# Morning Briefing

Monday, May 4, 2026
📰 Top Stories

## GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

Hacker News · 352 points, 288 comments · Also: BBC, Reuters, Techmeme
GameStop has made a $55.5 billion takeover offer for eBay, sending eBay stock up 6% but still below the $125/share offer price — investors see significant hurdles to completing any deal. GameStop stock dropped ~4% on the news.
fintech m&a

## Trump says the US will "guide" stranded ships from the Strait of Hormuz

Ground News · 313 sources · Also: NPR, AP, Reuters
Trump announced the U.S. will "guide" stranded ships through the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday, as Iran's Revolutionary Guards unveiled a new map of the strait under their control. OPEC+ agreed to a modest production increase as Iran retains its chokehold on the key waterway.
geopolitics oil

## DeepClaude – Claude Code agent loop with DeepSeek V4 Pro

Hacker News · 552 points, 233 comments
An open-source project combining DeepSeek V4 Pro with Claude Code's agent loop, creating a hybrid coding assistant. Significant HN discussion on agent architecture and cost-performance tradeoffs.
ai open-source

## Jensen Huang: Nvidia's AI accelerator market share in China has "dropped to zero"

Techmeme · Also: Tom's Hardware, Reuters
Nvidia CEO says U.S. export policy "has already largely backfired" as the company's China market share for AI accelerators has hit zero. Meanwhile, Cerebras targets a $26.6B valuation in its U.S. IPO as AI chip demand surges.
ai chips trade

## Musk texted Brockman about settling days before OpenAI trial; denied, said they'd "be the most hated men in America"

Techmeme · CNBC · Also: Business Insider profile of Altman's lead lawyer
New filing reveals Elon Musk tried to settle with Greg Brockman before the OpenAI trial, and when rejected, texted that Brockman and Altman "will be the most hated men in America." The trial proceeds.
ai legal
💻 Tech

## Five Eyes spook shops warn rapid rollouts of agentic AI are too risky

The Register · CISA, NCSC + allies
Intelligence agencies from all Five Eyes nations co-authored guidance warning that agentic AI will "likely misbehave" and amplifies existing security risks. They recommend prioritizing resilience over productivity in deployments.
ai security

## Moving to mainframe can be cheaper than sticking with VMware: Gartner

The Register · Gartner analysis
Gartner says VMware users considering alternatives might find it cheaper to move to IBM mainframes than adopt Broadcom's new licenses — if they can accept lock-in risks and skills challenges.
infrastructure vmware

## Bad Connection: Global telecom exploitation by covert surveillance actors

Citizen Lab · Hacker News · 180 points
Citizen Lab publishes major research uncovering global telecom exploitation by covert surveillance actors — systematic interception of mobile communications across multiple countries.
privacy surveillance

## Instructure data breach: ShinyHunters claims 3.65TB of data from ~9K institutions

Techmeme · SecurityWeek
Edtech firm Instructure (Canvas LMS) disclosed a data breach on April 30. ShinyHunters claims to have 3.65TB of data from approximately 9,000 educational institutions — potentially massive scope.
security education

## Motorola's India lawsuit could make platforms police speech faster

Rest of World
Motorola's Indian arm has named X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Google in a lawsuit demanding takedown of existing and future "defamatory" content — a precedent that could force platforms into preemptive speech policing globally.
free-speech india platforms
🌍 Wider Lens

## Civilians across the Middle East react to the Iran war

Reason
"Now they are hitting everything. Nowhere is safe. But don't worry, we are okay," one Iranian woman texted her American relative. First-person accounts from civilians on both sides of the conflict as the Iran war continues.
iran war

## China makes it illegal to fire humans if AI takes their jobs

The Register
A Chinese court has ruled that replacing human workers with AI constitutes illegal dismissal, setting a significant labor precedent as automation accelerates across industries.
ai labor china

## Trump administration falls behind on wildfire prevention with risky fire season ahead

NPR
Work to reduce flammable vegetation fell by more than a million acres compared to previous years. The Pacific Northwest faces an elevated wildfire risk this season as forest management lags.
wildfire pacific-northwest
🔥 HN Deep Reads

## Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

HN · 777 points, 444 comments · Original article
Mercedes-Benz officially committing to physical buttons is a landmark admission that touchscreen-everything went too far. The HN discussion is a goldmine on UI design philosophy, right-to-repair angles, and the "software eating buttons" backlash.
ux right-to-repair

## Let's Buy Spirit Air

HN · 449 points, 423 comments · Original site
A crowdsourced campaign to buy Spirit Airlines after its shutdown. The HN discussion ranges from serious airline economics to the absurdity of the premise — genuinely interesting thread on aviation business models and why budget airlines keep failing.
aviation community

## BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

HN · 418 points, 134 comments · Original post
New LoRa mesh radio hardware claiming 100x bandwidth improvement over existing solutions. HN discussion digs into the technical claims, practical mesh networking constraints, and self-hosting/off-grid communication use cases.
hardware mesh self-hosting
🎮 Gaming

## Halo 2 and 3 remakes are "definitely happening", claims leaker

Eurogamer
Reliable leaker claims Halo 2 and 3 remakes are in active development. If true, a major return for the franchise that defined a generation of console FPS — and a big deal for anyone who grew up with these.
halo xbox retro

## NetHack 5.0.0 released — nearly 40 years after launch, with 3,000+ patch notes

PC Gamer
The pioneering roguelike that predates most of the industry just dropped version 5.0.0 with over 3,000 changes. A testament to sustained open-source game development and the enduring appeal of deep systemic design.
roguelike open-source retro

## Warcraft 3 Legacy is finally back on Battle.net

PC Gamer
Classic Warcraft 3 returns to Battle.net — and you don't need to install Reforged to launch it. A quiet but meaningful reversal for a game whose "remaster" was widely considered a downgrade.
blizzard retro rts
⚖️ Bias Check

## Trump says the US will "guide" stranded ships from the Strait of Hormuz

Ground News · 313 sources · Left: 31% · Center: 41% · Right: 27%
Covered by 313 sources. Left outlets frame it as military escalation and question the legal basis for U.S. naval operations in the strait. Center outlets focus on the practical logistics of freeing stranded commercial vessels. Right outlets emphasize Trump taking decisive action against Iranian aggression and protecting global trade.
iran geopolitics

## Top US diplomat Rubio to meet Pope Leo after Trump-Vatican troop withdrawal spat

Ground News · 98 sources · Left: 28% · Center: 30% · Right: 40%
Covered by 98 sources. Notable right-skew in coverage (40% right vs 28% left). Right outlets frame Rubio's visit as diplomacy and bridge-building. Left outlets focus on the underlying conflict — Trump's troop withdrawal from Europe clashing with Vatican peace priorities. Center covers it as a diplomatic damage-control mission.
vatican diplomacy