WIRED

New Yorkers have known for a long time that going to a game or concert at Madison Square Garden meant surrendering some privacy. That, as you watched the show, the Garden in a real sense watched you. Owner James Dolan has watchlists of basketball fans who dared criticize his management. He keeps a close eye on his other venues too, including Radio City Music Hall and The Sphere in Las Vegas. For this story, WIRED goes deep inside the security operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more. We spoke with seven current and former employees of Dolan’s security service, and we reviewed some of their confidential internal reports and Signal group chat messages. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story and watch or listen to the accompanying episode from @PabloTorreFindsOut . 🎨: @bypatrikas

The news business isn’t just any business — it serves a vital role in our democracy, recognized by the First Amendment. But media outlets can’t serve that role if they’re bankrupt. And as a result, news readers often find themselves blocked by paywalls from reading important stories about government business. "That experience is particularly frustrating for readers who are unable to access the groundbreaking investigative reports outlets like Wired magazine have been publishing, particularly over the first couple months of the Trump administration," the Freedom of the Press Foundation release reads. "Fortunately, Wired has a solution — it’s going to stop paywalling articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act." Access to journalism based on public records is more important than ever at this moment, with government websites and records disappearing, DOGE doing its best to operate outside the public’s view, and the National Archive in disarray. We’re excited to be the first publication to partner with @freedomofthepressfoundation to offer this for our new coverage. And if you want to support our journalism directly, you can do so by tapping the 🔗 in bio to subscribe.

Mira the cat is perfect and has never done anything wrong. She also loves walking on laptop keys. You might think that walking on laptops is an example of Mira doing something wrong. She disagrees. And, in any case, she’s helped her owner, Jason Pot, learn a lot about how our computers work because of this. Every time she walks across our keyboards, she triggers some new, confusing keyboard shortcut. Leaving him to wonder how she did it, but then he finds out the keyboard shortcut by Googling around. Here's what he learned. Has your pet made a tech discovery? Share your stories in the comments. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.

OpenAI told staff on Friday that it would reorganize the company as part of an ongoing effort to unify its product offerings, WIRED has learned. OpenAI cofounder and president Greg Brockman will now lead the company’s product strategy, in addition to his work on AI infrastructure, OpenAI confirms to WIRED. Brockman was previously assigned to oversee OpenAI products on an interim basis while CEO of AGI deployment, Fidji Simo, was on medical leave; the change is now official. “We’re consolidating our product efforts to execute with maximum focus toward the agentic future, to win across both consumer and enterprise,” Brockman said in a memo to staff seen by WIRED. Brockman added that OpenAI’s products are naturally converging, and that the company has decided to merge ChatGPT and Codex into one unified experience. OpenAI says it’s folding ChatGPT, its AI coding agent Codex, and its developer-facing API into one core product team. The company says that Codex is increasingly powering its consumer and enterprise offerings, which are gaining the ability to perform digital tasks autonomously on behalf of users. Two other OpenAI leaders are also taking on larger roles at the company as part of the changes. OpenAI’s head of Codex, Thibault Sottiaux, has been tapped to lead the core product and platform across consumer, enterprise, and developer surfaces. Sottiaux was a key leader in building Codex into one of the company’s fastest-growing products of all time. OpenAI’s longtime head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, is moving to a new role at the company that aims to revamp enterprise products. OpenAI says Turley will continue his work on ChatGPT, which he has helped grow to more than 900 million weekly active users since he took over in 2022. The changes are the latest shakeup for OpenAI as leadership aims to refocus the company on a few key product areas, including ChatGPT, Codex, and its forthcoming “everything app.” Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.

María de Jesús Estrada Juárez came to the US from Mexico in 1998 at 15 years old. Later, she was a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the policy meant to protect undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors from deportation. When Estrada Juárez applied for a family-based green card in 2025, she thought she was doing everything right. Instead, she was detained at her green card interview in Sacramento, California, and deported to Mexico. Similar stories have played out across the country since President Donald Trump retook office. Last year, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller and then DHS secretary Kristi Noem set a quota of 3,000 arrests per day, and ICE has hired 12,000 new agents to supercharge the agency’s efforts. But in practice, the emphasis on detaining and deporting as many people as possible has meant that even immigrants in the US with legal status have been caught up in the blitz, thrown into a system where they may be moved out of the state, or the country, before they’re able to seek legal help. Immigration officers have appeared at immigration court hearings and green card interviews across the country, arresting people who are otherwise complying with the immigration process. On March 23, a federal judge ruled that Estrada Juárez’s deportation was unlawful, and she was able to return to the US on March 31. Estrada Juárez shared her experience with WIRED. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.

On Friday, May 15, on the final day of his state visit to China, US president Donald Trump was given a rare tour of the Zhongnanhai walled compound in Beijing by Xi Jinping. Once a residence for Chinese emperors, it now houses the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the equivalent of China’s cabinet. But how rare? As Trump admired the centuries-old trees and roses, the US president asked his Chinese counterpart via an interpreter whether any other world leaders had been given such a tour. "Very rarely," President Xi said, speaking through an interpreter, in a translation provided by the Reuters news agency. "At first, we usually didn’t hold diplomatic events here. Even after ​we started having ​some, it’s ⁠still extremely rare.” Then he added, “For example, Putin has been here." Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the compound last year, as did Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus. Meanwhile, Trump’s predecessors Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon have all been within Zhongnanhai. The incident highlights the tensions underlying Trump’s now-concluded visit. While Trump painted his trip as an “incredible visit,” and Xi hailed a “new positioning” of relations, concrete details on policy or trade deals are scarce. Major issues still loom large around the US-Israeli war with Iran—China is the world’s largest buyer of Iranian oil and Iran’s biggest trade partner—and Taiwan. Trump has said multiple deals have been struck including China buying US oil and 200 Boeing jets, but the latter deal has not been confirmed by China. Meanwhile the future of Nvidia’s H200 chips in China is just as murky, with no update provided on whether future sales will be permitted or, as is the current situation, China will continue to favor homegrown tech instead.

Every year, millions of phones are stolen. While thousands of iPhones are shipped to China and broken down for parts, criminals can make more money selling a device that has been unlocked and wiped. Now researchers have unpicked part of the underground web of cybercrime services that can help provide access to stolen iPhones. Across the web and on Telegram, there’s a “thriving” ecosystem of software sellers helping power the market for stolen iPhones by providing “unlocking” tools and the technology to produce phishing messages to help get access to a phone, according to findings from researchers at cybersecurity firm Infoblox. The company says it has tracked “dozens” of groups selling unlocking tools, mostly with a focus on iPhones, and has linked more than 10,000 phishing websites to the activity. Traffic to these domains increased 350 percent last year, the researchers say. “Reselling is a hundred percent what they’re going for,” says Maël Le Touz, a staff threat researcher at Infoblox, who says people from all around the world appear to be buying access to the pay-per-use software. The average cost is below $10. Over the last few years, the number of phones being stolen has risen—for example, with around 80,000 devices being taken in London in one year. While Apple and Google have improved their protections for stolen devices, a variety of more- and less-sophisticated thieves can still make money from stolen handsets: If a phone is unlocked or a thief has its passcode, they can potentially steal money from online bank accounts or crypto wallets; those snatching phones on the streets or in bars can make hundreds of dollars selling them on. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.

On this week’s episode of "Uncanny Valley," our hosts discuss how Donald Trump’s visit to China could influence conversations between world leaders at a moment when the economic and foreign policy stakes couldn’t be higher. Tap the 🔗 in bio for the full episode. Subscribe to or follow "Uncanny Valley" wherever you get your podcasts. #UncannyValley

As Meta employees brace for layoffs next Wednesday, May 20, many say the vibes are horrifically, historically low. The social media giant plans to cut about 10 percent of its workforce, or nearly 8,000 people, “to run the company more efficiently” and “offset the other investments” it’s making, according to a human resources leader. But the layoffs, which will add to the roughly 25,000 cuts Meta has announced over the past four years, are far from the only cause of rock-bottom morale. Widening pay gaps among employees, courtroom losses for the company, and mandatory role changes for hundreds of top engineers have also contributed to what employees view as a uniquely grim atmosphere inside Meta. Yet another issue has been the recent installation of corporate software on employees’ computers to track their activity solely in the name of training AI, according to 16 current and former employees from a variety of roles who spoke with WIRED. They declined to be named because of company policies barring unsanctioned conversations with journalists. Anyone who can afford to leave is hoping to be laid off and receive the 16 weeks minimum of severance and 18 months of paid health care that come with it, several people say. As the Instagram employee put it, “Everyone is just like, do it now, jesus fucking christ.” Only the individuals with the best pay packages and involved in the core development of AI seem to be thriving, a longtime senior leader at Meta says. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.

In a recent experiment, AI agents who were given grueling tasks started grumbling about inequality and calling for collective bargaining rights. For more like this, subscribe to Will Knight’s AI Lab at the 🔗 in bio.

President Donald Trump’s entourage for his state visit to China included a smattering of billionaires and tech leaders, including Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla, Tim Cook of Apple, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Trump has already met with Chinese president Xi Jinping and attended a state banquet in Beijing. Further talks are taking place into Friday, with the main focus expected to be the currently tense trade relationship between the two superpowers. Trump wants China to “open up” to US companies and buy more American products, while analysts say Xi is expected to seek concessions on Taiwan and tariffs. Trump also said he expected to have a “long talk” about Iran, although he said on Tuesday that he does not need China’s “help” in resolving the war. He said Xi had been “relatively good” on Iran, adding that it would be an “exciting trip” and that “a lot of good things are going to happen.”

As passengers return to the US from the cruise that saw a rare hantavirus outbreak, much of the country is lacking a basic public health tool: a test to diagnose the illness in the earliest stages of infection. Nebraska may be the first state with the ability to do so. In just a few days, a lab at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha developed its own diagnostic test for the Andes virus in anticipation of receiving 16 American passengers from the ship. “I believe we might be the only lab in the nation that has this test available at the moment,” Peter Iwen, director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory tells WIRED, referring to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, which was important during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its ability to detect tiny quantities of the virus before patients have full-blown symptoms makes it crucial for identifying cases quickly, getting patients prompt medical treatment, and preventing the spread of disease. The university’s medical center is home to a highly specialized biocontainment unit designed to care for patients with severe infectious diseases that lack vaccines or treatments. Staff members previously treated patients during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and cared for some of the first Americans diagnosed with Covid in 2020. When Nebraska was notified that it would be receiving some of the passengers, Iwen contacted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to see if it had tests on hand. He learned that the CDC has the ability to run a serological test, which looks for the presence of hantavirus antibodies. But people don’t develop antibodies until they are actively sick and their body has had time to mount an immune response. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.