Business, money, power, culture, politics, and the technology shaping what comes next.
Google Is Cutting Checks to 100 Publishers for AI Answers. The Checks Are Tiny. The Strategy Is Not.
A quiet pilot pays publishers when their content 'significantly contributes' to AI Overviews. Critics see a legal fig leaf, a black box, and the first draft of a market where Google sets every price.
Free Game NewsThe Last U.S. Troops Just Left Iraq. Tehran Is Taking a Victory Lap.
Twenty-three years after the invasion, America's military chapter in Iraq is closed. It ended quietly, on schedule, in the middle of a war with the country next door that has spent two decades trying to push the U.S. out.
Free Game NewsICE Shot Him in the Back. Nine Days Later, He Became the Defendant.
Federal prosecutors have charged Wilber Garces Perez, the DoorDash driver an ICE agent shot in Austin, with assaulting a federal officer. The case now hinges on a side-view mirror, an officer's word, and the camera that was not there.
Free Game NewsShein's Profit Fell 67% and the Stock Has Lost a Third of Its Value Since the IPO. The Loophole Era Is Over.
The first report card since Shein's Hong Kong debut shows what happens when a business built on duty-free shipping and cheap air freight loses both in the same year.
Free Game NewsTrump's Mileage Rollback Promises Cheaper Cars. The Gas Pump Didn't Get the Memo.
The administration just locked in a 34.9 mpg fleet standard for 2031, down from 50.4, promising $1,300 off the sticker price. It did so in the most expensive September Americans have ever seen at the pump. The math deserves a closer look.
Free Game NewsConsumer Confidence Just Hit a 12-Year Low, and This Time the 'I'm Fine' Part Cracked Too
The Conference Board's index tumbled to 81.9 in September, the weakest reading since 2014. All year Americans said their own lives were okay while the country headed for a ditch. In September, both halves of that sentence turned bleak at once.
Free Game NewsJack Smith Says He Won't Be Silenced. The Machinery for Silencing Him Is Already Running.
The former special counsel defended his Trump prosecutions before a hostile Senate panel that has already moved from oversight to criminal referral. The Comey case shows where this road leads.
Free Game NewsThe Gas Tax Holiday Is Back, Right on Schedule for Election Day
Since the Iran war sent fuel prices to record highs, six states have cut or frozen gas taxes and two governor's races now feature dueling holiday plans. The relief is real but small, the road money is real and large, and the calendar is doing a lot of the talking.
Free Game NewsICE Came to Cattle Country. The Bill Goes to Everyone Who Eats Beef.
Immigration sweeps around southwest Kansas packing plants emptied kill floors, stranded thousands of cattle, and exposed the immigrant labor model underneath America's record-priced beef.
Free Game NewsThe Biggest Number on the White House Fraud Ledger Is the Softest One
The administration's public scoreboard claims $260.7 billion in fraud uncovered. Read the fine print and the ledger grades its own homework, counts allegations as wins, and treats money withheld from states as money saved from criminals.
Free Game NewsDrone Strikes Inside Venezuela Are on the Table. The Evidence for Why Is Not.
The Pentagon is drawing up options to hit drug targets on Venezuelan soil within weeks, even as quiet back-channels negotiate with Maduro over what he would give up to stay in power. Americans last saw this script in Panama in 1989, and the paperwork looked better then.
Free Game NewsThe Kimmel Blackout Collapsed in a Week, and Disney Didn't Give Up a Thing
Sinclair and Nexstar tried to leverage their ABC affiliates into editorial concessions. What they got instead was a lesson in who actually needs whom.
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