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News that the Washington Post had laid off hundreds of workers and scrapped several sections of the storied paper altogether stunned the journalism community last week. The Post cut roughly one-third of its staff, reduced local coverage, and completely destroyed its sports and international departments. The paper is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder, who has a staggering net worth of approximately $250 billion, bought the Post for $250 million in 2013. The newspaper has consistently lost more money than it has made since the 2020 election, yet has long been considered a stalwart of American dailies. But last week, The Posts editor-in-chief Matt Murray told employees the layoffs were part of a strategic reset meant to attract more customers. Though he acknowledged the cuts were painful, the overall messaging seemed to be that they were necessary. Of course, not everyone agrees. Martin Baron, who served as the outlets executive editor until 2021, told The Guardian, This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the worlds greatest news organizations. But one question has persistently risen out of the fog of disappointment and disillusionment: if Jeff Bezos understood that owning such a vital newspaper was a “sacred trust,” why is he no longer willing to keep it running at a loss for a tiny percentage of his net worth? Yes, the financial optics for the Post arent the most promising: the New York Times reported in 2022 that the papers online ad revenue fell to $70 million that year, a 15% drop from 2021. Last year the number of print subscriptions fell to below 100,000 for the first time in 55 years. The Post hoped to gain 5 million digital subscribers by 2025; in late 2024, the outlet reported having approximately 2.5 million digital subscribers. And the Post lost $177 million in 2023 and 2024 combined, per the New Yorker. Trebor Scholz, a scholar-activist and Associate Professor for Culture & Media at The New School in New York who has authored several books on labor and economics, hinted that it might just be that Bezos simply doesnt find the Post useful anymore. Bezos is a businessman first and foremost, and if the paper isnt making money, cuts have to be made. I think financially, [the Post] is not a great consideration for him, right? Scholz says. He also pointed out that Bezos may have lost interest in the newspaper after owning it for several years and called to mind Elon Musks decision to purchase X, then Twitter, in 2022. Musk intended to own the social media platform as a means to control discourse and swing the political atmosphere in a particular direction, Scholz says. That plan appears to have worked, he added, as X, which was considered an online gathering space for politically engaged people of all persuasions during Twitters heyday, is now fairly useless for social movements and has really turned into this sort of toxic right-wing space. (The platform has spent considerable time and money battling a surge in bots and misinformation since Musks takeover.) The Post isnt the only newspaper thats been taken over by a seemingly benevolent billionaire, Christina Bellantoni, director of USCs Annenberg Center and former Los Angeles Times editor told Fast Company by phone. Patrick Soon-Shiong swooped in to save the Los Angeles Times in 2018, when he paid $500 million for the paper, a transaction that was initially celebrated by the media. But Soon-Shiongs decision to order the paper to cancel its endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election pushed most of its editorial staff out, and the outlet began to lose money. He fired 20% of the papers staff in the same year, and in late 2025 Soon-Shiong announced plans to take the paper public. Soon-Shiong didnt buy the paper just to come in and fire people, Bellantoni said. I think he really did believe in himself and the ability to save it, to turn it around and make it this thing he’d be very proud of and also make money on, she added. That’s not what happened, and I think people are really angry about him but also because they’re mad they put him on a pedestal. Both newspapers benefitted from the surge in public interest in reading the news that marked the first Trump administration; both ended up gutted by their owners after later declining to endorse a political candidate in 2024 (on top of that, both owners have been criticized for their professional and personal ties to the Trump administration). That decision caused a lot of damage for the Post and the Times, Bellantoni also said. Subscribers departed both in large numbers despite the pleas of journalists to stick with them. But things can also work out: in 2013 John Henry (who founded his own investment firm and is the owner of several sports teams, including the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins), paid $70 million for the Boston Globe. Though print subscriptions to the paper have dropped, digital subscriptions are over 250,000. The intersection of morality and business isnt one-size-fits-all, which makes questions of Bezos own internal philosophy toward the Post and the value of the free press difficult to discern. After all, he could have just shut the paper down, Bellantoni noted, but he didnt. Obviously, he knows how important the Post is that’s why he bought it, she said. And I think he does know its value and in the end, you know, if he wanted to kill it, he could do that too. The Post is still doing great journalism every day, and there are a lot of people there who really care about their work, Bellantoni concluded. And so the question is: whats next? To that end, Bezos has praised the newspapers essential journalistic mission and said he will continue to focus on the data that tells us what is valuable and where to focus. Though conversations about data over the enormous benefits the public can reap from a fully-staffed, storied news outlet such as the Post raise the hackles of some (as former Post Opinions writer Molly Roberts put it, Democracy dies in The Data), business owners have been data-driven for years. The Post is and will continue to produce great work, Bellantoni said, and in the end, there will always be that institutional love for the Washington Post because it has been there forever, and it has had such an important place in society, whether it is struggling inancially or not. The tale of what happened after Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post may be a cautionary tale to billionaires everywhere who invest in the news in the future. This is not a recipe for lining your pockets with money anymore. Its a hard, expensive industry to finance.
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Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, archaeologists in Heerlen, Netherlands, came across an odd-looking smooth white stone. They knew the territory was once the Roman settlement of Coriovallum, but had never seen anything like it and had no idea what it was for. For the better part of the next 100 years, the stone sat in a storage unit at the Thermenmuseum (Thermal Bath Museum), a mystery taunting researchers. Then, six years ago, archaeologist Walter Crist spotted it while wandering the museum. Crist specializes in ancient board games and recognized it as one, though not a game he had ever seen before. That sparked his curiosity. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, Crist thinks he has figured it outand even knows how to play. The stone isnt much to look at. Its an 8-inch piece of white Jurassic limestone. Lines etched into it form an oblong, diamond-like shape within a rectangle. But in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Antiquity, Crist and his team discuss what happened when they programmed two AI agents from the AI-driven play system Ludii to try to solve it. Playing Ludus Coriovalli The researchers had the AI play the game against itself thousands of times, testing more than 100 different sets of rules drawn from other known European games, both modern and ancient. They compared the AIs moves with patterns of wear on the board, tracking which gameplay styles most closely matched the grooves on the stone. The board, it appeared, was used for a blocking gamea type of board game in which the goal is to prevent your opponent from moving. (Think of modern titles like Go or Blokus.) Blocking games were rare in ancient Europe and, before this, had only been dated to the Middle Ages. This discovery suggests they were played several centuries earlier. In the end, the AI and the team identified nine sets of rules consistent with the boards wear. Crist and his team named the game Ludus Coriovalli, the game from Coriovallum. “By combining AI simulation with use-wear analysis to identify and model traces of game play, it is possible to not only identify potential game boards, but also to rebuild playable rulesets that may provide indications regarding the ways that people played games in the past,” the paper reads. So what were the rules? Here’s what researchers determined. One player controls four dogs. The other controls two hares. The dogs start on the four leftmost points; the hares start on the inner two points on the rightmost side. Players take turns moving a piece to an adjacent empty spot on the board. The dogs attempt to block the hares, while the hares try to remain unblocked for as long as possible. If the hares are blocked, players swap roles and play again. The player who lasts the longest as the hares wins. Got it? Good. Because this isnt just a theoretical reconstruction. Its a game you can actually play online now. Crist and his team uploaded a simulation of Ludus Coriovalli to Ludii, and its available to anyone who wants to give it a try. So why study the games that ancient civilizations played? Beyond simple curiosity, Crist notes, they offer a clearer picture of everyday life in the pastand a connection to history that isnt just dry numbers or broken pot shards. “The ability to identify play and games in archaeology strengthens the understanding of our ludic heritage, and makes ancient life more accessible to people in the present, as the act of playing a board game is fundamentally the same today as it was in past millennia,” he writes in the paper.
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E-Commerce
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made some long-awaited permanent changes to the tax code. It also introduced short-term tax breaks that come with strict limits and phaseouts, and many of them are only available through 2028 or 2029. Here are four ways to get the most out of the OBBBA’s temporary provisions as you file your 2025 taxes and plan ahead. Don’t dismiss itemizing your deductions The OBBBA temporarily boosts the state and local tax deduction cap, or SALT, from $10,000 to $40,000 (for married couples filing jointly and single filers). This higher cap applies from 2025 through 2029.Run the numbers: For 2025, the standard deduction is $31,500 for married couples and $15,750 for singles. If your total itemized deductions including mortgage interest, charitable giving, and state and local taxes (up to the new $40,000 cap) add up to more than your standard deduction, you should itemize.Watch your income: The new $40,000 SALT cap isn’t for everyone. It begins to phase out if your modified adjusted gross income is over $500,000 (for all filers). If your MAGI reaches $600,000, your SALT deduction reverts to the original $10,000 limit. Maximize the new targeted deductionsif you qualify The OBBBA introduced several temporary above-the-line deductions (available whether you itemize or not) to help middle-income workers. But they have very strict income and benefit limits.The qualified overtime pay deduction: Capped at $25,000 for married couples filing jointly and $12,500 for singles. Only the extra “half-time” portion of your time-and-a-half pay qualifies for the deduction. For a married couple, this benefit begins to disappear if your MAGI hits $300,000 and is entirely gone once your MAGI reaches $550,000.The qualified tips income deduction: Allows you to write off qualified tip income up to $25,000 per tax return, whether you file as married or single. The deduction is only available for tips that are formally reported on a Form W-2 or Form 1099. It phases out sharply for higher earners, starting at a MAGI of $300,000 for married couples and $150,000 for singles, and is fully eliminated at $550,000 and $400,000, respectively.The auto loan interest deduction: This temporary deduction allows you to write off up to $10,000 of interest paid on a loan for a new, personal-use vehicle with final assembly in the US. (Leases are excluded.) It starts to phase out at $200,000 for married couples and $100,000 for singles and is completely gone by $250,000 and $150,000. Seniors, time your 2026 Roth conversions carefully If you are 65 or older, the OBBBA offers a new, temporary deduction for seniors of up to $12,000 for married couples ($6,000 per eligible spouse) and $6,000 for single filers. This is a welcome tax break, but it’s fragile.Beware the MAGI trap: This deduction begins to disappear for married couples with a MAGI over $150,000 and for singles over $75,000.Model Roth conversions for 2026: If you are a senior who is close to the $150,000 MAGI limit, a Roth conversion done in 2026 could push your income over the threshold, causing you to lose this entire $12,000 deduction. Work with your adviser to model any planned 2026 conversions. Optimize income to qualify for the best breaks Many of the OBBBA’s most valuable temporary provisions are income-sensitive, particularly those new targeted deductions and the elevated SALT cap. Keep these rules in mind for 2025 filing and 2026 tax planning.For your 2025 return: You can still influence your 2025 MAGI by: Making 2025 HSA contributions (before the April 2026 tax deadline). Making 2025 deductible IRA contributions, if you’re eligible. Plan for 2026 income: If your 2026 income is likely to approach any phaseout thresholds (such as the $300,000 limit for tips/overtime or the $500,000 limit for the elevated SALT cap), consider strategies that help keep it within the qualifying range. Postponing the sale of highly appreciated stock to avoid realizing large capital gains in 2026. Delaying the exercise of nonqualified stock options if doing so would push you over a phaseout threshold. Maximizing 401(k) and health savings account contributions to reduce your 2026 MAGI. Holding off on large Roth conversions if they would increase your income above key limits. Don’t let the technical limitations and phaseouts catch you by surprise. With a little smart planning, you can lock in significant tax savings. This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.Sheryl Rowling, CPA, is an editorial director, financial adviser for Morningstar.Related Links How to Name a Charity as Your IRA Beneficiaryhttps://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/how-name-charity-your-ira-beneficiary 6 Steps to Claiming Your Baby’s Free $1,000 From Uncle Samhttps://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/6-steps-claiming-your-babys-free-1000-uncle-sam 8 Tips to Stop Worrying About Running Out of Money in Retirementhttps://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/8-tips-stop-worrying-about-running-out-money-retirement Sheryl Rowling of Morningstar
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