Kentucky mother and daughter turn down $26.5MILLION to sell their farms to secretive tech giant that wants to build data center there Horrifying next twist in the Alexander brothers case: MAUREEN CALLAHAN exposes an unthinkable perversion that's been hiding in plain sight Hollywood icon who starred in Psycho after Hitchcock dubbed her'my new Grace Kelly' looks incredible at 95 Kylie Jenner's total humiliation in Hollywood: Derogatory rumor leaves her boyfriend's peers'laughing at her' behind her back Tucker Carlson erupts at Trump adviser as she hurls'SLANDER' claim linking him to synagogue shooting Ben Affleck'scores $600m deal' with Netflix to sell his AI film start-up Long hair over 45 is ageing and try-hard. I've finally cut mine off. Alexander brothers' alleged HIGH SCHOOL rape video: Classmates speak out on sickening footage... as creepy unseen photos are exposed Heartbreaking video shows very elderly DoorDash driver shuffle down customer's driveway with coffee order because he is too poor to retire Amber Valletta, 52, was a '90s Vogue model who made movies with Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson, see her now Model Cindy Crawford, 60, mocked for her'out of touch' morning routine: 'Nothing about this is normal' Catholic priest warns'the stage is set' for the rise of the Antichrist READ MORE: I've seen real demons during exorcisms... Here's the most common type of possession A Catholic priest has issued a chilling warning that global events may be aligning in ways some theologians believe could prepare the world for the rise of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is a figure in Christian theology believed to be a powerful deceiver who will oppose Jesus Christ and lead many people away from the faith before the end of the world. Speaking on the Shawn Ryan Show, Father Chad Ripperger said: 'The Antichrist has to be able to rule the world.

On this episode of, we break down some of the week's best stories, covering everything from Peter Thiel's obsession with the Antichrist to the launch of OpenAI's new Sora 2 video app. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. In today's episode, Zoë Schiffer is joined by WIRED's senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan to run through five of the best stories we published this week--from how federal workers are being told to blame Democrats for the government shutdown to Peter Thiel's ongoing obsession with the Antichrist. Then, Zoë and Manisha break down the news of OpenAI launching a new social app for AI-generated videos. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Today on the show, we're bringing you five stories that you need to know about this week. Including our scoop of how OpenAI just launched a social app dedicated completely to AI-generated videos. I'm joined today by our Senior Culture Editor, Manisha Krishnan. Our first story is about the thing that I feel like our whole newsroom is talking about, possibly the whole country is talking about.

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They've been a road map for the billionaire ever since. For a full two years now, the billionaire has been on the circuit, spreading his biblically inflected ideas about doomsday through a set of variably and sometimes visibly perplexed interviewers. He has chatted onstage with the economist podcaster Tyler Cowen about the (the scriptural term for "that which withholds" the end times); traded some very awkward on-camera silences with the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat; and is, at this very moment, in the midst of delivering a four-part, off-the-record lecture series about the Antichrist in San Francisco. Depending on who you are, you may find it hilarious, fascinating, insufferable, or horrifying that one of the world's most powerful men is obsessing over a figure from sermons and horror movies. But the ideas and influences behind these talks are key to understanding how Thiel sees his own massive role in the world--in politics, technology, and the fate of the species. And to really grasp Thiel's katechon-and-Antichrist schtick, you need to go back to the first major lecture of his doomsday road show--which took place on an unusually hot day in Paris in 2023. No video cameras recorded the event, and no reporters wrote about it, but I've been able to reconstruct it by talking to people who were there. The venue was a yearly conference of scholars devoted to Thiel's chief intellectual influence, the late French-American theorist René Girard. On the evening of the unpublicized lecture, dozens of Girardian philosophers and theologians from around the world filed into a modest lecture hall at the Catholic University of Paris. And from the dais, Thiel delivered a nearly hourlong account of his thoughts on Armageddon--and all the things he believed were "not enough" to prevent it. By Thiel's telling, the modern world is scared, way too scared, of its own technology. Our "listless" and "zombie" age, he said, is marked by a growing hostility to innovation, plummeting fertility rates, too much yoga, and a culture mired in the "endless Groundhog Day of the worldwide web." But in its neurotic desperation to avoid technological Armageddon--the real threats of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, runaway AI--modern civilization has become susceptible to something even more dangerous: the Antichrist. According to some Christian traditions, the Antichrist is a figure that will unify humanity under one rule before delivering us to the apocalypse. For Thiel, its evil is pretty much synonymous with any attempt to unite the world. "How might such an Antichrist rise to power?" Thiel asked.

It's a mite soon to start grieving, but scientists now project that life on Earth will probably end in about a billion years. A Monday in February, 1,000,002,025, would be my guess. On that inhospitable day, give or take a few million years, the sun will become so hot that the oceans will boil, Earth's oxygen will disappear, and photosynthesis will cease, as will all living things. We should be so lucky. There's a pretty fair chance that life could be wiped out well before then--say, in early June, 2034, or on a cloudy Sunday in November, 3633. Plenty of people do, as it turns out, and, if you want to know who they are, Dorian Lynskey's "Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World" (Pantheon) is a good place to start. Lynskey, a British journalist and podcaster, has assembled biological, geological, archeological, literary, and cinematic permutations of existential finales, leaving no stone unturned, be it meteor, comet, or asteroid. If a book, a song, a story, a film, a headline, a title, or a study has "world" and "end" in it, Lynskey has unearthed it.

"Political elections – for better or worse – have become a gameshow. The more social media, the more clickbait headlines … whatever generates a lot of buzz is one way to make our mark in an election," he says. Istvan has attracted countless profiles in the international press, been followed around by two film documentary crews and has secured a TV show once the election is over. It certainly seems to be benefiting Brand Zoltan. Could it all be an elaborate strategy to boost his profile and become a media personality?

Political elections – for better or worse – have become a game show. The more social media, the more clickbait headlines ... whatever generates a lot of buzz is one way to make our mark in an election,