5 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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News Archive

Archives for July 2026

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
ChatGPT and Roblox will be subjected to the EU’s content moderation rules.

Having surpassed the threshold of 45 million monthly users in the bloc, both services will be required to clamp down on illegal and harmful content per the EU’s strict DSA rules. Roblox and ChatGPT search will have to comply as soon as August, per Bloomberg’s sources.

Correction: Bloomberg corrected its story to say”ChatGPT search,“ not ChatGPT in general.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Jobs AI isn’t killing: electricians, plumbers, and carpenters.

Building the data centers needed to support the AI boom requires lots of skilled human tradespeople working 10-hour days, seven days a week, and earning healthy overtime wages. Bidding wars have broken out in markets with heavy data center construction, allowing workers to jump ship for bonuses and even higher pay in a modern-day gold rush, with companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft paying to help train new recruits.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The US Space Force has awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion for rocket launches.

The orders will cover 18 Falcon 9 missions that are expected to be finished by the end of next year. SpaceX has already gotten more than $7 billion in Pentagon contracts in 2026, according to Reuters.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Has Substack’s subscription model really “maxed out?”

Scott Carney and Taylor Lorenz posted on Substack about downward subscriber trends they’re seeing. Carney pins it on subscription fatigue and feeling like “The only way to grow is to pillage the paid subscribers from other creators.” Lorenz questions Substack’s direction, saying “more and more like this app is becoming another social media feed.”

When we recently wrote about writers who are leaving Substack, they mentioned control, pricing, and the social feature creep among their reasons for choosing competitors like Ghost and Behiiv.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Waymo is “gradually resuming” freeway driving.

After suspending freeway routes in May because of safety concerns in construction zones, Waymo announced that freeway routes coming back in Phoenix and “soon” in Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Waymo said it had implemented “designed to improve performance around freeway construction zones.”

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Valve just added HDR and AV1 Remote Play streaming for Steam Deck.

I’ve heard Steam Remote Play is finally reaching parity with Moonlight when streaming games to your Steam Deck. Now, Steam Remote Play is getting AV1 for theoretically even better compression, and HDR for the Steam Deck OLED’s screen. I like streaming, but I’d also like more devs to embrace Dynamic Cloud Sync

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Even SiriusXM has a sports plan now.

The satellite radio company is rolling out a $5 / month (or $49 / year) Sports Pass that offers access to “every live game and event SiriusXM carries,” including all home and away NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL broadcasts. It will also include 24 local sports talk stations when the plan launches on September 1st.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Firefox’s new tab page now has a daily puzzle game.

After adding widgets to the browser’s new tab page last month, Mozilla updated mine to add a mini crossword puzzle widget. There’s one puzzle per day.

A screenshot of an unfinished crossword puzzle on the Firefox new tab page
A screenshot of a completed daily crossword puzzle from the Firefox home page
1/2
Here’s a mostly blank puzzle. If you want to see the solution, click the arrow.
Image: Mozilla
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
The latest trailer for Jumanji: Open World brings its avatars into the real world.

This time around, Jumanji’s avatars, played by Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, escape the game in “demo mode,” before a family jumps into their bodies to fix things. The trilogy’s final film is set to release in theaters on December 25th.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Meta’s latest AI content deal is with Newsmax.

In addition to Reuters, WSJ, CNN, Fox News, and USA Today, Meta now has an AI content partnership to “…draw upon Newsmax’s significant current reporting as well as archived content across its platforms to support AI queries across Meta’s apps and devices.”

If access via Truth Plus just wasn’t enough, I guess.