NEW: Epstein emails show how billionaire financier Leon Black, founder of Apollo, relied on the convicted sex offender to help him leverage his multi-billion-dollar art for $500m+ in loans from Bank of America. www.forbes.com/sites/johnhy...

ICYMI, latest edition of my emerging tech newsletter goes through the enormous technical challenges of building orbital data centers (plus comment from OG space investor Chad Anderson, who calls them overhyped.) Plus: Advances in 3D-printed houses; a new study says companies should offer more PTO.

I hope Winthorpe and Valentine diversified their holdings after cornering the market. apnews.com/article/minu...

On 1 February 2026, batteries in CAISO never reached zero discharge rate while the sun was down, displacing gas and imports in California and supplying renewable electricity all night long. #energysky www.caiso.com/todays-outlo...

One of my favorite business stories of all time is about Herbert Dow, the founder of Dow Chemical. He used electrolytic chemistry to produce bromine cheaply. (Bromine's used in a lot of industrial applications.) So anyway, he started selling his cheaper bromine in Europe... 1/4

South Carolina measles outbreak is triggering dangerous brain swelling in some children www.scientificamerican.com/article/sout...

Why this is the worst crypto winter ever: AI crowds out crypto for mindshare and power grid access, crypto is mainstream, gold beats BTC as a safe haven, more (Bloomberg) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

New edition of my emerging tech newsletter, The Prototype, is here. In it, I look at the enormous technical challenges of building data centers in space, why your next house might be 3D-printed, the new inductees from the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and more!

For our cover story on Sam Altman, we sat down with him for two wide-ranging interviews. We couldn’t fit everything into the final profile. Here’s some of what we discussed, from Elon and Trump to robotics and vaccines. w/ Anna Tong www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Bedrock, which aims to automate heavy construction equipment like excavators, raised $270M led by CapitalG and the Valor Atreides AI Fund at a $1.75B valuation (Michael J. de la Merced/New York Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Moltbook, the social media platform dedicated to AI agents, exploded in popularity over the weekend. While humans supposedly aren't allowed to participate, they sure had a lot of reactions, from being unimpressed to calling it "swarm intelligence." www.forbes.com/sites/the-pr...

OpenAI’s rivals are gaining ground despite overall market growth of 152% (Jan 2025–2026): • Mobile Market Share: ChatGPT fell from 69.1% to 45.3%, while Gemini rose to 25.1% and Grok to 15.2%. • Web Traffic: ChatGPT visits grew 50% (to 5.7 billion), compared to Gemini's 647% surge (to 2 billion).

This is an interesting concept. heatmap.news/energy/consu...

This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in Money Stuff's mission: scaling to make a sentient newsletter to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars! www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...

NEW: We profiled Sam Altman for the cover of Forbes Magazine. For the story, we talked to Bob Iger, Masa Son, Satya Nadella, Brian Chesky, Paul Graham and more. Graham’s take was resonant: “He’s good at getting people to do what he wants.” w/ Anna Tong www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Sanofi is scrapping its plans to develop an mRNA seasonal flu vaccine. www.cidrap.umn.edu/influenza-va...

NASA engineers have stopped pumping liquid hydrogen fuel into the Artemis II rocket because of an apparent leak

As if Nipah virus weren’t bad enough, some patients in Asia were coinfected with an emerging bat virus called Pteropine orthoreovirus (PRV). Symptoms of PRV include fever, disorientation, abnormal gait, and difficulty breathing. PRV seems to have traits that increase likelihood of zoonosis.

SpaceX has acquired xAI www.forbes.com/sites/antoni...

A memo just went out to employees at two of Musk's companies: SpaceX has acquired xAI.

In this week’s Current Climate newsletter: ☀️ Surprise: Tesla suddenly likes solar again 🪨 Indiana’s plan to get rare earth metals from coal waste 🔋 How batteries are keeping the power flowing in Texas during severe weather #solar #batteries www.forbes.com/sites/curren...

For Some Americans, the End of Obamacare Subsidies Means Falling Off a Financial Cliff www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...

404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for ELITE, which lets ICE bring up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address.

Breaking on MS NOW: Career DOJ prosecutors in both Minnesota and Los Angeles refused to be involved in charging Don Lemon and the other journalists who covered the Minneapolis church protests. The prosecutors believe the evidence does not support the charges, per @carolleonnig.bsky.social.

great reporting of an under acknowledged threat. ICE participation in the surveillance industrial complex violates fundamental human rights. see 👇

With continued uncertainty over federal government support for biomedical research, PhD students are struggling to find labs willing to take on new students, @jonathanwosen.bsky.social reports. New students are the future of US science. www.statnews.com/2026/01/30/f...

President Trump has filed a lawsuit against the IRS, in which he demands that the IRS, which he as president controls, pay him $10 billion. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Don was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles.

The largest randomized trial of medical A.I. —Over 100,000 women in Sweden —radiologist + AI vs 2 radiologists, in follow-up —AI added led to 29% more cancer detected, 44% reduced workload, and —Less cancer dx in subsequent 2 years, and, when found, less aggressive thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Democrats and the White House agreed to separate Homeland Security funding from the government spending legislation that will avert a shutdown.

"The Pentagon and artificial-intelligence developer Anthropic are at odds over potentially eliminating safeguards that might allow the government to use its technology to target weapons autonomously and conduct U.S. domestic surveillance" www.reuters.com/business/pen...

Here we go again. www.forbes.com/sites/suzann...

"Lobbying firms took in a record $5 billion in 2025" Emma Sullivan and Hien An Ngo, for @opensecrets.org

The AI-chat-enabled stuffed toy Bondu invites little kids to have intimate conversations with it, like an LLM imaginary friend. It also exposed virtually all their chats on a web interface with no security. Anyone with a Gmail account could log in and read transcripts. www.wired.com/story/an-ai-...

In this week's edition of my emerging tech newsletter, the Prototype, I looked at how portable ultrasounds are used in space, a new discovery that could lead to unsinkable ships (lasers are involved) and some of the billions pouring into AI "neolabs." Check it out! www.forbes.com/sites/the-pr...

Toad the Wet Sprocket's new acoustic album is incredible, folks. toadthewetsprocket.bandcamp.com/album/rings-...

Astronomers spot an Earth-sized planet with a year about the same as ours.... only 146 light-years away! www.science.org/content/arti...

Tesla posted its first-ever annual revenue decline. www.forbes.com/sites/antoni...

In this week’s @forbes.com InnovationRx newsletter, @thealexknapp.bsky.social and I look at the health risks of winter storms, a new Korean weight-loss pill billionaire, a startup using AI to develop treatments for rare diseases, and more www.forbes.com/sites/innova...

Scoop from my colleague Anna Tong - OpenAI is building a social network. That, ironically, will not have bots. www.forbes.com/sites/annato...

Thinking about the "I don't want revenue" scene from Silicon Valley as I read this story. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/thes...

New: Trump claims Rep. Ilhan Omar is worth $44M. Here’s why that’s highly unlikely— and how the controversy was fueled by an entry on her own disclosure that may have run afoul of House ethics guidance. me, for @forbes.com 1/

"South Carolina’s growing measles outbreak is now the largest in United States history since the contagious viral disease was declared eliminated more than two decades ago" www.forbes.com/sites/martin...

Breaking News: India and the EU announced a free-trade agreement nearly 20 years in the making.

America is bleeding scientific talent U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Major automaker Volkswagen has considered cancelling its plans for a US major factory over President Donald Trump's automotive tariffs, according to reports Monday.

BREAKING Greg Bovino has been removed as Border Patrol "commander at large" and will return to El Centro Calif, where he is expected to retire soon. A stunning turnaround after Pretti killing. Bovino's traveling blue city crackdown is over www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Sal Buscema, a comic artist best known for legendary runs on Marvel's Incredible Hulk and Spectacular Spider-Man, reportedly passed away last Friday, just short of his 90th birthday.

My colleagues @Forbes constantly blow me away with their scoops and in-depth features. Follow them here.

Making large language models reliable data science programming copilots for biomedical research www.nature.com/articles/s41... #llms #bioinformatics #datascience #coding