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Banana Ball, a quirky version of baseball that’s growing in popularity, is coming to Walt Disney World in 2026. The sport, which began in Savannah in 2020, has six teams; starting next year, the league will be called the Banana Ball Championship League. Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex will be hosting games on May 29 and 30, 2026. The Loco Beach Coconuts team will play the Party Animals at the complex. The Stadium, part of the complex, has 9,600 seats in addition to four luxury skyboxes and open-air suites. Part of the appeal of Banana Ball is that the fans are involved.…

This has been a big week for AI companies signing enterprise deals, with Zendesk unveiling new AI agents that are supposed to be able to resolve 80% of customer service issues, Anthropic and IBM announcing a strategic partnership, and Deloitte also announcing a deal with Anthropic. Plus, Google announced a new AI-for-business platform. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be smooth sailing for big organizations using AI. In fact, the timing of the Deloitte announcement was a bit awkward, coming on the same day the Australia Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said the professional services and consulting firm would…

Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) has unveiled its 2027 lineup of Private Jet journeys.“What sets A&K’s Private Jet journeys apart is the exclusivity of the experiences,” said Rami Girgis, Director, Private Jet at Abercrombie & Kent. “From after-hours access at iconic world landmarks to conversations with people who shaped history, every moment is designed to be unforgettable. That’s why so many of our guests return year after year – knowing these are encounters even the most seasoned travelers could not arrange on their own.” A&K 2027 Collection includes:Wild Wonders: Around the World by Private JetFebruary 4-25, 2027 | 22 days from…

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has pushed back on local media reports suggesting it plans to open an office in India, with a general partner calling the coverage “entirely fake news.” Earlier on Thursday, Indian media outlets reported that a16z was preparing to establish a physical presence in the country by setting up an office in Bengaluru. The reports, which cited unnamed sources, also said the firm was in the process of hiring a local partner. However, Anish Acharya, a Bay Area-based general partner at a16z who has spent the last six years with the firm, dismissed the reports.…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Marc Maron drops the 1,686th and final episode of his “WTF” podcast Monday.The show began with the comic and actor mainly interviewing stand-up comedians. Maron would go on to talk to legends of music and Hollywood, and a sitting president.Here’s a look at seven essential episodes from the 16-year history of the pioneering longform interview podcast.Robin Williams “WTF” episode No. 67, April 26, 2010Fairly famous names had come on Maron’s podcast from its 2009 debut, but Robin Williams, the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy winner and luminary of the stand-up stage, was a huge get just seven…

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Thursday tweeted a video of his company’s first deployed massive AI system — or AI “factory” as Nvidia likes to call them. He promised this is the “first of many” such Nvidia AI factories that will be deployed across Microsoft Azure’s global data centers to run OpenAI workloads. Each system is a cluster of more than 4,600 Nvidia GB300 rack computers sporting the much-in-demand Blackwell Ultra GPU chip and connected via Nvidia’s super-fast networking tech called InfiniBand. (Besides AI chips, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also had the foresight to corner the market on InfiniBand when…

The U.S. government shutdown continues to negatively impact travel as it moves into its second week, with both Republicans and Democrats continuing to point fingers at one another across the aisle.Now, a new video from the Trump administration being aired at airports across the U.S. shows Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the ongoing work stoppage that continues to impact travel, mainly flights, as a result of air traffic controllers and TSA officers being forced to work without pay. “Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted…

Super.money, a financial service platform spun off last year by Walmart-owned Flipkart, has quietly partnered with payments infrastructure firm Juspay as it expands into direct-to-consumer (D2C) checkout and targets $100 million in annual revenue by 2026. The partnership comes as Juspay works to rebuild momentum after facing pushback from major payment companies earlier this year — a dispute that complicated its fundraising efforts. Last week, Super.money launched its D2C checkout product, Super.money Breeze, which promises merchants a one-click checkout experience and aims to speed up online purchases by removing one-time passwords and repeated logins. The company did not disclose any…

NEW YORK (AP) — Former first lady Michelle Obama is putting new force behind efforts to ensure girls overcome educational barriers in some of the world’s most economically disadvantaged areas.The Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance pledged Saturday to rally $2.5 million for dozens of grassroots groups who advance adolescent girls’ education by covering school-related costs, challenging patriarchal practices such as child marriage, counseling survivors of sexual abuse and providing other forms of support.“These groups are changing the way girls see themselves in their own communities and in our world, helping create the leaders we need for the brighter future we…

In a development born of the government shutdown, the SEC announced Thursday that companies can proceed with IPOs using an obscure automatic approval process, now with the added bonus of skipping pricing information entirely. What’s happening is that with 90% of SEC staff furloughed, startups can file their paperwork and have it automatically become effective after 20 days. This option always existed; firms just rarely use it because they prefer having SEC reviewers actually look at their disclosures before going public. The difference here is that the SEC won’t penalize companies for omitting pricing or “price-dependent information” during the shutdown,…