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John Koblin / New York Times : Antenna: bundles make up 33% of new major streaming service subscriptions in the US, and 28% of all subscriptions, up from just 10% of new subscriptions in 2024   —  Warner Bros. and Disney have been fierce rivals for decades.  But like other entertainment companies, they both struggled …

President Donald Trump's threat to "blow up" Oman if the Gulf kingdom didn't "behave" has exposed a rare rupture with one of Washington's most valuable Middle East partners — a country that has spent decades quietly serving as America's backchannel to Iran. "The strait's gotta be open to everybody," the president said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. "It's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to control it; nobody's going to control it. It's international waters. And Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we'll have to blow 'em up. They understand that. They'll be fine."  The remark came amid a dispute over the future of the Strait of Hormuz , the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea throu...

Financial Times : SoftBank pledges to invest up to €75B in AI computing clusters in France, first leading a €45B investment to build 3.1GW of capacity by 2031 in Hauts-de-France   —  Masayoshi Son places France at the centre of his global AI ambitions  —  SoftBank has pledged to invest up to €75bn …

Kinling Lo / Rest of World : China's tech boom is creating a new kind of tech tourism where visitors pay for curated robotaxi rides and tours of EV factories and AI and robotics companies   —  Foreign visitors are flocking to China's factories and AI startups in search of the next technological breakthrough.

Sana Pashankar / Bloomberg : US Space Force says SpaceX won a $4.16B contract to build a space-based tracking network as part of President Trump's Golden Dome defensive shield   —  SpaceX has won a contract for more than $4 billion to build satellites to track foreign aircraft and missiles as part of President Donald Trump's Golden Dome defensive shield.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has repeatedly referred to Russia as a "pariah state," reiterated his call for the United Nations Security Council to remove Russia from the panel. "The United Nations General Assembly should vote on removing the Russians from the Security Council. Russia is a pariah state and should be treated that way," Bacon asserted in a Friday post on X. The Russian Federation is one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council . ISRAEL ACCUSES UN OF PLACING IT ON SAME SEXUAL VIOLENCE BLACKLIST AS HAMAS TERRORISTS, SEVERS TIES The other permanent members include the U.S., the United Kingdom, China and France. In a February 2022 post on X, Bacon wrote, "It is obscene reality that Russia now Chairs the UN Security Council. We should kick the Russians out of as many international organizations and forums as possible. Russia is a pariah state and should be treated as such." In a December 2023 post , he declared, "The Unite...

PCMag : What to expect at Computex 2026: AI chips, budget PCs competing with the MacBook Neo, Nvidia entering laptop SoC market with the rumored N1X chip, and more   —  The theme for Computex 2026, according to organizer TAITRA, is “AI Together.”  Sure, it sounds a little like a tech-industry group hug.

Wall Street Journal : The CFTC moves to vacate a $5M settlement with Gemini, reversing a Biden-era enforcement action, following a lobbying campaign by the Winklevoss twins   —  A $5 million settlement at the end of the Biden administration was at the center of a lobbying campaign by the billionaire brothers

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim fired back after DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin accused him of engaging in "political theater" following a chaotic protest outside Newark’s Delaney Hall detention facility, where Kim was struck by pepper-ball spray while confronting federal officers. Kim and other New Jersey Democrats, including Gov. Mikie Sherrill , have sharply criticized conditions at Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark operated by a private contractor. DHS officials, meanwhile, accuse the lawmakers of escalating tensions and undermining ICE enforcement efforts. The clash intensified after Kim was hit with pepper-ball spray during demonstrations outside the facility earlier this week. "Secretary Markwayne Mullin in a cabinet meeting today said that I was complaining about being hit by a pepperball spray at Delaney Hall and he said that I shouldn't be there -- I just want to say this was never about me," Kim said in a response on socia...

Madison Mills / Axios : Anthropic says it expects Mythos-class models to be available to all customers “in the coming weeks” following the development of stronger safeguards   —  Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.8 Thursday, an upgrade to its flagship AI model with better coding and knowledge work skills, all for the same price as its prior version.

Jay Peters / The Verge : Valve raises Steam Deck OLED prices due to “rising memory and storage costs”; the 512GB model is now $789, up from $549, and the 1TB model is $949, up from $649   —  The 1TB OLED model got a $300 price increase, and now costs $949. … Valve has significantly increased the price …

The Justice Department sued the University of California, Los Angeles, on Monday, accusing the university of allowing Jewish students to face a "hostile educational environment" during months of anti-Israel protests and encampment unrest that left students assaulted, blocked from campus buildings and fearful of attending class. "The occupiers largely succeeded in their goal of making the heart of campus Judenrein — or at least free of Jews who did not share their desire to annihilate Israel," the lawsuit stated. In the 53-page complaint, the Justice Department accused UCLA of violating Title VI protections by showing " deliberate indifference " toward discrimination against Jewish students, allegations that could jeopardize federal funding. "UCLA was deliberately indifferent to the suffering of its Jewish and Israeli students and declined to take meaningful action to protect them," DOJ said. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DEMANDS $1B SETTLEMENT FROM UCLA ...

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Meta rolls out Plus plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp globally, will test $7.99/mo. and $19.99/mo. Meta AI plans, a $49.99/mo. creator plan, and more   —  Meta is doubling down on its subscription offerings.  On Wednesday, the social networking giant announced it's now rolling …

FIRST ON FOX: A group of House Republicans are demanding answers after a recent mail-in ballot error resulted in some Maryland voters receiving primary ballots for the wrong party. House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., and Vice Chair Laurel Lee, R-Fla., sent a letter to the Maryland State Board of Elections (SBOE) on Tuesday scrutinizing the ballot-printing snafu and whether the state has adequate safeguards in place to verify the accuracy of mail-in ballots. The letter came after the SBOE disclosed last week that a vendor error led to an unverifiable number of Maryland residents receiving incorrect mail-in ballots ahead of the state’s June 23 gubernatorial primary election. Officials said they would resend ballots to more than 500,000 voters who could have been affected and claimed that proactive measures were in place to ensure that only one vote would be counted. The GOP lawmakers said additional transparency from the state elections board is warranted. MAR...

Jeremy Kahn / Fortune : London-based Perceptic, which says its end-to-end AI platform for drug development is being used by top pharmaceuticals, raised a $12M seed led by Accel   —  A trio of former Palantir executives who helped spearhead that company's Life Sciences practice have founded a startup called Perceptic …

A Senate Republican ousted by President Donald Trump took a veiled shot at the president and is poised to become a foil to his agenda during Cassidy's waning time in office. Trump may have vanquished Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., from the upper chamber when he endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., in his primary race, but the lawmaker is not going quietly into the sunset of his political career in Congress. Since the dust settled on Cassidy’s primary race, which is now headed to a runoff between Letlow and Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming, the lawmaker has already dug his heels in against some of Trump’s key policy and spending desires.   RETIRING SENATOR WARNS IF TRUMP CONTINUES TO DO 'STUPID THINGS' IT WILL KILL GOP IN NOVEMBER In a lengthy post on X, Cassidy wrote of America’s future and called for unity. And though he did not explicitly name Trump, his viewpoint on leadership appeared to take a jab at the president. "At its best, America has renewed itself through...

Nilay Patel / The Verge : Q&A with Sundar Pichai about reshaping the information ecosystem with Search changes, putting AI agents in everything, when AI will replace him as CEO, and more   —  Today, I'm talking with Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, in a conversation we recorded just after the Google I/O developer conference.

Reuters : Iranian state media reports that President Masoud Pezeshkian has issued an order to reopen international internet access after a near-90-day blackout   —  Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian has issued an order to reopen international internet access, Iranian state media reported on Monday …

President Donald Trump is pressuring Muslim-majority nations to join the Abraham Accords if they want to participate in a developing Iran agreement, according to multiple reports. The Abraham Accords are a series of agreements aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority nations. PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS DEAL WITH IRAN IS 'LARGELY NEGOTIATED' Trump said Saturday that he urged Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan to normalize relations with Israel during a phone call with regional leaders. "I stated that, after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords," Trump wrote on Truth Social. TRUMP SAYS MORE NATIONS LINING UP TO JOIN ABRAHAM ACCORDS AFTER KAZAKHSTAN The president also said he planned to speak with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates a...

Reuters : Report: the EU plans to fine Google a high triple-digit million euro amount as part of a 2025 probe over concerns it favors its own services in search results   —  The European Union is planning to fine Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google a high triple-digit million euro amount as part of an antitrust investigation …

Kate Conger / New York Times : Demand for security engineers is surging, with job postings up 11% YoY in Q1, driven by threats from AI-generated code and models like Mythos and GPT-5.4-Cyber   —  Austin Cowan had expected a quiet year.  —  The headhunter, who helps Fortune 100 companies find and attract cybersecurity executives …

Marxist political influencer Hasan Piker is lashing out over a federal inquiry into his recent trip to communist Cuba, calling it an "intimidation tactic" prompted by his harsh stance on Israel and the U.S. The response by Piker — echoed by other leaders from Democratic Socialists of America and pro-communist and anti-Israel leaders — illustrates how quickly the Cuba "solidarity" movement, pro-communist influencers and anti-Israel activist networks converged online to frame the federal inquiry not as a sanctions or foreign influence investigation, but as political repression aimed at broader anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-Israel activist movements. Piker told followers during a livestream on Twitch Sunday afternoon that he is being targeted for being a "loudmouth" and "rabble-rouser," criticizing Israel and the "fascist" United States. Fox News Digital reported Saturday that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets C...

Financial Times : Sources: Uber weighs a higher bid after it approached a major Delivery Hero shareholder with a €38-per-share bid, valuing the group at €11.5B+, but was rebuffed   —  San Francisco based-group approached major shareholder in German food group  —  Uber's board met on Saturday …

Martin Arnold / Financial Times : The ECB summons Eurozone banks to a meeting on Tuesday to discuss risks posed by the latest AI models and hopes US banks with Mythos access will share lessons   —  Supervisor to stress seriousness of risks to financial system at hastily arranged meeting  —  The European Central Bank …