Monday, 29 June 2026

World

Ukraine takes the war to Russia's refineries, and Putin admits the fuel is running short

Long-range Ukrainian drones hit two more Russian oil refineries overnight, and for the first time Putin acknowledged a "difficult period" and fuel shortages — with rationing now reaching Siberia, thousands of miles from the front.

Finance

4,000 small-town US banks are fighting a crypto law over the money in your checking account

Community lenders say a new bill would let stablecoins pay rewards for moving deposits out of local banks — draining the savings that fund farm and small-business loans.

Tech

Google told Meta no — even Meta can't buy enough AI compute

Google capped how much of its Gemini AI Meta could rent, because Meta wanted more computing power than Google could supply.

Mind & body

How your breathing runs itself — and why the urge to breathe watches carbon dioxide, not oxygen

The body's most automatic act is controlled by a sensor most people guess wrong.

Climate

The Philippines is now the world's biggest buyer of solar panels — because its power bills got unbearable

With electricity prices the highest in Southeast Asia and climbing since the Iran war began, Filipinos are putting solar on their own roofs faster than anyone else on Earth.

Space

NASA spent $5.9 billion on moon hardware it is now throwing away

An inspector general's audit found four canceled Artemis projects had more than doubled in cost and slipped years behind.

Biotech

An LSD pill posts the best depression data the field has seen — and the hardest result to read

Definium's psychedelic drug beat placebo by 8.1 points in a phase 3 trial and sent its shares up 55%.

Money

Why spreading your money across many bets is the one thing in investing close to a free lunch

Diversification doesn't promise bigger returns — it changes the shape of the risk.

Sports

Two leagues put a price on a new team — and it tells you who really owns the sport

The NBA expects bids of $7–10bn for a Las Vegas seat; the NHL agreed $3.5bn for Texas.

Gaming

Fortnite starts reselling the skins it once swore would never come back

Epic Games is putting old battle-pass skins back on sale — the same items it once made "must-have" by promising they'd never return.

Food

A French dairy giant sues to kill a food label — because the scorecard now counts against it

Lactalis is taking Nutri-Score to the EU's top court after the label's formula was rewritten and milk slid down the scale.

Cyber

The government rebuilt its own websites — and quietly fitted them to watch you

A White House office rebuilt sensitive federal sites for passports, voter registration and drug pricing, fitting at least two with tracking software set to dodge privacy tools — and skipping the privacy filings the law requires.