Spirit Airlines had a 34-year run that came to an end this month after the company declared bankruptcy. They shut down all operations and are now in the process of selling off their assets, including their planes.
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As GameStop continues to struggle to stay afloat, it looks to make a $56 billion bid to buy eBay. The problem is they cannot show how they could pay for it.
Harvard has created a digital open-source wallet that keeps your private data from being shared online. The digital wallet keeps your personal data on your phone, validating your purchases without relying on a third-party source to do so.
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The Trump administration, which took a noninterventionist approach to artificial intelligence, is now discussing imposing oversight on A.I. models before they are made publicly available.
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The debate over regulating artificial intelligence usually focuses on two competing visions. In Europe, lawmakers are writing detailed rules that govern how AI can be developed and used. In the United States, policymakers are taking a lighter touch, allowing companies, investors and consumers to shape the technology’s future.
But a new analysis from students at the University of Florida identifies a third force quietly shaping the future of AI in America: the courts.
As AI spreads faster than any previous technology, judges and juries are being asked to resolve disputes. In doing so, they are not simply applying existing laws—they are, case by case, defining what responsible AI use looks like. The result is a distinctly American form of AI governance: one built through the give and take of negotiations and legal processes rather than legislation.
So far, courts have mostly resisted treating AI as something fundamentally new. Instead, they have folded AI into existing legal doctrines, focusing on the humans and institutions behind the technology.
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the DOJ antitrust division has been investigating possible violations by the meatpacking industry.
Blanche spoke at a press conference:
As you all know, last November, the president tasked the department to investigate the costs and prices of beef. As a result, we prioritized investigating potential antitrust violations in US cattle and beef markets.
In the beef industry, the big four processors control over 85% of the beef processing market. Two of the big four are primarily foreign owned. Multiple plant closures across the country. The current market structure and high concentration in the industry indicate anti-competitive activity. Since the President’s executive order, the department has been actively investigating with a review of over 3 million documents. Hundreds of industry participants, including ranchers, cattlemen, producers, and processors have been contacted and many interviewed as part of this ongoing investigation.
More broadly, the department has also executed on the President’s executive order to stop anti-competitive behavior in the broader food supply market.
Later this week, we will be announcing an historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork, and turkey. This business model allows competitors to exchange competitively sensitive information on every aspect of the protein industry, and has raised the prices on chicken, raised the prices on pork, and raised the prices on turkey.
.@DAGToddBlanche: The Department has executed on @POTUS‘ Executive Order to stop anti-competitive behavior in the broader food supply market. Later this week, we’ll be announcing a historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork and turkey. pic.twitter.com/PbxzG4OsZc
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 4, 2026
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Even as U.S. gasoline prices rise again amid ongoing Strait of Hormuz tensions, American drivers are still paying less than half what many Europeans and Asians endure at the pump. The reason is simple: America chose lower taxes and genuine energy security.
Europe and California deliberately chose the opposite — and are now reaping the painful, predictable consequences.
Taxes explain most of the gap, as the Wall Street Journal detailed on April 22. European governments routinely pile on $3–$4 per gallon in excise duties, VAT and “green” levies. In Germany, prices recently hit the equivalent of $8.75 a gallon, with taxes comprising over half the total. Most U.S. states charge roughly 20 cents.
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Key Takeaways
- The U.S. Department of Education proposed a rule to hold colleges accountable for graduates’ earnings, introducing an ‘earnings test’ to ensure graduates earn more than those without a degree.
- Programs failing to meet the earnings threshold, with bachelor’s graduates earning less than high school graduates, would lose eligibility for federal student loans.
- The proposal aims to address rising student debt, emphasizing that taxpayer subsidies should only support programs that yield better outcomes for graduates.
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“I would probably say the same thing,” Cook told The Wall Street Journal just weeks before the succession announcement. “Because you can get in paralysis if you start trying to port yourself into somebody else’s thinking.”
Ternus, who currently serves as Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take the helm on September 1. Meanwhile, Cook’s 15-year stint as CEO of the tech giant will come to an end as he transitions to executive chairman of the board. Although the tech industry looked a whole lot different when Cook stepped into the top job in 2011— AirPods were still years away from hitting the market—he has never wavered from Jobs’ leadership lesson. And now, he’s passing down the same wisdom in welcoming the next face of Apple.
“I would say: Be yourself, keep a firm North Star on the values of the company,” Cook continued. “Because if you get the values right, if you keep the North Star in clear view, you may be blown off course a little bit, but eventually you will come back to the right path. I have always found that to be true.”
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Federal officials are scrambling after a powerful new artificial intelligence (AI) model demonstrated the ability to hack virtually every major operating system and web browser, triggering urgent warnings from top government and financial leaders.
AI giant Anthropic’s new system, known as “Mythos,” is being kept under tight restrictions.
However, insiders say the threat is already serious enough that the U.S. government is racing to understand it before it’s too late.
Treasury Rushes to Access High-Risk AI
According to reports, the U.S. Treasury Department is urgently seeking access to Anthropic’s restricted model
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PHALABORWA, South Africa — Two enormous sandlike dunes at an old chemical processing plant in South Africa are at the center of an exploratory U.S.-backed project to extract highly sought-after rare earth elements from industrial mining waste.
The Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project has U.S. support through a $50 million equity investment by the government’s International Development Finance Corporation and is part of accelerated U.S. efforts to reduce reliance on economic rival China for the minerals crucial for making electronic devices, robotics, defense systems, electric vehicles and other high-tech products.
Countries have identified dozens of minerals, including copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel, as critical because they are essential for new technologies. The 17 rare earth elements are a subset of them.
President Donald Trump has made expanding U.S. access to critical minerals, including rare earth elements, a central policy to counter China. The Trump administration said this year it will deploy nearly $12 billion to create its own strategic reserve.
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Big data, artificial intelligence and advanced pricing algorithms make it easier than ever for companies to fine-tune prices for individual products to closely reflect their unique value and cost. The conventional wisdom is straightforward: better data, better algorithms and sharper segmentation should produce better profits. But new research suggests that the most profitable answer isn’t always more fine-grained pricing across a product line. In fact, it is fewer, better-chosen price points.
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The decision will make it more difficult to take businesses to court that had contracts with the federal government.
The Supreme Court on Friday sent a lawsuit seeking to hold oil and gas companies liable for damage to the Louisiana coast back to the federal courts (SCOTUSblog).
The plaintiff bar took a big loss at the Supreme Court on Friday, which means a win for the economy and rule of law. In a unanimous decision (Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish), Justices made it harder to raid businesses by holding that federal contractors can’t be hauled into state courts for claims relating to their government work (Wall Street Journal).
Justice Alito didn’t participate because he has stock in one of the companies involved in the dispute. At the center of the case was whether or not Chevron could move their case from state courts to federal courts via the “federal officer removal statute.” Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, said indeed they can: Held: Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged crude-oil production and the performance of its federal avgas refining duties—not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral one—and has therefore satisfied the “relating to” requirement of the federal officer removal statute (Supreme Court).
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The capabilities of leading AI models continue to accelerate, and the largest AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are hurtling toward IPOs later this year. Yet resentment toward AI continues to simmer, and in some cases has boiled over, especially in the United States, where local governments are beginning to embrace restrictions or outright bans on new data center development.
It’s a lot to keep track of, but the 2026 edition of the AI Index from Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence center pulls it off. The report, which comes in at over 400 pages, includes dozens of data points and graphs that approach the topic from multiple angles, from benchmark scores to investment and public perception.
As in prior years (see our coverage from 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025), we’ve read the report and identified the trends that encapsulate the state of AI in 2026.
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On an AstroTurf lawn in Berkeley, California, one recent Friday, content creators used to making videos about romance novels, climate change and tech tips got advice on covering a more theoretical topic: How to spread the message that rogue artificial intelligence could wipe out humankind.