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Wall Street Journal : Prediction market political betting on insider info spreads in DC; sources: WH lawyers raised alarms over anonymous Polymarket bets on the Iran ceasefire timing   —  White House officials are grappling with how deeply political betting has worked itself into fabric of government

New York City doled out more than $2.6 billion in cash assistance to city residents in 2025, a Fox News Digital review of city records showed. The money reached a record 864,999 people, a 30-year high not matched since before former Mayor Rudy Giuliani instituted major welfare reform in the early 2000s. The $2.6 billion figure represents a 71% increase from 2022's $1.57 billion, data showed. MAYORS WANT TO KEEP HANDING OUT FREE CASH AFTER FEDERAL FUNDS DRIED UP When coupled with payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the city paid out more than $7 billion in welfare to residents in 2024, according to a Fox News analysis of data from the city's Human Resources Administration (HRA). The rise in welfare payments comes as some of New York City's wealthiest contemplate a Big Apple exodus due to what many have described as a policy environment unfriendly to businesses and moneymakers. NYC MAYOR MAMDANI CALLS THREAT OF RICH PEOPLE LEAVING NYC OVER ...

House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., declined to answer repeated questions Friday about her husband's hit-and-run case before a staffer abruptly stepped-un to put an end to the exchange. "Ok, that's enough. That's enough!" the staffer raised her voice after Fox News Digital asked the lawmaker about the latest drama with her husband, Paul Pelosi. The brief exchange came nearly two weeks after California authorities recommended that Paul face a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge stemming from a July 3 crash in Yountville, California. FORMER US ATTORNEY CHARGED WITH FELONY HIT-AND-RUN AFTER HOUSTON CRASH, POLICE SAY Napa County Sheriff's Office investigators said the 86-year-old was driving a convertible when it collided with a legally parked Tesla, which was unoccupied. The impact caused substantial damage to both vehicles, and witnesses told deputies the car briefly stopped before leaving the area. However, Paul did not call the police. He was later loc...

Wall Street Journal : Sources: SpaceX is in talks with the DOD about providing the agency with access to data-center capacity worth billions of dollars for running AI models   —  Elon Musk's company would sell military billions of dollars' worth of data-center capacity for running AI models

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Apple raises the price of Apple Music, with the individual plan up by $1 to $11.99, and some Apple One bundles, the first price hike for Apple Music since 2022   —  Apple has raised the price of Apple Music today in the United States and other countries.  Starting today, Apple Music's Individual plan …

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch : Beehiiv launches Community, which lets subscribers chat with each other, adds programmatic ads and an AI tool that helps creators manage their audiences   —  Newsletter platform Beehiiv is expanding into new avenues of engagement by launching a feature called Community, which lets subscribers of a creator chat with each other.

Of the many political crusades the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., undertook, few were as front of mind for him than crippling Russia’s war machine in its conflict with Ukraine. Yet during the last year-and-a-half of President Donald Trump’s second term, momentum behind a bone-crushing sanctions package against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin would start and stop, with hopes rising and falling for its proponents every few months. Earlier this year, Graham had similarly gotten a green light from the White House for a different iteration of the package. SENATE DEMS DRAW RARE LINE AGAINST MUST-PASS PENTAGON BILL "It's never going back on the shelf because President Trump believes he needs it," Graham told Fox News Digital at the time. "I think he needs it." Hours before his death, he again got confirmation that the White House supported his and Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s, D-Conn., latest offering. "Senator Graham and I were told, very autho...

Thinking Machines Lab : Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area   —  Try on Tinker Model card Hugging Face  —  Our mission is to build AI that extends human will and judgment.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday the United States no longer believes it needs a military presence in Iraq, arguing Iran has been weakened enough for Baghdad to stand on its own as the U.S.-led coalition mission approaches its planned Sept. 30 conclusion. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi echoed that vision, declaring that armed factions operating outside state control would have "no justification" once the coalition mission concludes and insisting Iraq's security forces would be capable of protecting the country on their own. Al-Zaidi said limiting weapons to the state was "a decision, not an option." Trump said the U.S. partnership with Iraq would shift away from military cooperation toward investment and energy development, while al-Zaidi said: "The 30th of September, the U.S. forces would be out of Iraq. While U.S. companies will be inside Iraq ." TRUMP ADMIN WARNS IRAQ OVER IRAN TERROR PROXIES AS US REPORTEDLY BLOCKS CASH PAYMENTS "We don...

Washington Post : A look at Founders Fund-backed State Affairs, which raised $70M and uses AI trained on reporting by its 76 staffers to power a Bloomberg Terminal-like product   —  State Affairs combines media and technology at a time when tensions between the two industries are at a fever pitch.  —  Summary

Zac Bowden / Windows Central : Microsoft announces a Windows 11 search overhaul that prioritizes local results, removes promotional web content, and more, rolling out to Windows Insiders   —  Windows 11's search user experience is getting a big update, with Microsoft moving to prioritize local results, remove promotional content, and much more.

Even as NATO allies increase defense spending, arm Ukraine and impose sanctions aimed at weakening the Kremlin, European Union countries haven't yet been able to shake dependence on Russian liquefied natural gas, providing Russia with a key source of revenue as it wages war in Ukraine. A new analysis of commercial shipping data shows European countries spent billions in the first half of 2026 on purchases of Arctic liquefied natural gas. Environmental watchdog Urgewald, using trade intelligence platform Kpler shipping data, found that 136 cargoes of the 140 cargoes exported from Russia's flagship Yamal liquefied natural gas project between January and June were delivered to European Union ports.  China, once viewed as a major market for the Arctic project, received just four cargoes during the same period, the analysis found.  The group estimated those shipments were worth roughly €5.96 billion, or about $6.8 billion, based on benchmark European natural gas prices. DRONE OFFENS...

Nilay Patel / The Verge : Q&A with Xinzhou Wu, head of automotive at Nvidia, on Nvidia's chips and AI models for autonomous driving, lidar's usefulness for Level 4 autonomy, and more   —  Xinzhou Wu on autonomy, Chinese cars, and if we really need lidar  —  Today, I'm talking with Xinzhou Wu, who is the head of automotive at Nvidia.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nearly a month after being hospitalized, revealed what actually happened to cause his absence from the Senate. In a lengthy statement released Sunday evening, McConnell attributed his childhood fight with polio to a fall he suffered last month which landed him in the hospital. He was "briefly unconscious," he said in an open letter to Kentuckians , and while recovering was hit with a "mild case of pneumonia." "My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion," McConnell said. "I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages." MCCONNELL FACES FRESH CALLS TO COME CLEAN ABOUT HEALTH ISSUES Yet, when he will return to the Senate remains a mystery, something that McConnell himself acknowledged. "As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time. And on the advice of my doctors, I won’t be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet," Mc...

Bloomberg : OpenAI, Meta, and SpaceXAI may be able to put pressure on Anthropic by emphasizing cost efficiency, as business customers increasingly scrutinize AI spending   —  Three prominent artificial intelligence developers released new models over the past week.  They all promise to be more advanced …

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., never wanted President Donald Trump to be nominated, let alone win the presidency in 2016. "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it," Graham said on X at the time. Graham had run on the same ticket as Trump, and like many other Republicans on the debate stage, challenged Trump’s candidacy as preposterous — he once likened his candidacy to "being shot in the head." LINDSEY GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA SENATOR WHO ROSE FROM SMALL-TOWN ROOTS TO GOP POWER BROKER, DIES AT 71 But Trump ultimately clinched the nomination, took the White House and eventually won over Graham. Now, in the fast-moving hours after Graham's sudden death at 71 years old , and as private jockeying to fill his empty seat takes place behind the scenes, Trump has lost a once-fierce political enemy turned friend. Trump told NBC’s "Meet the Press" that he had just spoken with Graham the night before and believed "It could ha...

The Economic Times : Anthropic says it is extending Claude Fable 5 access on all paid plans, as well as keeping Claude Code's weekly rate limits 50% higher, through July 19   —  In a post on X, the company said, “We're extending Claude Fable 5 access on all paid plans, as well as keeping Claude Code's weekly rate limits 50% higher, through July 19.”