Freedom IndexMedia & Culture
Media & Culture explores how journalism, entertainment, and creative industries influence—and are influenced by—free speech. From press freedom to artistic expression, this category highlights the cultural impact of censorship and the ongoing struggle for open dialogue.
Jimmy Lewis had dreamt of opening his own cigar lounge since college, when he noticed a gap in the Virginia…
In brief Microsoft launched Scout at Build 2026 today—its first “Autopilot” agent. Scout runs on OpenClaw, the open-source agent framework…
President Donald Trump reportedly is reconsidering the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” described in his May 18 settlement agreement with the…
The closest thing Canada has to The New York Times is The Globe & Mail, a Toronto-based newspaper that defines—to…
In brief Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick argues that Strategy’s $2.5 million Bitcoin liquidation marked a turning point for Ethereum. As…
I continue to find one small detail of the Slush Fund affair (Slushfundgate?) of particular interest. As you may recall,…
In brief The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated four Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges for sanctions violations. Nobitex,…
from the age-gating-is-still-bad dept After public outrage, California lawmakers are moving closer to exempting open-source operating systems from the sweeping…
On Monday, in a New York Times op-ed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) announced plans to introduce the American A.I. Sovereign…
In brief Microsoft said its new MAI-Thinking-1 model outperformed Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6 in blind evaluations and matched Claude Opus…
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s lead story covers the release of the federal…
In brief Shares in Strategy (MSTR) closed down more than 9% on Tuesday, one day after selling Bitcoin for the…