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My first sex toy was a bright blue dildo. I was about 19, and as a college student in New Hampshire, I did what anyone in my position would do: hotfooted it to the closest city to find a sex shop. With my best friend in tow, I jetted in and out of the Condom World on Newbury Street so fast that I only had time to grab the first sex toy I saw and pay for it, keeping my head down the whole time. To say the early 2000s were different when it came to sex toy acceptance would…

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about the most ambitious crossover event of all time: the infinity war between technology and politics. Not subscribed yet? Come on, do it!Washington might seem slower than Silicon Valley. But that’s because it’s more turbulent. In order to achieve anything, one has to navigate the sheer amount of chaos that emerges when thousands of federal elected officials, staffers, political appointees, lobbyists, corporations, lawyers, journalists, and influencers are trying to push their interests, often at the same time.For the past 20-odd issues of Regulator, I’ve written weekly about the big stories…

Brendon McCullum has expressed his excitement for England’s pursuit of a third World T20 title, asserting that the team has already showcased the crucial tactical flexibility required for the tournament that could decide his coaching future.Confidence within the squad has been significantly boosted by their recent tour of Sri Lanka, where they secured a 2-1 One Day International series victory against a side that had won their previous seven 50-over series on home soil, followed by a comprehensive clean sweep in the T20 matches.AdvertisementSpeaking after the 3-0 T20 win in Kandy, McCullum, whose position has come under the spotlight after…

Anthropic and OpenAI may be rivals, but their presidents Daniela Amodei and Gregory Brockman have one thing in common: they are both Stripe alumni. With former employees who went on to create dozens of startups, the fintech company has become one of the most prolific “founder factories” — and the money is following. The latest example: business identity verification startup Duna, which just raised a €30 million Series A to become the best-funded European member of the so-called “Stripe mafia.” The funding round was led by Alphabet’s growth fund CapitalG, which has also backed Stripe since co-leading its Series D…

The logo of Japanese entertainment and electronics giant Sony is displayed at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo on May 14, 2025.Kazuhiro Nogi | Afp | Getty ImagesSony on Thursday reported a rise in operating profit that beat expectations, supported by favorable foreign exchange rates despite surging memory chip costs. Here are Sony’s December quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: Revenue: 3.71 trillion Japanese yen ($23.68 billion) vs. 3.69 trillion yenOperating profit: 515 billion yen vs. 468.9 billion yenOperating profit jumped 22% from a year earlier, rebounding from a year-on-year decline…

When Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, it raised uncomfortable questions about the viability of the American department store. Can a retail model built on volume and variety survive in an era of Amazon Prime and direct-to-consumer brands? And if department stores disappear, what happens to the designers and the brands that rely on them for distribution, credibility, and scale?While Saks restructures under the weight of strained vendor relationships and mounting debt, other major players are fighting back against the narrative that the model is dying — and positioning themselves to capitalize on the moment. Nordstrom,…

Europe invests billions into early-stage climate startups, only to watch too many fail at Series B, according to a recent report. But new funds are being raised to fill this gap, and Spain-based Mundi Ventures’ latest fund, Kembara Fund I, is one of them. After securing a €350 million commitment from the European Investment Fund under the European Tech Champions Initiative in 2024, Mundi Ventures has just completed a €750 million first close for Kembara, its fifth fund and largest to date.  Regulatory filing from Spain reveals that the fund — focused on deep tech — could even stretch its…

Imagn Images Oklahoma State picked up a desperately needed marquee victory by upsetting No. 16 BYU 99-92 on Wednesday night, despite 36 points from Cougars star freshman AJ Dybantsa. The win is the first Quad 1 victory for the Cowboys (16-6, 4-5 Big 12), who travel to face No. 1 Arizona on Saturday.The outcome prompted a court-storming at Gallagher-Iba Arena as the Cowboys closed out a win that could prove monumental come Selection Sunday.Oklahoma State led by as much as 15 in the first half before Dybantsa keyed a furious rally to send the teams into halftime tied at 41.…

When X’s engineering team published the code that powers the platform’s “for you” algorithm last month, Elon Musk said the move was a victory for transparency. “We know the algorithm is dumb and needs massive improvements, but at least you can see us struggle to make it better in real-time and with transparency,” Musk wrote. “No other social media companies do this.”While it’s true that X is the only major social network to make elements of its recommendation algorithm open source, researchers say that what the company has published doesn’t offer the kind of transparency that would actually be useful…

Elon Musk has spent recent days on his social media site X trying to explain why he exchanged so many emails with Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire Tesla CEO insists that Epstein was the one pursuing him. But the more Musk explains, and the more emails are surfaced from the gigantic cache of so-called Epstein files, the stranger his defense seems to get. Musk has denied any wrongdoing and says he never went to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, known as Little St. James. And while there doesn’t seem to be any concrete evidence that Musk went to the island,…