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ABC News reports that White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez allegedly made more than $100,000 betting on Kalshi markets tied to what President Trump would say in speeches, using his access to prepared remarks and last-minute edits. ABC News reports: According to the sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its "Mentions" market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech. "Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators," Kalshi's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, said in a statement provided to ABC News. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon, following ABC News' report, that Perez has been put on unpaid administrative leave. Leavitt said she spoke with President Trump about it, and he thought it was a "disgrace" and made the decision himself to put Perez on unpaid leave. Leavitt said she was unaware of any other White House staffers who have made such trades. "The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow," said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle when contacted by ABC News. In addition to February's State of the Union address, sources said CFTC investigators discovered that Perez placed bets on more than a dozen Trump speeches over a three-month period, including a December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Trump's remarks in March during a Medal of Honor ceremony.

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I tested REI’s best new and revamped outdoor gear of 2026. Here’s what’s worth buying, from tents and sleeping bags to coolers and bikes.

We consulted preparedness experts and WIRED’s team of testers for the essential gear to keep on hand in case of wildfires, earthquakes, and lord knows what else.

Microsoft restored streamer Joshua Khane's 25-year-old Xbox and OneDrive account after it was compromised by a hacker and then suspended, putting years of personal data, baby photos, and thousands of dollars in games at risk. IGN reports: While he was "extremely happy" and thanked Microsoft for its help recovering his account and all the invaluable information therein, he levied some criticisms toward the brand for its initial response, claiming it had told him the suspension was "irreversible" at first. "It's unfortunate that such a big company can bring back your account if you ask them to," he said. "The way it all went, to me, is a little bit shady, because it's not that they can't bring back your account -- they won't bring back your account if you're a nobody." Khane credited the community for making his story go viral and bringing it to Microsoft's attention, but felt that without their help, he would have been up a creek without a paddle. He also tied the situation to the growing conversation surrounding digital ownership, comparing it to Sony's decision to stop printing physical game discs starting January 2028.

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Great for indie darlings, but Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo remain kings of TV gaming.

The Japanese Microwave measures food temperature directly, and stops cooking when food’s hot. It’s kinda terrific.

From the best air fryer to frying pans to knife sharpeners anyone can use, these ideas will keep the curious home chef in your life tinkering away.

Nice PlayStation you got. Bet it could probably run Linux too.

Trump Media is launching a fast, paid feed to its most influential posts for Wall Street traders.

Astronomers have directly detected helium in the atmosphere of LHS 1140 b, a rocky exoplanet 48 light-years away that sits in its star's habitable zone. The finding marks the first confirmed atmosphere around a rocky, Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, strengthening the case that some planets orbiting red dwarfs can retain atmospheres and potentially support liquid water. "We have actually detected directly the helium present in the atmosphere itself, and that's the first direct detection for any rocky exoplanet, which is really exciting ... and then there's this added bonus that it's in the habitable zone, which is super exciting for astrobiology and habitability and searching for life," lead author Collin Cherubim, who recently earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University, told Space.com. "It feels kind of surreal." From the report: This exoplanet, or planet outside of our solar system, was first discovered in 2017 by a team led by astronomer Jason Dittmann who is now a co-author on this new discovery. "This planet was found like 10 years ago, and we're just now saying, okay, that's an atmosphere," Dittman told Space.com. "We're slowly narrowing the gap and checking these boxes ... we're finding a planet that's rocky, a planet that's of the right temperature and now ... it's like okay, we finally found one that has an atmosphere." And being a rocky planet, "there's definitely a surface ... it's made of rocks," Dittman said. What does the planet's surface look like? We can't say yet, but the researchers who found this planet's atmosphere think there's a good chance it could have water. While it orbits a red dwarf star, which is smaller and cooler than the sun, it orbits closer than we do to our star, maintaining a temperature that keeps the planet in the "Goldilocks zone" where liquid water could exist on its surface. "It probably also has a lot of water," Cherubim said. "If it has some amount of atmosphere that can provide a bit of a greenhouse effect, which we know that it does now ... it will very likely be what we consider to be habitable conditions on Earth, and conditions that would likely support liquid water." So is it Earth-like? While it's certainly not an Earth copy, this planet can be considered Earth-like in two main ways, Cherubim shared. One: its overall composition. The planet is rocky, likely with an iron core and (now we know) it has an atmosphere. And two: the planet's temperature is just right for liquid water, which is necessary for life at least as far as we understand it on our planet. [...] "I'm not claiming this planet has life," Cherubim made clear. With further investigation, scientists could better understand what else might be in this planet's atmosphere, and they could confirm if it has water. Further observations might not be able to confirm habitability or identify any life on the planet, but they could at least help us to better understand planets like this. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

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Shop the latest beauty trends and save big using an Ulta promo code for beauty tech, makeup, and more.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Trump Media & Technology Group has unveiled a paid-for, licensed data feed that will give banks and trading firms "the fastest" access to posts from influential Truth Social accounts, such as President Donald Trump's, whose posts often move global markets. The product, called 'Truth API,' will deliver posts from the 10 most influential accounts to customers at a significantly faster pace than a regular push notification on the Truth Social platform, a spokesperson said. The feed is designed for organizations "most impacted by the cost of a delay in information," such as algorithmic trading firms, the company said in a statement. "Until now... firms that prioritize tracking influential Truth posts have relied on manual monitoring. Truth API closes the gap." "Markets already move on Truth Social posts ... As adoption grows, we expect Truth API to become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company," TMTG's interim CEO Kevin McGurn said.

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India's Competition Commission has fined HP India and its partners about 1.4 billion rupees ($14.4 million), alleging the company colluded with resellers to rig government PC bids and fix prices for ink cartridges, toner, and other printing supplies. "It said that HP was aiming to outcompete other OEMs and discourage resellers from selling 'counterfeit' ink and toner," adds Ars Technica. From the report: In an order, the CCI said that HP India worked with five resellers to coordinate their bid prices for government contracts to increase the chances of an HP partner winning the contracts. The company was fined 1.3 billion rupees (about $13.1 million). [...] HP was also fined 119.8 million rupees (about $1.2 million) for "indulging in cartelization in sale and supply of supplies products comprising of toner, cartridges, and other consumable used with print hardware products," CCI said in its announcement. The agency also fined 21 HP resellers 35.2 million rupees (about $365,335). In a separate order, the CCI said that WhatsApp records showed that HP and 16 of its Tier-2 reseller partners operated "in a collusive arrangement" and that the messages show the companies engaging in "bid rigging, including cover bidding, price fixation, and customer allocation during 2017-2020." HP India played a central role, the regulator said. Per the order, HP India said that high printing supply prices led some resellers to threaten to "shift to low-cost counterfeit products to compete on price." "HP India was commercially forced into a position where it had to support the collusive arrangement adopted by the Tier-2 resellers," the order reads. For its part, the order said that HP India "humbly objects to HP India's role being characterized as a 'kingpin' of the entire collusive arrangement." [...] The CCI also ordered HP India and its channel partners to "cease and desist from anti-competitive conduct" and to hold competition compliance training programs within 60 days.

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TSMC said it will invest another $100 billion in Arizona after reporting a record 77.4% year-over-year jump in second-quarter profit. The expansion would bring its total U.S. investment to $265 billion and include new fabs for 2-nanometer production and advanced packaging to serve major U.S. customers. The Associated Press reports: As AI-related demand continues to jump and needs for computing power from data centers surge, TSMC has been expanding chip fabrication plants in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan. It said it is increasing its annual capital expenditure budget for this year to $60 billion-$64 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $52 billion-$56 billion. TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple. It had previously already committed $165 billion in the U.S. for building plants in Arizona, with six fabrication facilities planned. The extra $100 billion in investments are to "support the strong multiyear demand from our leading U.S. customers," C.C. Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said during the company's quarterly earnings conference Thursday. An additional four fabrication plants in Arizona will likely be built with the new investments, TSMC said. They will focus on making some of the most advanced chips that are 2-nanometer and below.

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The EU is imposing new rules requiring Google to share anonymized search data and open up Android to rival AI companies. "Thanks to these measures, we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google's AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services," Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing tech, said. The Associated Press reports: In issuing the two new rules, the commission said it found that AI agents not made by Google were unable to function on Android phones at the same level as Google's Gemini. Google must now allow voice-activation of these alternative AI agents and enable them to run background tasks like booking restaurants via third-party apps. By January 2027, Google must also begin sharing anonymized search data with some rivals. The commission said the move is meant to level the playing field since Google controls a vast trove of user data that no competitor can match. Google argues the measures could weaken privacy and security by exposing user searches and reducing safeguards around third-party AI assistants. "Europeans' private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymization of the data and without user knowledge or consent," said Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and Alphabet. "This would weaken citizens' privacy, risk business trade secrets, and endanger national security."

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As wildfire smoke threatens air quality and safety for millions, here’s your playbook to keep your family safe from the damaging effects of smoke.

BrianFagioli writes: 1Password has launched a Claude integration that allows the AI agent to sign in to websites using credentials stored in a 1Password vault. The password manager says Claude never sees the password or one-time code. Instead, users approve each request, and 1Password injects the credentials directly into the target website while locking down access to the rest of the vault. The design appears safer than simply handing passwords to an AI model, but it does not remove every risk. Once Claude is authenticated, it may still be able to view private data, change settings, place orders, or perform other actions available inside the account. Users may want to limit the feature to low-risk tasks until browser-based agents become more predictable.

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This remarkably vivid home projector has deep inky blacks, without a five-figure price tag.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: In 2022, due to "evolving licensing agreements" with distributor StudioCanal, German and Austrian users had hundreds of movies disappear from their PS accounts, long after buying them through Sony. Then in 2023, it happened again in America, specifically when Sony ended its licensing agreement with Discovery after the Warner Bros. merger, which, of course, has since been bought by Paramount Skydance. That resulted in customers having hundreds and hundreds of episodes of TV shows deleted from their accounts. Nowhere in any of this were there refunds, of course. No recompense at all, actually. Just a thing you thought you'd bought taken away from you by the very people you thought you bought it from. And now it's happening again. Due to another licensing agreement fallout with StudioCanal, hundreds of movies and TV shows are being ripped from the accounts of PS Store customers, and there appears to be fuck all that they can do about it. [Kotaku reports:] "This news was brought to people's attention by X user somatyk, who posted the notification they had received from PlayStation this week. Along with the unapologetic news that the purchased movies would be deleted from their account on September 1, the message concluded with, 'Click here for a full list of affected titles that will no longer be supported. Thank you.' The same warning is now reproduced in full on the PlayStation website, along with the list of 551 films and TV series that are being pulled from people's libraries." As Kotaku notes later in their post, part of what is striking in all of this is the sheer mundanity of the announcement. Because there have been no consequences, or any action at all from the public or government, Sony treats this all as if it's perfectly normal and no big deal. You can tell me all you want about how the Ts and Cs in these purchases do in fact note that the nature of the purchase is a temporary licensing of the content for an undetermined time period... but I can promise you that the public in general doesn't understand that. They think they're buying a thing, not a license.

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Google is renaming NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, but will keep it a standalone app even as it ties more closely into Gemini and Google Search. "Google says it plans to bring notebooks to AI Mode, its chatbot-like experience in Search, too," reports The Verge. From the report: Along with the name change, Google is rolling out an update announced last month that allows Gemini Notebook to connect to a secure cloud computer to write and execute code. This feature is available to Google AI Ultra and Workspace business customers, but will come to Pro users on the web "over the coming weeks."

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