Tech
The White Lotus Season 3 ending explained: Who died?

Between a last-minute crash out in the NCAA Final Four and Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) trying to kill his entire family, this has not been a good weekend for The White Lotus's Duke.
Surprisingly, though, none of the Ratliff family ended up in a body bag in the Season 3 finale of The White Lotus. Nor did Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), who appeared to be next on Greg's (Jon Gries) nefarious chopping block going into the episode.
So who did die, and how did things fare for the rest of our White Lotus staff and guests? Let's break it down.
Warning: There will be spoilers ahead. But you already knew that.
Rick, Chelsea, and Jim Hollinger all die in The White Lotus Season 3

Credit: Fabio Lovino / HBO
In the last episode, Rick (Walton Goggins) visited his father's murderer Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), intimidating him but refusing to kill him outright. The visit seems to have appeased him, because when he returns to the resort, he's lighter, more peaceful.
At dinner, Chelsea tells Rick that they're meant to be, bringing up the Latin phrase "amor fait," which is also the title of the finale.
"It means embrace your fate, good or bad," Chelsea tells Rick. "Whatever will be, will be. And at this point we're linked, so if a bad thing happens to you, it happens to me. I think we're gonna be together forever, don't you?"
"That's the plan," Rick replies.
In a devastatingly ironic twist, they're both right. Jim's arrival at the hotel the next morning reawakens Rick's anger, especially when Jim says, "I knew [your mother] was a drunk and a slut. Didn't know she was a liar too. Wanted you to think your father was some kind of great man. She told you a fairy tale, kid. Your father was no saint."
Nor is Rick's father dead! Turns out, Jim's been his father all along. If only he had communicated that clearly to his vengeful son instead of speaking in cryptic sayings, maybe he could have avoided what came next. Rick steals Jim's gun from his holster and kills him, meaning the first gunshots from the shootout that opened the season didn't come from the gun that kept changing hands from Timothy to Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). Instead, they came from Jim's gun.
In the ensuing shootout, Rick learns from Sritala (Lek Patravadi) that Jim was his father, takes out Jim's bodyguards, and then realizes that Chelsea has been caught in the crossfire. Chelsea's already had two brushes with death this season, namely the armed hotel robbery and the snake bite. With this final death blow, her prediction that all bad things come in threes comes true.
Rick isn't far behind, as Gaitok finds his killer instinct and shoots him with the hotel's gun. Chelsea and Rick float together in the river, their fates intertwined exactly the way Chelsea said they were at their last dinner together. Amor fati indeed.
Timothy cooks up a killer smoothie for the Ratliffs

Credit: Stefano Delia / HBO
Over on the Ratliff side of The White Lotus Season 3, Timothy is still reckoning with the fact that as soon as his family leaves the resort, they'll realize that they're losing everything. So what does he do? Tries to kill them, and himself.
He takes the fruit of the pong pong tree — known by locals as the "suicide tree" due to its poisonous seeds — and concocts cursed piña coladas for Victoria (Parker Posey), Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), and Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook). He tells Lochlan (Sam Nivola) that he can't partake because he isn't 21 yet, but the real reason comes down to a conversation they had earlier, when Lochlan said he thinks he could live and be happy without the family's money.
It's a stark contrast to the rest of the Ratliffs' relationship to wealth: Victoria has straight-up said she'd rather die than not be rich, Saxon put all his metaphorical eggs in Timothy's basket, and Piper returns from one night at the Buddhist center knowing she can't spend a year there as she won't be materially comfortable. Their misery terrifies Timothy to the point of attempted murder-suicide, but he changes his mind and saves his family from poisoning. (Between this and all the deadly dream sequences, it's a season of fake outs for the Ratliffs.)
And The White Lotus Season 3 has one last Ratliff death fake out in store! Lochlan uses Chekhov's blender to make a smoothie, Saxon-style, with the dregs of the piña coladas and some protein powder. (At least rinse the blender, dude.) The combination almost kills him, and in his unconscious state, he imagines himself swimming towards the surface of a pool. Four figures gaze down at him, but they aren't his family. Instead, they look like monks.
"I think I just saw God," Lochlan tells a panicking Timothy upon waking up, suggesting that his spiritual journey is just beginning.
So are the Ratliffs' troubles, as they use their phones for the first time on the boat out of the resort. Timothy claims they'll all get through these changes as a family, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that attitude will dissipate by the time they make it back to North Carolina.
Belinda gets rich and takes a move from Tanya's playbook

Credit: Fabio Lovino / HBO
By Season 3's end, Belinda is safe from Greg's clutches and $5 million richer. She and her business major son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) negotiate the sum in order for her to start a spa of her own, just like the dearly departed Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) once promised. The only catch? Belinda has to agree to keep her mouth shut about Greg's wrongdoings. Once adamant about going to the police, Belinda is now all too willing to keep quiet. Her silence has a price, and it's a brand-new spa!
However, Belinda doesn't want to stay too close to Greg for fear of his retaliation. She and Zion head back to the US as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the departure means saying goodbye to Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul) and reneging on their dream to create a wellness center together. Sound familiar? Belinda is basically doing to Pornchai what Tanya did to her, promising a spa and then taking it away. Here's hoping Pornchai can return in a later season and live out his dreams, Belinda-style. Justice for Pornchai!
What else happened in The White Lotus Season 3 finale?

Credit: Courtesy of HBO
The rest of the White Lotus guests and staff get their own happy endings as well. The trio of Laurie (Carrie Coon), Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), and Kate (Leslie Bibb) reaffirm their friendship following a tearful dinner together — including a sweet monologue from Laurie about finding meaning and belief in their prolonged time together. Plus, the three have that extra trauma bond of Jim getting shot in front of them. After that, they are inseparable (although I'm sure they'll still gossip from time to time).
Now a killer, Gaitok gets promoted to being Sritala's bodyguard, an upward move that's sure to work wonders in his relationship with Mook (Lalisa Manobal). He also decides not to report Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius) and his friends for robbery after Valentin's impassioned pleas that he stay silent. Valentin and his crew can live to party another day.
That does it for Season 3 of The White Lotus! Who's going to check in for Season 4? Who won't be checking out? And how are people still going to these notorious death trap hotels?
The White Lotus Season 3 is now streaming on Max.
Tech
Stop your AI subscriptions and get an all-in-one tool for life

TL;DR: Access dozens of top AI tools in one platform — 1min.AI bundles content, chat, design, audio, video, PDF, and more under a single lifetime license for just $79.97.
One of the bigger annoyances of the digital age is the subscription model. Juggling a half-dozen AI tools, each with its own login credentials, pricing tiers, and learning curve, is exhausting. That’s why 1min.AI can be a helpful alternative to the usual chaos.
It’s like your favorite productivity cheat code — an all-in-one platform that brings together top-tier AI features for writing, design, video, audio, and more under a single dashboard. And you can get a lifetime subscription to the Advanced Business Plan for just $79.97 (down from the MSRP of $540) — with no recurring fees, ever.
Need blog posts written in your brand voice? Check. Want to generate YouTube thumbnails, edit PDFs with AI, or even clean up audio? Covered. From chatting with advanced models like GPT-4o and Claude 3 to turning PDFs into summaries, translating audio, or batch-generating marketing copy, 1min.AI does it fast — like, one-minute fast. That’s the whole point.
Whether you’re a solo creator or running a small team, 1min.AI simplifies your stack. You’ll have access to multiple flagship models like GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama, plus unlimited brand voice slots, unlimited prompt storage, and 4,000,000 credits/month to spend on whatever you want to make.
If you’re tired of managing a spreadsheet of AI tools (we’ve been there), this is your chance to condense it all into one slick, ever-evolving platform — without the subscription guilt of drain.
Get lifetime access to the 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan for just $79.97 while you can and streamline your digital tools forever.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Tech
Anthropic reportedly cut OpenAI access to Claude

It seems OpenAI has been caught with its hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Anthropic has reportedly cut off OpenAI’s access to Anthropic’s APIs over what Anthropic is calling a terms of service breach.
As reported by Wired, multiple sources claim that OpenAI has been cut off from Anthropic’s APIs. Allegedly, OpenAI was using Anthropic’s Claude Code to assist in creating and testing OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5, which is due to release in August.
According to these sources, OpenAI was plugging into Claude’s internal tools instead of using the chat interface. From there, they used the API to run tests against GPT-5 to check things like coding and creative writing against Claude to compare performance. OpenAI allegedly also tested safety prompts related to things like CSAM, self-harm, and defamation. This would give OpenAI data that it could then use to fine-tune GPT-5 to make it more competitive against Claude.
Unfortunately for OpenAI, this violates Anthropic’s commercial terms of service, which ban companies from using Anthropic’s tools to build competitor AI products.
“Customer may not and must not attempt to access the Services to build a competing product or service, including to train competing AI models or resell the Services except as expressly approved by Anthropic,” the terms read.
OpenAI responded by saying that what the company was doing was an industry standard, as all the AI companies test their models against the competing models. The company then went on to say that it respected Anthropic’s decision but expressed disappointment in having its API access shut off, especially considering that Anthropic’s access to OpenAI’s API remains open.
A spokesperson told Wired that OpenAI’s access would be reinstated for “benchmarking and safety evaluations.”
It’s not the first time this year that Anthropic has cut off API access. In June, the company cut off Windsurf’s API access after rumors that it was being sold to OpenAI. That deal ultimately fell through, but Anthropic’s cofounder, Jared Kaplan, told TechCrunch at the time that “it would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI.”
Anthropic has also tweaked its rate limits for Claude, which will take effect in late August, with one of the reasons being that a small number of users are violating the company’s policy by sharing and reselling accounts.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
Tech
Amazon is toying around with putting ads in Alexa+

It’s the end of another quarter, which means it’s time for yet another earnings call with concerning ideas for generating more revenue. This time around, it's Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who told shareholders on Thursday that there’s “significant financial opportunity” in delivering ads through Alexa+, the company’s new AI-powered voice assistant.
“I think over time, there will be opportunities, you know, as people are engaging in more multi-turn conversations to have advertising play a role — to help people find discovery and also as a lever to drive revenue,” Jassy said, per the investor call transcript.
Since launching earlier this year, Alexa+ has reportedly reached millions of users. Unlike the original Alexa, which mostly turns off lights and sets timers, Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational, context-aware, and AI-driven. It can help you plan your date night, entertain your kids, and even dabble in basic image and video generation — all under the banner of your $14.99/month Prime subscription.
But so far, Amazon Alexa has been an ad-free experience. It's also more than 10 years old, and it doesn't make money; thus, it's been deemed a "colossal failure" by those within the company.
Of course, Amazon isn’t alone in trying to figure out how to make AI pay for itself. Both Google and OpenAI have explored ad integration in their AI products as a way to generate revenue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in particular, has made a notable pivot: once firmly against advertising in his chatbot, he’s since reversed course, possibly opening the door for ads in future versions of ChatGPT.
Whatever the motivation, injecting ads into Alexa+ would mark a major shift in both user experience and Amazon’s strategy, especially given the assistant’s long history of being expensive to maintain and hard to monetize. Ad-supported Alexa+ could be Amazon’s attempt to finally turn its once-money-burning smart assistant into a revenue machine, without hiking the subscription fee (at least for now).
Alexa+ is still new, and what an ad-supported experience would actually look like remains unclear. According to Jassy, the idea is to frame ads as helpful, something to assist customers in discovering products they might be interested in buying.
-
Entertainment5 months ago
New Kid and Family Movies in 2025: Calendar of Release Dates (Updating)
-
Tech5 months ago
The best sexting apps in 2025
-
Tech5 months ago
Every potential TikTok buyer we know about
-
Tech5 months ago
iOS 18.4 developer beta released — heres what you can expect
-
Politics5 months ago
DOGE-ing toward the best Department of Defense ever
-
Tech6 months ago
Are You an RSSMasher?
-
Politics5 months ago
Toxic RINO Susan Collins Is a “NO” on Kash Patel, Trashes Him Ahead of Confirmation Vote
-
Politics5 months ago
After Targeting Chuck Schumer, Acting DC US Attorney Ed Martin Expands ‘Operation Whirlwind’ to Investigate Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia for Calling for “Actual Weapons” Against Elon Musk