As outrage spreads over energy-hungry data centers, politicians from President Donald Trump to local lawmakers have found rare bipartisan agreement over insisting that tech companies and not regular people must foot the bill for the exorbitant amount of electricity required for artificial intelligence.
But that might be where the agreement ends.
The price of powering data centers has become deeply intertwined with concerns over the cost of living, a dominant issue in the upcoming midterm elections that will determine control of Congress and governors offices.
Some efforts to address the challenge may be coming too late, with energy costs on the rise. And even though tech giants are pledging to pay their fair share, there’s little consensus on what that means.
Fair share is a pretty squishy term, and so its something that the industry likes to say because fair can mean different things to different people, said Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University.
It’s a shift from last year, when states worked to woo massive data center projects and Trump directed his administration to do everything it could to get them electricity. Now there’s a backlash as towns fight data center projects and some utilities’ electricity bills have risen quickly.
Anger over the issue has already had electoral consequences, with Democrats ousting two Republicans from Georgia’s utility regulatory commission in November.
Voters are already connecting the experience of these facilities with their electricity costs and theyre going to increasingly want to know how government is going to navigate that, said Christopher Borick, a pollster and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.
Energy race stokes concerns
Data centers are sprouting across the U.S., as tech giants scramble to meet worldwide demand for chatbots and other generative AI products that require large amounts of computing power to train and operate.
The buildings look like giant warehouses, some dwarfing the footprints of factories and stadiums. Some need more power than a small city, more than any utility has ever supplied to a single user, setting off a race to build more power plants.
The demand for electricity can have a ripple effect that raises prices for everyone else. For example, if utilities build more power plants or transmission lines to serve them, the cost can be spread across all ratepayers.
Concerns have dovetailed with broader questions about the cost of living, as well as fears about the powerful influence of tech companies and the impact of artificial intelligence.
Trump continues to embrace artificial intelligence as a top economic and national security priority, although he seemed to acknowledge the backlash last month by posting on social media that data centers must pay their own way.
At other times, he has brushed concerns aside, declaring that tech giants are building their own power plants, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright contends that data centers don’t inflate electricity bills disputing what consumer advocates and independent analysts say.
States moving to regulate
Some states and utilities have started to identify ways to get data centers to pay for their costs.
They’ve required tech companies to buy electricity in long-term contracts, pay for the power plants and transmission upgrades they need and make big down payments in case they go belly-up or decide later they dont need as much electricity.
But it might be more complicated than that. Those rules can’t fix the short-term problem of ravenous demand for electricity that is outpacing the speed of power plant construction, analysts say.
What do you do when Big Tech, because of the very profitable nature of these data centers, can simply outbid grandma for power in the short run? Abe Silverman, a former utility regulatory lawyer and an energy researcher at Johns Hopkins University. That is, I think, going to be the real challenge.
Some consumer advocates say tech companies’ fair share should also include the rising cost of electricity, grid equipment, or natural gas thats driven by their demand.
In Oregon, which passed a law to protect smaller ratepayers from data centers’ power costs, a consumer advocacy group is jousting with the state’s largest utility, Portland General Electric, over its plan on how to do that.
Meanwhile, consumer advocates in various states including Indiana, Georgia, and Missouri are warning that utilities could foist the cost of data center-driven buildouts onto regular ratepayers there.
Pushback from lawmakers, governors
Utilities have pledged to ensure electric rates are fair. But in some places it may be too late.
For instance, in the mid-Atlantic grid territory from New Jersey to Illinois, consumer advocates and analysts have pegged billions of dollars in rate increases hitting the bills of regular Americans on data center demand.
Legislation, meanwhile, is flooding into Congress and statehouses to regulate data centers.
Democrats bills in Congress await Republican cosponsors, while lawmakers in a number of states are floating moratoriums on new data centers, drafting rules for regulators to shield regular ratepayers and targeting data center tax breaks and utility profits.
Governors including some who worked to recruit data centers to their states are increasingly talking tough.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat running for reelection this year, wants to impose a penny-a-gallon water fee on data centers and get rid of the sales tax exemption there that most states offer data centers. She called it a $38 million corporate handout.
Its time we make the booming data center industry work for the people of our state, rather than the other way around, she said in her state-of-the-state address.
Blame for rising energy costs
Energy costs are projected to keep rising in 2026.
Republicans in Washington are pointing the finger at liberal state energy policies that favor renewable energy, suggesting they have driven up transmission costs and frayed supply by blocking fossil fuels.
Americansare not paying higher prices because of data centers. Theres a perception there, and I get the perception, but its not actually true, said Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, at a news conference earlier this month.
The struggle to assign blame was on display last week at a four-hour U.S. House subcommittee hearing with members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Republicans encouraged FERC members to speed up natural gas pipeline construction while Democrats defended renewable energy and urged FERC to limit utility profits and protect residential ratepayers from data center costs.
FERC’s chair, Laura Swett, told Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, that she believes data center operators are willing to cover their costs and understand that its important to have community support.
Thats not been our experience, Landsman responded, saying projects in his district are getting tax breaks, sidestepping community opposition and costing people money. Ultimately, I think we have to get to a place where they pay everything.
Marc Levy, Associated Press
After 25 years of obsessing over Mars, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has shifted focus from invading the Red Planet to invading the Moon. He claims he will build a self-sustainable lunar metropolis in less than a decadea sharp contrast to his proposed Mars colony, which he says would now take at least 20 years. Both timelines are as fictional as Star Trek, but at least now his plan makes sense.
It is a jarring plot twist from January 2025, when Musk dismissed the Moon as a “distraction.” Now, he says, the satellite is the “overriding priority” to secure civilization. Musk argues a lunar base is necessary because a “natural or man-made catastrophe” on Earth could cut off the supply lines a Mars colony would need to survive.
Musk might actually be making sense this time. As Harvard physicist Avi Loeb points out, Musk is right to pivot. The Moon is closer, making it faster to get to, and it aligns with the geopolitical objectives of the United States (the government pays a lot of SpaceXs bills). It makes sense financially, opening the opportunity for the return of investment that may come from mining the lunar surface and orbiting asteroids, as well as his absurd plan to put one million AI satellites in orbit (made and launched from the Moon, no less).
The financial aspect is the key. Really, its the whole end game. By choosing a target thats more accessibleand lucrativethan Mars, Musk is crafting a realistic illusion for investors and bull analysts. He needs to inflate the immediate financial expectations of SpaceX, so his company can get as much money as possible in its programmed 2026 IPO.
Hard limits
The unavoidable fact that forced him to pivot from Mars is, above everything, basic physical limitations. [The Moon] is much more practical to bring people back and forth,” Loeb told NewsNation. Musk described his “self-growing city” on X as a settlement that would be capable of expanding rapidly using local resources. It’s not something that that has ever been demonstrated. Still, Loeb argues that “the moon makes much more sense” before we attempt to leap into the deep void of the solar system.
The physics of space travel don’t care about Musks marketing tweets. The Moon is simply a more forgiving target. Musk says that SpaceX can launch to the Moon every 10 days, allowing for rapid iteration; whereas Mars missions are shackled to planetary alignments that only occur every 26 months.
[Rendering: SpaceX]
The commute is also drastically different: a two-day hop versus a six-month deep-space haul exposed to radiation and all sorts of space dangers. As Quentin Parker, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Hong Kong, points out: “If you have some issue or emergency, youre a few days away from Earth. Youre months away if youre on Mars.” Thats the difference between a rescue mission and a lot of funerals.
Whenever it is ready, Starships massive capacity to haul over 110 tons of cargo makes it a powerful workhorse to send everything Musk needs to build his fabled city as fast as possible.
Base alpha and lava tubes
Musk is calling his proposed self-sustaining lunar city “Moon Base Alpha,” a direct homage to the 1970s British-Italian science fiction television series Space: 1999. In the show, Moonbase Alpha is a high-tech scientific research center located in the lunar crater Plato.
Musk citys hardware is radically different from the series’ shiny sets and spaceships. The workhorse for his plan is the Starship Human Landing System, a modified version of the regular Starship stripped of its heat shield and flight flaps since it will never need to re-enter Earths atmosphere. Instead of massive engines at the base, this ship uses smaller hull-mounted thrusters for touchdown to avoid blasting a crater into the landing zone and kicking up lethal dust.
[Rendering: SpaceX]
Once landed, a massive elevator would lower crews and cargo from the high-altitude cabin. The sheer volume of a Starship offers nearly 35,000 cubic feet of pressurized spacedwarfing the Apollo Lunar Modules cramped 160 cubic feetwhich allows for actual living quarters rather than just survival pods. SpaceX also envisions landing and tipping Starships horizontally and burying them under five meters of regolith to shield crews from cosmic radiation.
Powering this buried city requires overcoming the lunar night, which lasts for two weeks of freezing darkness. For that, SpaceX will need nuclear reactors like those designed by Kilopower, 10-kilowatt fission units that can run continuously for a decaderather than relying solely on solar. The city will still need solar arrays, especially in the initial phase. NASA and SpaceX are developing Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT)32-foot-tall masts designed to capture sunlight that grazes the horizon at the lunar South Pole.
To move around, astronauts wont just be walking; they will live inside pressurized rovers, essentially mobile habitats that allow them to explore for weeks without returning to base.
But the ultimate goal is to go underground. Musks engineers are exploring another old idea for lunar bases: lava tubes. These massive natural tunnels were formed millions of years ago by ancient lunar volcanic flows. They offer ready-made protection with stable temperatures of around 63 degrees.Inside these subterranean cathedrals, SpaceX can build habitats using regolith-based 3D printing tech, like those imagined by 3D-printing construction companies Luyten and Icon. Giant rovers can also weave fibers from moon dust to construct inflatable module supports inside the lava tubes.
[Rendering: Icon]
However, the chasm between rendering and reality remains vast. SpaceX targets a 2026 orbital refueling test for Starshipa critical prerequisite for any lunar missiona date that has been pushed repeatedly and doesnt look like its going to happen. Aside from part of its elevator, the company hasnt delivered most of the hardware for Starship HLS. Its all on the drawing board, which is why NASA reopened the bids for the lunar lander in 2025 after SpaceX failed to progress on their promised milestones. Icons lunar construction system is still in R&D, and the Kilopower nuclear reactors, while promising, are still in the ground-testing phase with deployment unlikely before the 2030s. Musks less than a decade timeline assumes a flawless convergence of technologies that, right now, exist mostly on paper.
Follow the money
But we know Musks pivot isnt about practicality. Its about business and valuation.
On February 2, SpaceX merged with Musks artificial intelligence venture, xAI, creating a corporate titan valued at $1.25 trillion. Sources indicate SpaceX is preparing for a mid-June 2026 IPO that could target a valuation as high as $1.5 trillion, potentially the largest listing in history. Investors love many fast catalysts, not multi-decade pipe dreams.
Musk wants to dominate AI, and he knows he needs raw power so he plans to build orbital data centers to feed this AI obsession, allegedly bypassing the power and cooling constraints of terrestrial facilities.
Musks narrative is selling the idea that the only way to put one million xAI servers in orbit is to exploit the Moons resources. Mine it for silicon and oxygen. Build the factories to make the servers. Build a magnetic cannon system to launch the servers into Earth orbit. The Moon becomes the construction site for the “vertically-integrated innovation engine” he promised during the xAI merger announcement.
Musk appears to believe he can build this infrastructure before his life ends. It doesnt matter that multiple experts think thats impossible. It doesnt matter that hes basically proposing building a potential weapon of mass destructiona cannon satellite launcheron the Moon. It doesnt matter that he wants to put a one-million satellite orbital minefield around Earth. And it doesnt matter that thermodynamics makes his idea of cooling xAI servers in space extremely hard.
[Rendering: SpaceX]
Space is not “the cheapest place to put AI in 36 months or less,”as Musk has said. In fact, according to Lluc Palerm, research director for satellite at consulting firm Analysys Mason, Musks plan to make money out of space servers has the same magnitude of challenge as a Mars mission.
Still, building a lunar city aligns perfectly with NASAs Artemis programwhich recently saw the SLS rocket lift off for the first time in 50 yearsand offers immediate revenue potential through government contracts that a distant Mars colony simply cannot match.
The Bezos threat
Which brings us to the second player in this Moon race: Musk is suddenly battling a competent Jeff Bezos. For years, SpaceXs factory in Texas stood unrivaled. But Blue Origin has finally started delivering. Its landing its New Glenn rocket and planning a Blue Moon Mark 1.5 lander that doesn’t require complex orbital refueling. Thats competition to Musk in terms of actual Earth dollars.
Multiple sources have told Ars that Bezos has told his team to go all in on lunar exploration, writes Ars Technicas space editor Eric Berger This creates a genuine threat that Blue Origin could put humans on the lunar surface before Starship gets there.
Bezos isn’t just playing catch-up either. He is building a parallel industrial machine. Blue Origin has successfully tested Blue Alchemist, a technology that melts lunar regolith to autonomously manufacture solar cells and transmission wire without needing any materials from Earth. The company has also launched Project Oasis, a mission to map lunar water ice and helium-3 using low-orbit satellites equipped with neutron spectrometers. To cut costs, Blue Origin is developing Project Jarvis, a reusable stainless-steel upper stage for the New Glenn rocket, mirroring the reusability of Starship.
Bezoss vision is not to build underground cities on the Moon but to build O’Neill colonies, massive orbiting habitats. He sees the Moon not as a colony, but as the mine that will build them (again, a crazy long-term plan).
So Musks pivot appears to be a calculated move to seize the commercial opportunity of the Moon before his rival does.
Red Moon rises
While Musk tweets about future cities and Bezos powers up, the most dangerous enemy for the United States space hegemony is on a fast collision course. China is the last part of Musks wild turn.
The Asian giant is executing a concrete, century-long roadmap. On January 29, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) officially launched the Tiangong Kaiwu program, a massive national plan named after a 1637 Ming explorers encyclopedia to extend Chinese industrial dominance across the solar system. The plan treats space not as a scientific frontier, but as an economic zone.
According to academic Wang Wei, who architected the proposal, the goal is to secure strategic minerals from near-Earth objects to fuel Earth’s sustainable development. According to the regimes official China Space Daily, among the 1.3 million asteroids in our solar system about 700 are relatively close to Earth and estimated to be worth over $100 trillion U.S. dollars each. Taking technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness into consideration, 122 of them are economically suitable for mining and use.
This is a four-stage industrial conquest. CASCs roadmap dictates that by 2035, China will establish a lunar resource development system and begin mining near-Earth asteroids. By 2050, operations will expand to Mars and the main asteroid belt. The timeline extends to 2075 for the exploitation of Jupiter and Saturn, aiming for a fully operational solar-system-wide resource network by 2100. Unlike Musks private ventures, this is state policy: verify feasibility by 2030, build the supply chain by 2035, and dominate the market by mid-century.
China has already poured concrete for this launchpad. They have successfully deployed the Queqiao satellite constellationincluding the recently launched Queqiao-2creating the worlds first permanent communication relay for the lunar far side. This network is the backbone for future autonomous mining operations.
Furthermore, the plan includes a gigawatt-class space-based digital infrastructure that integrates cloud computing and space debris monitoring, essentially creating a space traffic control system that China intends to manage. While Musk is pivoting his company to catch up, Beijings machine has been methodically laying the tracks for decades. And it has a plan to catch up and surpass the U.S.
While Musk may want us to believe that only he has the key to our future and that his new Moon plan is now what we all need, there are clearly other people on the planet who think otherwise. For now, what we really have is yet another erratic plot twist, a radical course change masquerading as The New Way to Save Humanity while he makes lots of money in the process.
Part of a figure skaters job is to make their routine look as effortless and graceful as possible, as if theyre floating on ice and soaring into the air through sheer force of will. In reality, theyre often launching themselves multiple feet into the air with what amounts to sand bags on their feet; generating hundreds of pounds of centripetal force through rotations; and landing on a blade thats just 3/16 of an inch wide.
At the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, NBC is using an AI tool developed by a former MIT researcher to help audiences understand just how mind-boggling the feats of todays Olympic athletes are.
Jerry Lu [Photo: Bryce Vickmark/MIT]
Jerry Lu is a 2024 MIT graduate and the founder of OOFSports, a sports analytics company that uses AI to analyze program footage, document performance data in real time, and allow commentators to give viewers a more concrete understanding of athletes feats. At Milan Cortina, hes partnering with NBC Sports on its figure skating, snowboarding, and skiing programming, collecting data like the height of jumps, athletes speed, and their rotational paths.
As figure skaters continue to break new ground in the sportlike landing more and more jumps with quadruple rotations (see American skater Ilia Malinins first-ever quad axel landed at the Olympics), Lus AI-powered tech can help make sense of their routines, moment by moment.
[Video: Jerry Lu]
A big ask from NBC
Lus career in sports analytics began with his own interest in competitive swimming. During his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia, he worked with the mathematician Ken Ono to develop a wearable device that let the schools swimmers analyze their strokes, which helped them to increase propulsion and reduce drag. Lu later served as a technical consultant for five swimmers who won medals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, followed by 16 medalists at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
During his time at MIT in its dedicated sports lab, Lu began experimenting with sports analytics technology for other fields, including a program designed to help Australias BMX freestyle team optimize its strategy. Following the Paris Olympics, he says, NBC approached him directly to ask if he could create a data analytics system for figure skating in Milan Cortina.
At that point, some of the artistic sports were missing this data-driven storytelling abilityif you watch hockey on TV, it looks slow, but if you watch it in person, it looks fast, Lu says. Similarly, he explains, if one were to watch American figure skater Amber Glenn perform a jump on screen, it might not look mind-blowingbut in person, she would be soaring unbelievably high in the air. NBC needed a way to bridge the gap between those two experiences.
Building an AI model for the Olympics
For Lu and his teamnone of whom are skatersthe first step toward building this tool was jumping on a call with former Olympic skaters and longtime NBC analysts Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir. Unlike sports like swimming or track and field, the judging parameters for figure skating can involve quite a bit of grey area, meaning that Lus team needed a full run-down of what the judges would be looking for.
They essentially taught us the sport, Lu says. They taught us exactly what they were looking for, what the judges are looking for, what, from their understanding, is a virtue, and whats a vice. We needed to come up with ways to quantify those and essentially give them the metrics with which they can compare across athletes.
Making a tool for analyzing figure skating required a completely different system from swimming, Lu says. Whereas propulsion and drag were the two main variables in that sport, figure skating is all about the speed and rotation needed to complete complicated jumps. To calculate those metrics without wearables, his team trained an AI model to analyze program footage and identify a variety of rotational points on the athletes body, from their head to shoulders, elbows, hips, and ankles.
Using those data points, the team then taught the model to categorize different jumps based on body positioninglike the toe loop, luxe, and axeland, further, to count the athletes total rotations in order to classify the jumps as a double, triple, or quad. By understanding exactly where the skater is at any given point, the AI model can calculate statistics like their speed when entering a jump, total jump height, jump exit speed, and the ground they cover across the rink; all crucial elements of their performance. These kinds of numbers can help commentators like Lipinsky and Weir paint a much more detailed picture for this years Olympic viewers.
Will AI ever replace Olympic figure skating judges? This researcher says no
Outside of his collaboration with NBC, Lu has turned his figure skating model into an app called OOFSkate, which lets skaters of any level film their routines and instantly understand their own stats. The app became an official partner of U.S. Figure Skating in December 2025.
Lus next step is creating a version of this technology that not only tracks skaters routines, but also scores them. Right now, he already has a model in the works, which he plans on debuting some time during the skating off-season. Ultimately, he says, the model will be able to assist in evaluating technical performance on a select number of skills, but it will never replace human judgements on athletes artistic performance.
Figure skating is this very unique blend of artistic and technical abilities, u says. The Olympics is all about athletes going higher, faster, strongerotherwise you dont deserve to be here. Figure skating has a part of that, which is that the bigger jumps get awarded bigger points, which is correctif you did a quad and I did a triple, you should get more points. But at the same time, this artistic element is also part of the thesis of figure skating.
Americans expressed their preference for alternatives to the Super Bowl this year, and Kid Rock wasnt it.
The Puppy Bowl brought in 15.3 million viewers last Sunday according to official Neilsen numbers released Thursday, the pup-centered events biggest audience since 2018. The Super Bowl side event featuring romping baby dogs, now in its 22nd year, offers a lighthearted alternative for anyone alienated by the yearly American football ritual.
In the Puppy Bowl, two teams of puppies (Team Ruff and Team Fluff) wrestle, romp and nap their way down a miniature football field featuring live play-by-play commentary, referees, and even a Lombarky trophy. The event raises money for animal shelters and also adopts out most of its own star pups, whether they emerge victorious or not.
Last year, 12.8 million viewers tuned in to the Puppy Bowl, which airs on Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, and HBO Max. The fluffy Super Bowl alternative drew in 6 million viewers in its first year and has been averaging around 12 million viewers in the last handful of years.
This years Puppy Bowl delivered its strongest performance in nearly a decade, and its success across linear and streaming highlights our unique ability to unite audiences around content that feels good and does good, Discovery Channel Head of Content Joseph Boyle said in a press release. Were grateful to bring viewers so much joy and are deeply proud of the purpose at the heart of this event.
The Puppy Bowl wasnt the only alternative Super Bowl show in town. Billed as the All-American Halftime Show, conservative org Turning Point USA promoted a MAGA-approved alternative show headlined by Kid Rock for people angry about Bad Bunnys booking at Super Bowl LX.
This year, Super Bowl LXs official halftime show starring Bad Bunny averaged 128.2 million viewers enough to put it in the all-time top four, but a dip from Kendrick Lamars record-setting 133.5 million viewers in 2025. The performance was almost exclusively in Spanish, a choice that inspired outrage from President Trump and others in his orbit, but still inspired a massive swath of people to tune in.
MAGAs hater halftime
While the Kid Rock halftime show was originally expected to stream on X, by game time Turning Point USA hit a snag and was pointing followers solely to its YouTube stream. UPDATE: Due to licensing restrictions, we are unable to stream The All-American Halftime Show on X, the organization wrote on X. Head on over to our YouTube channel tonight around 8PM ET to watch the full show .
On YouTube, the competing performance pulled six million concurrent viewers at its peak. On MAGA-friendly video site Rumble, the concert had been viewed 2.3 million times as of Thursday morning. If all two million of those views happened live, which isnt likely, that could leave the Kid Rock-led show at around 8 million viewers without factoring in some of the niche networks with relatively small audiences like OAN that aired the performance.
Much like the Puppy Bowl, Turning Post USAs alternative Super Bowl halftime show was pre-taped. An intro video from U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth kicked things off, praising the organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk for its courage.
During the headline performance, Kid Rock visibly struggled to lip sync the words to his own hit song Bawitaba, joining the backing track only occasionally a fact made even more puzzling given that it was pre-recorded. MAGA-approved musicians Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett also performed during the alternative halftime show.
By Thursday afternoon, Turning Point USAs video of the Kid Rock-led concert was up to 21 million views, which is closer to the only numbers that Turning Point has provided publicly. The NFLs official YouTube channel racked up more than 78 million views of Bad Bunnys performance during the same time frame.
Republicans vs. Bad Bunny
In a Truth Social post following Bad Bunnys halftime show, President Trump called the international superstars notably joyful celebration absolutely terrible. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, Trump said, sidestepping the fact that the NFL itself chose Bad Bunny to reach a massive, untapped audience within the U.S. and abroad.
The game itself wasnt always riveting, but Bad Bunnys Super Bowl halftime show was widely considered to be a performance for the ages. The inventive Spanish language set showcased energetic choreography, intricate street scenes of New York and Puerto Rico, many nods to the islands culture and its struggles, and even a real, live wedding.
Trump wasnt the only one to criticize Bad Bunny. House Speaker Mike Johnson told a reporter last year that the NFL made a terrible decision when it invited Bad Bunny, one of the most popular musicians in the world. “There are so many eyes on the Super Bowl, a lot of young, impressionable children, Johnson said.
The irony is rich given the fact that Kid Rocks own songs have glorified statutory rape. The 2001 Kid Rock song Cool, Daddy Cool features the lines Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage, and See, some say that’s statutory, but I say it’s mandatory lines that drew fresh outrage leading up to the Super Bowl.
Other members of the MAGA base questioned or outright denied Bad Bunnys status as an American citizen, including super influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul, who called the performer a fake American citizen a claim so plainly racist that even his brother called him out. “Puerto Ricans are Americans & Im happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island,” Logan Paul wrote on X.
For investors, DraftKings has been anything but a sure bet.
The company reported earnings on Thursday, which showed revenue of nearly $2 billionan increase of 43% year-over-yearand earnings per share of $0.25. We closed 2025 on a high note. Fourth quarter revenue increased 43% year-over-year and we achieved records for revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. Our core business is strong as we enter 2026, said Jason Robins, DraftKings Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, in a statement included with the earnings release.
However, despite the strong numbers, DraftKings stock was down more than 15% during pre-trading on Friday morning, and is now down almost 30% since the beginning of the year. Further, over the past calendar year, its down more than 45%.
The catalyst? Future uncertainty. Specifically, the company is forecasting fiscal year 2026 revenue guidance range of $6.5 billion to $6.9 billion and a fiscal year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $700 million to $900 million, which is below estimates and softer than anticipated.
The broader issue is that the sports gambling and prediction markets are evolving quickly, and theres the distinct possibility that regulation could rein things in, or that individual states could start to tax the companies or users themselves to different degrees.
Further, prediction market companies like Kalshi and Polymarket are now in the fray, and both of those companies may offer users a different way to scratch their itch by offering betting products that are exempt from state taxes due to the way theyre structured. DraftKings, too, has a predictions app (DraftKings Predictions) available to users in 38 states, while its sports betting app is available in 28 states.
DraftKings isnt alone in taking it on the chin from the markets. Flutter Entertainment, the largest sports betting stock by market cap, and parent company of FanDuel and others, was likewise down more than 4% before the market opened on Friday, and down more than 35% year-to-date. MGM, which also runs a betting app, was down by similar amount, as was Caesars.
Maybe you first bonded over shared workplace frustrations. You gradually started finding each other every lunch break and synchronizing trips to the coffee machine. Eventually they become a confidant for venting about your real life outside of work.
They become your work spouse.
And if you find yourself strolling the greeting card aisle sometime today, you may even feel compelled to get this person in your life a trinket for celebrating the most romantic day of the year. Turns out, there are options available.
For my work wife on Valentines day, one option reads from Card Factory. Ive finally found someone just as inappropriate as me!
A card to show appreciation for your work spouse on Valentines Day might seem like a sweet gesture. But if you have an actual spouse or partner waiting at home. . .they might think differently.
Im sorry, one TikTok creator posted after spotting the card in the wild, but the argument that would ensue if my partner came home from work with one of these cards from his colleague on Valentines day.
“Im already mad thinking about it,” one user commented.
The video quickly racked up almost 700,000 views and hundreds of comments.
Another quipped: I didn’t know card factory even sold divorce papers.
A third wrote: “the person who designed them cards just LIVES to stir up drama, i just know it.”
While honoring a colleague on Valentines Day might be taking things a little far if youre otherwise spoken for, the idea of a work wife or work husband has been a feature of American offices for decades. Its also been much-parodied online, with the overly flirtatious colleague stereotype a trigger for many.
Im not even married but Im already planning an argument with my husband, one comment under a viral skit read.
I punched my phone by reflex, another added.
The boundaries of the work spouse relationship can get blurry. Its by nature more intimate from other workplace relationships, but it must remain strictly platonic. Some scholars have argued that the connection actually sits somewhere between friendship and romance.
Having lunch with my work wife, one TikTok creator posted. Hoping my wife wife doesnt find out.
Of course, having close friendships at work is no bad thing. In fact, its good for both productivity and performance.
According to a new study from KPMG, employees said that having workplace friendships increases their motivation to go above and beyond their job description. More than half (57%) would even take a salary 10% below market rate if it meant being able to have close friends at work.
But labeling someone other than your spouse your wife or husband, however innocently, can easily spiral into conflict, especially given the close proximity that working together necessitates. A 2023 Newsweek poll found that 45% of adults in the U.S. dont think its appropriate to have a work spouse. Only 21% deemed it okay.
Having a work spouse is one thing. But getting them a Valentines Day card if you have an actual spouse at home? That might be a one-way ticket to the doghouse.
News that the Washington Post had laid off hundreds of workers and scrapped several sections of the storied paper altogether stunned the journalism community last week. The Post cut roughly one-third of its staff, reduced local coverage, and completely destroyed its sports and international departments.
The paper is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder, who has a staggering net worth of approximately $250 billion, bought the Post for $250 million in 2013. The newspaper has consistently lost more money than it has made since the 2020 election, yet has long been considered a stalwart of American dailies.
But last week, The Posts editor-in-chief Matt Murray told employees the layoffs were part of a strategic reset meant to attract more customers. Though he acknowledged the cuts were painful, the overall messaging seemed to be that they were necessary.
Of course, not everyone agrees. Martin Baron, who served as the outlets executive editor until 2021, told The Guardian, This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the worlds greatest news organizations.
But one question has persistently risen out of the fog of disappointment and disillusionment: if Jeff Bezos understood that owning such a vital newspaper was a “sacred trust,” why is he no longer willing to keep it running at a loss for a tiny percentage of his net worth?
Yes, the financial optics for the Post arent the most promising: the New York Times reported in 2022 that the papers online ad revenue fell to $70 million that year, a 15% drop from 2021. Last year the number of print subscriptions fell to below 100,000 for the first time in 55 years. The Post hoped to gain 5 million digital subscribers by 2025; in late 2024, the outlet reported having approximately 2.5 million digital subscribers. And the Post lost $177 million in 2023 and 2024 combined, per the New Yorker.
Trebor Scholz, a scholar-activist and Associate Professor for Culture & Media at The New School in New York who has authored several books on labor and economics, hinted that it might just be that Bezos simply doesnt find the Post useful anymore. Bezos is a businessman first and foremost, and if the paper isnt making money, cuts have to be made. I think financially, [the Post] is not a great consideration for him, right? Scholz says. He also pointed out that Bezos may have lost interest in the newspaper after owning it for several years and called to mind Elon Musks decision to purchase X, then Twitter, in 2022.
Musk intended to own the social media platform as a means to control discourse and swing the political atmosphere in a particular direction, Scholz says. That plan appears to have worked, he added, as X, which was considered an online gathering space for politically engaged people of all persuasions during Twitters heyday, is now fairly useless for social movements and has really turned into this sort of toxic right-wing space.
(The platform has spent considerable time and money battling a surge in bots and misinformation since Musks takeover.)
The Post isnt the only newspaper thats been taken over by a seemingly benevolent billionaire, Christina Bellantoni, director of USCs Annenberg Center and former Los Angeles Times editor told Fast Company by phone. Patrick Soon-Shiong swooped in to save the Los Angeles Times in 2018, when he paid $500 million for the paper, a transaction that was initially celebrated by the media.
But Soon-Shiongs decision to order the paper to cancel its endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election pushed most of its editorial staff out, and the outlet began to lose money. He fired 20% of the papers staff in the same year, and in late 2025 Soon-Shiong announced plans to take the paper public.
Soon-Shiong didnt buy the paper just to come in and fire people, Bellantoni said. I think he really did believe in himself and the ability to save it, to turn it around and make it this thing he’d be very proud of and also make money on, she added. That’s not what happened, and I think people are really angry about him but also because they’re mad they put him on a pedestal.
Both newspapers benefitted from the surge in public interest in reading the news that marked the first Trump administration; both ended up gutted by their owners after later declining to endorse a political candidate in 2024 (on top of that, both owners have been criticized for their professional and personal ties to the Trump administration). That decision caused a lot of damage for the Post and the Times, Bellantoni also said. Subscribers departed both in large numbers despite the pleas of journalists to stick with them.
But things can also work out: in 2013 John Henry (who founded his own investment firm and is the owner of several sports teams, including the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins), paid $70 million for the Boston Globe. Though print subscriptions to the paper have dropped, digital subscriptions are over 250,000.
The intersection of morality and business isnt one-size-fits-all, which makes questions of Bezos own internal philosophy toward the Post and the value of the free press difficult to discern. After all, he could have just shut the paper down, Bellantoni noted, but he didnt.
Obviously, he knows how important the Post is that’s why he bought it, she said. And I think he does know its value and in the end, you know, if he wanted to kill it, he could do that too.
The Post is still doing great journalism every day, and there are a lot of people there who really care about their work, Bellantoni concluded. And so the question is: whats next?
To that end, Bezos has praised the newspapers essential journalistic mission and said he will continue to focus on the data that tells us what is valuable and where to focus. Though conversations about data over the enormous benefits the public can reap from a fully-staffed, storied news outlet such as the Post raise the hackles of some (as former Post Opinions writer Molly Roberts put it, Democracy dies in The Data), business owners have been data-driven for years.
The Post is and will continue to produce great work, Bellantoni said, and in the end, there will always be that institutional love for the Washington Post because it has been there forever, and it has had such an important place in society, whether it is struggling inancially or not.
The tale of what happened after Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post may be a cautionary tale to billionaires everywhere who invest in the news in the future.
This is not a recipe for lining your pockets with money anymore. Its a hard, expensive industry to finance.
Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, archaeologists in Heerlen, Netherlands, came across an odd-looking smooth white stone. They knew the territory was once the Roman settlement of Coriovallum, but had never seen anything like it and had no idea what it was for.
For the better part of the next 100 years, the stone sat in a storage unit at the Thermenmuseum (Thermal Bath Museum), a mystery taunting researchers. Then, six years ago, archaeologist Walter Crist spotted it while wandering the museum. Crist specializes in ancient board games and recognized it as one, though not a game he had ever seen before. That sparked his curiosity. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, Crist thinks he has figured it outand even knows how to play.
The stone isnt much to look at. Its an 8-inch piece of white Jurassic limestone. Lines etched into it form an oblong, diamond-like shape within a rectangle. But in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Antiquity, Crist and his team discuss what happened when they programmed two AI agents from the AI-driven play system Ludii to try to solve it.
Playing Ludus Coriovalli
The researchers had the AI play the game against itself thousands of times, testing more than 100 different sets of rules drawn from other known European games, both modern and ancient. They compared the AIs moves with patterns of wear on the board, tracking which gameplay styles most closely matched the grooves on the stone.
The board, it appeared, was used for a blocking gamea type of board game in which the goal is to prevent your opponent from moving. (Think of modern titles like Go or Blokus.) Blocking games were rare in ancient Europe and, before this, had only been dated to the Middle Ages. This discovery suggests they were played several centuries earlier.
In the end, the AI and the team identified nine sets of rules consistent with the boards wear. Crist and his team named the game Ludus Coriovalli, the game from Coriovallum.
“By combining AI simulation with use-wear analysis to identify and model traces of game play, it is possible to not only identify potential game boards, but also to rebuild playable rulesets that may provide indications regarding the ways that people played games in the past,” the paper reads.
So what were the rules? Here’s what researchers determined.
One player controls four dogs. The other controls two hares.
The dogs start on the four leftmost points; the hares start on the inner two points on the rightmost side.
Players take turns moving a piece to an adjacent empty spot on the board.
The dogs attempt to block the hares, while the hares try to remain unblocked for as long as possible. If the hares are blocked, players swap roles and play again.
The player who lasts the longest as the hares wins.
Got it? Good. Because this isnt just a theoretical reconstruction. Its a game you can actually play online now. Crist and his team uploaded a simulation of Ludus Coriovalli to Ludii, and its available to anyone who wants to give it a try.
So why study the games that ancient civilizations played? Beyond simple curiosity, Crist notes, they offer a clearer picture of everyday life in the pastand a connection to history that isnt just dry numbers or broken pot shards.
“The ability to identify play and games in archaeology strengthens the understanding of our ludic heritage, and makes ancient life more accessible to people in the present, as the act of playing a board game is fundamentally the same today as it was in past millennia,” he writes in the paper.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made some long-awaited permanent changes to the tax code. It also introduced short-term tax breaks that come with strict limits and phaseouts, and many of them are only available through 2028 or 2029. Here are four ways to get the most out of the OBBBA’s temporary provisions as you file your 2025 taxes and plan ahead.
Don’t dismiss itemizing your deductions
The OBBBA temporarily boosts the state and local tax deduction cap, or SALT, from $10,000 to $40,000 (for married couples filing jointly and single filers). This higher cap applies from 2025 through 2029.Run the numbers: For 2025, the standard deduction is $31,500 for married couples and $15,750 for singles. If your total itemized deductions including mortgage interest, charitable giving, and state and local taxes (up to the new $40,000 cap) add up to more than your standard deduction, you should itemize.Watch your income: The new $40,000 SALT cap isn’t for everyone. It begins to phase out if your modified adjusted gross income is over $500,000 (for all filers). If your MAGI reaches $600,000, your SALT deduction reverts to the original $10,000 limit.
Maximize the new targeted deductionsif you qualify
The OBBBA introduced several temporary above-the-line deductions (available whether you itemize or not) to help middle-income workers. But they have very strict income and benefit limits.The qualified overtime pay deduction: Capped at $25,000 for married couples filing jointly and $12,500 for singles. Only the extra “half-time” portion of your time-and-a-half pay qualifies for the deduction. For a married couple, this benefit begins to disappear if your MAGI hits $300,000 and is entirely gone once your MAGI reaches $550,000.The qualified tips income deduction: Allows you to write off qualified tip income up to $25,000 per tax return, whether you file as married or single. The deduction is only available for tips that are formally reported on a Form W-2 or Form 1099. It phases out sharply for higher earners, starting at a MAGI of $300,000 for married couples and $150,000 for singles, and is fully eliminated at $550,000 and $400,000, respectively.The auto loan interest deduction: This temporary deduction allows you to write off up to $10,000 of interest paid on a loan for a new, personal-use vehicle with final assembly in the US. (Leases are excluded.) It starts to phase out at $200,000 for married couples and $100,000 for singles and is completely gone by $250,000 and $150,000.
Seniors, time your 2026 Roth conversions carefully
If you are 65 or older, the OBBBA offers a new, temporary deduction for seniors of up to $12,000 for married couples ($6,000 per eligible spouse) and $6,000 for single filers. This is a welcome tax break, but it’s fragile.Beware the MAGI trap: This deduction begins to disappear for married couples with a MAGI over $150,000 and for singles over $75,000.Model Roth conversions for 2026: If you are a senior who is close to the $150,000 MAGI limit, a Roth conversion done in 2026 could push your income over the threshold, causing you to lose this entire $12,000 deduction. Work with your adviser to model any planned 2026 conversions.
Optimize income to qualify for the best breaks
Many of the OBBBA’s most valuable temporary provisions are income-sensitive, particularly those new targeted deductions and the elevated SALT cap. Keep these rules in mind for 2025 filing and 2026 tax planning.For your 2025 return: You can still influence your 2025 MAGI by:
Making 2025 HSA contributions (before the April 2026 tax deadline).
Making 2025 deductible IRA contributions, if you’re eligible.
Plan for 2026 income: If your 2026 income is likely to approach any phaseout thresholds (such as the $300,000 limit for tips/overtime or the $500,000 limit for the elevated SALT cap), consider strategies that help keep it within the qualifying range.
Postponing the sale of highly appreciated stock to avoid realizing large capital gains in 2026.
Delaying the exercise of nonqualified stock options if doing so would push you over a phaseout threshold.
Maximizing 401(k) and health savings account contributions to reduce your 2026 MAGI.
Holding off on large Roth conversions if they would increase your income above key limits.
Don’t let the technical limitations and phaseouts catch you by surprise. With a little smart planning, you can lock in significant tax savings.
This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.Sheryl Rowling, CPA, is an editorial director, financial adviser for Morningstar.Related Links
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6 Steps to Claiming Your Baby’s Free $1,000 From Uncle Samhttps://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/6-steps-claiming-your-babys-free-1000-uncle-sam
8 Tips to Stop Worrying About Running Out of Money in Retirementhttps://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/8-tips-stop-worrying-about-running-out-money-retirement
Sheryl Rowling of Morningstar
Leica is perhaps the most storied brand in photography. A portmanteau formed from the name of founder Ernst Leitz and the word camera, the first Leica popularized 35 milimeter photography, while the legendary M system standardized the modern rangefinder in 1954 and has a hallowed reputation to this day.
Leicas stewardship of its brand, however, has not always quite lived up to its history. The company historically outsourced most of its point-and-shoot camera design to Panasonic, slapping its iconic red dot on existing compacts and charging an unwarranted markup. Early smartphone collaborations with Huawei and Sharp were similarly surface-level.
But for the past few years, a partnership with Xiaomi has quietly been producing what I would say are the best phone cameras in the world. And for the Chinese smartphone makers latest flagship device, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, Leicas branding and influence takes greater prominence than ever.
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[Photo: Xiaomi]
Two Models
Available in China now, the 17 Ultra is sold in two variants; theres the regular model, and another version called the Xiaomi 17 Ultra by Leica. Ive been using the latter model, though the camera hardware is nearly identical across the two.
This is a sleekly designed phone, and its the first to carry the Leica red dot. When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 4 in 2010, which is still for my money the best-looking iPhone ever, he said its closest kin is like a beautiful old Leica camera. Well, the 17 Ultra really is like a Leica cameraand not just because it also looks like an iPhone 4, right down to the circular volume buttons.
The camera hardware is more capable and impressive than on any phone sold in the United States. The main sensor is a 1-inch type, the same used in enthusiast compact cameras like the Canon G7 X or Sonys RX100 series. The telephoto camera, meanwhile, has a 200-megapixel 1/1.4-inch sensorhuge for a telephotoand a lens that actually physically zooms. You get 3.2 times magnification at the wide end and it goes as far as 4.3 times before digital zoom kicks in, amounting to a 75 millimeter to 100 millimeter-equivalent focal length.
That might not sound like a huge zoom range, and in practice it isnt. But with a sensor this size, results remain extremely sharp by making use of a 2 times crop. That means that you can still get high-resolution images at optical zoom quality all the way through the range between 150 millimeters and 200 millimeters.
The Leica model of the 17 Ultra has a control ring around the sizable circular camera module, which can be customized to adjust various functions. Ive set mine to swap between preset focal lengths before reaching the physical zoom range, making it easy to make sure Im always getting the best optical quality. Theres satisfying haptic feedback as you turn the ring, lending the phone a more tactile, camera-like feel.
I do wish the 17 Ultra had a physical shutter button. Xiaomi sells more substantial photography kit cases that add extra grip and battery to the phone, but no ones quite gotten the built-in camera button design right yet and this would have been the perfect phone to do it on.
[Photo: Xiaomi]
The Software
But hardware aside, the real reason behind the success of the Xiaomi and Leica collaboration has been the software. The two companies work together on the image processing pipeline, and the results are beautiful, subtle colors that make for images that just dont look like they came from a phone. There are two default settings, Leica Vivid and Leica Authentic; I prefer the latter, which gives a vignetted, desaturated, and contrasty look that is not unlike the way I prefer to edit photos taken with dedicated cameras.
And the Xiaomi 17 Ultra by Leica takes this to the next level with a mode called Leica Essential, giving you more options inspired by two classic cameras. These arent like built-in filters, as they totally overhaul the phones image processing pipelines. The M9 setting emulates the CCD sensor of Leicas first full-frame digital rangefinder with always-on warm white balance, while the monochrome M3 setting is named after the first 35 millimeter M-mount camera and delivers gorgeously deep, fine-grained photos reminiscent of Leicas own Monopan 50 film.
These Leica Essential modes arent what youd want to use for casual snapshots or pictures of documents, but they put you in a different mindset as a photographer. In the same way that I choose a dedicated camera to take out for the day and work within its limitations until I get home, theres something fun and freeing about committing to a virtual M9 or M3 and seeing how it performs. The reslts are often stunning.
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra by Leica is the most advanced phone camera anywhere in the world on conventional metrics. But its more than thatits also by far the most enjoyable to actually shoot. By getting away from the sterility of excessively flattened and over sharpened iPhone or Pixel photos, Xiaomi and Leica have delivered a phone that really does feel like an actual camera.
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