WIRED.COM

Do you have fond memories of being a teacher’s pet? Wish you could still get notes from your favorite college professor? Dream about some implacable voice of authority correcting your every word choice and punctuation mark? Well, great news: a certain software company has engineered a way to simulate criticism not just from bestselling authors and famous academics of our time, but also many who died decades ago—and they evidently didn’t need permission from anybody to do it. Once relied upon only to proofread for correct grammar and spelling, the writing tool Grammarly has added a host of generative AI features over the past several years. The company now has an “expert review” option that, instead of producing what looks like a generic critique from a nameless LLM, lists a number of real academics and authors available to weigh in on your text. To be clear: those people have nothing to do with this process. As a disclaimer clarifies: “References to experts in this product are for informational purposes only and do not indicate any affiliation with Grammarly or endorsement by those individuals or entities.” As advertised on a support page, Grammarly users can solicit tips from virtual versions of living writers and scholars such as Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson (neither of whom responded to a request for comment) as well as the deceased, like the editor William Zinsser and astronomer Carl Sagan. Presumably, these different AI agents are trained on the oeuvres of the people they are meant to imitate, though the legality of this content-harvesting remains murky at best, and the subject of many, many copyright lawsuits.

If you picked Seattle to win Super Bowl LX, there were multiple means to turn your hunch into cash. You could place a wager on a betting site like FanDuel or DraftKings. Or you might risk the same amount of money by taking a position in the prediction market known as Kalshi. In both cases you would have been rewarded. But according to Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s cofounder and CEO, those two acts are completely different. Kalshi is not a gambling site, Mansour says. It’s a marketplace, one regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It’s also a startup, and securing that regulatory approval might be its most impressive innovation. Kalshi is allowed to operate in all 50 states, 20 more than allow online sports betting, and it offers markets not only on sports and election results (its most popular categories) but also on a dog’s breakfast of events including tomorrow’s temperature in Philadelphia and Taylor Swift’s wedding date. And Mansour also insists Kalshi provides a social good, one that unearths better information more than it builds a financial juggernaut. 📸: Amy Lombard

At 2:30 am Eastern time on Saturday, President Donald Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account announcing that the US had joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran. His next post, just two hours later, appeared to suggest that the attacks were, at least in part, motivated by a wild claim that Iran had helped rig the 2020 US elections. “Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States,” the president wrote on Truth Social. The post linked to an article on Just the News, a conspiracy-filled, pro-Trump outlet that offered no explanation for its claim beyond the vague assertion that Iran operated “a sophisticated election influence effort” in 2020. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether the alleged interference factored into the decision to attack Iran or what exactly the so-called interference amounted to. Trump has spent the years since 2020 boosting numerous baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being rigged. Since his return to the White House last year, he has empowered his administration to use those debunked conspiracy theories to inform decisionmaking, from election office raids in Fulton County, Georgia, to lawsuits over unredacted voter rolls. It’s not exactly clear what supposed Iranian interference Trump was alluding to in his Truth Social post, but Patrick Byrne, a prominent conspiracy theorist who urged Trump to seize voting machines in the wake of the 2020 election, claims to WIRED that it is related to a broader conspiracy theory that also involves Venezuela and China.

In the leadup to the US and Israel’s attack on Iran, Kalshi users rushed to guess when the first missile strikes would begin and who might be impacted— placing trades worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total. But how the platform handled the payouts has sparked some major controversy. WIRED’s Kate Knibbs breaks down what you need to know. Read more at the 🔗 in bio.

In the lead up to the United States and Israel’s attack on Iran, prediction markets saw a frenzy of activity tied to the conflict. Speculators rushed to guess when the first missile strikes would begin and who might be impacted, placing trades worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total. There are already big winners—and some big losers. This weekend, following the death of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Kalshi faced a customer revolt over how it handled a $54 million market about the fate of Iran’s leadership.

The conflict in the Middle East is driving oil prices up in a midterm year when Americans are already focused on high energy bills. Oil prices could surge even higher in the coming weeks if the conflict drags on. Prices for crude oil could reach triple digits if attacks continue in the region. WIRED’S Molly Taft breaks down what you need to know. Read the full story at the 🔗 in bio.

Oil prices surged on Monday following the United States and Israel’s attacks on Iran this weekend, as some analysts predict that it could soon reach over $100 a barrel. Amid escalating attacks on oil and gas infrastructure in the region and stopped traffic in a crucial shipping route, experts tell WIRED that how the White House directs the conflict over the coming week—as well as Iran’s and other oil producers’ responses—will be key in determining just how high prices eventually climb. The price of Brent crude jumped to almost $80 a barrel—a nearly 13 percent increase over Friday’s prices—when markets opened Sunday evening. The market has been pricing in the risk of the US’s aggressive stance toward Iran for months, says Tyson Slocum, the director of the energy program at the progressive think tank Public Citizen, insulating prices from an even more severe jump. But the disorganized US follow-through to the initial attack—which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader—is introducing much more uncertainty.

Footage shows a US F-15 crashing near Kuwait City. US Central Command says three jets were shot down in a friendly fire incident involving Kuwaiti air defenses during active combat, while Iranian forces claimed to have hit one of them.

Newly released satellite images show the extent of the damage caused by US and Israeli strikes across Iran.

The first fiber optic cable to cross an ocean is now being pulled up from the depths. There are no teeth marks in it—but there is a much better story to tell. This video was originally published on February 24.

Now in its tenth season, Netflix’s wildly popular reality dating show has found itself overrun with Andrew Tate wannabes and crypto bros. WIRED’s Manisha Krishnan breaks down the show’s embracement of the manosphere. #LoveIsBlind

Explosions within Iran were first recorded in the early hours of Saturday morning ET, with smoke rising above the capital city Tehran. Shortly after the first reports of the attacks emerged, both the US and Israel claimed responsibility for the strikes. In an eight-minute video posted to Truth Social and X, US president Donald Trump said the operation’s objective was to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement confirming the military operation and said Israel was aiming to “remove the existential threat posed” by Iran. The strikes on Iran, which have been called Operation Epic Fury by the so-called US Department of War and Operation Roaring Lion by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), reportedly hit multiple cities across the country. The impact, targets, and damage caused by the strikes was not immediately clear. Explosions have subsequently been heard in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in what appeared to be retaliatory Iranian strikes against US military targets. Title card image shows aftermath of strike in Tehran. 📷: Getty

US president Donald Trump said a “major combat operation” against Iran had begun as he called for the country’s government to be overthrown.

Less than a year ago, Skydance Media closed its $8 billion merger with Paramount, making the Trump-friendly Ellison family—billionaire Oracle founder Larry and his son David, CEO of Paramount Skydance—among the most powerful media moguls in the country. A looming Paramount Skydance merger with Warner Bros. Discovery would expand their empire even further. Now that Netflix has backed out of its bid to acquire WBD, the Ellisons stand to gain an entirely new trove of significant intellectual property, from DC Comics to Harry Potter. According to Reuters, Warner Bros. agreed to be acquired by Paramount Skydance in a $110 billion deal signed Friday, with Paramount Skydance agreeing to pay a $7 billion termination fee if federal regulators don’t approve the merger. Paramount’s merger with Skydance has already brought about mass layoffs, including at CBS News, where Free Press founder Bari Weiss is leading a cultural overhaul as editor in chief. In January, Oracle became a partial owner of TikTok, giving the Ellisons even more cultural currency. Here’s everything the family would control if the WBD deal goes through.

Terms like “looksmaxxing” and “mogged” have officially entered the mainstream lexicon—and we have incels, Gamergate, and anti-DEI sentiments to thank for it. Wired’s Miles Klee breaks down how this jargon came to be.