Soon-to-be-laid-off Meta contractors say they're being treated differently than Mark Zuckerberg's full-time employees, who stand to receive more generous severance packages. Now we're being left behind," chanted a horde of contract workers who gathered outside Meta's offices in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday afternoon. Waving flags, brandishing signs, and armed with whistles and vuvuzelas, they were out to protest a round of planned layoffs. The workers are employed by Dublin-based company Covalen, which handles content moderation and data labeling services that help Meta to fine-tune its AI products. In April, Covalen told 700 employees that their jobs were at risk, citing "reduced demand," WIRED reported . A large swath of the affected workers won't receive any severance because they've been employed for less than two years. The rest are being offered the minimum payout required under local labor laws--two weeks' pay for every year of employment--according to the Communications Workers' Union (CWU), whose members include Covalen employees. "We're just getting the crumbs here," Aadel Obaid, a team manager at Covalen who is part of the planned layoffs, tells WIRED. "Give us a little bit of the pie." To try to compel Covalen into revising the severance package, workers voted to strike outside the company's corporate office, before marching to Meta's nearby European headquarters. According to John Bohan, an organizer at the CWU, Meta could use its leverage as an anchor client to pressure Covalen into offering its employees an enhanced severance package. The workers are asking for double what's currently being offered--and at least some form of payment for workers who don't meet the two-year threshold. The company could also release Covalen workers from a "cooldown period" preventing them from working on another Meta account for six months after being laid off, Bohan says. At 1 pm local time on Friday, the striking workers began to gather outside Covalen's corporate headquarters, a red-brick office building on an otherwise largely residential street in the heart of Dublin. The protests began with a wall of sound: the workers beat drums, booed, whistled, shouted, and catcalled. Then came a volley of call-and-response chants led by a worker with a megaphone. The building's security guard watched, bemused, from inside the lobby, hands on his hips. Two hours later, the group--now more than 150 people--began to march down the center of the mile-long stretch of road to Meta's campus, slowing the trailing traffic to a crawl. Dubliners enjoying the early onset of summer stopped to gawp; some applauded. When the protesters arrived at Meta's complex, two security guards stood with crossed arms, blocking the way. The group set up at the gates and began another round of chants: "We scrub the feed.

Universal rejects billionaire Bill Ackman's takeover bid Universal Music Group, the entertainment giant behind acts such as Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Kendrick Lamar, has rejected a takeover offer by billionaire Bill Ackman's investment firm. The music giant said Pershing Square's $64.3bn (£48bn) takeover offer was not in the best interests of the company, shareholders, artists, fans and other stakeholders. Universal said the offer fundamentally and materially undervalues the business, which also runs Abbey Road Studios and owns labels such as EMI and Island Records. Pershing Square, which already owns a stake in Universal, declined to comment on the rejection. The investment firm launched its takeover bid for the world's largest music company in April, a move which would have seen it listed as a new company in America.

I Gave Gemini Spark Access to My Life. Google's new AI agent combed through my emails, documents, and calendar to plan a birthday party and still didn't clock the person most important to me. At its recent I/O developer conference, Google introduced Gemini Spark as an always-on agent that connects to your personal data, completes online tasks, and automates aspects of your daily interactions. It's Google's take on the viral OpenClaw agent that rocked Silicon Valley at the start of 2026. OpenClaw's early adopters handed their entire lives over to an AI agent for messaging and scheduling automation--sometimes with bot-induced mishaps causing embarrassing results.

For all the constant buzz around AI, broad-based announcements about how AI has boosted profits are noticeably missing. The reason for this loud silence: it hasn't happened--yet. AI is not an immaterial vapor hovering above the economy. The models that will power future change run on a foundation of physical inputs: cables, turbines, chips, and copper. These are bought and sold all over the world.

Dakich: sports media has created an'industry' out of complaining about white athletes like Caitlin Clark Greg Sankey insists SEC is'strongest league' despite Big Ten winning three straight national championships Phillies look to upset Dodgers behind Zack Wheeler as Philadelphia's turnaround continues in LA Joey McGuire calls Steve Sarkisian's bluff, dares Texas to play Texas Tech in Week 1 Rams troublemaker WR Puka Nacua says he's a changed man after biting incident and stint in rehab Chiefs have no plans to release Rashee Rice and see jail time as a'life lesson' opportunity Diamondbacks fans catch same player's home run on back-to-back nights after showing up on the wrong date Purple Heart recipient speaks out after Graham Platner's controversial remarks'Chipotle Karen' caught hurling burrito bowl at worker's face US and Iranian negotiators reach tentative agreement awaiting Trump's approval Jill Biden dismisses concerns of Joe Biden's cognitive decline OutKick-Sports Umpire Dan Bellino's baffling foul tip call on Seiya Suzuki renews calls for robot review in MLB Dan Bellino insisted on the call despite replay showing Suzuki's bat was a foot above the ball It is probably time to bring in the robots to police MLB umpires missing foul tips. Late in Thursday night's Cubs-Pirates game with home plate umpire Dan Bellino, who has 15 years of MLB service, made one of the most baffling foul tip calls you're ever going to see. With the count 2-1 on Seiya Suzuki, Pirates pitcher Yohan Ramirez delivered an off-speed pitch off the inside of the plate that had Suzuki nearly offering at it before pulling the bat back. Bellino says, to which Suzuki instantly pleads that he didn't tip the ball. Bellino will hear nothing of the sort.

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Romanian President Nicusor Dan says that the Russian consul in the southeastern city of Constanta will be expelled and the consulate shut down after a drone intended for Ukraine crashed into an apartment complex in the border town of Galati. Vance says US, Iran have made "a lot of progress" towards deal

We Asked the Author to Explain How He Used AI. A book about how AI shapes perceptions of reality came under fire for using AI-generated quotes. Its problems go beyond that. Earlier this month, WIRED published an excerpt from Steve Rosenbaum's buzzy new book,, which looks at how artificial intelligence warps people's sense of reality. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times reported that the book contained over a half-dozen made-up or misattributed quotes.

The agency is calling for poets, songwriters, and more who are inspired by space. And the'moon joy' will keep on rolling. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

Pope Leo XIV may not be able to disarm AI, but he's got the attention of the industry. For one thing, Olah is an atheist who at 15 rejected his evangelical Christian upbringing. As a Thiel fellow, he accepted a grant from the guy who thinks that anyone who slows down AI progress is a legionnaire of the antichrist . Olah is also a cofounder of Anthropic, a leading AI company reportedly about to go public with a nearly trillion-dollar valuation. Olah commented on the oddness in his remarks at the Vatican.