Bookmarks 2026-04-29T05:29:29.038Z
by Owen Kibel
38 min read
Bookmarks for 2026-04-29T05:29:29.038Z
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Fox News' Emily Compagno Groans After Hearing Jimmy Kimmel's Ratings Added: Apr 28, 2026
Fox News' Emily Compagno Groans After Hearing Jimmy Kimmel's Ratings
Site: TV Insider
See how she reacted when Harris Faulkner shared the details.
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68,000 West Virginia voters switch party affiliations ahead of May primary | Fox News Added: Apr 28, 2026
68,000 West Virginia voters switch party affiliations ahead of May primary | Fox News
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OpenMOSS Releases MOSS-Audio: An Open-Source Foundation Model for Speech, Sound, Music, and Time-Aware Audio Reasoning - MarkTechPost Added: Apr 28, 2026
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King Charles III meets Trump in Oval Office, delivers historic address to Congress in state visit
Site: Fox News
King Charles III met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office before delivering a historic joint address to Congress during his first U.S. visit as monarch alongside Queen Camilla. The trip marks his first as monarch.
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Scientists Discover Why Cats Suddenly Stop Eating Their Food : ScienceAlert
Added: Apr 28, 2026Scientists Discover Why Cats Suddenly Stop Eating Their Food
Site: ScienceAlert
Cats who mysteriously stop eating may not be full, but simply bored, a new study suggests.
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NASA chief Jared Isaacman says he's fighting for Pluto: 'I am very much in the camp of 'make Pluto a planet again' | Space Added: Apr 28, 2026
NASA chief Jared Isaacman says he's fighting for Pluto: 'I am very much in the camp of 'make Pluto a planet again'
Site: Space
"We are doing some papers right now on, I think, a position that we would love to escalate through the scientific community to revisit this discussion."
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Marianne Moore on the Three Elements of Persuasive Writing â The Marginalian Added: Apr 28, 2026
Marianne Moore on the Three Elements of Persuasive Writing
Site: The Marginalian
Several years ago, rummaging through the archives of the Academy of American Poets, I came upon a box labeled âBallots 1950â â the record of the secret vote by the chancellors theâŚ
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Obama's gaffe about WHCD shooter Cole Allen is just the latest in the former president's legacy of lies Added: Apr 28, 2026
Obamaâs gaffe about WHCD shooter Cole Allen is just the latest in the former presidentâs legacy of lies
Site: New York Post
Barack Obamaâs tacky, hyperpartisan post-presidency is welcome insofar as it serves to remind the public of his tacky, hyperpartisan leadership style.
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Thousands of curious sea creatures washing up on Monterey County beaches - YouTube Added: Apr 29, 2026
Thousands of curious sea creatures washing up on Monterey County beaches
Site: YouTube
Monterey County beach-goers are encountering thousands of creatures that free float on the surface of the open ocean, a species called velella vellela and co...
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ITS BLOWING UP IN THEIR FACES
Site: YouTube
NYC Faces HISTORIC CRISIS After Commie Mamdani ALREADY Screwed The City | Tim PoolBecome A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://...
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THEY GOT EM
Site: YouTube
Leftists Who ATTACKED Savannah Hernandez HAVE BEEN INDICTED | Tim PoolBecome A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumble.com/p...
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THIS IS A HUGE WIN
Site: YouTube
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQlpyVQNsNUSUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/JOIN THE DISCORD: ht...
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Trump DOJ INDICTS Comey AGAIN | Timcast IRL w/ Tim Pool
Site: YouTube
Go to http://chefiq.com and use promo code TIM for 30% off.SUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/Join - https://www.youtube.com/ch...
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MAXIMUM WARFARE BACKFIRES ON DEMOCRATS, COMEY INDICTED
Site: YouTube
Democrats PANIC After Comey Indictment, "MAXIMUM WARFARE" BACKFIRES | Tim PoolBecome A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumb...
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President Trump and the First Lady Greet the King and Queen of the UK, Apr. 28, 2026
Site: YouTube
President Trump and the First Lady Participate in a Greeting with the King and Queen of the UK, Apr. 28, 2026The White House
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Trumpâs Billionaire Friends Were Among The Guests At Royal State Dinner: See The List Added: Apr 29, 2026
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Victor Davis Hanson Describes His Health Challenges and Recovery in Powerful Moment with Megyn Kelly
Site: YouTube
Victor Davis Hanson describes his health challenges and recovery in powerful moment with Megyn Kelly.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday: https://bit.ly...
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Tell me more about how planets form in binary star systems. - Google Search Added: Apr 29, 2026
Google Search
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| NASA Astrobiology Institute Added: Apr 29, 2026
** | NASA Astrobiology Institute**
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SpaceX on X: "Falcon Heavyâs side boosters have landed on LZ-2 and LZ-40! https://t.co/aVRh7OCiLX" / X Added: Apr 29, 2026
Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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What are the latest findings on the Turkana Rift and Africa splitting apart? - Google Search Added: Apr 29, 2026
Google Search
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In Eastern Africa, the Cradle of Humankind Is Tearing Apart â State of the Planet
Added: Apr 29, 2026In Eastern Africa, the Cradle of Humankind Is Tearing Apart
Site: State of the Planet
Researchers have found that Earthâs underlying crust in the Turkana Rift region has been significantly thinned, presaging Africaâs eventual breakupâand with that finding, the researchers offer a new perspective on Turkanaâs fossil record of human evolution.
Late Miocene fossil-bearing strata of Lothagam in West Turkana. Photo: Christian Rowan
Highlights
Eastern Africa is nearing a critical breakup stageâin geologic time: Dramatically thinned crust beneath the Turkana Rift shows the region is further along in continental rifting than previously thought.
A rare window into how continents split: Turkana is the only known active rift on Earth exhibiting ânecking,â a key phase before a new ocean basin forms, challenging existing tectonic models.
New perspective on human origins: The same tectonic forces may have created ideal conditions for fossil preservation, suggesting Turkanaâs rich fossil record reflects geology as much as evolution.
Eastern Africaâs Turkana Rift is both a hotbed for fossil discoveries of our earliest ancestors and a literal hotbed of volcanic activity caused by shifting tectonic plates. Now researchers have found that Earthâs underlying crust in the region has been significantly thinned, presaging Africaâs eventual breakupâand with that finding, the researchers offer a new perspective on how Turkanaâs world-famous fossil record of human evolution came to be.
The findings were published in Nature Communications.
Scientists have long been fascinated by the Turkana Rift, a 500-kilometer-wide, low-lying region that spans Kenya and Ethiopia. This rift is part of the larger East African Rift System, which runs from the Afar Depression in northeastern Ethiopia to Mozambique in the south, with the African tectonic plate on one side and the Arabian and Somali plates on the other. At the Turkana Rift, the African and Somali plates are drifting apart at a rate of about 4.7 millimeters per year. In the process, known as rifting, Earthâs crust is stretched horizontally, causing it to buckle and fracture, thus releasing magma from deep below.
Not every rifting episode ends in continental breakup. The Turkana Rift, however, appears destined for that fate.
âWe found that rifting in this zone is more advanced, and the crust is thinner, than anyone had recognized,â says study lead author Christian Rowan, a PhD student in Earth and Environmental Sciences and researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School. âEastern Africa has progressed further in the rifting process than previously thought.â
Homo erectus crania from the Turkana Rift. Left: WT 15000, 'Turkana Boy' from West Turkana. Right: ER 3733 from East Turkana. Photo: John Rowan
Rowan and colleagues used a unique dataset of high-quality seismic measurements collected by industry partners and acquired in collaboration with the Turkana Basin Institute, a research organization founded by the late paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey to further the study of human evolution and its geological context in Kenya. By studying how acoustic waves used in the measurements were reflected by subsurface layers, then combining their interpretations with other deep subsurface imaging, the researchers visualized the structure of sediments and how deep the top of the crust is within the Turkana Rift.
Along the riftâs axis, the crustâthe rocky outermost layer that rests atop Earthâs shifting mantleâis about 13 kilometers thick. That is significantly thinned compared with the more than 35-kilometer-thick crust farther from the riftâs center and is a telltale signature of a process called ânecking.â
The name comes from the shape. Rowan likens the significant thinning of Earthâs crust being stretched by shifting tectonic plates to the âneckâ of a piece of saltwater taffy pulled from each endâits middle is thinned and elongated even as the ends of the taffy remain unchanged. âThe thinner the crust gets, the weaker it becomes, which helps promote continued rifting,â Rowan says. Eventually the crust breaks apart.
âWeâve reached that critical thresholdâ of crustal breakdown, says Anne BĂŠcel, a geophysicist at Lamont and co-author of the study. âWe think this is why it is more prone to separate.â
But this will play out in geological time, so âcriticalâ is relative. The Turkana Rift started pulling apart about 45 million years ago, and the researchers estimate that necking began after an episode of widespread volcanic eruptions roughly 4 million years ago. It will take a few million more years before necking gives way to oceanization, the next stage in rifting, when magma will surge through the cracks and create a new seafloor for water that pours in from the Indian Ocean to the north.
The researchers also found evidence of an earlier period of rifting that did not culminate in continental breakup but left the crust weakened and thinned, thus contributing to the present rifting phase. âIt challenges some of the more traditional ideas of how continents break apart,â says Rowan.
The Turkana Rift is the first identified active continental rift undergoing necking, making it important for the study of tectonic processes associated with this critical phase of continental separation. âIn essence, we now have a front row seat to observe a critical rifting phase that had fundamentally shaped all rifted margins across the world,â says co-author Folarin Kolawole, who is also with Lamont. Those rifting processes in turn connect to other Earth systems; understanding them helps scientists reconstruct past landscapes, vegetation and climate. âThen we can use that knowledge to understand whatâs going to happen in our future, even on shorter time scales,â says BĂŠcel.
Christian Rowan at Lothagam fossil site in West Turkana. Photo: Christian Rowan
Their findings also have implications in a very different domain: the study of human evolution. The Turkana Rift has yielded more than 1,200 hominin fossils spanning the last 4 million years. Thatâs one-third of all such fossils found in Africa, and many paleoanthropologists have argued that this scientific âGarden of Edenâ was a hotspot of evolution for humanityâs ancestors. Rowan and colleagues think their findings may suggest a different narrative.
Following widespread volcanism around 4 million years ago, necking initiated subsidence of the Turkana Rift, where fine-grained sediments favorable for fossil preservation rapidly accumulated. âThe conditions were right to preserve a continuous fossil record,â says Rowan.
Itâs possible, then, that the Turkana Rift was not uniquely important in the evolution and diversification of our hominin ancestors, but rather a place where conditions lent themselves to documenting them.
That is still only a hypothesis, âbut other researchers can now use our results to explore those ideas,â says Rowan. âIn addition, our results can be fed into tectonic models that are coupled with climate to really explore how shifting tectonics and climates influenced our evolution.â
The research team includes Paul Betka from Western Washington University and John Rowan from the University of Cambridge.
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Childrenâs brains have two separate thinking systems from the start - Earth.com Added: Apr 29, 2026
Childrenâs brains have two separate thinking systems from the start
Site: Earth.com
A new study shows that childrenâs brains separate language and social understanding as early as age three.
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The Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century Is Coming: Day Will Turn Into Night and It Won't Return for 157 Years
Added: Apr 29, 2026The Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century Is Coming: Day Will Turn Into Night and It Won't Return for 157 Years
Site: The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel
The century's longest total solar eclipse is coming, and the Sun will vanish for over six minutes. Millions will see it, but only one region gets the perfect sky.
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THIS JUST CHANGED EVERYTHING
Site: YouTube
SCOTUS Ruling Is A NUCLEAR BOMB On Democrats, GOP Could WIN THE MIDTERMSBUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW - https://castbrew.com/Become A Member And P...
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Megyn Kelly LOST IT
Site: YouTube
Megyn Kelly LOST ITđĽ Shop & SupportâĄď¸ Shinergy â https://shinergylife.comđ The Officer Tatum Store â https://www.theofficertatumstore.comđď¸ Pure Choice Ap...
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Trump WRECKS 60 Minutes Reporter
Site: YouTube
Trump WRECKS 60 Minutes ReporterđĽ Shop & SupportâĄď¸ Shinergy â https://shinergylife.comđ The Officer Tatum Store â https://www.theofficertatumstore.comđď¸ P...
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Dinner with the King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Site: YouTube
President Trump and the First Lady participate in a dinner with His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and ...
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President Trump Participates in a Greeting with Artemis II Astronauts
Site: YouTube
The White House
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President Trump and the First Lady Participate in a Family Photo with the King and Queen of the UK
Site: YouTube
The White House
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Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Apr. 27, 2026
Site: YouTube
The White House
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Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Formed in Ultra-Cold Planetary System, ALMA Reveals | Sci.News Added: Apr 29, 2026
Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Formed in Ultra-Cold Planetary System, ALMA Reveals | Sci.News
Site: Sci.News: Breaking Science News
With more than 30 times deuterated water or semi-heavy water seen in solar system comets, 3I/ATLAS preserves evidence of radically different conditions in its birthplace billions of years ago.
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ERNIE-Image ComfyUI workflow example - ComfyUI Added: Apr 29, 2026
ERNIE-Image ComfyUI workflow example - ComfyUI
Site: ComfyUI
ERNIE-Image is Baidu's open 8B Diffusion Transformer text-to-image model with precise text rendering, strong instruction following, and a built-in Prompt Enhancer.
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President Trump and the First Lady Welcome King Charles III and Queen Camilla for State Visit Honoring 250 Years of Shared Heritage â The White House
Added: Apr 29, 2026President Trump and the First Lady Welcome King Charles III and Queen Camilla for State Visit Honoring 250 Years of Shared Heritage
Site: The White House
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump hosted His Majesty King Charles III and Her Majesty Queen Camilla at the White House this week for
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Dear TikTokers With Poor Decision-Making Skills, You Should Not Do the Palantir Speedrun Challenge Added: Apr 29, 2026
Dear TikTokers With Poor Decision-Making Skills, You Should Not Do the Palantir Speedrun Challenge
Site: Gizmodo
It's all fun and games until you get sent to Gitmo.
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Low Earth Orbit Could Spiral Into Chaos In Just 72 Hours, Scientists Warn
Added: Apr 29, 2026
Low Earth Orbit Could Spiral Into Chaos In Just 72 Hours, Scientists Warn
Site: The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel
A new study suggests that losing control of satellites could trigger a major orbital collision in under three days.
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There is already a flight-tested hypersonic missile that, for the first time, runs on storable liquid fuel, and that small technical detail could mean a major shift in defense
Added: Apr 29, 2026There is already a flight-tested hypersonic missile that, for the first time, runs on storable liquid fuel, and that small technical detail could mean a major shift in defense
Site: ECOticias.com
A new missile using storable liquid fuel could reshape hypersonic defense by simplifying logistics and reducing handling risks
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An asteroid located about 300 million kilometers away contained the five basic letters of DNA and RNA, and the discovery once again calls into question the idea that life began only on Earth
Site: ECOticias.com
Pristine samples from asteroid Ryugu contain all five base letters of DNA and RNA. See how this discovery changes the hunt for life.
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As Iran war drags on, Hegseth labels Dems obstacle to peace - POLITICO Added: Apr 29, 2026
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DOJ seeks to keep Trump assassination suspect locked up pending trial | Fox News Added: Apr 29, 2026
DOJ seeks to keep Trump assassination suspect locked up pending trial | Fox News
The DOJ is seeking to ensure the White House Correspondents' Association dinner shooting suspect stays detained pending trial, and included a photo of him in a court filing.
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Republicans score twin redistricting victories: From the Politics Desk Added: Apr 29, 2026
Republicans score twin redistricting victories: From the Politics Desk
Site: NBC News
Plus, King Charles tries to smooth over tensions between the U.S. and the U.K.
Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics teamâs latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. In todayâs edition, we break down two big redistricting developments that are poised to give Republicans a boost. Plus, Andrea Mitchell examines how King Charles could help smooth over tensions between President Donald Trump and the British prime minister. Sign up to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday here. â Adam Wollner Republicans score twin redistricting victories at the Supreme Court and in Florida As we wrote at the beginning of the week, the mid-decade redistricting battle is still raging, even as primaries in many states have either already occurred or are fast-approaching. That battle entered yet another new phase today, with the Supreme Court issuing a ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. Itâs a win for Republicans that all but ensures the map-drawing fight will stretch beyond this fallâs midterm elections. VRA ruling: In a 6-3 decision, the court said that a congressional map in Louisiana was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, Lawrence Hurley writes. The justices, with the conservatives in the majority, told states they can almost never consider race when drawing maps to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was enacted to protect minority voters who long faced discrimination in elections. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said that while there may be extreme situations where the use of race can be justified to draw a map, no such conditions existed in the Louisiana case. The ruling means Louisiana will need to redraw its map, though its primary takes place in just over two weeks on May 16. Other GOP-controlled southern states that may have an opening to draw new maps will face similar time constraints, as filing deadlines have passed in some of them and early voting is under way in others. Longer term, the ruling could lead to fewer minority-majority districts not just in Congress but also in state and local government, reducing the number of non-white elected officials. Florida: Meanwhile, the GOP-led Florida Legislature passed a new congressional map that creates four additional Republican-leaning seats, Matt Dixon reports from Tallahassee. The proposal passed the Florida state House and Senate on largely partisan lines, even as some Republicans have expressed skepticism about it. Much of the focus from opponents focused on how Gov. Ron DeSantis is using the plan as a vehicle to do away with anti-gerrymandering language in the state constitution. DeSantis and Republicans have essentially acknowledged the map is out of line with the current state constitution, but they believe state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings, such as the one today, will help ease its path. Florida is the eighth state since 2025 to enact new a new congressional map following a back-and-forth kickstarted last summer in Texas by President Donald Trump. Based on those new district lines, Republicans could be in position to pick up as may as 13 seats, while Democrats could gain up to 10. âĄď¸ For subscribers: What the Supreme Courtâs ruling on race and redistricting means for 2026 elections â and beyond, by Jane C. Timm, Adam Edelman and Ben Kamisar For subscribers: Tax me, wealthy Democrats say, as they try to prove they're 'class traitors' By Sahil Kapur From lawmakers on Capitol Hill like Reps. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., to candidates for governor like Californiaâs Tom Steyer, a swath of ambitious, high-net-worth Democrats are telling voters that the rich should pay more in taxes and that they are personally glad to help reduce income inequality and fund a safety net. Keep reading â King Charles to the rescue? Analysis by Andrea Mitchell This week, King Charles accomplished what no recent American president has been able to achieve. Speaking to a joint meeting of Congress, he received repeated standing ovations from both sides of the aisle, including from a Republican-led House that wouldnât even agree to a compromise to fund the Department of Homeland Security that passed the Republican-led Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson even joined the ovation when the king cited the Magna Carta, the foundation for British law, as the basis for the shared principle between our countries that executive power is subject to checks and balances. Thatâs notable in a Congress thatâs often willing to cede its own authority to President Donald Trumpâs executive orders. The British monarch was also cheered in his speech for his ringing endorsement of NATO, reminding lawmakers that it had gone to war only once, to fight for the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11. That contradicted Trumpâs continued complaints that NATO would never come to the defense of the U.S. And Charles said, to the delight of Ukrainian diplomats: âThat same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people. It is needed in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace.â Accompanied by Queen Camilla, the king also visited the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York today. Escorted by the memorialâs chairman, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the royal couple met with first responders and relatives of victims. Sixty-seven British nationals died on 9/11, more than from any country other than the U.S. In his speech to Congress, Charles didnât explicitly talk about Trumpâs scorching criticism of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his refusal to join the U.S. in the war against Iran, and for initially denying U.S. bombers the right to fly from British bases. But Charles pointedly said, âIt is my hope, my prayer, that in these turbulent times, working together and with our international partners, we can stem the beating of ploughshares into swords.â In that appeal, he echoed similar sentiments against the use of force expressed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth, when she addressed a joint meeting of Congress in 1991 in the immediate aftermath of British soldiers, alongside the U.S., defeating Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm. British officials told NBC News they were hoping this weekâs state visit would help repair the relationship between Trump and Starmer. Asked this afternoon if the kingâs visit had smoothed over their disagreement over Iran, Trump said, âYeah, it helps it from the standpoint that you know, when you like the king of a country so much, it probably helps your relationship with the prime minister.â Though he went on to say, âBut you know that case, the prime minister, I said, âDo you want to send a little help?â He said, âNo, weâll send it after you win the war.â I said, âThatâs not good. Thatâs not good.ââ Apparently, a royal visit, with all the pomp and circumstance of an F-35 flyover and a parade of troops at the arrival ceremony, capped by a white-tie state dinner, can only accomplish so much. Follow live updates from the kingâs visit to the U.S. â Thatâs all From the Politics Desk for now. Todayâs newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner. If you have feedback â likes or dislikes â email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com And if youâre a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here.
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Jupiter Technically Does Not Orbit The Sun. A Lot Of Time, Neither Does The Earth. | IFLScience Added: Apr 29, 2026
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An Idiotâs Guide to Music AI Companies | Pitchfork Added: Apr 29, 2026
An Idiotâs Guide to Music AI Companies
Site: Pitchfork
What's the difference between Udio and Suno? What the hell is Boomy? Look no further than our comprehensive rundown
Weâve come a long way since Fake Drake. AI-generated music was once the territory of meme doomscroll fodder and Grimesâ relentless techno-optimism screeds. Now it represents a rapidly growing sector of the industry, with platforms successfully shooting AI-generated country, rock, R&B, and gospel songs onto the charts. This onslaught has led to a musical chairs of lawsuits and settlementsâand, occasionally, partnershipsâbetween the Big Three labels and the AI startups attempting to crib their artistsâ styles. With Universal, Sony, and Warner signing on for a potential future of automated taste analysis and two-minute songwriting processes, what does the discerning listener need to know to parse the landscape of popular music today? In the name of clarification and a little goddamn transparency, weâve gathered a brief rundown of the key players in the new AI music boomâand the artists, private equity firms, and labels swinging open the door.
Suno When did it launch? December 2023 Who's behind it? Mikey Shulman, Georg Kucsko, Martin Camacho, and Keenan Freyberg, four former colleagues at the Cambridge AI startup Kensho. Whatâs the elevator pitch? âMake any song you can imagine,â Sunoâs website touts in glowing white lettersâthough âimagineâ is doing some heavy lifting here. Telekinesis isnât quite afoot on the platform; it relies on a bank of keywordsâpartially informed by a list of favored âgenresâ you select when you sign upâwhich its deep-language learning model then translates into rhythm, vocals, instrumentation, and mood. Users are encouraged to add details to direct the tech, but in Sunoâs âAdvancedâ mode, the possibilities expand, allowing you to adjust for âweirdness and style influence.â Whatever the success rate, the churn potential is infinite (the platform claims to make around seven million songs per day). When I tried my hand at âelectroclash, overtly political party anthem with sexy spoken word female vocals a la Peaches or Uffie,â I ended up with a song titled âGlitter Guillotine,â anchored around a generic four-on-the-floor and bass-guitar lick I can only describe as âCake By The Ocean - Alexaâs Version,â with such insightful, empire-dismantling lyrics as âHigh heel on the constitution / Lip gloss revolution.â Walled garden model? No, and unlike Udio, which ceded some of its distribution capabilities on the way to appeasing the majors, Suno has stood by its right to let users download whatever they wish. Any other claims to fame? Suno is far and away the most visible AI company in the industry right now, in no small part because of its headline-making investments. The Mississippi songwriter behind Xania Monet, an AI âartistâ a la Lil Miquela or the ill-fated dog whistle FN Meka, uses Suno; so does the fully AI band Breaking Rust. Itâs also the platform that birthed âWe Are Charlie Kirk,â the heavily memed 2025 memoriam track that topped Spotifyâs Viral 50 chart. Has it been sued yet? Yes, and plenty. Universal and Sony both still have active copyright infringement suits against the company. But a recent settlement with Warner could mean more boardroom handshakes are imminent. Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Warnerâs settlement arrived as a licensing partnership. Although itâs not technically an official opt-in, the label represents artists like Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, and Dijon, meaning Suno could train on all of their music. Udio When did it launch? April 2024 Who's behind it? A cohort of former Google DeepMind researchersâDavid Ding, Conor Durkan, Charlie Nash, Yaroslav Ganin, and Andrew Sanchezâwith significant financial backing from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Whatâs the elevator pitch? Like Suno, Udio promises fully realized, high-speed generated music based off a library of text prompts. Ask for a Sabrina Carpenter track about foreplay that sounds like it was written by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and youâll have multiple demos to choose from in mere minutes. Walled garden model? Yes, but it took a lawsuitâand a settlement for an undisclosed, likely ungodly sumâto get them to raise the drawbridge. Any other claims to fame? âBBL Drizzy,â Metro Boominâs viral 2024 diss track, was created on Udio, and will.i.am and Common are among the platformâs angel investors. Has it been sued yet? You bet. Udio and Sunio share custody of the copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Universal, Sony, and Warner. Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Warner and Universal have both settled with the company since they sued. Chalk it up to Udioâs cannily crafted messaging, which focuses itself as a âfan-drivenâ remix platform, all while the remix albumâand dance music writ largeâhas become more popular than ever. Boomy When did it launch? May 2021 Who's behind it? CEO Alex Jae Mitchell has roots with digital distribution platform ReverbNation. His cofounder, Matthew Cohen Santorelli, a former music consultant who specializes in copyright, serves as COO. Whatâs the elevator pitch? Boomy squarely advertises itself to beginner song-âwritersâ with little to no experience. Still, the features arenât quite as intuitive to the average idiot savant producer as you might imagine. Instead of running a two-step generation system like Udio or Suno, Boomy builds songs off a variety of toggle-choice elements like mixing, tempo, genre, instruments, and vocals. If youâre not ready to make that many choices, you can quickly make a track with standardized genre preferences like the completely egregious âGlobal Groove,â which purports to cover Latin pop, Reggaeton, ska, and Afrobeats. Walled garden model? Yesâthat is, if youâre a free subscriber. Although Boomy often reiterates its legal rights to its library of sounds, youâll have to shell out $10 a month to download up to 10 of your creations, only half of which you can legally distribute per month. An enhanced, $30 pro membership promises âfull commercial rightsâ to any creations. Any other claims to fame? Boomy is perhaps best known for its looming presence in the first-ever criminally prosecuted case of streaming fraud in the United States. In 2024, a man named Michael Smith was indicted on fraud charges, with the government alleging that he made more than $10 million between 2017 and 2024 off fake streams accrued through bot battalions trained to repeatedly play the AI-generated tracks he made on Boomy. Although Alex Jae Mitchell wasnât officially namedâand somehow evaded chargesâin the indictment, he clearly fit the bill of Smithâs cited accomplice. Has it been sued yet? No, but the optics of the Michael Smith case certainly werenât great. Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Boomy was the first AI generator to ink a major-label deal. No surprise itâs with Warner, the most AI-lenient of the three majors. ElevenLabs When did it launch? January 2023 Who's behind it? Former Google machine learning engineer Piotr DÄ bkowski established the company with ex-Palantir deployment strategist Mati Staniszewski. Whatâs the elevator pitch? ElevenLabs has primarily operated in the spoken-word realm with its text-to-voice AI generator. But itâs the companyâs voice-cloning technology that has caught the attention of the music industry. Walled garden model? Yes, for the most part. but donât expect to see an Apple Music widget soon. Although ElevenLabs offers API access to certain systems, its flashier capabilitiesâincluding voice cloning and AI dubbingâare contained in proprietary workflows that donât function outside of ElevenLabsâ platform. Any other claims to fame? In January, the platform released an album touting its music possibilities, populating the tracklist with an assortment of cloned vocalists, including Liza Minelli. As Minelli said in a statement, âI grew up watching my parents create wonderful dreams that were owned by other people. ElevenLabs makes it possible for anyone to be a creator and ownerâ Has it been sued yet? In August 2024, a collective of voice actors and authors sued ElevenLabs for allegedly cloning voices without consent by using copyrighted audiobooks as training material. Which labels have they partnered with? ElevenLabs hasnât inked any label deals yet. Meanwhile, Minelli isnât the only notable musician who popped up in uncanny spirit on The Eleven Album; Art Garfunkel and Michael Feinstein also feature on the album. On the voiceover side, the estates of Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Sir Laurence Olivier all have agreements with the company. Klay Vision When did it launch? 2021 Who's behind it? Entrepreneur Ary Attie is the founder and CEO, and he shares leadership with a core group including Brian Wilson (not that one), who cofounded the Echo Nest, which analyzes music taste based on listenerâs habits; Bjorn Winckler, another Google DeepMind alum, who helped engineer the music generator Lyria; and veteran music executive Thomas Hesse. Whatâs the elevator pitch? An elevator pitch is pretty much all Klay has at the momentâwell, that and just over $11 million dollars in seed funding. Klay has built buzz through a certain air of mystique, propelled by the fact that they have yet to release a single product. They plan to launch both a streaming platform and a social media app in the coming months, with the express goal, as Attie puts it, to âpress play over and over again.â Walled garden model? Klay has promised to develop one. Weâll see what the demos look like. Any other claims to fame? Itâs the first startup of its kind to boast licensing deals with all three major labels and their publishing companies; it has also couched some eyebrow-raising claims in an official statement announcing its UMG partnership: âWe believe the next Beatles will play with Klay.â Well, with the way that âNow and Thenâ video went⌠Has it been sued yet? No. You canât exactly sue a working pitch deck. Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Klay secured its deals with Universal, Warner, and Sony in part through a path of least resistance, by ditching full-scale generation and promising a licensed music-streaming service that will pass revenue back to rights-holders. Splice When did it launch? Splice established the first iteration of its website in 2013, but the company didnât introduce its AI-driven feature, Similar Sounds, until 2019. Earlier this year, they launched Variations, featuring new generative AI tools. Who's behind it? GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci and software engineer Matt Aimonetti ideated Splice as the âGitHub of musicâ over a decade ago. Martocci claims he got into the tech industry when Phish broke up in 2004 (before that heâd been a dedicated head). Whatâs the elevator pitch? Spliceâs biggest asset is its royalty-free sample library, aimed at those already somewhat fluent in DAW systems like Ableton and Logic Pro. However, the AI grab comes into play in the actual creation: Splice relies on the technology to create up to eight-layer âstacks,â or raw song files, near-instantaneously. Walled garden model? Nope. Anything made on the platform can be downloaded and released commercially. Any other claims to fame? Before it confidently waded into AI, Splice already had some high-profile cosigns in the form of Top 40 hits: Sabrina Carpenterâs âEspresso,â Lil Nas Xâs âPanini,â and Dua Lipaâs âNew Rulesâ are among the bigger singles that have at least partially utilized the platformâs technology. Has it been sued yet? Only in the small-time sense: theyâve settled a contract dispute and waded into some murky copyright strike waters, occasionally angering creators. Notably, in 2024, they issued a copyright strike against an attorney and online personality, Miss Krystle, who displayed their terms of service in a social media video. (The strike was later retracted.) Which labels/artists have they partnered with? An Electric Zoo lineupâs worth of artists have backed Splice over the years, from Diplo to Tiesto to Swedish House Mafiaâs Steve Angello. Even Scooter Braun has offered his stamp of approval. Music Flamingo When did it launch? November 2025, but its parent company, Nvidia, has been in business since 1993. Who's behind it? Development for the platform was led by University of Maryland computer science PhD student Sreyan Ghosh and his professor Ramani Duraiswamiâwith support from Nvidia researchers Arushi Goel, Zhifeng Kong, and Bryan Catanzaro. Whatâs the elevator pitch? According to its website, Music Flamingo âprovides both a benchmark and a foundation for the community to build the next generation of models that engage with music as richly and meaningfully as humans do.â What that actually means is that Music Flamingo focuses on music analysis, not generation, processing a songâs structure, instrumentation, and lyrics as well as historical and cultural context. The end-goal is to deliver music recommendations to listeners as effectively and inorganically as possible, much like Spotifyâs ever-evolving, hard-to-chase Discovery model. Walled garden? Yes, and partly for its own protection. Hefty costs associated with transitioning music out of the platformâor even sunsetting a subscriptionâwork as a buffer to keep customers coming back, whether they like it or not. The Apple way! Any other claims to fame? While other major labels and startups inch towards new collaborative platforms, Universal has already integrated Music Flamingoâs across its full catalog. Has it been sued yet? Music Flamingo has never been sued, safely positioned under its âresponsibleâ model; Nvidia, on the other hand, has faced lawsuits for everything from crypto mining to patent infringement, totaling upwards of $1 billion in claims. Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Its veteran status in the AI space has made Nvidia an attractive partner for many other startups and laterally interested tech companies looking to build out their AI suite: Universal may have the most extensive deal, but Adobe and Bandlab also have agreements with the company too. Loudly When did it launch? August 2023 Who's behind it? Loudlyâs co-founders are the Berlin-via-Montreal transplant Rory Kenny and the aptly-named Gabriel Hacker. Kenny, who serves as CEO, built up much of Loudlyâs remix-ready tech using the bones of his sibling app project, Music Maker Jam. Whatâs the elevator pitch? Loudlyâs sell is a little bit of everything: full-song generation based on text prompts, remix capabilities, DAW-friendliness, easy distribution. Its buzzword(s), however, have to be âroyalty freeâ; the company isnât in the business of direct cribbing from big-name artists, a green flag for majors looking to place their bets on the burgeoning AI-music market. Kenny, however, doesnât seem too desperate to please on that front. âThe moment that, as a startup, you get into bed with a major music business player is when you stop innovating and start counting pennies,â he told Music Ally in 2021. Walled garden model? No. Loudly allows unlimited downloads of track creations, and even facilitates distribution to DSPs including Spotify. Any other claims to fame? Embedded integration with Apple Music and Spotify, a lucrative pipeline to the streaming masses. Has it been sued yet? No Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Loudly has surely caught the attention of the majors, but it hasnât advertised any partnership (or in turn, fielded any legal trouble) thus far. However, itâs likely to evolve quickly in the AI music space given its compatibility with not just Spotify and Apple, but omnipresent DAWs like Ableton, Logic Pro, and FL Studio. A renaissance of mid-to-low-tier festival DJs is upon us. Soundraw When did it launch? February 2020 Who's behind it? Daigo Kusunoki, a former world-champion dancer who entered the music space through wearable tech. Before starting Soundraw, he designed the motion-activated Bluetooth wristband SoundMoovs, which âcreates music and sound effects as you move.â Whatâs the elevator pitch? Much like Loudly, Soundraw promises to craft royalty-free âbackground music.â This isnât the platform to try and become (or ventriloquize) the next big pop star; this is where you come when you have a Selling Sunset sound cue due tomorrow and you havenât done any of your homework. Walled garden model? Yes and no. Youâre able to download and distribute all of your Soundraw creations, but the model only offers access to samples made in-house. Any other claims to fame? Despite their commitment to primarily using âoriginal, in-house material,â Soundrawâs biggest track is probably a viral novelty remix of the Weekndâs âBlinding Lightsâ featuring faux vocals from Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson. Has it been sued yet? No. Soundraw has consistently positioned itself as an âethicalâ AI company, promising to only train models off of licensed data. Have those licensing agreements gone public, you might ask? Also no. Which labels/artists have they partnered with? Incidentally, Soundrawâs investment in backing tracks has made it a lucrative baseline for mainstream hip-hopâs ever talent-diverse middle leagues: French Montana, Fivio Foreign, and Trippie Redd have all copped to making music using the platform. Correction: A previous version of this story featured incorrect information on Splice, including their walled-garden approach and which Lil Nas X song was made with the platform. It has since been updated.
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Mamdani acts like a petulant teen in front of the king and queen
Site: New York Post
The King and Queen donât get to America often â their last visit was nearly two decades ago.
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King Charles, Queen Camilla joined by celebs, supermodels at swanky Christieâs reception ending whirlwind NYC visit
Site: New York Post
King Charles III and Queen Camilla regaled a flock of American and European celebrities at Christieâs âGreater Together Receptionâ on Wednesday evening.
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Carville warns progressive left could cost Democrats Georgia wins | Fox News
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Trump claims Netanyahu pardon would make Israeli president "national hero" Added: Apr 29, 2026
Trump claims Netanyahu pardon would make Israeli president "national hero"
Site: Axios
Trump said Netanyahu had raised his corruption trial when they spoke the previous night.
