Morning Skim

AI

Anthropic's annualized revenue rockets to $65 billion

Anthropic hit a $65 billion annualized revenue run rate at the end of July, up from $47 billion in May and $9 billion at the close of 2025, Bloomberg reports. The AI lab has filed confidentially for an IPO that could come as soon as this fall and is seeking a public valuation of $2 trillion or more.

Why it matters: The pace would make it one of the fastest revenue ramps in tech history and set up potentially the largest market debut on record.

Dive deeper → TechCrunch

Stripe is reportedly buying AI gateway OpenRouter for more than $7 billion

Stripe has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, a single access point that lets developers route requests across more than 400 AI models, for over $7 billion, Bloomberg reports. OpenRouter raised $113 million in May at a $1.3 billion valuation and claims 8 million users.

Why it matters: It is a roughly 5x markup in three months and pulls a fast-growing AI middleware layer into the payments giant's stack.

Dive deeper → TechCrunch

Tech

A critical GitLab flaw lets unauthenticated attackers delete public projects

CVE-2026-19478, rated 9.4, lets an attacker remotely modify or delete public projects and user data via a GraphQL directive with no login or user interaction, on self-managed GitLab. Fixes shipped in 19.2.4, 19.1.6, 19.0.8, and 18.11.11; GitLab.com was already protected.

Why it matters: Self-hosted GitLab servers hold source code and CI pipelines, so an unauthenticated wipe is a direct threat to the software supply chain.

Dive deeper → The Hacker News

A max-severity Forminator bug exposes 600,000 WordPress sites to takeover

CVE-2026-15748, rated 9.8, lets unauthenticated attackers upload arbitrary PHP files and run code on sites using the Forminator plugin with both File Upload and Select fields, Wordfence found. All versions up to 1.56.1 are affected; 1.56.2 released July 31 fixes it.

Why it matters: Unauthenticated remote code execution across hundreds of thousands of sites is prime territory for mass compromise.

Dive deeper → The Hacker News

Business

European stocks slide toward their longest losing streak since 2025 on war fears

The Stoxx Europe 600 headed for a sixth straight daily decline, its longest losing streak since November 2025, after Iran shifted to a 'fully offensive military posture' when Washington rejected extending a ceasefire framework. Brent crude rose 0.8% to about $91.49, the highest since July 30.

Why it matters: Rising oil and Middle East escalation threaten to reignite inflation and complicate central banks' plans to ease.

Dive deeper → Investing.com

Walmart leans on ads as its store-sales growth cools

Walmart's US same-store sales growth slowed to 4.1% last quarter from around 4.5%, but its Walmart Connect ad business grew 44%, its fastest since 2023, with impressions up 17% versus Amazon's 9%. The high-margin ad unit now drives roughly a third of operating income.

Why it matters: Retail media is becoming the profit engine that lets Walmart keep cutting prices as shoppers stay cautious.

Dive deeper → Investing.com

Science

A magnetar reveals that empty space bends light, confirming a 90-year-old prediction

An international team led by Swinburne University used NASA's IXPE X-ray telescope to study magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408 and found highly polarized X-rays aligned with its magnetic field, evidence of vacuum birefringence. The effect, predicted by Heisenberg, needs fields over 100 million times stronger than any made on Earth.

Why it matters: It lets physicists test quantum theory in conditions no lab can reproduce, using the cosmos as the experiment.

Dive deeper → ScienceDaily

A low-fat vegan diet cut calories by 357 a day without people eating less food

In a 16-week randomized trial published in JAMA Network Open, adults on a low-fat vegan diet ate about 357 fewer calories a day and lost weight while eating roughly the same volume of food, as the meals' energy density dropped about 30%. The control group barely changed.

Why it matters: It suggests what you eat can matter more than how much, offering weight loss without hunger or calorie counting.

Dive deeper → ScienceDaily

World

A Damascus court sentences Bashar al-Assad's cousin to death for war crimes

Syria's Fourth Criminal Court sentenced Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of the ousted president, to death after convicting him of murder, torture, and leading pro-regime militias that targeted civilians in Eastern Ghouta. He is the first al-Assad family member tried and sentenced in person, after Bashar and Maher were condemned in absentia.

Why it matters: It is a landmark test of post-Assad Syria's push to hold the old regime's inner circle accountable in its own courts.

Dive deeper → Al Jazeera

Pakistan's top court orders Imran Khan moved from prison to a hospital

The Supreme Court ordered former Prime Minister Imran Khan, 73, transferred from Adiala prison to a hospital in Islamabad within two days, noting his pulse and heart condition were not normal. A medical board including his sister and personal doctor will oversee care, with the next hearing set for September 16.

Why it matters: It is a rare judicial win for the jailed opposition leader and his first extended time outside prison since 2023.

Dive deeper → Al Jazeera

Culture

Columbia House, the '12 albums for a penny' club, is shutting down

Columbia House said it will cease operations on September 15, ending a mail-order music club that launched in 1955 and peaked at 16 million members in 1996 before big-box stores, the internet, and piracy eroded it. After a 2015 bankruptcy it had pivoted to selling DVDs and Blu-rays.

Why it matters: It closes the book on a defining piece of pre-streaming music-buying nostalgia.

Dive deeper → Consequence

Ozzfest will return in 2027 at Birmingham's Villa Park

The Osbourne family confirmed Ozzfest returns in 2027 at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, the site of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne's 2025 farewell show, before a planned expansion to the US. No date or American venue has been set; the festival last ran in 2018.

Why it matters: It revives a genre-defining metal festival in Ozzy's hometown as a tribute after his final performances.