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Opinion: Did climate predictions hold up?

A retrospective analysis shows the 1990 IPCC report correctly predicted much of today's climate crisis due to lack of action.

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Sep 3 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • concordmonitor.com
Not Prime. Not Delivery. This Business Holds the Key to Amazon's Future.

Amazon Web Services is providing the growth Amazon needs to be a market-crushing investment.

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Sep 3 • 5:32 AM EDT • Business • fool.com
Game day parking shifts as UT begins entertainment district construction

Season ticket holders now required to donate to priority fund for G-10 spots

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Sep 2 • 11:13 PM EDT • Entertainment • wvlt.tv
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Jones County Health Department to host Oct. 3 rabies clinic for dogs and cats

The Jones County Health Department will hold a rabies vaccination clinic for dogs and cats on Saturday, Oct. 3.JCHD said The clinic will be held from 9:00 a.m.

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Sep 2 • 9:50 PM EDT • Health • wcti12.com
Budget deal puts political control of grants on hold until December

Congress pauses the OMB's attempt to rewrite how research is funded.

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Sep 2 • 5:20 PM EDT • Politics • arstechnica.com
Prime Video becomes local streaming home for six NHL teams

Prime Video will be the exclusive local streaming home for six NHL teams next season. Prime Video and the NHL jointly announced Wednesday that the streamer is now the local rights holder for the Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, and St. Louis Blues, each within that team’s own regional…

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Sep 2 • 4:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
NOAA Fisheries Outlines Science-Based Reforms to Boost American Seafood Production

NOAA Fisheries has released a set of agency-level reform priorities designed to advance science-based fisheries management and strengthen American seafood competitiveness, following input from more than 700 stakeholders and building toward a broader interagency America First Seafood Strategy expected in the coming…

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Sep 2 • 1:20 PM EDT • Science • ecomagazine.com
Luk Hing Entertainment Group Announces Termination Of Subscription Agreement

Luk Hing Entertainment Group Holdings Ltd HKEX:8052:

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Sep 2 • 12:22 PM EDT • Entertainment • tradingview.com
DLSS 5 Tests Reveal A Single 12V-2×6 Power Connector Is Possibly Holding Back The GeForce RTX 5090

RTX 5090 Founders Edition struggles at 575W while dual power connector MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z pulls 723W, revealing a 17% performance gap with DLSS 5

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Sep 2 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com
For the first time, a key UN report says the 1.5 C global warming threshold is lost

In a strategic retreat in the fight against climate change, the United Nations has acknowledged that Earth has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst of global warming's harms. Officials say the world must now figure out how to get temperatures below the danger zone and back to safety.

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Sep 2 • 11:58 AM EDT • Science • cbc.ca
Entertainment Arts (OTC: EARI) plans sale of 600 million new shares—how much cash could it bring in?

Offering covers 600M shares at $0.005, with estimated $2.775M net to EARI. Filing shows a $4.18M stockholders’ deficit and no revenue for the period.

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Sep 2 • 11:29 AM EDT • Entertainment • stocktitan.net
'Toy Story 5' Continues Reign Atop Weekly U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through Sept. 2

Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 remained No. 1 on the Official Film Chart, the weekly U.K. home entertainment sales chart through, through Sept. 2. The rest of the top four remains unchanged this week, with Focus Features’ supernatural horror film Obsession holding at No. 2 in its ninth week on the chart, and Universal’s animated adventure … Continue reading "‘Toy Story 5’ Continues Reign Atop Weekly U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through Sept. 2"

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Sep 2 • 9:40 AM EDT • Entertainment • mediaplaynews.com
'Toy Story 5' Continues Reign Atop Weekly U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through Sept. 2

Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 remained No. 1 on the Official Film Chart, the weekly U.Sk. home entertainment sales chart through, through Sept. 2. The rest of the Top 4 remains unchanged this week, with Focus Features’ supernatural horror Obsession holding at No. 2 in its ninth week on the chart, and Universal’s animated adventure Minions … Continue reading "‘Toy Story 5’ Continues Reign Atop Weekly U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through Sept. 2"

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Sep 2 • 9:40 AM EDT • Entertainment • mediaplaynews.com
Berkshire CEO Abel sees opportunity for energy business from AI

Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Greg Abel said on Wednesday he sees significant ​opportunities for the conglomerate's energy business ‌from the buildout of AI data centers, after Berkshire made Google parent Alphabet its third-largest common stock ​holding.

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Sep 2 • 7:30 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com
Venus May Once Have Suffered A "Moon-Forming" Impact, But The Resulting Satellite Wouldn't Have Stuck Around For Long

It seems a large companion is difficult for a planet that size and distance from the Sun to hold on to, which might be bad news for life on Venus-like exoplanets.

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Sep 2 • 6:49 AM EDT • Science • iflscience.com
MM 9.2: Maryland athletics holds fall sports media day

This is the Maryland Minute, a short story followed by a roundup of Terps-related news.

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Sep 2 • 6:30 AM EDT • Sports • testudotimes.com
HK-Listed Macau Firm Asia Pioneer Entertainment (8400.HK) H1 Profit Surges 90-Fold Targets Overseas Expansion for Future Growth

/PRNewswire/ -- Asia Pioneer Entertainment Holdings Limited ("APE" or the "Company"; Stock Code: 8400.HK), a leading Macau-based Electronic Gaming Equipment...

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Sep 2 • 5:35 AM EDT • Entertainment • prnewswire.com
Forget Galaxy Z TriFold: The world’s first tri-fold phone just got a successor

You can't get the Galaxy Z TriFold anymore, but the original triple-folding device just got a successor. Behold the Huawei Mate XT 2.

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Sep 2 • 5:34 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com
Skip Bayless Criticizes ‘Outrageously Wrong’ Shedeur Sanders Situation

Skip Bayless believes Shedeur Sanders has been placed in an unfair situation with the Cleveland Browns, and the outspoken sports commentator did not hold back in his latest criticism of the organization. Bayless described the quarterback’s circumstances as outrageously wrong after another development complicated his path to meaningful playing time. Sanders entered the 2026 season […] The post Skip Bayless Criticizes ‘Outrageously Wrong’ Shedeur Sanders Situation appeared first on Gridiron Heroic

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Sep 2 • 5:28 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
August Monthly Review: ChatGPT In Epic

Death, taxes, another frontier lab healthcare launch inspiring truly insane LinkedIn takes. As much as I want to stay away, I repeatedly am the crewman unplugging his ears whenever we pass these sirens. So it’s not the first and probably not the last time we dial up the typewriter rather than tie ourselves to the mast. The full blow-by-blow timeline: Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe The End of the Standalone PHR (Jan 8): ChatGPT Health arrives for consumers, at the time powered by b.well. I was bullish on the approach in that the best way for the PHR to finally solve distribution was to meet consumers were they already are (i.e. When Horizontal Meets Healthcare (Jan 9): OpenAI for Healthcare puts out the shingle for enterprises, with SharePoint ingestion standing in for the EHR integration the product actually needed. Another One: Anthropic’s Healthcare Debut (Jan 16): Claude's version, on HealthEx rails instead of b.well, with Agent Skills for FHIR development as the one true vertical-specific investment. ChatGPT for Clinicians: The Trap Sprung (Apr 24): OpenAI filled in the missing GTM middle with a free product for verified clinicians, effectively peeling the enterprise wrapper off ChatGPT for Healthcare and taking the PLG fight directly to OpenEvidence. OpenAI’s Second Attempt at Health (Jul 31): a relaunch of their patient specific app, now branded Health in ChatGPT, where the privacy partition came out, the connectors thinned, and b.well disappeared in favor of first-party FHIR work against a smaller network Beyond a Shingle So what was announced now? Today, we’re introducing a new electronic health record integration that brings authorized patient context from Epic into ChatGPT for Healthcare, along with the Healthcare Public Data plugin for direct, structured access to official healthcare datasets like PubMed, DailyMed, and CMS Coverage. Together, these capabilities bring ChatGPT closer to the systems and sources healthcare teams trust, while supporting the controls and compliance healthcare work requires. The core portfolio is unchanged from prior announcements we delineated and discussed (aside from the relaunch of patient-facing). Since trade publications still seem to be confusing them by using the wrong names: Enterprise sales motion: ChatGPT for Healthcare Protecting their core product / PLG: ChatGPT for Clinicians Consumer/patient-facing product: Health in ChatGPT So really, this is a feature release (specifically for ChatGPT for Healthcare when it comes to EHR integration). What’s cool about it, though, is that we are moving beyond just putting out a shingle. Everything in the January enterprise launch was horizontalizable: Horizontal tech companies thus generally start verticalization with their “putting out a shingle phase”. Telling the world you’re open for business as a horizontal tech company reliably attracts early inbound interest from buyers who are already trying to force-fit horizontal tools into domain-specific workflows and are eager for any signal that the vendor intends to support their use case more directly. Nothing was really vertical specific, which is exactly what you'd expect from the ultimate hypergrowth horizontal company dipping their toes into specific industries. But eventually you have to stop changing the sign on the door and start changing the product. Can you guess where the horizontal product was going to run out of road? This is the core dilemma writ large: verticalization requires differentiation, while scale economics of consumer and horizontal push toward unification. I’ve buried the lede so deep here it will be painful to some readers, but what should be shocking to no one is that my perspective is that EHR integration is the only path that meaningfully resolves this tension for ChatGPT for Healthcare. Integration with Microsoft Sharepoint is fine, but it is categorically insufficient for any product that hopes to influence clinical decision-making. SMART Money Well here we are, eight months later! Real vertical investment has begun, which surprised a few people. One friend in the industry messaged me: “Absolutely no way Epic gave ChatGPT API access.” Looking forensically at the announcements, the integration is notably read-only across appointment notes, laboratory results, medications, and specialist documentation. So while I’m not a betting man, I'd wager the house this is a SMART on FHIR launch: That sounds a lot like USCDI! The recommended path for the workflow they outline would be SMART on FHIR Their Health AI lead’s post is evocative of both standalone and EHR launch SMART, which another termed “ChartGPT” and “EHR Plugin” The implementation burden for SMART on FHIR is the lowest of the available integrative paths This is the team who literally did patient-facing SMART on FHIR with Epic last month Most importantly, if you’re a horizontal company, you generally still haven’t taken the full plunge and thus (overly) value reusability. SMART on FHIR is the logical compromise: healthcare-specific enough to matter, but standardized enough to reuse. Nobody Asked Judy Another friend asked “I thought they had to go to each health system, or did they go direct to Epic and now health systems opt in?” Given the trust paradigms in healthcare, this functionally cannot be Epic hoovering up all the data for OpenAI and shoving ChatGPT in their customers’ faces (or they would revolt). However, I do believe the aforementioned terrible coverage by TechCrunch and other outlets is probably responsible for that question, given the 325 million reference. When using FHIR as a business associate to an Epic customer, there is no EHR gatekeeping to speak of, as that isn’t how fhir.epic.com works: You register an app You pick your APIs You test against the sandbox APIs You list as “Ready for Production” Hospitals pick your app You test and go live with them Bluntly, nobody had to say yes or no in Verona (nor were they given the chance). Vendor Services (their next developer tier up that I doubt OpenAI is using quite yet in this initial release) certainly has contractual paperwork that some resent, but even there, the twin pressures of mounting antitrust and information blocking make outright gatekeeping increasingly fraught. My friend’s sentiment is, to me, representative of a broader industry neurosis, perhaps a sort of scar tissue of prior eras: people assume the gate is still there and never actually try the door. There are certainly other ways Epic (and any EHR) can put its thumb on the scale, but they are not so dumb as to stand in front of a federally mandated API and play bouncer at this exact moment in time. So I think they can and probably should go deeper, as this release is at best parity and at worst behind vertical-specific competition. OpenEvidence did a basic SMART launch with Sutter Health in February, allowing for more convenient evidence search by providers. They then add patient-context (the equivalent SMART on FHIR flow to what we see here) when Cedars-Sinai went enterprise-wide in May. UpToDate has four distinct applications across deeper workflows like patient engagement listed in Epic Showroom and announced a partnership with Epic to power Art at UGM Abridge and other ambient scribes have invested deeply into the deepest bidirectional clinical copilot workflow with integrations well beyond SMART on FHIR. In that light, the “Who is OpenAI primarily targeting here?” is clear. This release brings them into striking distance of OpenEvidence, but not the others quite yet. They are the only one of the three you can reach without building something truly Epic-specific. When will they go further? Competition is a great motivator to overcome the horizontal demons and start building things that can’t be reused: not across industries, not across EHRs, maybe not past the customer you built them for. That’s the price of actually verticalizing. The question is if and when OpenAI will be willing to pay it. Month in Review Here is the monthly review. As a reminder, this is a regular round-up of the month’s posts and other content to surface things you may have missed across regulation, litigation, interoperability, and beyond. AI assistance is used in these bullet summaries so I can focus on articles. Articles Published: None this month Video Content: The Information Exchange: Standards-based Thruple Edition (Aug 14): Back to school for us too, with Brad reporting in from the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem’s one year anniversary in DC. We get into the January CMS-0057 deadline, the fall rulemaking reading list, and why enrollment still keeps most apps off FHIR. The Information Exchange: Epic Dúnadan Edition (Aug 25): A UGM roundup with Ryan Brickner joining for the first time to check our takes against what the building actually thinks. Rangers, Ergo sitting on top of EHI, and a down-market lineup that needs some cuts. Regulatory: Stacked Deck, Bad Hand (Aug 05): ONC’s website refresh took the entire HIT Policy Committee record with it, so I rebuilt the archive and went looking for the regulatory capture story everyone assumes is buried in there. Stacking the deck and winning the hand turn out to be very different things. The Sixth Generation of Patient Access (Aug 19): A quick catalog of the five generations of patient access we’ve layered on since HIPAA, and the two candidates now competing to be the sixth. One is planned. The other is the market routing around the plan entirely. Court cases: Three Cases Walk Into a Docket (Aug 06): Two surprise settlements cleared the board in a single week, and then Judge Maddox dropped ninety-four pages on Vyne v. Henry Schein. The sleeper is a DMCA holding that makes direct-to-database a considerably riskier business model. Epic v. Health Gorilla: Into the MDL (Aug 10): Nine class actions are headed to Miami, and the Panel signaled it wants to bring the case that spawned them along too. That would leave Epic arguing the requests were obviously fraudulent in one courtroom and unknowable in the other. Amazon v. Perplexity: Agents Are Legalized! (Aug 11): The Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction against Comet, holding that the user is the one accessing the servers rather than the company that built the agent. A real win for agentic access, and a much narrower one than the headline suggests. Veeva v. Epic: Come At Me, Bro (Aug 26): Epic’s response brief wants the dismissal affirmed and, unusually, wants the opinion published as precedent. Buried in it is Epic’s own description of what its non-competes actually prohibit, which current and former employees should read closely. EHRs: The Contract Epic Would Never Sign Today (Aug 04): A 1999 SEC exhibit catches Epic licensing nearly its entire product line, Tapestry included, to the company that became TriZetto. The marketing services menu attached to it is the part that will make you blink. Forecast from Verona (Aug 07): The Epic Almanac makes one argument six different ways: the AI is only as good as the networks behind it. Emmie headlines, Art’s context stack is the most ambitious part, and Penny finally gets an autonomous coding date on the calendar. Works With Epic MyChart (Aug 17): Epic’s first new Showroom category since the death of Workshop certifies hardware instead of software, badge on the box and all. Made for iPhone, but for blood pressure cuffs, and rough news for anyone selling the RPM stack sitting in between. UGM Hot Takes 2026 (Aug 20): Everyone else covered the AI announcements, so I went after Savvy deleting the payment gateway, Rangers as Boost with the timer removed, and a down-market lineup with too many entries. Plus the Health Grid tidbits I cannot help myself on. MyChart Central Grows Up (Aug 24): Device data and Emmie turn Epic’s identity hub into a full consumer platform, which is both a logical answer to ChatGPT and a bit of a mistake. It also happens to be the best scraping target Epic has ever shipped. Industry Analysis: The Wrong Yardstick (Aug 12): Vertical software keeps getting judged against Superhuman and Notion, which is the wrong bar entirely. Your user is comparing your product to a whiteboard and forty phone calls before lunch. Primitives vs. Abstractions (Aug 27): Developers want building blocks, systems of record prefer to hand out business logic, and both sides have a real case. There’s no test from the outside that separates the engineering reason from the competitive one, which is why this keeps ending up in court. Cross-industry Comparisons: The Two Kinds of Platform Power (Aug 18): Attention power and record power are different problems that keep getting handed the same regulatory toolkit. Congress’s latest swing at Big Tech shows both what’s possible and where it falls apart. The Dogs of (Platform) War (Aug 21): A CourtListener alert turned up a property management fight with healthcare’s exact shape and none of the Cures Act. Shell prospects, ghost accounts, a notetaker bot that came back to haunt someone, and a lawyer arguing both sides of the same theory in two states. Fractals All the Way Down (Aug 31): Yardi dominates property management right up until you zoom into one segment, where AppFolio owns it outright and Yardi doesn’t appear at all. Where you draw the line around a B2B software market is about to decide an awful lot of cases. Other News: If Judy Had the Courage (Aug 13): A short eulogy for the era when software was allowed to look insane: WinAMP, bold colors, and everything the grey chatbot era has taken from us. External Media: Portland Monthly Health Tech Meetup: Erin O’Brien channeled my own feelings - maybe it’s just because it’s August and beautiful, but the monthly edition of the PDX Health community meetup was a ripper. Make sure to reach out if interested to join for the next one. STAT’s Coverage of Epic This Month: Brittany Trang of STAT did a fantastic job of breaking the FTC investigation that’s been lurking, as well as UGM related coverage, so I had to give her her wish of a meme. Fall Conferences: I’m pumped to be kicking off my fall conference season in NYC at Nabla Accelerate next month, which Chrissy provided the link to apply for. Here’s the rest of my schedule in case you want to meet up: Commonwell (Redwood Shores, CA): Oct 13-14 Open@Epic (Madison, WI): Oct 21-22 eHealthExchange (Austin, TX): Oct 27 Sequoia Project (Austin, TX): Oct 28-29 HLTH (Vegas): Nov 15-18 RSNA (Chicago): Nov 29-Dec 3 Posts I Liked: HTI-6 Should Unbundle API Certification: Josh Mandel makes the case that HTI-6 should split (g)(10) into separate authorization and data certifications, so a PACS or a genomics platform can certify only the role it actually performs. Imaging is the urgent example, but the structure solves a much bigger problem. On implementing ePrior Auth with Epic: Scott Rossignol’s field notes from a live ePrior Auth build on Epic, including the two app registrations nobody warns you about and the CPT mapping problem waiting at the end. CMS-0057 implementations are going to be such a beast. Healthcare point solutions are starting to look a lot like streaming services: Spencer Dorn runs the cable-to-streaming arc against health IT and lands squarely on the bundling half of the cycle. Bundling can be good! It can also be bad! Life is nuanced. Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

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Sep 2 • 5:05 AM EDT • Health • healthapiguy.substack.com
Democrat establishment flexes dominance as insurgents fall and GOP bench thins in deep blue stronghold

Massachusetts Democrats rewarded Ed Markey, 80, over Seth Moulton in a generational clash after Moulton urged the party to "pass the torch."

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Sep 2 • 12:32 AM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
Educators, industry leaders discuss the future of data science, AI careers with Niswonger Foundation

Industry and education leaders gathered for a workshop led by the Niswonger Foundation. The workshop focused on shifting workforce needs in the data science and artificial intelligence fields. Local stakeholders such as Kingsport City School, Eastman Chemical Company and Ballad health attended.

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Sep 1 • 6:26 PM EDT • Science • timesnews.net
What Box Office Bomb Crushed Obsession on Streaming?

(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get into this week’s issue, let me ask you for some suggestions. At the risk of coining too many names for too many things (hence my dictionary of terms...), I need a name for straight-to-streaming films that are too expensive to justify a straight-to-streaming release, but not big enough to justify a theatrical release. Like some of the films I highlighted in last week’s tally of the biggest film flops of 2026 so far: Hulu’s Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, Pizza Movie or Never Change! They don’t feel like “made for TV movies” (think Hallmark and Lifetime movies, cheap Netflix romcoms, or Disney Channel Original movies, for example) but they don’t feel big enough for the big screen. They’re not “cinematic” enough, so to speak. As I wrote... “I still need a name for this middle zone of film that’s too expensive to go straight-to-streaming but too small to justify a theatrical release (with all the PR, distribution, marketing and whatnot costs that go along with it), the Goldilocks zone of streaming film death.” Friend of the newsletter Brandon Katz has suggested the “Bermuda Budget Triangle”, “The Platform Gap” and “The Distribution Deadzone”. I love that first one. I’d offer up the much wordier “The Streaming Budget Dead Zone” or “the Goldilocks Zone of streaming film death” but that last one isn’t accurate since, unlike Goldilocks’ porridge, these films are the opposite of “just right”. That’s the problem! Anyway, if you have any suggestions, let me know! On to today’s Streaming Ratings Report. As you can tell by today’s headline, things are going to be spicy! I’m looking at a box office bomb that did really, really well on streaming, somewhat challenging a few different narratives. And another Netflix series declined in its second season. All that, plus Wicked: For Good switching streamers, The Hawk continuing its strong run, _The Bear’_s finale season finally dropping off the charts, the WNBA posting a big viewership number, “shallow libraries”, a sitcom spinoff failing to launch, more big budget IP flopping on Paramount+, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of July 20th to July 26th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - The Latest Theatrical Success Story on Streaming In the latest edition of “Flops, Bombs and Misses of the First Half of 2026”, I made a crucial change: I started including theatrical films with the streaming misses. The streamers have collectively—including Netflix, but not to as big of an extent—stopped making a lot of straight-to-streaming films, and the ones they do make aren’t as expensive as in the heyday of the streaming bubble. After the following two films bombed in theaters, you’d guess that they’ll be included in my next collection of flops, bombs and misses six months from now: Masters of the Universe on Prime Video (only $64 million domestic box office) Mortal Kombat II on HBO Max ($79 million domestic) But you’d be wrong! Masters of the Universe, a reboot of the He-Man franchise, a toy from the 1980s, came to streaming on 22-July and did great! This long-gestating project—it’s been at every studio for years, and came close to getting a greenlight at Netflix—then finally came to theaters in June, and showed up on streaming less than two months later. (I don’t love this short theatrical window.) It surprisingly grabbed nearly 20 million hours on its debut: That means, wait for it, Masters of the Universe is currently the eighth biggest film on streaming through two weeks. My rough bar for “hit” is shows or films in the top 15%. Ergo…Masters of the Universe is a legit, streaming hit! (One quick caveat: if it falls out of the top ten next week, it will move to 13th overall, just on the edge of the top 15.) Of course, that’s the data for just 2026. Here’s how it stacks up to Prime Video’s theatrical films: That drop into its second week is typical for Amazon films, but also a worrying sign. I have a feeling interest in this film is front-loaded and we’ll see it drop off after this. As for Mortal Kombat II, in this case, the viewership numbers roughly match the theatrical outing, with only 4.1 million hours in its first week. Here’s how it stacks up to other HBO Max films: The best defense of this number is that, as a relatively violent rated-R film, Mortal Kombat II never had a good chance at breaking out. So now it’s time for a little big of “Entertainment Nuance Guy”: First, yeah, my headline is obviously facetious, since Masters of the Universe besting Obsession says more about horror as a genre than it does that film. Second, I read and listened to quite a few “nobody wanted this IP” takes about Masters of the Universe, and that’s not really true. At least enough people wanted it to power a 20 million+ hour debut! Third, both this film and Mortal Kombat II were considered “average” by viewers, but not great films, with a 6.4 and 6.3 respectively on IMDb. That’s just shy of the level needed to be a word-of-mouth hit. Fourth, in the olden days, strong word of mouth could transform a box office miss into a cable/DVD hit, like Austin Powers or The Shawshank Redemption. We haven’t seen a lot of examples of that on streaming, though. And there are far fewer ways to monetize the post-theatrical life of a film these days. Fifth, Prime Video has shown an ability to push their own titles well, likely because they control the Amazon Fire TV ecosystem. Add it all up, and here’s my nuanced take on Masters of the Universe: it was a box office bomb, but, shockingly, a streaming hit. Unfortunately, while being a theatrical hit saves your film financially, being a streaming hit does not. Both Masters of the Universe and Mortal Kombat II had big budgets and needed to make more money in theaters to justify them. So…Straight-to-Streaming or Theaters? We’ve hit a really fun point in the streaming calendar, since the films that came out in theaters in April, May, and June are now arriving on streaming. So the “Do theatrical releases help streaming performances?” question is gonna get a fresh round of updates nearly every week. No single week will answer the question, but we may get some insights. For example, so far in 2026, it looks like theatrical films are lasting longer on the weekly Nielsen film charts. Here’s a list of films that have made the charts in their fourth or fifth week of release, separated by “for kids” and “general entertainment”: It certainly seems like theatrical films are lasting just a pinch longer on the charts, with Project Hail Mary being the current five-week champion. One Battle After Another did well for HBO Max too, and even The Sheep Detectives made it four weeks. The only exception to this trend? Obsession, which only lasted two weeks on the charts. You might tempted to overreact to this news. Don’t. Obsession is a huge horror hit, but horror just doesn’t do as well on streaming. By the way, here’s the Google Trends for various theatrical and stremaing films: Plus, when it comes to Netflix in four months, Obsession may have another big boost. Quick Notes on Film Note that when I write, “the streamers have pulled back on straight-to-streaming films” that doesn’t mean “abandoned” because Netflix is gonna Netflix. On 24-July, they released 72 Hours, a Kevin Hart comedy. Along with Eddie Murphy, Mark Wahlberg, John Cena and Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart is a streaming film star now. Did this latest one work? Not really. It only garnered two weeks of 13.2 and 12.2 million hours on its debut, well below the 20-million-hour hit threshold. It also was poorly received critically—a 44 on Metacritic—and by customers—a 5.4 on IMDb on 21K IMDb reviews. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The latest Netflix true crime doc to pop on the charts… How The Bear finished its run… Netflix’s latest Western to return to streaming… What Paramount+ animated film flopped… And what sitcom also missed… All the flops, bombs and misses… And a whole lot more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! I’m behind by a week, so we’ve got two issues coming your way this week, including one in a couple of days or so, then we’ll be all caught up**.** Next issue, inspired by The Super Mario Galaxy Movie coming to Peacock, I’m going to take a look at the workhouse of streaming TV: kids films. Plus The Devil Wears Prada 2 continues theatrical films’ big run on streaming. All that, plus another surprise hit on Hulu, Lioness on CBS, and a whole lot more. Long term, LeBron James is filming his own “Last Dance”-style docu-series, surprising no one. But as I’ve been writing about a lot this summer, this genre is really overrated, so whoever ends up buying it (reportedly ESPN) really shouldn’t pay too much for it.

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Sep 1 • 6:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com
Republicans weigh whether to vote for Rep. Max Miller amid abuse allegations he denies

The allegations have given Republican leaders an unexpected headache as they try to hold back Democrats from retaking the House.

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Sep 1 • 5:55 PM EDT • Politics • nbcnews.com
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Are sex-specific thresholds needed for coronary CT?

The question is further complicated by possibly needing different thresholds for pregnant, premenopausal, and postmenopausal woman.

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Sep 1 • 5:18 PM EDT • Business • cardiovascularbusiness.com
VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System holds flag-raising ceremony to honor people lost to suicide

In honor of National Suicide Prevention Month, Nebraska and western Iowa's health care systems held a flag-raising ceremony to honor those lost to suicide.

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Sep 1 • 5:18 PM EDT • Health • ketv.com
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Anthropic doubles a science benchmark score with Fable 5.1 while OpenAI says its Astra model crosses critical cyber threshold

Anthropic’s Fable 5.1 doubles a science benchmark score, while OpenAI says Astra reaches critical cyber capability and finds zero-day flaws.

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Sep 1 • 5:01 PM EDT • Science • rdworldonline.com
Sports Streaming Is Broken. Can DC Fix It?

I’m old enough to remember the “bunny ears” antenna – which my little brother and I would take turns holding to banish the static from 1980s NFL broadcasts on our black-and-white TV. The challenges of watching televised sports in 2026 are different. At home, you have to figure out where a given game ...

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Sep 1 • 2:18 PM EDT • Sports • usnews.com
Apple Teases 'Huge Launch' Next Week

In his first memo to Apple employees as CEO today, John Ternus teased a "huge launch next week that's going to be phenomenal". In a social media post today, Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak teased that Apple has "more to say" on Wednesday, September 9, which is when the company will be holding its next special event, starting at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. Hello, indeed. More to say September 9.

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Sep 1 • 2:03 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Man rummaging in Polish junkyard finds a 1,800-year-old shield holding the cremated remains of a Vandal warrior

A 1,800-year-old shield filled with the cremated remains of Vandal warrior was discovered at junkyard in Poland.

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Sep 1 • 10:37 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com
New Detection In Dark Matter Experiment Has Physicists Excited – Is It An Unexpected And Rare Background Or The First Evidence Of Dark Matter?

The detection is far from the gold standard threshold, but it is also in a mass region that shouldn’t have events.

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Sep 1 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • iflscience.com
LZ Sees Surprising Result in Search for Dark Matter

Key Takeaways Dark matter is the mysterious substance that accounts for the vast majority of matter in our universe. LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a world-leading dark matter detector and specializes in searching for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. A new LZ study found one particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known background processes and could potentially have been caused by a WIMP. LZ continues to run to see if additional data strengthens or weakens the hint of a dark matter interaction. For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected. Determining exactly what it is remains one of the biggest questions about our world. Now, a new analysis from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has recorded a single particle interaction that researchers have great difficulty explaining with known background signals from normal matter. The result does not yet meet the statistical threshold required to claim a discovery, but is the most compelling hint of dark matter reported by the experiment to date. LZ is an international collaboration of 250 scientists and engineers from 39 institutions. The detector is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and operates nearly one mile below ground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. The experiment uses 10 tonnes of ultrapure liquid xenon to search for dark matter and is optimized to look for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. The results were presented in a scientific talk at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan. The paper will be released on the online repository arXiv and submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters. “We’re very intrigued to see this event in the data, in the region where we expect dark matter to show up and the competing backgrounds are very low,” said Rick Gaitskell, a professor at Brown University and the spokesperson for LZ. “With only one event, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We are not claiming to have seen dark matter. But we have seen something interesting that we want to share with the scientific community for their input.” The LZ collaboration studies experimental data in batches. In the new result, researchers analyzed 220 live days of data collected between March 2023 and April 2024. The collaboration had previously searched this dataset for faint signals from the simplest kinds of WIMP interactions. The new analysis searched for a broader range of possible WIMP interactions that could deposit more energy in the detector. LZ is particularly sensitive to such signals while also minimizing false positives. “This was a detailed study in a region we hadn’t explored within this dataset, and we spent months of additional effort to understand all the possible causes of background events,” said Sam Eriksen, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and lead author of the study. “We understand our detector and the backgrounds so well that even a single outstanding event, like the one we found, is important. We expect dark matter events to be extremely rare, so only a handful could mark the first detection of WIMP dark matter.” If the anomalous event was caused by dark matter, the WIMP that generated it would likely have a mass of at least 200 GeV/c2 (gigaelectronvolts), or more than 200 times the mass of a proton. It would also suggest a specific type of interaction between WIMPs and ordinary matter beyond the simplest model. The LZ results have not reached “5-sigma” significance, the statistical threshold considered a discovery in physics. The new analysis is 2.6 sigma, meaning there is approximately a 0.5% chance that the event could be explained by known backgrounds. With additional data, researchers can test whether the finding continues to grow in significance or fades away. LZ has already accumulated the world’s largest dark matter dataset and will continue to accrue WIMP search data at SURF, substantially improving their search statistics. LZ searches for dark matter by looking for signature flashes of light from energy deposited in the detector. The collaboration leverages multiple methods to prevent or account for particle interactions caused by normal matter. This includes the mile of rock that shields the detector from cosmic rays from space, a water tank and outer detectors that protect the central detector from background neutrons, and a suite of computational tools that disentangle particle interactions and reject dark matter mimics. “Outlier events in the data are not unexpected, but they usually stand out as a background of some kind when you look at them deeper,” said Aaron Manalaysay, a physicist at Berkeley Lab and the chair of LZ’s Institutional Board. “This is the first example in any experiment I’ve worked on of an outlier that appears valid in every way. Of course, we’re still twisting our brains trying to think if there’s a rare background mechanism we could’ve missed, but it’s thrilling to wonder if this could be the first hint of a dark-matter observation.” LZ is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. LZ is also supported by the Science & Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics; and the Institute for Basic Science, Korea. Thirty-nine institutions of higher education and advanced research provided support to LZ. The LZ collaboration acknowledges the assistance of the Sanford Underground Research Facility. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

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Sep 1 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • newscenter.lbl.gov
Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas is anything but conventional. Why is it happening?

Political science experts say it's a sign Republicans are concerned about how key races will play out, including in the decades-long GOP stronghold of Texas. They expect the convention's effects to be negligible in polls, but its impact at the ballot box is less certain.

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Sep 1 • 9:56 AM EDT • Politics • houstonpublicmedia.org
Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, Inc. to Report Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 Results on September 14, 2026

Dave & Buster's will report Q2 financial results on September 14, 2026, followed by a conference call.Quiver AI SummaryDave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc. announced that it will release its financial results for the second quarter ending August 4, 2026, after market hours on September 14, 2026. Following the release, the management will hold a conference call at 4:00 p.m. Central Time to discuss the results, which can be accessed via a webcast on

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Sep 1 • 9:20 AM EDT • Entertainment • quiverquant.com
Digital Science's 2026 Catalyst Grant Seeks "Agentic AI Workflows You Can Trust"

Up to £25,000 to be won for early-stage solutions building research agents - with audit, governance and provenanceLondon, United Kingdom--(Newsfile Corp. - September 1, 2026) - Digital Science, a leading technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, today launches its Catalyst Grant round for 2026 to support innovative technology ideas. This year's theme is: Agentic Workflows You Can Trust.Up to £25,000 will be awarded equity-free to individuals, startups or research...

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Sep 1 • 7:44 AM EDT • Science • finance.yahoo.com
AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) Could Be 3% Undervalued Following Leawood Films Launch

AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) has launched Leawood Films, a new distribution arm aimed at putting more small and mid-budget movies into theatres worldwide by using AMC’s existing marketing reach and screen footprint. AMC Entertainment Holdings shares last closed at US$2.64, with a 90 day share price return of 27.54% and a year to date share price return of 63.98%. However, the 1 year total shareholder return declined 6.05%, and longer term total shareholder returns over three and five...

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Sep 1 • 7:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Made in America: How AI is keeping this U.S. factory competitive

GE Appliances is leaning heavily into artificial intelligence to improve quality and efficiency on the factory floor.

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Sep 1 • 5:00 AM EDT • Technology • npr.org
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How Will Penguins Manage Veteran Defenseman's Workload in 2026-27?

Pittsburgh Penguins' 39-year-old defenseman Kris Letang will face heavy competition this season as he looks to hold onto a spot in the Penguins' top-four.

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Aug 31 • 11:59 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
‘Most’ of Star Wars Zero Company studio Bit Reactor was furloughed ahead of launch

Last week was meant to be a moment of triumph for Bit Reactor, the Maryland-based game studio founded in 2021 with ambitions to create a great new tactical combat game. On Thursday, August 27, Bit Reactor’s debut title, Star Wars Zero Company, released to stellar reviews. And, from the Gamescom show in Cologne, Germany, studio co-founder Greg Foertsch was giving interviews discussing what the studio’s next game may be. But for many developers on the game, launch has been bittersweet. Fans love it. Critics prefer it to most recent Star Wars games. Zero Company, which is out for PS5, Xbox Series consoles and PC, is the top-selling game on Steam. Much of the team that made it, however, is currently going without pay. They were furloughed, just weeks ahead of the game’s launch. A rep for Bit Reactor confirmed to Game File today that the studio had furloughed many of its workers prior to the game’s release. They said it was a difficult decision and one that had been made before it was clear how launch would go. The rep emphasized that the call to do this was Bit Reactor’s alone (meaning not from publisher EA nor Star Wars license holder Disney). While the rep declined to comment on the scale of the furloughs, a previously unreported lawsuit brought by studio co-founder Alison Kelly in 2024 noted in a filing from August 12 of this year that Bit Reactor “has furloughed most of its employees and terminated contractors…” One source told Game File the furloughs impacted 80% of the team; another referred to there only being a skeleton crew left on Bit Reactor’s active payroll, ready to address any of Zero Company’s post-launch bugs. The issue is that Bit Reactor, a studio formed in 2021, had run out of most of its money just ahead of the launch of its first game. Over the weekend, Zachariah Scott, a senior technical artist who worked at Bit Reactor from early 2023 until an acrimonious exit this past May, said on LinkedIn that the studio was “concealing the fact that the team was Furloughed weeks ago.” Reached by phone today, Scott told Game File that he spoke to nearly a dozen Bit Reactor workers over the weekend. “Everybody has essentially the same story, which is, ‘Yeah, I got furloughed three weeks ago.” The Bit Reactor rep told Game File that the studio hoped to bring furloughed workers back, suggesting that a successful launch of the game could be impactful. Scott told Game File that workers he spoke to were less confident that even if there were returns, that all who were furloughed would get their old jobs again. A heated dispute Bit Reactor’s mid-2026 was almost even more tumultuous. The lawsuit by co-founder Alison Kelly that first revealed the furloughs was initially slated to go to trial in June. The suit is a she-said/he-said about whether Kelly, until 2024 the chief operating officer of Bit Reactor, was a co-owner of the studio or whether it was solely owned by Greg Foertsch. In July 2024, Kelly sued, saying she was pushed out by Foertsch. She first sued in federal court and later refiled in Maryland’s Baltimore County, alleging breach of contract and that Foertsch had unjustly enriched himself. Kelly cited damages of over $20 million, on the basis of Bit Reactor allegedly being worth more than double that. Foertsch’s side has said Kelly was never a co-owner and has countered with claims about her job performance (which she has denied). The June trial was postponed until early 2027, as both sides have been deposing witnesses and filing more claims and denials along the way. Amid all of that, filings in the lawsuit reviewed by Game File paint a picture about Bit Reactor’s origins, early aspirations around tactics games, the team’s breakthrough in drawing the attention of Electronic Arts with the help of a pitch tied to one of EA’s non-Star Wars franchises, and early fractures among its co-founders. The real story about the company behind Zero Company

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Aug 31 • 10:23 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
Texas hospitals to lose $27 million in Medicaid funding daily

Starting Sept. 1, the Trump administration will withhold about $9.8 billion in extra annual funding that helps hospitals cover the difference between Medicaid payments and the actual cost of services.

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Aug 31 • 7:34 PM EDT • Health • texastribune.org
Los Angeles County Sues State Farm for Unfair Business Practices in Handling 2025 Wildfire Claims

Los Angeles County Supervisors Lindsey P. Horvath and Kathryn Barger announced that LA County has sued State Farm, alleging unfair business practices in the company’s handling of insurance claims filed by policyholders affected by the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades Fires.

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Aug 31 • 4:38 PM EDT • Business • lindseyhorvath.lacounty.gov
AMC Entertainment Creates "Leawood Films" With the Aim of Having More Movies Distributed on to the Big Screen

LEAWOOD, Kan., August 31, 2026--AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AMC), the largest theatrical exhibitor in the United States and in the world, today announced the creation of Leawood Films, a new film distribution company headquartered both in Los Angeles and AMC Theatres home base of Leawood, Kansas. It will focus on bringing additional movies to theatrical audiences in the U.S. and across the globe, leveraging its acclaimed marketing ability and the prominence of its exhibition network,

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Aug 31 • 4:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com
Q&A: building a radiology team for small-town Tennessee

Behind every scan at a Regional Hospital is a radiologist who also holds a professorship at Main Campus. Eric Wallace, MD, explains why that matters.

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Aug 31 • 1:02 PM EDT • Health • news.vumc.org
Luk Hing Entertainment Announces Delay In Publication Of 2026 Interim Results

Luk Hing Entertainment Group Holdings Ltd HKEX:8052:

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Aug 31 • 12:18 PM EDT • Entertainment • tradingview.com
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A 104-year-old farmer’s $183,000 Deere tractor sale tests a U.S. farm recovery

America’s aging farmers have been holding on to machinery for longer than usual as low crop prices and rising costs squeezed their finances.

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Aug 31 • 11:56 AM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com
Meta’s Business Set to Escape Lawsuits Unscathed

Meta’s $17 billion settlement with state attorneys general includes a long list of restrictions for teen users, but it won’t hold back its underlying business.

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Aug 31 • 9:35 AM EDT • Business • kiplinger.com
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Lithium stakeholders announce $1.5 billion deal

Smackover Lithium, a partnership between Standard Lithium Ltd. and Equinor ASA announced Monday (Aug. 31) the signing of its second commercial offtake agreement for the South West Arkansas Project (SWA...

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Aug 31 • 9:05 AM EDT • Politics • talkbusiness.net
Lithium stakeholders announce $1.5 billion deal

Smackover Lithium, a partnership between Standard Lithium Ltd. and Equinor ASA announced Monday (Aug. 31) the signing of its second commercial offtake agreement for the South West Arkansas Project (SWA...

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Aug 31 • 9:05 AM EDT • Business • talkbusiness.net
Column: California's fight against Trump's unhinged war on voting by mail

California could have some zany theater this fall: county prosecutors charging federal postmasters with felonies for obeying President Trump’s order to withhold delivery of mail ballots to voters.

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Aug 31 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • latimes.com
Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. $LYV Stock Holdings Decreased by Wellington Management Group LLP

Wellington Management Group LLP trimmed its position in Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV - Free Report) by 31.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,891,959 shares of the company's stock after selling 873,002 shar

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Aug 31 • 5:29 AM EDT • Entertainment • marketbeat.com
“Coyote vs. Acme” surges past expectations, snagging No. 2 at domestic box office after cancellation controversy

Elsewhere, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” continues to dominate in week 5, Ridley Scott’s “The Dog Stars” brutally bombs, and A24’s “Tony” holds strong.

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Aug 30 • 6:42 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Jax State Coach Gets Brutally Honest After Loss to NDSU

Jacksonville State Gamecocks head coach Charles Kelly didn't hold back after his team's blowout loss to North Dakota State on Saturday. The post Jax State Coach Gets Brutally Honest After Loss to NDSU appeared first on HEAVY.

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Aug 30 • 3:28 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
2026 Farm Science Review Agronomy College set for September 9

Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio AgriBusiness Association will again partner to hold the Farm Science Review Agronomy College on Wednesday, September 9. The event is designed to educate agronomists, Certified Crop Advisers, custom applicators and farmers on current agronomy issues. To re

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Aug 30 • 3:15 PM EDT • Science • ocj.com
The datacenter fight could permanently transform US politics. Which party will seize advantage?

The movement against datacenters are uniting Americans because they perfectly illustrate how a few individuals hold all the power to control decisions that impact our lives

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Aug 30 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com
Colorado Sues EarnIn For “Immoral, Unethical, Oppressive and Unscrupulous” Business Practices

Hey all, Jason here. When this hits your inbox, I should be en route to the airport — not to go anywhere myself, just to pick up my better half. I must admit, it’s been strange to be home alone (well, with two dogs) for two weeks! Really lets me “optimize” to spending more time on reading/writing/working, whether that’s healthy or not! Looking forward to getting back into a (somewhat) more balance routine. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading Compare Notes With the People Who Built Modern Fintech Partner content: Remitly CEO Sebastian Gunningham. Increase founder Darragh Buckley. Linda Du, Co-founder & President at Valon. They’ll unpack the decisions behind building and scaling major financial products: what they got right, what broke, what they would do differently, and how AI and new infrastructure are changing the operator playbook. Most events tell you where fintech is going. NerdCon puts the people who built the present in the room and asks them what comes next. Expect an operator-led conversation grounded in real products, real trade-offs and lessons earned the hard way. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% on Regular tickets with code FBW20 before standard pricing ends September 11. Meet the Builders Things To Know & Other Good Reads Advent and Stripe Abandon $50 Billion Pursuit of PayPal (Bloomberg) Trump Family’s New Crypto Bank Is Backed by Abu Dhabi Sheikh (Wall Street Journal) The multiplying risks of financing data centres (FT) Let the Bond Market Speak (Wall Street Journal) Did we waste a crisis? Modest proposals to reform deposit insurance. (Fintech Takes Banking) Untangling Guggenheim: How Private Credit Built Its Own Universe (Net Interest) The Hater’s Guide To Circular Financing — Part One (Ed Zitron) Fiat Ventures Rebrands to FGV Capital, Announces $35M Oversubscribed Fund II (BusinessWire) Socure Announces Strategic Growth Investment at $5.2B Valuation and Acquires Agentic Operations Platform Fravity (Socure) Listen: When Consumer Protection Disclosures Work Too Well (Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast) Colorado Sues EarnIn For “Immoral, Unethical, Oppressive and Unscrupulous” Business Practices When Andreessen Horowitz led EarnIn’s $39 million Series B in 2017, Alex Rampell, a partner at the storied venture capital firm, described EarnIn’s small-dollar advance product as “free,” relying on “entirely on voluntary contributions instead of fees.” Rampell favorably compared EarnIn’s approach to typical payday loans, writing, “Payday loans historically have had the potential to be a slippery slope for consumers into financial distress: opaque systems and steep fees that are hard to repay and set individuals back further than where they started. For many Americans living paycheck to paycheck, that kind of slide into debt can be extremely difficult to recover from.” But EarnIn’s product — which, the company says, isn’t a “loan,” legally speaking — ends up being anything but free for most users. While it is technically possible to take a no-fee advance from the company, most users incur “Lightning Speed” (instant funding) fees and/or ostensibly optional tips that combined can equate to annualized percent rates that can reach over 1,000%. With an average term of 9.77 days, even fees and tips that are small on an absolute dollar basis are equivalent to high APRs on an annualized basis. A lawsuit filed last week by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser against EarnIn describes the company and its product and business practices quite differently than Andreessen’s Rampell; “EarnIn’s business practices are unfair because they are immoral, unethical, oppressive and unscrupulous,” the complaint, filed in District Court in Denver, Colorado, says. EarnIn’s marquee product, Cash Out, isn’t a loan, the company says, as Cash Out is not “[f]orward [l]ooking” because “[t]he money is transferred based on earnings to date,” does not carry a mandatory fee to access funds, and is “non-recourse,” meaning EarnIn cannot pursue recovery from users who don’t repay advanced funds. EarnIn is sometimes referred to as an “Earned Wage Advance” service. Though, unlike some others in the broader category, EarnIn does not integrate with employers’ payroll or time and attendance systems. Rather, EarnIn attempts to verify a user’s income and employment, by examining direct deposit transaction data in their linked external bank account, by using GPS location and Bluetooth data to estimate a user’s time spent at work, if they work in a fixed location, and/or by having a user provided a work email address. While repayment is theoretically optional, as EarnIn would have no recourse, such as reporting non-payment to the credit bureaus or a collections agency, this is anything but clear to users of the EarnIn app, Colorado’s complaint argues. During the process of taking a Cash Out, users must agree to a preauthorized debit of the amount advanced, plus any expedited funding fee and/or tips. Though users technically can revoke this ACH authorization, the fact that they have this right isn’t presented to users during the Cash Out process, but rather is included in linked terms and conditions few users are likely to actually read. And users who do wish to revoke their ACH authorization must do so three or more days before the scheduled transaction date by emailing EarnIn’s customer support. Similarly, EarnIn’s marketing claims that it carries “no interest” and “no mandatory fees” is technically true, but is not the reality for many of the app’s users, the Colorado complaint argues. Further, EarnIn has extensively marketed to users the ability to “access your pay today,” to get “instant” funds, and to get funds “the same day you work” — when, in reality, this speed of access was only possible by paying the additional, undisclosed Lightning Speed fee. The Colorado complaint highlights this contradiction specifically, noting: EarnIn tells consumers that they can ‘Make any day payday with EarnIn’ and that there no ‘hidden’ or ‘mandatory fees.’ For a consumer to access their pay on the same day requested, they would have to pay the Lightning Speed fee. In the fine print of the advertisement EarnIn discloses that ‘[f]ees apply to use Lightning Speed,’ a direct contradiction to the larger text of the advertisement, and a fact that would not be immediately understood by a consumer as ‘Lightning Speed’ is not defined nor explained. Like other small-dollar lending services, rather than explicitly charge interest, EarnIn collects a markup on the optional Lighting Speed fee, which, given the nature of the transactions, many users opt for, as well as offering users the option to leave “tips.” EarnIn leverages either Real-Time Payments (RTP) rails or push-to-card via debit rails if a user opts for the optional Lightning Speed. But while these capabilities cost EarnIn, on average, $0.075 or $0.20 per transaction, respectively, EarnIn charges users significantly more. Initially, EarnIn charged as little as $1.99 for Cash Outs up to $24. But EarnIn has hiked these fees multiple times, and now charges $4.99 for Cash Outs up to $75 and $6.99 for those over $75. According to the Colorado complaint, EarnIn leverages “dark patterns” to manipulate users and to make it more difficult to avoid tipping. Examples of these “road blocks” highlighted in the complaint include: As of 2023, in the EarnIn app, a consumer attempting to get a loan under the default settings had to make at least eighteen separate taps to complete the transaction and reduce the tip to $0. There is an alternative method to leave a $0 tip, via the “Custom tip” feature, but EarnIn made this option difficult to access by visually deemphasizing it and positioning it near devices’ “home” button. Using language and imagery such as “Tip to pay it forward,” “Your generosity supports the service + helps,” “Your tips make a difference,” and “[t]he APR for this cash out is 0%. Your tips help support us.” While Lightning Speed and tipping are, in theory, both optional, in practice, users nearly always ended up paying something. According to the Colorado suit, users were charged either a tip or an expedite fee for more than 92% of transactions, with an average APR of nearly 388%. And, although the advances are “non-recourse,” EarnIn successfully collects on nearly all transactions — 99.18%, according to the complaint, which, Colorado argues, “demonstrat[es] that EarnIn’s advances function as high cost loans, not voluntary payments.” The share of EarnIn users incurring fees — despite the product being marketed as 0% APR — is hard to reconcile with Andreessen investor Rampell’s favorable description of EarnIn vs. “opaque systems and steep fees” associated with payday loans, which, Rampell says, can be “extremely difficult” for borrowers to extricate themselves from. According to Colorado’s suit, EarnIn’s Cash Out product “trapped many consumers in extreme cycles of high-cost reborrowing.” The suit gives an example of one consumer in the state, who took out a whopping 1,151 loans, paying a total of $4,038.50 in Lightning Speed expedited funding fees on loans that averaged the equivalent of 1,421% APR. Another Colorado user, the suit says, took out 1,033 loans, paying $8,561.22 in tips and fees at an average APR of 1,539% . These types of usage patterns demonstrate “the severe and repeated financial harm caused by EarnIn’s illegal lending model,” the Colorado complaint argues. In aggregate, from January 2023 through July 2025, EarnIn extended 3.1 million loans to 56,778 users in Colorado — an average of nearly 55 transactions per person during the time period. EarnIn lent more than $300 million and collected more than $16 million from Colorado users in Lightning Speed fees and in tips. Ultimately, the Colorado complaint argues that “EarnIn’s Cash Outs are loans under Colorado law, and EarnIn’s contention that its product is not a loan based on its disclaimer of any legal repayment obligation lacks any real-world significance given how the Cash Out transactions actually operate in practice.” Colorado further argues that “EarnIn was not working with companies here in providing consumers with funds but acted as a third-party lender and charged illegally high rates, used deceptive design strategies to extract some charges, and trapped consumers in repeat borrowing. Colorado will continue to stand up for consumers and hold companies accountable when they violate our credit laws or attempt to evade them through misleading practices.” Colorado’s suit alleges EarnIn assesses finance charge in excess of that permitted by Colorado law, that EarnIn failed to make legally required disclosures to Colorado borrowers, that EarnIn made supervised loans to consumers without obtaining the requisite license, that EarnIn violated the state’s Deferred Deposit Loan Act, that EarnIn engage in unfair and deceptive trade practices, and that EarnIn made false or misleading statements concerning price. The suit seeks a court order enjoining EarnIn from violating relevant Colorado laws, for EarnIn to refund amounts charged in excess of state law, fees, costs, and penalties, and other relief the court deems to be just. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Q2 Quarterly Banking Profile: Five Quick Takeaways The FDIC released its quarterly banking profile, which is always worth a read, for the second quarter. The profile provides an aggregate snapshot about the overall health of the 4,238 institutions whose deposits are insured by the FDIC, who, collectively, hold more than $26 trillion in assets and saw a total net income of more than $90 billion in the second quarter. Net income was up 12% vs. Q1 2026, with lower provisions and realized gains on securities helping to drive the improvement, somewhat offset by increases in non-interest expense and applicable income taxes. Overall net interest margin was basically flat quarter over quarter (up 1 basis point vs. Q1 2026), though community banks saw NIM grow by 10 basis points, to 3.81%. Unsurprisingly, given that interest rates haven’t changed, unrealized losses on securities changed little, edging up slightly to $326.7 billion vs. $325.1 billion in Q1 2026. Aggregate credit quality has remained benign, with asset quality actually improving slightly in Q2. Overall, institutions reported a 9 basis point decline in their past-due and non-accrual rate, to 1.44%. Net charge off rate also declined by 2 basis points, to 0.57%. And finally, the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund stands at $161.1 billion, making the DIF reserve ratio 1.48% — above the statutory minimum of 1.35%, but still below the designated target reserve ratio of 2%. [Paid Subscriber Exclusive] Nissan Withdraws ILC App, State Associations Plan BankChain Alliance, FDIC Defines “Unsafe or Unsound Practice” For First Time Automaker Nissan withdrew its application to charter a Utah industrial loan company and its corresponding application to the FDIC for deposit insurance last week, on August 19th. Nissan’s application had been outstanding for more than a year, as it originally applied in June 2025. Recent applications to the OCC to form national banks have been decisioned, one way or the other, substantially more quickly than has historically been the case.

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Aug 30 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com
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Omni-liberalism: Why you should hold this framework in politics

Views staff writer Logan Walters examines “omni-liberalism" and argues for approaching policy with flexibility and skepticism.

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Aug 30 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • fsunews.com
Caesars Entertainment, Inc. (CZR) Investigation: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC Encourages Shareholders to Contact the Firm to Learn More About the Investigation

NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 30, 2026 / Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is investigating claims on behalf of investors in Caesars Entertainment, Inc. ("Caesars" or "the Company") (NASDAQ:CZR) for potential breaches of fiduciary duty on the part of its directors and management.

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Aug 30 • 8:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • natlawreview.com
A Peaceful Detective Mystery to Watch

Culture and entertainment recommendations including The Sheep Detectives, the Hold Steady, and more

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Aug 30 • 7:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • theatlantic.com
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Late payments threaten business license of Chicago body removal contractor

The small funeral home company that holds the lucrative contract for the city’s body removal services may soon be dissolved due to its failure to pay business license fees to the state.

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Aug 30 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • chicagotribune.com
Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) After The Court Ruling Is It Still A Bargain

A recent Ninth Circuit court ruling that sports bets are not swaps has eased a regulatory hurdle for Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT), with the stock gaining about 8% as investors reassessed legal risk. The court ruling arrived after a difficult stretch for Flutter Entertainment shareholders, with the year to date share price return down about 53% and the 1 year total shareholder return down roughly 67%. As a result, the recent 1 day share price gain of just over 7% mainly reflects investors...

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Aug 30 • 5:22 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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3 states battling new measles outbreaks. What to know

Measles outbreaks are growing across the US during the nation's worst year for cases in decades. Here's what health officials want you to know.

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Aug 29 • 8:32 PM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
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L.A. Phil Offers $10 Hollywood Bowl Tickets for Medi-Cal, EBT Users

Starting in 2027, the L.A. Phil says it will offer $10 Hollywood Bowl tickets to Medi-Cal and EBT cardholders in an effort to make concerts more accessible.

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Aug 29 • 6:53 PM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com
The wildest video game budgets can't hold a candle to GTA 6

GTA 6 is thought to be the most expensive entertainment product ever made, eclipsing Hollywood movies and other video games by hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Aug 29 • 6:30 PM EDT • Technology • engadget.com
Is Oscar Health (OSCR) Fully Priced Following Raised 2026 Guidance?

Oscar Health (OSCR) recently reported record first half 2026 results and raised its full year guidance, a combination that appears to have supported renewed investor attention on the stock this month. At a share price of US$30.47, Oscar Health has seen some short term volatility, with a 7 day share price return down 4.9%. However, the 90 day share price return of 37.07% and 3 year total shareholder return of 363.07% suggest momentum has been strong over a longer stretch as investors react to...

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Aug 29 • 4:13 PM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com
Bessent says disorderly yen moves can destabilize global markets

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said disorderly moves in the yen could trigger "forced unwinds" of positions that risk destabilizing global markets and ultimately raising ​borrowing costs for U.S. households and businesses.

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Aug 29 • 12:46 PM EDT • Business • reuters.com
Shelby County Health Department to host community care fair

The Shelby County Health Department will hold a Community Care Fair on Saturday to connect residents with health services.

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Aug 29 • 11:16 AM EDT • Health • actionnews5.com
The 'Iron Man' Game Lives, And Its First Look Leaked

If you've spent years holding out hope for Motive's 'Iron Man' game, you can apparently stay in line a little while longer.

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Aug 29 • 10:30 AM EDT • Technology • gizmodo.com
Dolly Parton once turned down a song request from Elvis Presley. That was just one business decision that helped build her $650 million empire

Parton established her own publishing company in 1966, which helped her hold on to nearly all of her publishing rights.

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Aug 29 • 9:14 AM EDT • Business • fortune.com
Dogs may hold surprising clues to human longevity

Dogs and humans may have more in common when it comes to aging than scientists realized. Researchers with the Dog Aging Project found that patterns of small molecules in dogs’ blood were linked to longer or shorter lifespans in remarkably similar ways to those seen in people. These metabolic “fingerprints” could offer clues about the biological processes that drive aging, including metabolism, inflammation, and cellular stress.

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Aug 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
When Medical Science Refuses to Correct Itself

Science is supposed to be self-correcting. But what happens when the journals entrusted to uphold this principle become its gatekeepers?

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Aug 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • madinamerica.com
NASA Holds Science Briefing Ahead of Roman Space Telescope Launch

NASA holds a pre-launch science briefing ahead of its Roman Space Telescope launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Aug 29 • 12:00 AM EDT • Science • c-span.org
Local rescue holding online sports memorabilia auction

Finding Eden Rescue is holding its first sports memorabilia auction, with more than 25 items up for bid through Sept. 9. The online auction launched Aug. 28 and runs through Sept. 9 at 5 p.m., according to Peyton Olsen, founder and CEO of Finding Eden Rescue.

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Aug 28 • 9:00 PM EDT • Sports • weau.com
Free-falling atoms in space put a new twist on Galileo’s gravity test

Rubidium atoms on China’s Tiangong space station fell with the same acceleration, upholding a cornerstone of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

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Aug 28 • 2:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencenews.org
Federal Rule Change Denies Immigrant Businesses Access to Guaranteed Loans

Businesses owned by immigrants, including green card holders, have been deemed ineligible for federal Small Business Administration loan support. Commercial corridors across the country are already feeling the effects of this ill-conceived policy change.

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Aug 28 • 1:14 PM EDT • Business • shelterforce.org
Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME), Why Is It Getting Fresh Attention?

Tencent Music Entertainment Group (NYSE:TME) is back in focus after forming STE, a joint venture with South Korea's SM Entertainment, to target the Greater China music market and develop a new Chinese idol group. For Tencent Music Entertainment Group, the share price has fallen 9.03% over the past 30 days and is down 51.51% year to date, while the 1 year total shareholder return has declined 64.32%. However, the 3 year total shareholder return of 33.04% points to longer term momentum that...

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Aug 28 • 12:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
iPhone 18 Pro Pre-Orders May Start at an Unusual Time

Pre-orders of Apple's iPhone 18 Pro may not open until Saturday, September 12, a day later than the company's usual schedule, according to a new report. Apple is set to hold its annual iPhone event on Wednesday, September 9, where the iPhone 18 Pro models, its first-ever foldable iPhone, and the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 are all expected to be announced.

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Aug 28 • 11:17 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
From discarded to 'do-over,' handmade business turns household items into art, jewelry

“Re-purposed, re-cycle, re-loved.” Meet the maker giving new life to items many see as done -- and find her work at this Saturday's 605 Made Night Market.

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Aug 28 • 9:55 AM EDT • Business • siouxfalls.business
Swift appeal likely as judge blocks Trump mail voting order

Judge Indira Talwani placed a 14-day hold on government implementing Trump’s order to limit mail voting

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Aug 28 • 6:26 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com
AMC Entertainment (AMC) Edges Toward Positive Free Cash Flow Is Its Debt Strategy Reframing the Story?

Earlier this week, AMC Entertainment Holdings said it is edging closer to sustained positive free cash flow, estimating it needs an industrywide domestic box office of about US$10.40 billion to reach that goal, helped by record adjusted EBITDA, stronger per-patron profitability, and lower interest costs. An important angle is that AMC’s recent refinancing and debt-repayment efforts are expected to cut annual cash interest expense, meaning the box-office level required to support ongoing...

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Aug 28 • 4:27 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
The Literacy Crisis Reaches Dog-Bear Science

“New analysis of more than 300 bear encounters suggests our canine companions often increase odds of conflict and rarely serve as early warning systems many recreationists assume,” reads a subhead in Mountain Journal. The thing is, that study reaches no such conclusion. But you have to read beyond the abstract to understand that. Mountain Journal is not alone. Let’s look at a brief list of takeaways published elsewhere just to establish that none of them seem to know how to read science. Wes Siler’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Here’s CBC: “A new peer-reviewed study, The Canine Conundrum: Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country?, dug into conflicts similar to what the video depicts, by analyzing 326 reported human-bear conflicts from 1901 to 2023 involving dogs.” “The study found 54 per cent of conflicts were started by dogs. In the encounters researchers included in the study, five people and 56 dogs were killed, and 170 people were injured.” “Lana Ciarniello, an independent researcher who co-authored the study, said researchers found when a person goes hiking with at least one other person, the odds of a negative bear encounter decrease by 50 per cent.” “However, when a dog is involved, the chances of a negative bear encounter increase because ‘a dog really adds a chaotic factor into the mix of recreation,’ said Ciarniello.” Again, the study finds no data supporting that conclusion. “Hiking with your pet dog may make you feel safer in bear country—but a hiker’s recent encounter and a new study prove that the numbers don’t add up,” writes Backpacker, which is now part of Outside. The numbers don’t add up to support this take. There’s plenty more examples, but all are equally dumb, so I’ll stop there. How did so many people get this so wrong? Three reasons: 1) the study is published behind a paywall, with only the abstract freely available. 2) the methodology sets out to create work relevant to a hyper-specific audience, not the public. And 3) the dataset studied is almost absurdly limited and doesn’t bear (get it?!) comparison to wider information. Let’s work through all three. The Problem is Money I understand the irony, since I’m writing about this on a subscription-model newsletter, but information wants to be free. The study is published by The Wildlife Society and costs $16 to access. Reprinting it is specifically prohibited by the terms of use, so I can only share snippets and my conclusions with you here. Having worked as a journalist for 24 years, I can report with some authority that journalists are both lazy and cheap. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that much of the material you’re seeing written about this study is drawn from the freely-available abstract (above) only, and not a deep dive into its methodology or data. And that’s a problem, because abstracts are where researchers are able to break from their numbers and editorialize their opinions about conclusions. So what’s getting reported isn’t based on numbers, it’s based on an opinion designed for a specific audience, not the general public. Hell yeah ladies, kick that bear’s ass. The Methodology is Designed to Support a Predetermined Conclusion One of the biggest issues with the science that everyone likes to cite about bear spray’s efficacy is that no one understands that study was designed for a specific audience, looking for a specific answer. And since that audience is not the public, and our safety was not the question being asked, its conclusion is rendered irrelevant to our needs. Yes, I’m talking about Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, which was created by Tom Smith and Stephen Herrero, two of the same scientists who put together this dog-bear conflict analysis. In the spray study, the purpose was to present relevant agencies with the information they needed to issue their field workers with bear spray. As such, incidents where people were unable to access the spray or similarly failed to get it deployed in time were excluded from the results, and only incidents they deemed successful were included. Could a ranger roll down their vehicle’s window and scare a bear away from a dumpster by spraying it? Turns out the answer was yes, and that was good enough for the purposes of that study. The sample size of actual bear attacks—the thing you and I would want bear spray to provide a solution to, was too small to draw conclusions from, and didn’t indicate success in that role. Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country? has similar limitations. “Insights provided here are intended to help wildlife managers create effective guidelines regarding the presence of domestic dogs in bear habitat,” is explained clearly by the study’s text. To conduct the study, Smith and Herrero went looking for publicly available reports of dog-bear conflicts: “All incidents included in our analysis involved at least one bear, one dog, and one person who was at immediate risk of injury (e.g., not in a protective structure such as a cabin or vehicle), injured, or killed,” explains the report’s methodology. Why is that a problem? “We recognize that data used in this study are biased in that people generally only report adverse interactions with bears, not benign ones. Consequently, we assume that for the most part, people and their dogs pass through bear country without incident.” As was the problem with the bear spray study, people are drawing conclusions here from a study that was never intended to be relevant to the general public. The Smith-Herrero database famously excludes Alaska’s Defense of Life and Property records, which are elsewhere considered the largest and most authoritative source on human-bear conflict. The Dataset is Absurdly Limited A 2009 study conducted by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife estimates that each year there are at least 43,000 documented complaints of human-bear conflict across North America. Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country? Examined those reports for years ranging from 1901 to 2023, and only managed to find 326 such incidents that met the criteria explained above. Let’s do some quick math, poorly. 43,000 incidents x 122 years = 5,246,000 total incidents of documented human-bear conflict. Smith and Herrero were only able to find 326 incidents that met their criteria for dog+human+bear+risk or occurrence of injury. That means there’s a 0.006 percent chance that the study’s conclusion—that dogs make bear encounters more dangerous—even gets a chance of occurring. And remember, that’s only in documented conflicts. There’s no way to know how many people across North America run into a bear in any given year without any conflict, but it’s probably safe to assume that the total number is well in excess of 43,000. And, dig deeper into the study and you can find further restrictions that skew its conclusions even more. “While the people involved in these incidents did not report the level of training their dogs had received, it is our assumption that most were untrained companion dogs as opposed to well-trained bear dogs, such as Karelians and livestock guardian breeds that have proven to be significant aids in bear country,” the study’s methodology explains. And that’s a problem, because an ongoing study here in Montana is finding that the simple presence of a Kangal like our youngest dog Teddy can reduce visits to private property from grizzly bears by 87.8 percent. In addition to being a badass, Teddy is also a companion animal. And in my admittedly limited sample size of the three dogs currently present in our living room, she’s no more effective than her mutt brothers. Plenty of people own a dog capable of deterring bears, even if they didn’t set out to own a bear dog. The real purpose of this study appears to be a recommendation that leashes are mandated and recreationists pursue training in their deterrent of choice. But that doesn’t make for sensational headlines. Are There Any Real Takeaways Here? Let’s throw some numbers around, just to try and get our hands around what the larger picture might look like for bears and dogs here. The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 42.6 percent of American households own a dog. The Canadian Animal Health Institute says roughly 35 percent of households in Canuckistan own a dog. In an attempt to create the worst possible result for dogs, let’s run with that 35 percent number. And given that outdoorsy and rural people are more likely to both own a dog, and have bear encounters, let’s just make a giant assumption and apply that number to those 43,000 conflicts documented annually. If 35 percent of 43,000 human-bear encounters involve a dog, then we can assume that at least 15,050 dog-bear conflicts are occurring annually in North America. 15,050 x 122 = 1,836,100. Smith and Herrero were only able to find 326 incidents that met their human, dog, chance or occurrence of injury criteria across 122 years. And only 170 documented human injuries. So, with all the obvious caveats about these numbers in no way describing reality beyond narrow study parameters, what they actually found is that your risk of injury if your dog tangles with a bear is only 0.009 percent. I’ll take those odds next time I’m hiking my dogs in bear country. Top photo: “Superintendent Horace Albright, eating pancakes with bears, at Lake Lodge, Yellowstone National Park.” NPS. A journalist with more than two decades of experience working around the world, Wes Siler is here to cut through the outrage and disinformation to bring you the factual, insightful, actionable reporting you need to understand what’s going on. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports this reporting, and buys personal access to Wes, who will help you save money on gear, plan outdoor adventures, and prepare for real life, and who promises he’s less salty in real life than he sometimes comes across as on the Internet. Wes Siler’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

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Aug 27 • 6:47 PM EDT • Science • wessiler.substack.com
Scientists Analyzed Earth's Hidden Seed Vaults And Made a Disturbing Realization

You reap what you sow.

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Aug 27 • 6:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com
Caesars sets shareholder meeting for Fertitta Entertainment buyout vote

Caesars Entertainment has scheduled a meeting for next month for shareholders to vote on Fertitta Entertainment's $17.6 billion buyout offer.

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Aug 27 • 5:19 PM EDT • Entertainment • news3lv.com
Hold on to your butts! This iconic ‘Jurassic Park’ fossil just sold for $400,000 at auction

An iconic ‘Jurassic Park’ fossil prop from the 1993 movie just sold for $400,000 at auction.

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Aug 27 • 3:01 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
MSBA Business Forward Tour makes stop in South Mississippi, bringing together business leaders, others

The tour aims to bring together business leaders, stakeholders and policymakers to talk about growth and the challenges local companies are facing.

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Aug 27 • 1:37 PM EDT • Business • wlox.com
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Cam Jurgens gives update on health after wrapping up Eagles training camp

Cam Jurgens spoke to reporters after the last Eagles training camp practice and was asked about how his back is holding up.

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Aug 27 • 11:52 AM EDT • Health • nbcphiladelphia.com
PENN Entertainment (PENN) Invests $195 Million In New Orleans As Undervalued View Faces A Fresh Test

PENN Entertainment (PENN) is committing about $195 million to shift its Boomtown Casino & Hotel New Orleans riverboat operations onto adjacent land, rebranding the complex as Hollywood Casino New Orleans, pending regulatory approval. For context, PENN Entertainment’s share price has pulled back in the short term, with a 30 day share price return of down 15.72% and a 90 day share price return of down 8.18%. The year to date share price return of 20.20% contrasts with a 1 year total shareholder...

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Aug 27 • 11:28 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Apple Event: Six New Products to Expect on September 9

Apple has announced that it will be holding an event on Wednesday, September 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, with the company widely expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, its first-ever foldable iPhone, and more. Other products expected to be announced at the event include an Apple Watch Series 12 with a ceramic case option, an Apple Watch Ultra 4, AirPods 5 with and without active noise cancellation, and potentially more.

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Aug 27 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Lucky Strike Entertainment (LUCK) Reports Q4 Loss, Misses Revenue Estimates

Lucky Strike Entertainment (LUCK) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of -300.00% and -2.81%, respectively, for the quarter ended June 2026. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?

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Aug 27 • 9:25 AM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com
Berrien County Health Department holds back-to-school event in Niles

The Berrien County Health Department will be helping kids in the southern part of the county get ready for the first day of school on Monday.As it did in Benton

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Aug 27 • 8:15 AM EDT • Health • wwmt.com
The Campaign to Create Second-Class Citizens

GOP lawmakers are pushing to restrict the rights of naturalized and dual citizens—including their ability to run for office.

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Aug 27 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • theatlantic.com
Radiology scores over $1B through No Surprises Act’s independent dispute-resolution process

Radiology stakeholders were quick to criticize the Health Affairs report and its conclusions on Aug. 26, with one contending it came straight from the insurance lobbying industry.

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Aug 27 • 3:08 AM EDT • Business • radiologybusiness.com
Vikings’ Carson Wentz Doesn’t Hold Back on J.J. McCarthy

The Minnesota Vikings are in the middle of another QB battle to determine who is their backup behind Kyler Murray. After losing the battle to Murray, J.J. McCarthy was given the QB2 status, but after two preseason games and training camp practices, that might be at risk.Veteran QB Carson Wentz could be looking to take […] The post Vikings’ Carson Wentz Doesn’t Hold Back on J.J. McCarthy appeared first on HEAVY.

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Aug 27 • 12:48 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Apple's iPhone Event Tagline is Different in Every Country

Apple today announced it will hold its annual iPhone-centric event on Wednesday, September 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. In the U.S. and several other countries, Apple used "Surprise and Shine" as its tagline for the event, but in other countries, the tagline isn't a literal translation. Here are the different taglines Apple is using on its regional websites. U.S., UK, NZ, Australia, Ireland, India - Surprise and Shine.

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Aug 26 • 7:41 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Darien Porter is Holding Off Rookies for Starting Spot

The second-year corner played far fewer snaps than the two rookies chasing his job in Houston, and that gap says more about trust than demotion.

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Aug 26 • 5:18 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
The Real Purpose of China's Robot Games Is Not Your Entertainment

China’s endlessly delightful World Humanoid Robot Games featured tons of impressive stunts. But the most mindblowing tricks were far less showy, and a lot more significant. For more like this, subscribe to Will Knight’s “AI Lab” newsletter.

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Aug 26 • 2:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • wired.com
Golden Knights Announce Television Broadcast Details for 2026-27 Season

Vegas scheduled to appear in 15 nationally-televised games in the United States on league rightsholders ESPN and Turner Sports

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Aug 26 • 1:21 PM EDT • Sports • nhl.com
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Apple is holding its iPhone launch event on September 9

The event is expected to be a notable one, as Apple is rumored to unveil its long-awaited foldable iPhone. It'll also be the first Apple event with John Ternus as CEO, who is scheduled to take the reins of the tech giant from Tim Cook on September 1.

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Aug 26 • 12:53 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com
SBA seeks to redefine small business, with some revenue caps reaching $1 billion

Critics warn that dramatically higher thresholds could leave the smallest firms competing against far larger rivals for federal contracts and loans

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Aug 26 • 12:31 PM EDT • Business • qz.com
Strategies for how to quit smoking; free support services available through health coaching program and EAP

Employees and their spouses have access to free health and wellness coaching on smoking cessation as part of the My Wellness program. Additionally, employees and members of their immediate household can access support services for substance abuse and a variety of other concerns through the university’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Eligible employees can also use…

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Aug 26 • 12:22 PM EDT • Health • today.marquette.edu
White House withholding $289 million of small business loans

The Trump administration is withholding $289 million appropriated by Congress for loans to small businesses. The elimination came through an executive order last year, with President Trump saying the program was "woke" and promoted "gender extremism" and "climate radicalism." NBC News senior financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson details the reasons for the pause and how damaging the move could be for Main Street.

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Aug 26 • 12:21 PM EDT • Business • nbcnews.com
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