129 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Mass-migrating corals to save them from a killer heat wave.

    The Verge science reporter Justine Calma visited the conservationists who are part of a project moving thousands of the reef-building animals out of the sea to climate-controlled labs on land. High temperatures drive off the photosynthetic algae corals rely on for nutrients, causing coral bleaching that can be deadly.

    In this video, you’ll also see a gene bank growing a new generation of baby corals, and the 3D photomosaic maps used to track their replanting efforts in the open ocean.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Binance’s CEO will have to stay in the US, for now.

    Last week, Changpeng Zhao agreed to step down as CEO of the massive cryptocurrency exchange Binance — part of a plea deal with the DOJ for breaking anti-money-laundering laws.

    However, one remaining disagreement has been where he will spend his time while awaiting sentencing for the felony charges. Despite agreeing to a $175 million bond, prosecutors consider him a flight risk and wanted to keep him in the US. That question isn’t fully answered, but Reuters reports a judge ruled CZ is staying the US for now while the court considers it, instead of being allowed to return to the UAE.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Ubisoft is giving away Assassin’s Creed Syndicate on PC.

    As far as Cyber Monday deals go, you can’t beat free (although some argue that the best deal available is a full-price offer), and you can get this 2015 entry from the Assassin’s Creed series directly from Ubisoft for $0 until the promotion ends on December 6th.

    Without spending any more money, you can also flip through some concept art from the game in this gallery below (the full art book will cost you) or read Andrew Webster’s review calling the game “everything that’s great and terrible about the series.”

    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate concept art
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    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Coinbase CEO figures it’s time to stop looking for crypto criminals now that Binance has pleaded guilty.

    What if we really have already found every criminal who runs a cryptocurrency exchange?

    Now that Binance reached a $4 billion settlement with the DOJ and ditched its CEO Changpeng Zhao, Coinbase head Brian Armstrong said to CNBC in an interview, “The enforcement action against Binance, that’s allowing us to kind of turn the page on that and hopefully close that chapter of history.”

    Coinbase is also being sued by the SEC for allegedly selling unregistered securities, by the way.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The states suing Meta over youth mental health reveal more of their evidence.

    The attorneys general of 33 states sued Meta in October, but many details of what executives allegedly knew about the impacts of Facebook and Instagram on youth mental health were redacted. The New York Times reports a version with more details has been unsealed, and you can read all 233 pages here.

    Between the first quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2023, Meta received over 1.1 million reports of under-13 users on Instagram via its underage reporting webform and in-app underage reporting process. These processes were only a few of many ways that Meta acquired actual knowledge of under-13 users on its Social Media Platforms. Despite this actual knowledge, Meta disabled only a fraction of those accounts and routinely continued to collect children’s data without parental consent,

    In a statement, Meta says the lawsuit “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Doctor Who arrives oddly late to the companion podcast space.

    The first of three new Doctor Who episodes is about to premiere at 6:30PM GMT (1:30PM ET, and if you’re not in the UK or Ireland, you’ll find the new episodes on Disney Plus now). And after fans watch “The Star Beast,” for the first time, there will be an official post-show podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts) to extend the experience.

    The only odd thing about this is that Doctor Who didn’t have one before, and if you’re still wondering why every new show has a podcast, Hot Pod has tried to answer that very question.

    Alex Heath
    Alex Heath
    A recent OpenAI breakthrough on the path to AGI has caused a stir.

    Reports from Reuters and The Information Wednesday night detail an OpenAI model called Q* (pronounced Q Star) that was recently demonstrated internally and is capable of solving simple math problems. Doing grade school math may not seem impressive, but the reports note that, according to the researchers involved, it could be a step toward creating artificial general intelligence (AGI).

    After the publishing of the Reuters report, which said senior exec Mira Murati told employees that a letter about Q* “precipitated the board’s actions” to fire Sam Altman last week, OpenAI spokesperson Lindsey Held Bolton refuted that notion in a statement shared with The Verge: “Mira told employees what the media reports were about but she did not comment on the accuracy of the information.”

    Separately, a person familiar with the matter told The Verge that the board never received a letter about such a breakthrough and that the company’s research progress didn’t play a role in Altman’s sudden firing.

    The drama continues!

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Now everyone can download Instagram Reels from public accounts.

    Instagram boss Adam Mosseri shared on his broadcast channel that the ability to save reels posted by all public accounts to your camera roll is now available globally. If your Instagram account is public, this FAQ notes that you can opt-out on individual posts or for your entire account (anyone under 18 is opted out by default).

    After some testing, Mosseri announced this was live in the US in June, and now it’s everywhere. Similar to TikTok, downloads are available under the share button, and any reel you download will be watermarked with the poster’s Instagram name.

    Instagram Reels share options with a button for downloading.
    Image: Meta
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    “Shot on iPhone.”

    Sure, Apple, your holiday short film / ad was shot on iPhone and even edited on a MacBook Air. But I watched the behind-the-scenes video closely, and nowhere in there did it show the unending patience you’d need to shoot and stitch together all of the frames to make something that looks this impressive.

    Just like a power adapter, you won’t find that in the box with a new phone, but fans of stop-motion animation will be glad someone did.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    OpenAI exec to employees: “our number one goal remains to reunify OpenAI.”

    Several days after Sam Altman was removed from his post as OpenAI’s CEO, there is still no resolution to the issue, even after hundreds of employees signed a pledge to follow him to Microsoft unless he’s reinstated.

    Now, Bloomberg reports that global affairs VP Anna Makanju sent a memo to staff confirming that negotiations have continued between Altman, the remaining board members, and new interim CEO Emmett Shear, they won’t have a final response tonight and plan to continue discussions on Tuesday morning.