Suppose your giftee loves growing mushrooms but has graduated to more challenging varieties. In that case, North Spore makes an automated monotub ($150) that can be paired with either substrate or the brand’s fruiting blocks. It keeps the growing environment with the proper airflow and humidity, and I’ve grown so many mushrooms in mine that I’ve turned into a Crazy Mushroom Lady, leaving bags on neighbors’ porches and chasing down acquaintances in the grocery store.

(Note that the photo above shows golden oyster mushrooms, which mycologists are investigating as a potential invasive species. North Spore says it is currently phasing out its yellow oyster mushroom kits while it works on developing a sporeless strain.)

Grow Your Own Medicinal Herbs

I get pitched a lot of gardening-related books for this guide, but this new-release hardcover from Texas-based gardening influencer Vanessa Minton, of From the Garden, is one of the more useful and well-organized ones I’ve seen in a long time. It’d make a great gift for those interested in natural medicine or just gardening in general. You can start with the basics, like design, hardiness zones, and soil requirements, or search by plant—each plant page provides the medicinal properties, growing and planting information, and ways it can be used (infused oil, tincture, tea, poultice, syrup). The recipes for things like infused salts, herbal teas, and syrups are detailed yet easy to follow, but it’s also just plain fun to read straight through.

A Decorative Indoor Trellis and Plant Saucers

If your friend or loved one is supporting their vines or floppy potted plants with bendable moss poles or, worse, a jerry-rigged ladder made out of duct taped pencils (it was an emergency, OK?), treat them to one of these hand-finished, laser-cut plant supports. There are staked and modular versions (my favorite is the wonderful-smelling, extendable redwood Zella) as well as coasters, wall mounts, and saucers that water your plants from the bottom. I have tested many of them—including the classic versions—and all have added a dash of style while lending critical structure to floppy and vining plants. Can’t pick just one? Check out Treleaf’s collection of gift bundles.

Succulents in the Mail

Lula’s Garden’s heart-shaped box is featured in our guide to the Best Flower Delivery Services, and since then, I have had multiple people recommend the brand to me. I have now tried it, and I have to agree—this is an excellent gift. It’s fun, stylish, and priced the same as or even less than transient flowers. Not everyone is inclined to take care of a houseplant, but succulents are super easy to care for, and the box they arrive in doubles as a planter. All you have to do is unbox and use the included pipette to add a few squirts of water. The gardens are contemporary yet neutral enough to fit in with just about any decor. Just a heads up that unboxing the gardens that come with rocks (like the Bliss) may be a little messy, but the more premium gardens (like the Urban) don’t have any loose parts and come out of the box looking exactly as they do online.

For Making Compost Indoors

Reencle

Prime Electric Composter

As seen in our guide to the Best Kitchen Composters, the Reencle Prime doesn’t fully make ready-to-use compost, but it comes the closest out of any of the major brands. It functions a lot like a heated trash can—just throw your kitchen scraps in, and microbes will break them down over time into a sort of loamy mixture. When the volume of the Prime reaches the fill line, the mixture can be scooped out and added at a 1:4 ratio with potting soil, then left to cure for three weeks. After this, it can be used for both outdoor and indoor plants. Not only will it free up space in your giftee’s trash can and cut down on dangerous greenhouse gas production, it will make their plants happy.

Modular Landscape Blocks

It’s frustrating to spend untold time and money on your garden vision, only to find that landscaping elements like real rock walls and edging can cost thousands of dollars. If your giftee loves making their garden pop, these PolyRock blocks come in modular, six-block sections about 4 feet long. They slot neatly together like Legos, look exactly like real rock, and are flexible, so you can use them straight or curve them into a circle. No digging or leveling is required, and they’re easy to detach and move around if you change your mind or design plans. You can choose from gray, brown, black, or white tones. I have a strip of gray blocks installed along the front of my house, and more than one neighbor has thought it was real rock. The adjacent grass has even been cut with a string trimmer every week for months, and there’s still nary a scratch on the blocks.

A Do-It-All Cart

Gorilla

Poly Garden Dump Cart

Don’t torture yourself with an inefficient wheelbarrow! A garden cart might seem like an odd gift at first, but this is the all-category MVP of my yard and household. It not only carries mulch, plants, and yard tools, but it can also tote up to 600 pounds for the small version and 1,200 pounds for the large, which has allowed me to transport everything from giant pizza ovens to bags of smoker pellets. The cart’s got a quick-release dump latch on the front and pneumatic tires that handle mud and sand with no problem. I’ve tested other carts in the past, but this is the only one that has earned a permanent spot in my garage. If your giftee lives on a large plot of land or needs to transport a lot of pots or other supplies around their house, this will be an invaluable companion. Note that it will require some assembly, but it didn’t take more than an hour.

A Candle That Smells Like Tomatoes

You might be thinking: Why on earth would someone want a candle that smells like a tomato? I certainly did, when WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe crowned a tomato-scented candle as the overall best pick in her Guide to the Best Scented Candles. However, now that I’ve smelled it myself, along with a handful of other versions (LAFCO’s is my second favorite), I completely get it. I was immediately transported back to being amid sun-warmed tomato leaves in my grandfather’s garden, but my teen son, who doesn’t have the same association, also immediately recognized it as a distinctly summer smell. It’s warm and vegetal, but still sweet and fresh. It’s sure to remind your favorite gardener of the good times ahead.

A Quality Pair of Gloves

I’ve used a lot of gardening gloves over the years, but these two are my all-time favorites. Digz’s long-cuff garden gloves keep dirt, leaves, and other detritus out when you’re reaching down deep into something, and they’re invaluable for pulling out blackberry vines, goosegrass, and other long and/or sticky weeds. (Digz also makes some excellent tools with soft, ergonomic handles, but those aren’t as widely available.) If you’re looking for something sturdier, longer-lasting, and more versatile, Vermont Glove has been hand-sewing goat-leather gloves since 1920, and the Flatlander design dates from that time. These gloves are both ridiculously soft and insanely sturdy—my husband and I have both used them for all manner of yard work, including pulling thorny weeds, and they have stood up beautifully despite their lightweight feel.

Charlie Javice, the convicted Frank founder, is reportedly seeking a presidential pardon, with her camp quietly courting people close to the Trump administration, according to the WSJ. So far, her name hasn’t turned up on a formal clemency request list at the Justice Department, it adds.

That list is growing fast. As the administration reportedly weighs handing out roughly 250 pardons this summer to mark America’s 250th birthday, a wave of clemency requests is pouring in from white-collar defendants — including Sam Bankman-Fried.

JPMorgan can’t be pleased by any of this. Last September, Javice was found guilty of fabricating millions of customer accounts to inflate her startup’s value before selling it to the bank for $175 million. She’s now serving more than seven years and is appealing, arguing the case against her was unfair.

The bank may have extra cause for concern given its relationship with President Trump. In early 2021, it closed accounts tied to Trump and his businesses shortly after the January 6 Capitol riot, a move that Trump has since called political “debanking,” suing JPMorgan and CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion. (JPMorgan denies any political motive.)

Javice has powerful friends, too, including Apollo’s Marc Rowan, an early Frank investor who testified on her behalf at trial. Rowan has donated to Trump’s campaigns and, since his reelection, has given millions more to Republican congressional groups.

A hot potato: Several police officers across multiple states and jurisdictions have been arrested in recent months for allegedly using AI-powered Flock license plate readers to stalk their ex-partners. Marketed to law enforcement as a public safety tool designed to help catch criminals, the cameras have faced significant backlash from civil rights activists over privacy concerns.

According to reports from various local and national news outlets, at least 18 police officers have either been arrested, fired, or placed under investigation for allegedly abusing data from Flock AI cameras to stalk their ex-partners. Investigators told 404 Media they believe the cases represent only the tip of the iceberg, suggesting that many incidents go unreported or are resolved informally with warnings rather than disciplinary action.

In one of the most egregious cases involving the misuse of Flock AI license plate readers, former Orange City, Florida police officer Jarmarus Brown was arrested in February. He is accused of repeatedly searching his ex-girlfriend’s license plates more than 100 times to track her movements and of sharing videos of her vehicle using his official agency-issued laptop over a seven-month period in 2024.

In March, Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala resigned after being accused by his ex-girlfriend of using Flock license plate readers to track her and her ex-partner across the city. He was later arrested and charged with one misdemeanor count of attempted misconduct in public office for allegedly using his authorized access to search the Flock license plate database 179 times for personal reasons.

In a separate case dating back to 2024, former Sedgwick, Kansas police chief Lee Nygaard was accused of tracking his ex-girlfriend’s vehicle 164 times between June and October 2023. He also allegedly ran her new boyfriend’s license plate 64 times and physically followed the couple in his police vehicle. Nygaard eventually resigned and admitted his actions were motivated by jealousy.

Several other cases involving law enforcement officials using their access to stalk and harass former partners have been reported across the country over the past several years. Privacy advocates argue that the true number of incidents is likely significantly higher, as many cases go unreported or are handled internally by agencies to avoid potential legal liability.

In response to growing concerns over surveillance and abuse of power, several police departments have ended their contracts with Flock Safety. According to a recent report, 53 municipalities across 20 states have either rejected or deactivated Flock cameras, with the Atlanta-based company also accused of attempting to limit public access to information about police searches of its license plate database.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is about to announce a ban on social media usage for children under the age of 16, according to multiple reports.

While the government had previously revealed that it was studying options around a ban, both the Guardian and the Financial Times said that Starmer is now ready to unveil the policy in a speech on Monday.

Government sources told the Guardian that the U.K. ban will cover a similar range of social platforms as Australia, where TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, X, Threads, Snapchat, Twitch, and Kick are all banned for users under 16.

Other products, such as gaming apps, would not be banned outright, but for their younger users, they’d need to remove features like the ability to chat with strangers. The policy would also prohibit users under 18 from accessing romantic and sexual chatbots and seek to prevent late-night scrolling.

The government can use its existing regulatory powers to enforce some aspects of a ban, but new legislation may also be required, the Guardian said.

The U.K. is one of a number of countries following Australia’s lead by considering bans on social media use by children. The U.K. already passed an age verification law that was similarly touted as protecting the safety of children online.

These bans come amidst growing discussion around the effect of social media usage on teens and children — for example, the mother of murdered teen Brianna Ghey has called for a teen social media ban in the U.K. and said her daughter’s eating order and self-harming behavior were “significantly exacerbated by the harmful content she was consuming online.”

At the same time, these bans have been criticized for potentially violating user privacy and isolating children, while offering unproven benefits to their mental health.

Age verification laws — which, unlike outright bans, have taken effect in multiple U.S. states — have also been criticized as threats to online privacy and anonymity. And the verification methods aren’t exactly foolproof.

Something to look forward to: Despite being one of the most important elements in modern networking applications, the Domain Name System is still one of the internet’s least secure technologies. Microsoft is looking to change the state of play by expanding the adoption of encrypted DNS traffic.

Microsoft recently announced that DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is now available on Windows Server 2025, providing encrypted DNS traffic for client-to-server communications. The feature has been available in Windows client editions for years and is now being extended to server-oriented versions of the operating system.

Microsoft notes that adding encryption support to DNS traffic can provide clear improvements in both network security and reliability. Previously available only as a public preview, the DoH feature is part of the Zero Trust architecture Microsoft is gradually implementing across its computing ecosystem. Zero Trust assumes that users and devices are not inherently trustworthy, which is why DoH adds an additional security layer by routing DNS traffic through HTTPS secured with TLS certificates.

Nearly every application, service, and workload still relies on DNS, a system that has been in use since 1985 yet continues to operate using unencrypted traffic for domain name resolution. By encrypting traffic between clients and servers, DoH can help prevent eavesdropping by malicious third parties.

Furthermore, encrypted traffic can help protect DNS data from tampering and verify the identity of the DNS server via HTTPS/TLS. Microsoft’s DoH implementation is based on the IETF DNS over HTTPS standard (RFC 8484), so it should work reliably with modern clients that comply with the specification. DoH can also integrate with existing infrastructure, such as the Windows DNS Server service. When needed, unencrypted DNS traffic can continue to operate alongside DoH.

After introducing DoH in preview form, Microsoft worked with external organizations to evaluate how real-world implementations would behave. The company is now confident that the feature will deliver meaningful security improvements without placing significant additional burden on system administrators. Organizations can therefore adopt DoH at their own pace while maintaining their existing unencrypted DNS infrastructure.

DNS over HTTPS is available for Windows Server 2025 systems updated to the latest Patch Tuesday release. Microsoft provides a detailed guide on enabling and validating the feature within the Windows Server DNS service. The company also notes that DNS traffic exchanged between two DNS servers is not encrypted by DoH.

Bottom line: The math behind AI subscriptions is starting to look uncomfortable. Flat monthly pricing helped fuel the rapid adoption of tools like ChatGPT and Claude, but new analysis suggests those fees may not come close to covering the actual cost of heavy use. As users push these systems harder and more demanding AI workflows take hold, the gap between revenue and compute costs is becoming difficult to ignore.

SemiAnalysis has calculated how big that gap really is. After testing subscription tiers from both OpenAI and Anthropic – running long-horizon coding and agentic tasks until weekly limits were exhausted – the firm found that the cost of theoretical maximum usage of these plans if priced at standard API rates far exceeds what users actually pay.

A $200 ChatGPT Pro 20x subscription could cost as much as $14,000 in API pricing if fully utilized. Anthropic’s Claude Max 20x plan, also priced at $200 per month, has a comparable ceiling, with potential usage totaling roughly $8,000 in token costs.

Those figures help explain why utilization rates matter so much to the AI companies offering them. According to SemiAnalysis, Anthropic breaks even on Claude Pro and Claude Max 5x at around 20% utilization. OpenAI’s margin is thinner. It begins losing money on ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro 5x once usage climbs above 11.4%.

– SemiAnalysis (@SemiAnalysis_) June 10, 2026

The economics get tighter at the high end. Anthropic reaches zero gross margin at roughly 10% utilization on its top-tier plans, while OpenAI crosses into negative territory at just 5.7%. It doesn’t take extreme use for these subscriptions to turn unprofitable.

Adjusting pricing or restricting access is not a straightforward fix. Subscription models have been central to user growth, and pulling back risks slowing momentum in a market where capabilities remain a key competitive differentiator.

Part of the pressure comes from how AI is actually being used. Token consumption is rising quickly, especially with agentic systems that can require up to 1,000 times more tokens than a standard prompt. That kind of demand is already forcing large organizations to rethink how freely these tools should be deployed.

Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon have reportedly pulled back from internal efforts that encouraged heavy usage after costs escalated. In one widely cited example, a company burned through $500 million in a single month using Anthropic’s Claude, largely because it failed to put limits on employee access.

That kind of overspending is pushing companies toward more controlled approaches. One strategy gaining traction is to shift workloads between models depending on the task. More complex queries go to expensive frontier models, while routine work is handled by cheaper alternatives.

– Dong Ming (@dming) June 14, 2026

The savings can be substantial. A Wall Street Journal report found that routing tasks this way can cut costs by up to 95%. “You don’t need a model that knows quantum gravity,” Columbia University vice dean Vishal Misra told the publication. “These open-source models are very capable, and the ability to charge a big premium for AI is going to diminish.”

Some companies have already made the shift. Flo Crivello, founder and CEO of AI assistant startup Lindy, announced that the company moved 100% of its traffic to DeepSeek V4, switching entirely away from Anthropic’s models. DeepSeek V4 proved comparable to Claude Sonnet at a fraction of the cost, and the move has “saved the company millions of dollars,” Crivello said.

Others are going further by building their own AI systems on top of open-source models trained on internal data. While that requires more upfront investment, it offers tighter cost control and reduces dependence on third-party providers. In some cases, these tailored systems may even outperform general-purpose frontier models for specific use cases.

There is some expectation that costs will ease over time. As infrastructure expands and newer models replace older ones, the cost of running mid-tier systems should decline. SemiAnalysis suggests that models at the Opus 4.8 level could eventually be delivered profitably for around $20 per month.

That does not apply to the most advanced systems, though. Frontier models, including those still in development, remain expensive to run. Their highest-end capabilities may increasingly be priced via APIs rather than bundled into consumer subscriptions.

For now, AI providers are juggling two forces: users want powerful tools at low, predictable monthly prices, but the infrastructure to run them remains costly and highly sensitive to usage. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged the tension, noting that rising token costs are becoming a serious issue and that the company is working to help users “get more value for less spend” when using ChatGPT.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday that the US export ban that forced Anthropic to shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5 demonstrates the danger of depending on a small number of powerful AI models. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Ireland, Carney framed the suspension as a warning about systemic vulnerability rather than a failure by any single company.

“The situation we’re in collectively right now with Mythos and Fable is something that can happen with over-reliance on certain models,” Carney said. “Nobody’s done anything wrong in this situation, but we will have done something wrong if we just accept this, don’t take the lesson, don’t build out and diversify.”

The former central banker then drew a direct parallel to the 2008 financial crisis. Carney, who led both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England before entering politics, said “we have similar things in terms of model risk” and called for redundancy and diversity in AI infrastructure, the same principles regulators imposed on the banking system after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The analogy carries weight because of who is making it. Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 crisis and subsequently became the first non-British governor of the Bank of England, where he spent six years strengthening financial system resilience. When he warns that concentrated AI dependence mirrors the systemic linkages that nearly destroyed the global banking system, the comparison draws on direct experience rather than rhetorical convenience.

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Carney said there is a “good flow of information” between the Canadian and US governments on AI and acknowledged that Washington has identified “some risks” with Anthropic’s latest models. But his emphasis was on the structural lesson, not the specific dispute between Anthropic and the US Commerce Department.

The comments arrive days before the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, which runs from 15 to 17 June and has AI governance prominently on its agenda. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis are all slated to attend a working lunch with G7 leaders on Wednesday. Carney said he has already discussed AI with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“We need to make progress” on AI, Carney said, but cautioned that “there will not be a mission accomplished banner that comes out of the G7.” The remark suggests Canada will push for substantive commitments on AI diversification at Évian rather than symbolic declarations.

Canada has been positioning itself on this front. On 4 June, Carney launched “AI for All,” a $2.3 billion national AI strategy that includes sovereign computing infrastructure, a national supercomputer, and plans to raise business AI adoption from 12% to 60% by 2034. The strategy explicitly frames dependence on foreign cloud providers as a vulnerability.

The Anthropic suspension has now given Carney a concrete, real-time example to cite at the G7. A US government decision to invoke export controls against a single AI company cut off access to its most capable models for every user outside the United States, including allies. For G7 nations building their economies around AI capabilities they do not control, the implications are difficult to ignore.

Carney’s Ireland visit also produced a bilateral agreement between Canada and Ireland on AI cooperation, tech collaboration, and food security. Ireland currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, making it a strategic partner for Canada as it seeks to deepen ties with Europe on AI, defence, and critical minerals.

The broader pattern is accelerating. The EU published a tech sovereignty package earlier this month curbing US cloud dependence. India has proposed a $5 billion sovereign AI fund in the wake of the Anthropic suspension.

Britain’s Cosine is rallying BT, HSBC, and BAE to build a sovereign frontier model. Carney’s 2008 analogy suggests he sees these as early moves in a structural realignment, not isolated reactions.