9 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Bluesky has been dealing with a DDoS attack for nearly a full day.

As a result, users have been experiencing “intermittent interruptions in service for their feeds, notifications, threads and search,” Bluesky says. The company first got a report of “intermittent app outages” at around 2:40AM ET this morning.

Bluesky says it has not seen “any evidence of unauthorized access to private user data” due to the attack. It will share another update no later than 1PM ET on Friday.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This is the Way.

Disney released the “final trailer” for The Mandalorian and Grogu ahead of its May 22nd debut in theaters. It looks fun! And Grogu is still so dang cute.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
A new Android 17 beta reveals plans for “Pixel Glow” light animations.

Google just released the fourth beta for Android 17 today, and now, 9to5Google and Android Authority point out that it contains mentions of a new lighting feature that we might see on the next round of Pixel phones.

The Pixel Glow details say it “uses subtle light and color on the back of your device to inform you of important activity when it’s face down,” when interacting with Gemini, or when favorite contacts are calling.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Now the White House is reportedly preparing for access to Mythos.

Despite Anthropic’s ongoing battle with the Pentagon, Bloomberg reports that the White House Office of Management and Budget’s CIO told government officials that it is preparing for their agencies to use Anthropic’s cybersecurity-focused AI model.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Threads is finally getting direct messages on the desktop.

A new “Messages” tab appears in this preview of its redesigned web layout that head of Threads, Connor Hayes, posted on Thursday, as Engadget reports.

Threads got DMs in 2025, but only on Android and iOS. Hayes noted that users will start to see Messages on the web version “over the coming weeks.”

A screenshot of the redesigned web layout for Threads
Image: Connor Hayes via Threads
Hayden Field
Hayden Field
I went on Today Explained to chat about Mythos Preview.

Anthropic’s private cybersecurity-focused model is being used by a handful of large companies, including Nvidia, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase, to plug high-stakes vulnerabilities in their systems, creating a lot of buzz. On the podcast, I unpacked the model, the competition, and the stakes.

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Bernie Sanders rallies with labor leaders for AI protections and tells oligarchs, ‘Go to hell.’

Union leaders across industries joined the Vermont senator to push for jobs protections as the technology quickly evolves. Sanders has called for a pause on data center construction and warned that left unchecked, within ten years, “the idea of a manufacturing job will no longer exist.”

Cameron Faulkner
Cameron Faulkner
Turtle Beach’s new flagship gaming headset seems a lot like that other one.

Remember the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless that launched in 2022? It has swappable batteries, ANC, a wireless hub for transmitting audio from multiple sources, simultaneous 2.4GHz and Bluetooth audio — the works. So does the new Stealth Pro II that’s up for preorder now. Notably, it also supports Hi-Res Audio over wireless, an impressive feat at $349.99.

Image: Turtle Beach
Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Some Pennsylvania poll workers will be barred from prediction market election betting.

Delaware County is updating poll workers’ oath to bar election bets on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, Spotlight PA reports. “I think they’re a pernicious, horrible factor and I don’t think elections should be bet on in one shape or form,” the county’s elections director Jim Allen said.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Call of Duty movie has a release date, but it’s far away.

The movie, which Activision and Paramount announced last year, is scheduled to hit theaters on June 30th, 2028. It’s set to be written, directed, and produced by Peter Berg, with Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan also onboard to write and produce.

Graphic showing the Call of Duty logo and a message “in theaters June 30th 2028”
Image: Activision
Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Some fresh Playdate news.

Panic’s little yellow handheld got a big boost last year with its second season of games, and now it’s confirmed that we’ll get season 3 at the end of 2026 The company also announced a new educational initiative so that the device can be used to teach game design and programming.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
It’s getting easier for Android devs to code with AI agents.

Along with an upgraded Android CLI, Google is launching a new Android skills GitHub repository and an Android Knowledge base, which can provide AI agents with the information and resources they need to perform coding tasks.

Android CLI.
Android CLI.
Image: Google
OpenAI’s big Codex update is a direct shot at Claude Code

Codex can now use your macOS apps on its own.

Robert Hart
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Google is reportedly in talks to let the Pentagon use Gemini in clasified settings.

The company is apparently reversing course in its approach to military dealings. Google currently has a contract that allows the DOD to use Gemini for “all lawful purposes,” but only in unclassified settings. According to The Information:

Google’s proposed contract language appears to mirror the terms OpenAI secured in an agreement it struck with the Pentagon over the use of its AI earlier this year… However, lawyers also said at the time that language in OpenAI’s contract that seemed to preclude the use of its AI for fully autonomous lethal weapons and mass domestic surveillance wouldn’t necessarily prevent those applications because OpenAI also agreed that its technology could be used for “all lawful purposes.”

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Former NBC News anchor Brian Williams is hosting Netflix’s latest original podcast.

We’re Back! With Brian Williams is among a handful of new shows coming to the platform including Allegedly, Shut Up Evan, The Puzzle Room with David Kwong, and The Rotten Files. They’ll join the streamer’s growing library of video “podcasts,” which are only available on Netflix, with no RSS feed downloads.

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Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Battlefield 6 is getting bigger maps.

As shown in a 2026 roadmap video, alongside the third season in May, EA will add a reimagining of Battlefield 4’s Golmud Railway to the game, which will apparently be “the biggest map” yet. In July, season four will bring a new naval-focused map that’s even bigger.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Spotify launches a new tablet-friendly UI.

No more scaled-up mobile interface elements. The latest version of Spotify has a collapsible sidebar and specific portrait and landscape layouts on both iPads and Android tablets. There’s also the ability to browse in one pane, while a video or music keeps playing in the other.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Kuxiu’s new slimmer semi-solid state 10K power bank also has an upgraded display.

The new S4 looks like a major redesign of the 10,000mAh S3 power bank we tested last December. The S4 is over a millimeter thinner and 31 grams lighter while still capable of wirelessly charging phones at 25W Qi2.2 rates. The S3’s built-in USB-C cable is gone, but the S4 is cheaper as a result at $89.99.

<em>The Kuxiu S4 is available now in black and cosmic orange color options.</em>
<em>The power bank still features a fold-out kickstand and positions a better screen on the back showing more info about battery life and charging rates.</em>
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The Kuxiu S4 is available now in black and cosmic orange color options.
Image: Kuxiu
Age verification is a mess but we’re doing it anyway

The push for online child safety is forcing platforms to adopt a narrow set of privacy-encroaching age verification options.

Emma Roth
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Someone made over $300,000 betting on Biden pardons.

A Polymarket user with a curiously perfect track record made $316,346 betting on Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons, including the preemptive pardons of his brother Jim, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, and Adam Kinzinger. It’s yet another example of potential insider trading on Polymarket. According to NPR:

The trades linked to Biden’s pardons show that individuals could have been profiting from confidential government information before President Trump returned to office, when prescient bets related federal policy and military strikes on sites like Polymarket started to draw intense scrutiny.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
SpaceX is buying a lot of Cybertrucks.

Reporting from Bloomberg on how many Cybertrucks Elon’s other companies have been buying:

SpaceX, the Musk-led rocket and satellite maker, accounted for 1,279 — or more than 18% — of the 7,071 Cybertrucks registered in the US during the fourth quarter, according to registration data that S&P Global Mobility provided to Bloomberg News. The billionaire’s other ventures acquired another 60 vehicles during those months.