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Congress must pass a federal funding bill by midnight tonight to avert the shutdown of all nonessential government operations. President Donald Trump met with congressional leaders yesterday in a last-minute bid to break an impasse on a short-term spending measure, but disagreements remain.
Earlier this month, the Republican-led House passed a stopgap bill to fund the government through Nov. 21, but the Senate rejected it in a 44-48 vote. Senators are set to reconsider the measure today. The House is not scheduled to return until Oct. 7. The Republican-led Senate lacks enough votes to pass the bill without Democratic support. Senate rules require 60 votes to pass a measure; Republicans hold 53 seats. Democrats are seeking concessions, including extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, reversing Medicaid cuts, and protecting previously approved state aid.
The administration has warned of mass firings if the government temporarily closes, framing the lapse in funding as a chance to permanently downsize. See the impacts on the Washington, DC, area here. |
Electronic Arts, the US video game giant behind "Madden NFL" and "EA Sports FC," announced yesterday it will be taken private in a $55B all-cash deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and two American private equity firms. The transaction is set to be the largest-ever private equity-funded buyout.
The Saudi fund, alongside PE firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, will pay stockholders $210 per share. Silver Lake is also among the investors poised to oversee TikTok’s US operations, while Affinity Partners is managed by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. For Saudi Arabia, the acquisition will advance an ongoing push into the gaming industry as the kingdom seeks to diversify its oil-dependent economy. PIF already owns about 10% of EA and launched Savvy Games Group in 2021 to spearhead multibillion-dollar gaming investments.
The deal is subject to approval by the US Committee on Foreign Investment. Lawmakers previously raised concerns about Saudi investments in American golf. |
AOL ends its dial-up service today after more than 35 years. The decision, announced last month, marks the end of a service once synonymous with accessing the internet.
When the company (then called America Online) launched dial-up in 1989, it was among the first. The approach used a modem to convert computer data into audio signals, which could then travel over phone lines. The dial-up tone (see explanation) was so ubiquitous in the 1990s that it was considered part of the soundtrack of the decade, with the service inspiring Nora Ephron’s hit 1998 rom-com "You’ve Got Mail." At its height in 1999, AOL boasted over 18 million subscribers with a market capitalization of $222B.
Broadband internet overtook dial-up in the mid-2000s, thousands of times faster than the service’s 56 kilobits per second speed. Still, roughly 163,000 Americans relied on AOL in 2023—a little over 0.1% of the US population. The company today offers email, media, and data services. |
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Sports, Entertainment, & Culture |
> Bad Bunny tapped to headline the Super Bowl LX (Feb. 8) halftime show; the Puerto Rican artist is a three-time Grammy winner with multiple Billboard No. 1 albums (More) |
> President Donald Trump announces a 100% tariff on films produced outside the US (More) | "The Simpsons" theatrical film set for 2027 release (More) |
> WNBA semifinal between the Indiana Fever and Las Vegas Aces (9:30 pm ET, ESPN2) to decide who faces the Phoenix Mercury in the finals (More) | MLB playoffs wild card series kicks off tonight; see complete schedule (More) |
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> OpenAI introduces parental controls to ChatGPT following lawsuit linking teenager's death by suicide to the chatbot (More) | Anthropic releases latest Claude Sonnet 4.5 model designed to excel at coding and meet business needs (More) |
> High-resolution images and biochemical experiments show for the first time how polymyxin antibiotics infiltrate E. coli cells to treat deadly bacterial infections; finding reveals why antibiotics are ineffective against dormant E. coli (More, w/photos) |
> Geochemists unearth over 541-million-year-old chemical fossils suggesting ancestors of modern-day sea sponges were among the first animals on Earth (More) |
Plate tectonics: This morning's Science & Technology newsletter unpacks the slowly shifting puzzle pieces that make up Earth's outer shell. Email comes out at 8:30 am ET—click here to receive! |
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> US stock markets close up (S&P 500 +0.3%, Dow +0.2%, Nasdaq +0.5%) (More) | YouTube to pay $24.5M to settle President Donald Trump's lawsuit over his account suspension following the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol (More) |
> Charlie Javice sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding JPMorgan Chase, which bought her financial aid startup, Frank, for $175M in 2021 after she inflated user numbers by millions (More) |
> German airline Lufthansa to cut 4,000 jobs—nearly 4% of workforce—by 2030 amid declining profits; cites plans to automate administrative work with AI (More) |
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> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorses President Donald Trump's 20-point postwar Gaza plan, requiring Hamas to surrender, and for Israel to eventually cede control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority under certain conditions (More) | Read proposal (More) |
> Taliban severs fiber optic connections across Afghanistan in its first nationwide internet shutdown amid morality crackdown (More) |
> Supreme Court considers whether to take up an appeal by convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, former partner of Jeffrey Epstein; the high court's next term begins Oct. 6 (More) |
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> The Non-Player Characters Among Us
New York Post | Steven Greenstreet. Some portion of the population lacks an inner monologue. Several people share how they experience the world with a totally clear mind, and the existential questions they deal with. (Watch) |
> Record Everything
Aeon | Yannic Kappes. A philosopher makes the case for digitally recording as much as possible about our day-to-day lives—for the historical record, the pleasure of reminiscing, and forging identity. (Read) |
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