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A landmark trial is putting Instagram's approach to young users under scrutiny, while an unexpected shift in the housing market could give mortgage buyers a better shot against cash offers.

Also ahead: Amazon retires a service that helped shape the AI economy, southern Japan braces for a typhoon, and Broadway gets a supernatural jolt.

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Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads

Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

Learn more

The Big Read

Adam Mosseri Takes the Stand in Meta's Landmark Kids-Safety Trial

Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified Tuesday in Oakland in the landmark multistate trial against Meta, becoming the first sitting head of a major social platform to take the stand in the sprawling case over social-media harms to children. State attorneys pressed Mosseri on internal knowledge of Instagram's product effects on teen users and on decisions made during the years the states allege the harms compounded.

Testimony landed as families of young people who died after alleged social-media harm gathered outside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building. Ruling in the case could reshape how the largest US tech platforms design their consumer products for underage users.

Elon Musk Won't Face Wisconsin Election-Bribery Charges Over His Million-Dollar Voter Checks

A Wisconsin state prosecutor said Tuesday that Elon Musk will not face election-bribery charges for promising and handing $1 million checks to voters during the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, concluding no jury would find that the payments met the state's bribery standard.

Decision closes what had been the most serious legal exposure Musk faced from his 2025 political spending spree, which included a widely televised event where he handed a $1 million check to a Green Bay voter. Wisconsin's Supreme Court seat still flipped to the liberal candidate Musk was working to defeat.

DOJ Argues the Kennedy Center Faces "Financial Ruin" Without Trump's Name

Justice Department lawyers argued in federal court Tuesday that the Kennedy Center risks financial ruin if the court blocks the administration from restoring President Trump's name to the arts complex. This is the government's response to Rep. Joyce Beatty's lawsuit challenging the ongoing renaming effort.

Kennedy Center board has previously said no name will go back on the building before Sept. 8. DOJ framed the delay as an existential fundraising problem, arguing that the endowment named after the president cannot draw contributions without the name attached.

World View

Typhoon Saudel Bears Down on Okinawa and Southern Japan

Typhoon Saudel is tracking toward Okinawa with sustained winds strong enough to warrant emergency evacuation guidance across southern Japan, weather officials said Wednesday. The storm is also expected to graze China's coast in the following days.

Kenya Highlights a Maternal-Mortality Crisis in Kilifi County

A Wednesday feature detailed rising maternal deaths in Kenya's Kilifi County, with rural health-post closures and understaffing driving the numbers. Local officials called on the national government to restore posts closed under recent budget cuts.

European Court Orders Turkey to Free Osman Kavala

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Turkey to release philanthropist Osman Kavala, who's spent nearly a decade behind bars on charges rights groups call politically motivated. Ankara has ignored the court before, so the practical effect may be more diplomatic pressure than an open cell door.

Need To Know

Saudi Nuclear Agreement Lands on Capitol Hill

Trump submitted a Saudi nuclear pact to Congress on Monday, starting the mandatory review clock required under the Atomic Energy Act. Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed the classified agreement in Washington last month, and Trump still insists the kingdom must normalize relations with Israel first.

Three Secret Service Officials Placed on Leave

The Secret Service placed three officials on leave Tuesday, pending a misconduct review by the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility. All three worked in non-law-enforcement roles, and the agency has said nothing publicly about what prompted the internal investigation.

A California Man Is Arrested Near the US Capitol With a Guillotine in His Pickup

Capitol Police arrested 35-year-old Philan-Tam-Duy Le of Julian, California on Tuesday afternoon after the truck he was driving — parked illegally east of the Capitol grounds — was found to contain what officers described as a guillotine. Investigators are still trying to determine why the suspect drove the device across the country.

Money & Markets

Forbes Pauses Wealth Rankings Over $6 Million Payment Probe

Forbes and Shook Research have suspended their well-known adviser rankings while the magazine reviews a $6 million payment from Shook's founder to Forbes's former top editor. A planned October summit in Las Vegas is off too.

Amazon Shuts Down Mechanical Turk — the Service Bezos Called "Artificial AI"

Amazon confirmed Tuesday that it is shutting down Mechanical Turk, the crowdsourced-task platform founder Jeff Bezos famously described as "artificial artificial intelligence" — real humans paid pennies to do tasks computers couldn't. Service seeded much of the AI training-data economy over its two-decade run before generative models made most of its use cases obsolete.

Cash Is No Longer King in US Home Sales

A new analysis shows all-cash offers have lost their edge in most US home markets as private-equity investor pullback and rising financing terms let mortgage buyers close on comparable timelines. Traditional buyers were shut out for years by cash-heavy investment funds; the shift is reopening entry-level segments in the Sun Belt.

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Future Frontiers

A Major Review Finds Nicotine Vapes Beat Gum and Patches for Quitting Smoking

A large systematic review published Tuesday found nicotine vapes outperform gum and patches at helping smokers quit, a finding likely to complicate regulatory efforts to restrict flavored products worldwide. The review pooled results across thousands of participants and multiple national studies.

Metabolic Interventions Are Emerging as a Real Tool for Serious Mental Illness

Clinicians are starting to prescribe metabolic protocols — including modified ketogenic diets — as adjunct treatments for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment-resistant depression. Early results in specialty programs suggest energy metabolism in brain cells plays a bigger role in psychiatric illness than the field had assumed.

Chinese Robot Makers Eye Singapore as a Back Door

A Temasek-backed investor says Chinese robotics firms can reach American buyers through genuine Singapore operations, despite new US restrictions on advanced robots. Vertex Ventures China managing partner Choon Chong Tay says the trick is anchoring hiring, daily operations and critical components in Singapore itself.

The Score

Paul Skenes Blanks the Padres for Six

Paul Skenes threw six shutout innings in San Diego on Tuesday night, allowing three hits and no walks with his fastball touching 98 mph. Oneil Cruz won it 1-0 with a two-out ninth-inning homer, the first Padres closer Mason Miller had surrendered in more than a year.

Diamondbacks Grind Out Comeback Win No. 40

Arizona erased a 4-0 deficit to beat the Cubs 5-4 in Phoenix, its 40th comeback win of the season and the most in baseball. Rookie Ryan Waldschmidt, 23, pinch-hit a two-run walk-off homer with two outs in the ninth to keep the playoff race alive.

Chiefs Trade for Giants Lineman Josh Ezeudu

Kansas City is trading for Josh Ezeudu, sending New York a 2028 seventh-round pick for the offensive lineman, sources told ESPN. Chiefs coaches have spent weeks worrying about interior depth, and Ezeudu started 10 games at guard and tackle between 2022 and 2024.

Federer Returns to Arthur Ashe for a Night

Roger Federer played an exhibition against Andy Roddick at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday night, billed as "An Icon Returns to New York." Federer is 45 now, a five-time US Open champion and 20-time major winner, and Roddick turned 43 this month.

Life & Culture

TIFF Announces Its Honorees: Helen Mirren, Seth Rogen, Adam Pietkiewicz

The Toronto International Film Festival named Helen Mirren, Seth Rogen, and Polish producer Adam Pietkiewicz among its 2026 honorees. The festival runs September 4-14, with the Rogen tribute doubling as a spotlight on his post-comedy producing arc.

Disney Special Brings the Original Muppets Back to Life

A Muppets special heading to Disney+ next month is built on newly restored puppets and archival puppeteer performances stitched together with new material. Producers said the goal was to make the special feel like a lost episode from the show's peak — down to studio lighting and set materials.

'Paranormal Activity' Turns Broadway Into a Haunted House

Paranormal Activity opened on Broadway on Tuesday at the 1,187-seat August Wilson Theater, with premium seats going for $259 apiece. Variety's Frank Rizzo called it more thrilling than anything Broadway has staged in years, crediting director Felix Barrett and illusionist Chris Fisher.

Deep Dive

The Left and the Right Have Found a Rare Common Enemy: AI Data Centers

What it is: Communities across the country are converging into an unlikely bipartisan coalition against the AI data-center boom. Rallies in Santa Fe against Project Jupiter, protests in Abernathy, Texas, and grassroots pushback in Lowell, Massachusetts all draw from constituencies that agree on almost nothing else — and are now organizing together against the same industry.

The detail: A single hyperscale data center can pull hundreds of megawatts of electricity, tens of millions of gallons of water a year, and hundreds of acres of land. Rural residents complain about noise from continuous cooling infrastructure and drops in local water tables; suburban residents cite property-value hits and grid strain that shows up on residential bills. Fights that had been treated as environmental issues on the left and property-rights issues on the right are increasingly the same fight.

Why it matters: Coalitions like this shift local zoning politics fast. In multiple states, formerly routine permit approvals have started drawing organized turnout that either delays or kills projects; state legislators are quietly rewriting siting standards; and some ballot measures are being drafted to force minimum distances between new centers and populated areas. National industry has spent the past decade planning as if power and water access were the only real constraints; the political constraint is now catching up.

What to watch: Watch state-level ballot measures on data-center siting, which are starting to appear in the same year that voter-ID measures dominate the political calendar. Watch which large tech buyers (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta) publicly walk away from a contested project first — that will signal how strong the reputational pressure has become. And watch bipartisan legislation in Congress on federal permitting reform: whether the incoming version cuts through local opposition or codifies it will define where the next hundred billion dollars of AI compute infrastructure actually lands.

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Extra Bits

A ground worker at Montreal's airport died in a collision with a French Bee Airbus A350, a grim reminder that the tarmac remains the most dangerous acre in modern aviation.
Sweden's military wants to seize a Russian-owned estate next door to its Muskö Naval Base, citing drone threats and the awkward fact that Moscow apparently owns beachfront property beside a nuclear-hardened submarine pen.
Thieves in London allegedly sliced a Richard Mille diamond watch off designer Catalin Botezatu's wrist, which is one way to shorten your shopping list. And possibly your arm.

Today's Trivia

The Great Pyramid of Giza was completed around 2560 BC. Most people assume woolly mammoths were long extinct by then — prehistoric beasts from a different world. What's the surprising reality?

Woolly mammoths were already extinct everywhere on Earth when the pyramid was built — the last ones died in Siberia around 8000 BC, over 5,000 years earlier

Woolly mammoths went extinct precisely because of human activity near Egypt, making them contemporary to early Egyptian civilization but not the pyramid era

A small, isolated population of woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic until roughly 1650 BC — nearly 1,000 years after the pyramid was completed

Woolly mammoths survived across northern Russia until approximately 1000 BC, long after the pyramids, and may have still been hunted by Bronze Age peoples

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Wednesday, 26 August 2026

Musk Dodges Charges, AI Data Centers Face Backlash, and Federer Returns