7 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
Skip to main content

Archives

More News

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Savant lives.

Though Apple has been radio silent about The Savant ever since it postponed the show’s debut last year, Deadline reports that the series may finally start streaming some time this July.

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Live Nation agrees to pay $9.9 million to settle deceptive ticket pricing allegations.

Fresh off the loss of its antitrust trial, the company settled with the DC attorney general over claims it “hid the true price of tickets” before checkout. The AG says Ticketmaster has since changed the practice. The settlement is similar to one between StubHub and the Federal Trade Commission.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
A tornado hit Rivian’s factory in Illinois.

The storm struck Friday evening, causing damage to one of the buildings in Rivian’s facility. A photo posted on Reddit showed the inside of Building 2 with the roof partially collapsed. No one was injured, and in an email to staff, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said the building will be back up and running this week:

While Building 2 has sustained damage and is closed for the time being as we complete our assessments, I am incredibly relieved to share that there were no injuries at our plant. We anticipate resuming operations in Building 2 this week. Operations at other facilities continue as planned.

DJI’s latest power station is proof that good things come in mini packages

8

Verge Score

The Power 1000 Mini is the smallest 1kWh power station you can buy.

Thomas Ricker
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Meet Samsung’s new AI robot.

Project Luna — a round screen with a swiveling head that reminds me of Samsung’s “AI OLED Turntable” — offers a glimpse of what’s to come from Samsung’s design, according to chief design officer, Mauro Porcini. Samsung teased the bot in a YouTube Shorts, and now Fast Company has some exclusive details.

A GIF showing Samsung Design’s Project Luna AI Assistant robot.
Project Luna is only a design concept for now, but Porcini says it could “really happen in the near future.”
GIF: Samsung Design / Fast Company
Tom Warren
Tom Warren
Xbox mode is nearly here for all PCs.

Microsoft just added its Xbox mode to the Release Preview version of Windows 11. That means the Xbox mode, that adds a full-screen interface to the Xbox PC app, is just days away from being available on all PCs. Microsoft did promise last month that it would roll out the Xbox mode to all PCs in April, and it looks like it’s rolling out on time.

The Xbox mode on Windows devices.
The Xbox mode on Windows devices.
Image: Microsoft
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
“Duuude. No. Way.”

Astronauts having very human reactions to witnessing Earthset. “Gone! It’s gone. Oh my god.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
The NSA reportedly has access to Anthropic’s Mythos despite being labeled a supply-chain risk.

Sources told Axios that the agency was among the roughly 40 organizations granted access. This, despite the Pentagon arguing that Anthropic is a threat to national security. The NSA has reportedly been using it primarily to identify vulnerabilities in its own network, but considering its track record, it’s understandable if you’re wary.

John Higgins
John Higgins
Asus ProArt displays are the first to be validated for Adobe Premiere.

The new Adobe Premiere Color Mode, which is available in the latest Premiere beta, is a color grading system built inside the editing program replacing Lumetri. The Asus ProArt validation extends to full HDR editing workflows with the new Premiere feature.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Someone recreated Nintendo’s exceptionally rare first arcade game.

Resurrecting 1974’s Wild Gunman isn’t a matter of extracting a ROM and firing up an emulator. The light gun game used two projectors and live-action footage spread across multiple film reels. Callan Brown managed to get his hands on them, scan them, and built a replica of the original cabinet.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Coachella wraps up today with Karol G.

This is also your last chance to catch any performances you might have missed. Last week I missed out on Clipse, Young Thug, The Rapture, and Tomora, so they’re my priority. But I also am looking forward to Röyksopp, who didn’t make the stream last weekend. Head over to the official Coachella YouTube channel.

Coachella livestream schedule for April 19th, 2026.
Image: Coachella / Goldenvoice
T.C. Sottek
T.C. Sottek
NASA’s Artemis II posters are incredible.

We just flew around the Moon, which remains an incredible feat for human beings. On this planet, I’m really psyched to print and frame the official NASA posters for the Artemis II mission. And because they’re public works you can get them for free. What a great use of taxes.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
NASA turns off more instruments on Voyager 1 to keep it going.

Some parts of the probe were powered down last year, but power dropped unexpectedly during a maneuver on February 27th, leading NASA to shut down the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment (LECP) earlier than expected. A fix is in the works that could extend the life of both Voyagers and possibly bring LECP back online.

“While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody’s preference, it is the best option available,” said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL. “Voyager 1 still has two remaining operating science instruments — one that listens to plasma waves and one that measures magnetic fields. They are still working great, sending back data from a region of space no other human-made craft has ever explored. The team remains focused on keeping both Voyagers going for as long as possible.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Horror Lex is a free database of academic literature for horror nerds.

I love horror movies and overanalyzing things, so Horror Lex scratches a really specific itch. It doesn’t actually host any papers or books. Instead, it’s a hand-selected index of over 13,000 documents, many of them from peer-reviewed journals. A lot of them are free to read, too.

Horror Lex

[Horror Lex]

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
A humanoid robot just ran a half-marathon faster than any human.

It finished the 21.1-kilometer race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. The world record was set just a month ago by Jacob Kiplimo, at 57 minutes and 20 seconds. More impressively, when this race was held last year, the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes — a stunning improvement.

Correction April 19th: An earlier version used the wrong unit of measurement. A half-marathon is 21.1 kilometers, or 13.1 miles.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Steph Curry might be teasing a screenless Fitbit in plain sight.

The first hint was a sponsored Instagram post on March 31st. But Curry has been spotted wearing the mysterious device (possibly dubbed “Google Fitbit Air”) in a video from Sotheby’s, and it even made an appearance in a behind-the-scenes clip way back from All-Star weekend. We don’t know much, but it looks like Google is getting ready to take on Whoop.

A screenless wearable on the wrist of Steph Curry.
Screenshot
Screenshot: Droid Life
The future of local TV news has taken a Trumpian turn

The schemes and shenanigans behind the Nexstar-Tegna deal.

Tina Nguyen
Marathon battery life makes Keychron’s Ultra 8K keyboards its best yet

The V5 Ultra 8K and Q1 Ultra 8K are faster, sound better, and last longer.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
The RAM shortage could last yearsThe RAM shortage could last years
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Pro-Trump AI influencers are flooding social media.

The New York Times has found hundreds of fake accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook that appear to be a pre-midterm push to get conservative voters to the polls in support of Trump’s agenda. The accounts often use the same captions and awkward phrasing.

It’s not clear who created the A.I. accounts, and determining whether they are the product of a hired content farm, a foreign influence operation, an experiment or something else is difficult, experts said. They all agree, however, that creating such avatars is becoming easier, especially for contractors and marketing companies that now specialize in developing and dispatching A.I. avatars in bulk for increasingly low prices.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Tonight’s Coachella schedule kicks off with Kacey Musgraves.

Last week we got special guest, Jack White. This week it’s Musgraves who gets that honor, after releasing the title track from her upcoming album Middle of Nowhere, the second single after “Dry Spell.” This weekend’s livestream replaces the stage with Yuma. That means no Model / Actriz or Drain, but you do get Armin van Buuren and a solo Boys Noize set. Watch here.

Coachella livestream schedule for April 18, 2026.
Image: Coachella / Goldenvoice
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Did YouTube killing music videos make Hollywood boring?

YouTuber Patrick Willems has argued that movies look objectively worse than they did 25 years ago. Digital cameras and an overreliance on CGI are factors. But he also argues that YouTube killed off the music video-to-Hollywood pipeline, starving the industry of inventive visual stylists.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Slay the Spire II’s roadmap teases a new character.

And a whole lot more, including alternate versions of Acts 2 and 3, Steam Workshop support, and “experimental game modes.” The game got its first major update for all players on Thursday.

The game is a big hit, selling three million copies a week after its March launch, and I can tell you from personal experience that it’s a blast with a friend.

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Artemis II commander says a lunar landing is “absolutely doable, and it’s doable soon.”

During a press conference on Thursday, astronaut Reid Wiseman said if Artemis II had a lander, “at least three of my crewmates would have been in it trying to land on the Moon.”

“If you had given us the keys to the lander, we would’ve taken it down and landed on that moon.”

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Meta is reportedly planning to lay off thousands of workers in May.

The job cuts could affect around 10 percent of Meta’s workforce, or around 8,000 employees, according to Reuters. This is reportedly the first of two waves of layoffs planned for this year, and follows an earlier report from Reuters that suggests Meta could cut as much as 20 percent of its workforce.