YIKES

thank god

icymi republicans increasingly hate battery storage

NEW: I talked to six immigrant workers on H-1B visas who had to cancel their travel plans last minute to avoid paying the $100,000 fee Trump suddenly announced on Friday, just to learn about its reversal on Saturday. It cost them thousands of $ to rush back and also made them question the system.

You may know the software company Palantir as a contractor for ICE + the military. But in recent months, it's relaunched its merch store & said it wants to be a "lifestyle brand." What does it mean for Palantir to be a lifestyle brand...? I unpacked it here: www.wired.com/story/palant...

If the $100,000 H1B application fee is not struck down in courts, this could be the Canadian century. Or at least the Canadian decade.

Correcting myself since I didn't read carefully enough in my haste; this doesn't go into effect immediately, it goes into effect in 29 hours, at 12:01 AM on Sunday morning.

Amazing, no notes needed

Looking forward to still writing about this drama next September. But for now, here’s what we know about the TikTok deal as of Friday. Reported with @jakelahut.writes.news

Wrote a bit about how FCC Chair Brendan Carr won't stop his attacks until someone makes him. At this point, no one's really all that optimistic Congress or the courts will step up. More here: www.wired.com/story/brenda...

NEW Made in China: antitrust, anti-dumping, anti-discrimination. Beijing is ready to use a myriad of legal tools it learned from the US to create new bargaining chips on the TikTok deal table. The focus this time is on legacy semiconductor chips.

ahhh I thought you didn’t want American companies to sell advanced chips to China

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, political influencers have to balance security and the requirements of the job. “Part of my rate is the ‘someone might kill me tax,’” says one. www.wired.com/story/politi...

The Dept. of Education has pulled funding for programs in 8 states that support students with both hearing and vision loss. A staffer at one program says he was told the Trump admin. took issue with 2 words on the grant application: “transition" and “privilege": www.propublica.org/article/trum...

I hope people understand that the anomaly here aren’t the conditions—the conditions are very typical—the anomaly is that they put a number of documented workers from a high-income country in those conditions. This is how people are treated in custody routinely

This protest sign in South Korea says everything about US efforts to lure foreign manufacturing investment. 🤡 @apnews.com

It's no coincidence that you couldn't escape the violent video yesterday. Social platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have scaled back their content moderation efforts for long to get us where we are today. Really essential reporting by @laurengoode.bsky.social

Here's our report on the shooting of Charlie Kirk www.wired.com/story/charli...

The shooting of Charlie Kirk was the 46th school shooting of the year. The 47th one happened moments afterwards. www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/u...

🫠

NEW: i took a look at new research from @oilchange.bsky.social which finds that taxpayers are on the hook for an additional $4 billion per year in fossil fuel subsidies thanks to the one big beautiful bill:

NEW: A leak of more than 100,000 documents shows how a Chinese firm, Geedge Networks, is exporting mass censorship technology similar to the Great Firewall to countries outside of China. @zeyiyang.bsky.social reports www.wired.com/story/geedge...

some fun context to this story is that it was a Project Veritas sting op and he was caught on camera on what he thought was a Hinge date

Here's my epic failure against Trump's tariffs: I placed an order from a Ukrainian woodworking shop on Aug 17, but it's still stuck at the customs. It turns out, big platforms like Temu ends up getting an advantage over indie sellers because they can better handle the post-de minimis tariff regime.

Adams has been offered a job at HUD, @jccoltin.bsky.social reports. www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Visiting San Francisco and potentially the bay area for this week. Any Bluesky friends who's available for meeting up? Let's grab a coffee.

Chatted with Dan Wang on his new book for this week's newsletter in @wired.com Some questions hit close to home as I try to make sense of my lived experience in New York, a city that could build subway 120 years ago, and Wuhan, a city that could build 7 subway lines in 4 years from 2014 to 2018.

...ah oh

New York Times story with profiles of researchers whose grants were terminated. [Gift Link] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

For the first time in history, getting ⚡️ from solar is more economical than from fossil fuel. Customs data show African countries are buying record numbers of Chinese solar panels in 2025, both for utility projects and off-grid rooftop installations. This may change the future of affordable energy.

Got an unusual tip a few weeks ago about a spike in ant smuggling. It’s a case study in how slashing federal agencies is having all kinds of trickle down consequences: www.wired.com/story/usda-a...

New: the inside story of how Tea collected millions of women's secrets, then exposed them to the world. We've found Tea raided women safety groups to get users; paid influencers to undermine others, much more. The “motive is money, not actually to protect people.” www.404media.co/how-teas-fou...

Bringing you the earnings report that matters! Pop Mart’s net profits grew 362% yoy in H1 2025 Revenue-wise: - the Labubu franchise grew 668% to $670 million (more than Barbie or Hot Wheels) - the Americas market grew 1100+% - the plush products grew over 1200+% & that’s not including Lafufus!

NEW from @wired.com/me: Generation iPad Everyone does back-to-school packages, but for this one we wanted to do something different. We wanted to look at how tech is impacting learning, how AI, Zoom school, social media, and so many other things are changing education. www.wired.com/generation-i...

Lisa Su is obviously much more of a "supreme technology optimist“ than I am, but the part where she talks about how her mother's own medical situation made her wish for more advanced AI in transforming healthcare is very very relatable. Great interview by @laurengoode.bsky.social

Bombshell report from The New York Times reveals that President Donald Trump spoke directly to Andrew Cuomo about how to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming NYC mayor. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/n...

Chinese ICE Detainee Dies by Suicide at Pennsylvania Detention Center theintercept.com/2025/08/07/i...

The 401(k) heist proceeds precisely as @cedricdurand.bsky.social and I expected. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/ame...

Reuters – China's weak job market stirs boom-era nostalgia on social media www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Axios is shuttering its $4,500+ a year “Pro” policy subscription, a setback in its bid to monetize Washington insider intel. The scoop in @status.news: www.status.news/p/axios-news...

@cloudflare.social says Perplexity is repeatedly modifying their user agent and changing IPs and ASNs to hide their crawling activity, going directly against no-crawl directives blog.cloudflare.com/perplexity-i...

China welcomes 183 Brazil coffee sellers in wake of US tariffs reut.rs/4mp1Ise

In this week's Made in China newsletter: at China's flagship AI summit WAIC, the vibe was totally different from Trump’s America-first, regulation-light vision for AI. Beijing is pitching itself as the world leader of AI safety regulation. WIRED's @willknight.bsky.social reports from Shanghai:

A transgender woman from the Philippines is suing the JP govt for revoking her application for asylum. The govts position is there is no ”persecution” of transgender people in the Philippines, because ”there are Pride parades” and ”murderers of transgender people have been arrested in the past”

getting my phrenology checked by my laptop camera before I can listen to WAP, a future I always wanted www.404media.co/spotify-uk-a...

SCOOP from me: Trump's AI action plan released last week makes a specific set of recommendations around loosening Clean Water Act permits for data centers — recommendations mirrored in letters sent to the administration by Big Tech lobbyists earlier this year:

This AI talent war is not ending anytime soon huh. "One of those offers was more than $1 billion over a multi-year span." Plus this is from @kylierobison.com's new exclusive newsletter Model Behavior. Subscribe to it to know how wild Silicon Valley is!!! www.wired.com/story/mark-z...

Meta approached more than a dozen staffers at Mira Murati’s AI startup to discuss joining its new superintelligence lab. One received an offer for more than $1 billion. www.wired.com/story/mark-z...

LLMs are basically terrifying users by force-feeding them niche fanfic texts without context. There's a reason why fandoms congregate on small forums to talk out their inside jokes because they don't want innocent people to stumble into their space and freak out without knowing the context!!!

Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison said Monday it was considering inviting a Chinese "major strategic investor" to join a US-led consortium negotiating the sale of its global ports business outside China, including operations at the Panama Canal.