6 – 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
    French DJ and musician Kavinsky has died at age 50.

    Kavinsky, aka Vincent Belorgey, was found in his home in Paris on Tuesday, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. He was most well known for the song Nightcall, which was produced with Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, and featured in the movie Drive as well as the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack.

    In 2024, the BBC reports it broke the record for the most Shazamed track ever when he performed it with Belgian singer Angèle during the closing ceremony for the 2024 Olympic Games.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    An Xbox outage has been preventing some games from launching since last night.

    After a PS5 outage last week, now it’s apparently Xbox’s turn for problems, weeks after a massive wave of layoffs. The Xbox Live status page says an outage was first reported at 11PM last night and is still ongoing, preventing some account sign-ins and stopping people from playing their games, whether from a disc or a digital copy.

    On my home Xbox, I could launch many games I own, but trying to load Game Pass titles threw up a “Check back later” message or error code 0x87e107df, indicating the license couldn’t be verified. The last update from @XboxSupport came three hours ago.

    XBOX Support (@XBOXSupport) on X

    [X (formerly Twitter)]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    OpenAI reportedly didn’t notice its AI agent hacking Hugging Face until a week later.

    According to Reuters, the AI agent that went looking for ExploitGym hacking benchmark shortcuts on Hugging Face’s systems started trying to escape its not-sandboxed-well-enough test environment around July 9th, and the actual intrusion lasted from the 11th until the 13th.

    Reuters’ sources claim OpenAI employees didn’t know its agent was responsible until after Hugging Face had notified the FBI and posted publicly about a security incident.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    SpaceX’s 13th Starship test flight has launched.

    After last week’s launch attempt misfired and a scheduled attempt Thursday was postponed due to weather, the 13th flight test launched just before 7PM ET on Friday. 20 V3 Starlink satellites were deployed, but it appears there was an issue relighting the Super Heavy booster’s engines for an attempted propulsive landing and splashdown.

    Today’s test was important for former trillionaire Elon Musk, with shares of Tesla and SpaceX declining by 18 and 7 percent this week, respectively.

    Update: Updated to note that the vehicle has launched.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Paramount Skydance agrees to hold off on closing its Warner Bros. Discovery merger for up to a year.

    That 28-day pause could go a lot longer, now that US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved a deal saying that Paramount Skydance won’t close its transaction until June 1st, 2027, or at least until after legal claims of two lawsuits (one filed by a group of state AGs, and the other by the WGA) are resolved.

    Meanwhile, the “ticking fee” Paramount will owe WBD shareholders for any delay starts counting in October, and could add up to $1.7 billion if the delay lasts until next June.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    BMW’s M boss says why he thinks some drivers will prefer the electric M3.

    Now that BMW has shown off its M Concept Neue Klasse, M division head Frank van Meel talked to Autocar, saying that the future M3 EV’s “heart of Joy” controlled quad-motor setup could create racing and driving dynamics that the combustion engine M3 doesn’t match:

    “You can brake the inner wheels, accelerate the outer ones and can get out of turns in a completely different way. It’s a new era of vehicle dynamics… if you’re into racing or driving dynamics, you might say the electric one is the best M3.”

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The CDC adds four more states to the big cyclosporiasis outbreak.

    As reported earlier by the Washington Post, the CDC has updated its notice about parasite infections linked to now-recalled lettuce from Taylor Farms. The CDC noted it’s investigating other cases nationally “that are unrelated to this outbreak,” and today the FDA disclosed a new cyclospora outbreak with 72 cases, in addition to its three existing active cyclospora outbreak investigations.

    …the total case count associated with this multistate outbreak is now 1,947. This includes the addition of 4 states: Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    YouTube’s AI chatbot can make your next video thumbnail.

    Aside from labeling and filtering AI slop, YouTube says you can directly chat with its Ask Studio bot to build thumbnails that are “tailored to your video’s specific themes and to your specific style.” It’s also added custom thumbnail uploads for Shorts if you’re in the YouTube Partner Program, and suggested thumbnail frames for Shorts.

    Screenshot of the YouTube Ask Studio UI
    Image: YouTube
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Xbox gamer Strive4G8ness23 signs a two-year, $8 million deal with the 76ers.

    How could anyone have known that LeBron James would choose Philadelphia as his next NBA team? Well, there were signs.

    Screenshots of tweets from LeBron playing madden against a Philadelphia 76ers / Eagles fan in 2024.
    Screenshots: @kingjames . @MarcAnthonyRo15 (X)
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The pause on Paramount’s $110 billion WBD deal has been extended for another fortnight.

    US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a decision Thursday extending her temporary restraining order to a total of 28 days, report The Wrap and Variety. The mega media merger is paused for now due to lawsuits by a group of state AGs and the Writers’ Guild of America, as the judge plans to “hear the two motions for preliminary injunction on the same schedule” and has scheduled a hearing for August 3rd.

    Disclosure: The Verge’s editorial staff is also unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East.