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Today:
Pseudoscientific Cancer ‘Treatment’ Involves Gassing Naked People in Plastic Bags With Bleach
NEWS | 19 June 2026
The typical “protocol” sees users ingest several drops of chlorine dioxide solution daily. The treatment includes sealing people naked in a plastic bag from the neck down before exposing them directly to the undiluted gaseous form of chlorine dioxide. “Protocol G, obviously, is probably the most dangerous protocol out of all of them,” Jessel said, adding: “Nobody's ever done it. “Taking unproven treatment or remedies for cancer instead of those that are medically approved could affect how well the treatment works and have dangerous side effects. However, over the last year, there has been a resurgence of interest in chlorine dioxide after US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned chlorine dioxide when questioned about President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed during his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2025.

Top Stories:
Gen Z Singles Are Trying to Make ‘Solomaxxing’ Aspirational
NEWS | 19 June 2026
In the nearly three years since the breakup, Hyden, 28, has stopped dating and focused exclusively on herself. As these trends often do, solomaxxing blew up on TikTok in recent months as Gen Z flocked there to document and discuss their frustrations with the rising cost of dating. But for Hyden, solomaxxing has nothing to do with financial woes and everything to do with “building a life that feels full on its own terms,” she says. People who married were said to have ‘settled down.’ The irony is that single life, for people who want to be single, is completely stable. The term solomaxxing comes from Gen Z’s ongoing hyperfixation with personal self-enhancement: how you look (“looksmaxxing”), what you eat (“proteinmaxxing”), where you find pleasure (“nutmaxxing”).

World:
Meta’s AI Workers Are Revolting, Peter Thiel’s Secret Society, and SBF’s Plea to Trump
NEWS | 19 June 2026
This week on Uncanny Valley, our hosts discuss the meltdown that has been recently unfolding at Meta and what it says about the company’s relentless ambitions in the AI race. Articles mentioned in this episode:You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett and Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too. Brian Barrett: Hey, this is Brian. Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.

Current Events:
The Best iPad to Buy (and Some to Avoid) in 2026: Compare the Air, Pro, Mini
NEWS | 19 June 2026
It's only compatible with the iPad (6th gen and later), iPad Air (3rd gen), iPad Mini (5th gen), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st and 2nd gen), iPad Pro 10.5-inch, and iPad Pro 9.7-inch. Apple Pencil (USB-C) for $69: Apple's USB-C Apple Pencil is a bit perplexing. It's compatible with iPad (10th gen and A16), iPad Air (4th, 5th gen, M2, M3, and M4), iPad Mini (6th gen), iPad Pro 11-inch (1st gen and later, including M4), and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd gen and later, including M4 and M5). It's compatible with the iPad Air (4th gen and 5th gen), iPad Mini (6th gen), iPad Pro 11-inch (1st gen and later), and the 12.9-inch (3rd gen and later). It's only compatible with the iPad Air (M2, M3, and M4), iPad Pro (M4 and M5), and 7th-gen iPad Mini.

News Flash:
Best Mesh Wi-Fi Systems (2026): Netgear, Asus, Amazon, and More
NEWS | 19 June 2026
TP-Link Deco BE67 (2-Pack) for $430: This tri-band Wi-Fi 7 mesh is a little cheaper than our top pick but offers similar performance. Each unit has one 10-Gbps Ethernet port, one 2.5-Gbps port, a Gigabit port, and a USB 3.0 port. Netgear Orbi 370 Series Photograph: Simon HillNetgear Orbi 370 Series (3-Pack) for $300: While it is great that manufacturers offer budget-friendly options, dual-band Wi-Fi 7 mesh routers are a tough sell. TP-Link Deco BE25 (3-Pack) for $200: Almost everything I just said about the Orbi 370 Series applies to the dual-band Wi-Fi 7 Deco BE25. Speed and range on the 5-GHz band were better with Netgear’s 370 Series, but the opposite was true on the 2.4-GHz band.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 19 June 2026
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

Latest:
The Best Fitness Trackers of 2026: Garmin, Google Fitbit, and More
NEWS | 19 June 2026
Like every piece of gear you wear on your body day in and day out, fitness trackers are incredibly personal. We test dozens of fitness trackers every year while running, climbing, hiking, or just doing workout videos on our iPads at night, to bring you these picks. For more wearables, check out our guides to the Best Smartwatches, Best Smart Rings, and Best Sleep Trackers. Best Fitness Tracker OverallGarmin makes some of the most accurate fitness trackers on the market, and the Vivoactive 6 is the best midrange option for most people. Garmin's biggest advantage remains its free Connect platform, which enables health and fitness tracking without requiring a subscription.

Breaking:
Designing the Dream House of an 87-Year-Old Tech Visionary
NEWS | 19 June 2026
This past January, Stewart Brand published a book, Maintenance of Everything: Part One. “It’s what keeps life going.”Brand’s life has been going for 87 years, but lately the going has been tough. Stewart Brand’s body, in other words, requires constant maintenance. Stewart Brand works in his library on his second Maintenance of Everything book. As we sat on the wooden porch of the new structure, Brand and Phelan explained to me that it had been speedily—but thoughtfully—constructed to accommodate Brand as he copes with age and illness.

Trending:
Traditional Home Insurance Is Collapsing. Here’s What Could Fill the Gap
NEWS | 19 June 2026
East St. Louis is an extreme case, but these are exactly the kinds of municipal traumas that Wellenkamp hopes a parametric plan will alleviate. For the pilot project—which would likely include East St. Louis—Wellenkamp plans to peg the parameters to the flood heights recorded in 2019. If floodwaters reach those levels, the mayors of qualifying river cities could accept a near-immediate payout from the insurance plan. In the private market, insurance companies are building datasets that let them maximize profits while paying out as little as possible. Using their own secret formulas, insurance companies develop ultra-granular risk assessments, which they use to get the most money from their policyholders while paying out as little as possible.

This Just In:
My Father Wants to Age in Place. AI Will Be Watching
NEWS | 19 June 2026
It was January of 2026 in North Seattle, and my 86-year-old father was struggling to move around his house. Sensi’s promise was tantalizing: A little white box would sit under a table or chair and silently monitor for danger. My father has always been a private guy who’s kept his feelings squirreled away (unless the topic is fractals or philosophy). At some point, Sensi flagged my father as someone with a “possible high risk of falls” and began listening for words indicating he was unsteady on his feet. When Sensi’s microphone overheard him saying the word “fall,” it automatically sent the private exchange to his caregivers.

Today:
What Do Americans Spend on Housing?
NEWS | 19 June 2026
The Owner Who’s Stressed About Bills and ClimateThe toll of monthly bills is escalating, according to many homeowners in WIRED’s survey, especially for insurance and utilities. Respondents across the country say they are planning—or at least aspire—to improve the energy efficiency of their homes to offset their region’s deteriorating climate. A 62-year-old owner in Chandler, Arizona, wrote that “heat is getting worse, air-conditioning is coming on earlier in the year. “We want to be able to garden, and to have more choices to invest in sustainable energy,” she wrote. The Resident Who’s Affected by PoliticsIt’s always trendy to dream of moving abroad; New Zealand, Costa Rica, Spain, Portugal, and (of course) Canada were among the desired locales in WIRED’s dataset.

Top Stories:
This World Cup, Bigger Might Not Really Be Better
NEWS | 19 June 2026
2026 FIFA World Cup Here’s WIRED’s complete guide to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This year, because of the vast distances, the only option for fans and teams is flights, which airlines have been adding to accommodate potential World Cup travelers. The US federal government has issued $625 million in grants for host cities to address security issues. In Canada, federal authorities have issued around $104 million worth of grants to host cities Vancouver and Toronto. 2026 FIFA World Cup Here’s WIRED Middle East’s complete guide to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

World:
Locked Out of the World Cup: A Year Marked by Barriers, Borders, and Broken Access
NEWS | 19 June 2026
For the first time in World Cup history, eight Arab nations have qualified for this year’s tournament, including Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, and Jordan—double the number of teams that qualified for Qatar in 2022. The US State Department has fully suspended visa issuance for nationals from countries with teams that qualified, including Iran and Haiti—despite it being the first time Haiti has qualified for a World Cup since 1974. 2026 FIFA World Cup Here’s WIRED’s complete guide to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. While those wait times were later expedited, there was a reported denial rate of more than 40 percent,” he adds. In addition to visa barriers, fans from Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tunisia, and Algeria also faced the possibility of US entry bonds as high as $15,000 going into the tournament.

Current Events:
For Iran’s Athletes, There Is No Separating Sports From Politics
NEWS | 19 June 2026
From sporting defections and political activism to moments of immense national sporting pride, the trajectory of Iranian sports underscores what’s at stake this World Cup. The Iranian team, on Tuesday morning, drew 2-2 in their debut against New Zealand and will next face Belgium and Egypt, traveling to and from Mexico in between. 2026 FIFA World Cup Here’s WIRED’s complete guide to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. There have been moments of deep pride—when Iranian footballers gave white roses to their US opponents ahead of the 1998 World Cup, for instance. Former Iranian national taekwondo captain Hadi Tiranvalipour represented the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2024 Paris Olympics after leaving Iran in 2022.

News Flash:
Streamer IShowSpeed Is Gen Z’s ESPN
NEWS | 19 June 2026
In the days leading up to the 2026 World Cup, the streamer IShowSpeed—one of the most watched people on the planet, who occasionally moonlights as a rapper—released the music video “World Cup (Champions),” a song about flexing national pride where he mentions all 48 teams. The internet rushed to christen it as the anthem of the tournament, even though the World Cup already has one. Speed started posting on YouTube as a teenager in 2017. For this year’s World Cup, Speed is bringing his love of the game to stream from different host cities. Obviously, I have played a big, big role in this current generation of streaming, but years from now there are going to be people who are better at it than I was.