27 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Mia Sato

Mia Sato

Features Writer, The Verge

Features Writer, The Verge

    More From Mia Sato

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    MrBeast’s pitch decks are quite ugly.

    Court documents from the MrBeast Burger lawsuit revealed pitch decks prepared by his team for potential brand partners, and Business Insider went through them.

    You get the sense that his team didn’t try very hard when putting decks together: slides have weird layouts, overlapping text, and are borderline unreadable. And maybe that’s the biggest takeaway here — the MrBeast brand sells itself.

    MrBeast slide deck showing his follower count, views, and other audience metrics.
    A MrBeast slide prepared for GM. He’s standing next to cars with a plain, hard-to-read font saying, “Partner with MRBEAST and win over Gen Z & Gen Alpha... or your competition will.”
    A slide for EVs with strange layout and overlapping text bubbles.
    1/3
    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Temu is under a microscope in the EU.

    Bloomberg reports the ultra-cheap online retailer will face an investigation over whether it’s doing enough to stop the sale of illegal products.

    Temu is considered a Very Large Online Platform under the Digital Services Act, meaning it must comply with strict rules to avoid hefty fines. The EU had previously requested information from Temu about how it mitigates the risk of illegal products.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    A new generation is discovering Trump’s Access Hollywood tape.

    Young people who were kids when Trump was caught bragging about groping women are hearing the recording for the first time via TikTok. Teen Vogue compiled some videos and comments:

    i was in 7th grade in 2016 and i don’t [remember] much from it, but now i’m 20, educated, and ready to vote for the first time.”

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    The big business of Halloween music.

    If you’re someone who loves to play Christmas music a full month before the actual holiday, great news: the music industry is trying to make Halloween music A Thing.

    My friend group’s Music League theme for this week was Halloween-ish songs (among the submissions: The Specials, David Bowie, Death from Above 1979). What’s on your playlist?

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    How annoying is your AI clone?

    Katie Notopoulos over at Business Insider used Meta’s personal chatbot feature to create a bot of herself trained on her posts — and its main personality trait, she says, was “millennial cringe.” There’s also an incredible follow-up when Katie realizes her bot has been trained on her Threads posts, which are overrun with rage bait.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Concerning.

    Elon Musk has been having secret conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin since 2022, The Wall Street Journal reports, discussing “personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions.”

    Musk is in a powerful position: not only is he rich, but he has proximity to the federal government via SpaceX. Musk’s support of Donald Trump reached new levels this month when he appeared at rallies — and Trump himself has reportedly been in touch with Putin.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Facebook is filled with shady political merch.

    A t-shirt company is running thousands of ads claiming to donate a portion of sales to Trump, Harris, and other political causes, 404 reports. In reality, the company appears to be based abroad — which means it’s either lying about making campaign contributions, or illegally making campaign contributions.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    MrBeast is again attaching his name to disgusting food.

    Last year the YouTuber sued his business partner in charge of MrBeast Burgers, after customers complained about “inedible” and “revolting” food. Undeterred, this year MrBeast partnered with Logan Paul and KSI to launch Lunchly, a line of Lunchables-style snack boxes — that are apparently full of mold. If your kid asks for them maybe show them these pictures.