that travel restrictions usually do more harm than good, creating stigma, hurting local economies and discouraging countries from being transparent about infectious disease outbreaks.

It’s unclear if the restrictions apply to U.S. government employees and contractors, and the White House did not immediately respond to questions about the scope of the ban. The CDC has at least two dozen employees working in the agency’s Congo office .

The decision was based on a new risk assessment by the federal government, which showed increased spread of the virus closer to the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. As of July 11, there have been nearly 2,000 recorded cases of Ebola in the Congo , and 702 confirmed deaths.

Roughly two dozen American citizens were set to board flights Tuesday to the U.S. after having been in the Congo, the official said, adding that the State Department “will be working with these individuals to assist their 21-day waiting period before they can board a commercial flight back home.” The official did not specify where that waiting period will take place.

Key context: Trump administration has expressed confidence about keeping cases of Ebola out of the U.S.

In May, the administration initiated a plan to set up a facility in Kenya — a country that has never recorded an Ebola case — to house Americans exposed to Ebola, rather than bring them home. That plan was met with a sharp backlash from many Kenyans, who protested the facility. The Kenyan government halted construction of the facility after a Kenyan court blocked the plan.

Two Americans have contracted Ebola in the outbreak so far and were sent to Germany for treatment.

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Toyota makes digital gauge clusters standard across the board on MY27 Corolla.

18-inch gloss white alloy wheels join the official accessory list for a JDM-type look.

169 hp, 2.0-liter engine and CVT are carried over, but sporty FX trim is discontinued.

The Toyota Corolla Hatchback heads into 2027 having gained equipment and a very appealing exterior upgrade option, but minus one of the best things about the MY26 car.

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The biggest upgrade news is inside the cabin, where larger digital displays become much more common across the lineup. The SE now comes standard with a seven-inch digital instrument cluster to go with its 8-inch touchscreen, while the XSE upgrades to a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster and a larger 10.5-inch infotainment touchscreen as standard.

Related: Toyota Delays New Electric Highlander Before It Even Launches, Gas Model Stays

Buyers who don’t want to step all the way up to the XSE can now bridge the gap with a new SE Premium Package. It bundles the same larger infotainment display and 12.3-inch digital cluster, giving the more affordable trim a much more premium-looking dashboard.

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Outside, the changes are subtle and include new Inked and Blueprint paint options, but not the zingy mustard color recently launched in Japan . Our top upgrade for MY27 is an available set of genuine Toyota 18-inch gloss white alloy wheels, which should look especially good against darker body colors, and are bound to be a hit with fans of JDM style.

Retro FX Axed

The bad news is the sporty-looking (but not driving) Corolla FX trim that was introduced for MY25 wearing those same white rims, and which was also on the menu for last year, didn’t make the cut for 2027. That leaves buyers a simple choice between SE and XSE, but you can dress up an SE with a wing and wheels to make it look like the old FX.

Underneath, nothing has changed. The familiar 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder continues to produce 169 hp (171 PS) and 151 lb-ft of torque, sending power to the front wheels through Toyota ‘s Dynamic Shift CVT. Don’t bother looking for a manual – Toyota hasn’t offered one of those on a US Corolla since 2022.

Pricing starts at $24,780 before Toyota’s $1,295 destination charge, giving the SE and XSE on-the-road prices of $26,075 and $29,170 – those numbers up $200 and $500 on last year’s models. The updated hatchbacks are scheduled to reach dealerships later this summer, but before that happens we should learn what changes Toyota has in store for the Corolla sedan.

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The lesser-known of just two Japanese Gardens in Ireland, the Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens are an enchanting homage to a remarkable writer, traveler and man of the world, and a tranquil place of great curation and beauty.

His relative anonymity is reflected in the location of the garden, tucked away behind a high stone wall on a quiet side-street in Tramore. Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was of Irish-Greek descent, spending his childhood summers in this seaside town, before making a name for himself as a journalist and travel writer in the States. He was lauded as both an engaging storyteller, and an astute chronicler of place and society. While he remains relatively unknown in Ireland, he is still widely celebrated in his adopted country of Japan.

Described as his 'living biography', the series of eleven small interconnected gardens are diverse and beautiful, each one representing a different aspect of his life, work and travels. The suggested route starts at the Victorian Garden, a nod to his happy childhood summers in Tramore.

A winding path takes visitors through his American Journey and onto the amphitheatre-shaped Greek Garden, commemorating his place of birth. A 100 year old olive tree stands at its heart. From this point on, visitors are firmly in Japanese territory, with burbling rockeries and water features, a traditional tea house and garden, and a wooden bridge across a stream, surrounded by woodland.

Moving to Japan had been the turning point in his life: a place where he remained for the rest of his days. As well as lecturing at the University of Tokyo, he received great acclaim for his collections of Japanese ghost stories and supernatural folk tales. He became loved and respected in his adopted country, and there's even a museum dedicated to him in the city of Matsue.

Towards the end of the gardens is the pièce de résistance, the aptly titled Garden of Peace and Harmony. A stone bench is strategically placed for full immersion in nature, overlooking a large garden pond surrounded by trees and plants in a great blaze of colour. Cocooned beneath the trees, visitors can enjoy the hypnotic sound of water trickling over rocks, while the air hums with birdsong.

Towards the end of the route is a dignified memorial: a bronze sculpture of Lafcadio Hearn, donated by the city of Matsue.

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A recent warning dialog in Samsung Health made it seem like opting out of AI training would disrupt the user experience, deleting “health data” and disabling the syncing of new data.

Samsung has clarified that opting out specifically deletes health data retained for AI training, which is stored separately from other health data.

Opting out of allowing your data to be used for AI training doesn’t actually seem to affect Samsung Health functionality, based on testing.

A troubling new pop-up in Samsung Health started making the rounds yesterday. Users interacting with a toggle to opt out of their health data being used to train AI were greeted with a warning telling them that if they chose not to share their health data for AI training, previously uploaded health data would be deleted, and syncing new health data would no longer be possible. Now, though, it seems that that warning was poorly worded.

SamMobile has shared a clarification from Samsung that explains the warning telling users their “health data will be deleted” is referring specifically to “data that has been separately collected and used for AI development purposes,” not the health data that’s “stored for the use of Samsung Health services.” That being the case, the warning users have been seeing does seem awfully misleading.