Jan 28, 2009 8:12 AM

The People at the heart of the Meltdown

*That's a nice list, but I think the British are flattering themselves here. Britain's not a global economic heart any more, so its financial practitioners are more in the aorta, the liver or maybe even the kidneys of the
Meltdown.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/26/road-ruin-recession-individuals-economy

WIRED Ghost Stories

Five hauntings from the other side of technology.

Earth’s Condition Is ‘Serious and Getting Worse’ as Climate Change Intensifies

Seven of 16 planetary vital signs are in their most extreme state ever recorded, and El Niño is here to make matters even worse.

Brian Kahn

OpenAI and Anthropic Tell British Lawmakers: Regulate Us

AI leaders joined whistleblowers and security leaders at a sweeping parliamentary session, while a few hundred meters away Britain’s spy chief warned AI could be used to create new bioweapons.

Ben Gartside

Polymarket Halted International Trading After Hackers Drained Accounts

The company says an unnamed third-party provider was compromised. Trading has resumed, and Polymarket says affected traders will be made whole.

Kate Knibbs

Mistral Says Its AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Has Leapfrogged China in the Open-Weight Race

The French AI lab claims its latest release matches or outperforms even the best models from DeepSeek and Z.ai in coding and cybersecurity.

Joel Khalili

Spend Elon Musk’s Money

What’s it like to be the richest man in the world? Find out for yourself.

Neal Agarwal

You Probably Aren’t Going to Get the Plague

The death of a lab worker in Russia has authorities looking at whether plague played a role. Even if it did, though, the odds of it spreading are very low.

Emily Mullin

Please Let the Internet Die

Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.

Miles Klee

The Atlantic’s Near-Record Hurricane Drought Is About to End

Tropical Storm Isaias is set to become the basin’s first hurricane of the season, bringing life-threatening rain and storm surge to the Gulf Coast.

Brian Kahn

Climate Change Has It In for the World’s Best Surfing

As coastlines change, so do surf breaks. That may spell the end for premier waves and the tourist economies that depend on them.

Damian Carrington

Trump’s Crazy AI Rebrand Was a Loyalty Test for Tech Execs—and It Worked

For years these billionaires gushed obsessively about AI. But they meekly went along when Trump canceled the term.

Steven Levy

Mistral Says Its New AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Is the Best Open-Weight Offering Outside of China

With the release of its new trillion-parameter model, Mistral is hoping to demonstrate it’s “still in the race” to build frontier-level artificial intelligence.

Joel Khalili