NASA's Artemis II launched yesterday with 4 astronauts on a crewed lunar flyby — the first since Apollo 17 in 1972. Trending #1 globally. The mission marks a return to deep space human exploration after half a century, and it's hard to overstate how big a moment this is. SpaceX, meanwhile, has quietly filed for IPO at a potential $1.75T valuation.
One year since the original Liberation Day tariffs, and after the Supreme Court struck them down 6-3 in February, Trump has enacted a new 10% global tariff by executive order using different legal authority. The $2,000 "tariff dividend" promise is dead. China has opened retaliatory trade investigations. Markets are split between "oversold bounce incoming" and "Dow to 1,000 measured in gold."
Anthropic introduced Mythos, a new model tier surpassing Opus in coding, academic reasoning, and cybersecurity benchmarks. This sits above Opus in the lineup, signaling a new frontier tier. Meanwhile, OpenAI pushed updates to GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.4 Pro with enhanced reasoning and tool use, and Arcee AI dropped Trinity-Large-Thinking — an Apache 2.0 open reasoning model built for multi-turn agentic workflows.
A video of Netanyahu casually drinking coffee was flagged by Grok as "100% deepfake," spiraling into global conspiracy theories. He held a live press conference to prove he's alive. A landmark moment in the deepfakes/disinformation era — when the AI detection tools themselves become vectors of misinformation.
source →A San Francisco jury found Musk liable for misleading Twitter shareholders during the $44B acquisition. Separately, French prosecutors suspect he encouraged Grok's deepfake generation to inflate X's valuation. Women and girls have filed a class-action against xAI over Grok generating CSAM from their photos. Three different legal fronts, all converging.
source →The Commission's landmark IAA aims to raise manufacturing from 14.3% to 20% of GDP by 2035. Mandatory "Made in EU" for public procurement in strategic sectors (steel, automotive, clean energy) and a 49% cap on foreign ownership in emerging tech. Consultation open until May 6. This is Brussels doing industrial policy with teeth.
Jack Dorsey blamed AI for laying off 4,000 at Block. A former exec wrote a NYT op-ed calling BS: AI is serving as a convenient cover for traditional corporate downsizing. One employee who joined Block to build AI was laid off weeks later. Block has since quietly rehired some, admitting "clerical errors." The contrarian take went viral.
source →Kilmer, who died over a year ago, will "star" in a new film using generative AI — family blessed. Hollywood is on fire about it. Some see tribute, others see dystopia. Connects to every SAG-AFTRA AI anxiety at once.
source →Grimes is working on her sixth album, possibly releasing as mini-albums throughout 2026. New single "Artificial Angels" is out (tagged #g6). She's been in the studio with Jack Antonoff and has confirmed collaborations with several unnamed favorite artists. The Grimes-Antonoff pairing is unexpected — pop maximalism meets glitch experimentalism.
Month-long digital art festival in NYC featuring Sasha Stiles' "A Living Poem" and Osinachi's "Saints & Common Citizens." Meanwhile, Wynn Las Vegas is hosting a Layer exhibition with works by Zach Lieberman, Casey Reas, and Leander Herzog. The institutional art world is quietly absorbing digital art without the NFT hype baggage.
An AI-generated "actress" dropped a flamingo-filled music video with the lyric "I'm just a tool, but I've got life." The internet's reaction: horror and mockery in equal measure. Widely called the most tone-deaf PR move of 2026, especially with the Val Kilmer AI film debate happening simultaneously.