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Aaron Donald is ‘TBD’ for Week 1
Sean McVay confirmed that he expects every player on the Rams roster to travel to Australia for Week 1’s game against the 49ers next Thursday, which does include Aaron Donald. According to Ian Rapoport, Donald is still ‘TBD’ for his Week 1 availability against San Francisco. The Rams can carry Donald on their roster for […]
Maria Bartiromo’s lawyer claims she’s ‘still an employee at Fox’ after network said she’s ‘no longer’ at channel
Fox announced Thursday that Bartiromo “is no longer with Fox News Media” effective immediately.
Maria Bartiromo’s lawyer says she’s ‘still an employee at Fox’ despite network announcement
Fox News personality Maria Bartiromo’s lawyer tells EW she’s ‘still an employee at Fox’ despite the network announcing that she’s ‘no longer with’ the channel.
Fulham v Crystal Palace: Key stats and talking points
Fulham's campaign got off to the worst possible start when they conceded to neighbours Chelsea just 30 seconds into their opening match. Defeat by the Blues was followed by another at Sunderland and while there will be no panic at the Cottage as new head coach Alvaro Arbeloa is still settling in, fans might be aware that only twice before have Fulham lost their first three games of a top-flight campaign (1951-52 and 2020-21). Fulham have also struggled against Palace in recent years, winning just two of their last 13 Premier League matches against the Eagles (D6, L5), with neither victory coming on home soil.
Elevance Health (ELV) Stock Still Looks Undervalued Despite Its 37% Run
After a strong 37.5% return over the past year, Elevance Health now trades with a high value score and an undervalued read on market multiples, which raises the question of whether the recent share price strength has fully reflected that signal or not. Elevance Health has delivered a 37.5% 1 year return, so any further upside now depends on how much fundamental value is still not priced in. The appointment of Dr. Patrick Fox to lead Carelon Behavioral Services, alongside greater use of AI in...
Last-minute Bruno Mars tickets for Gillette Stadium are still available from $160
The sold-out show features support from RAYE and DJ Pee .Wee.
Rabies: Why this deadly disease remains a threat
This ancient disease has plagued humans for 4,000 years. Here's why rabies still poses risks to people and pets today.
Sony Factory Will Still Have Significant PS5 Disc Manufacturing Capacity After Physical Media Deadline
Production will decline by 10%, not to 10%
Dodgers Still Searching for Answers to Tucker’s Collapse
A $240 million investment faces a baffling crisis as Kyle Tucker’s struggles at home defy logic, leaving the Los Angeles Dodgers scrambling to fix their star.
NFL: 'Deeply Concerning' Problematic Markets Still Available at Prediction Sites
The NFL's concern centers around markets that are easily controlled by one individual, are knowable in advance, or are subjective.
‘LaPolitics’: Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser weighs in on his future political plans
LaPolitics: Are you definitely running for reelection next year? Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser: My plan is to run for reelection, if I’m still healthy and I still have this passion I have right now. And it’s no secret, every day someone calls me and wants me to run for governor. Some people don’t think the […]
‘LaPolitics’: Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser weighs in on his future political plans
LaPolitics: Are you definitely running for reelection next year? Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser: My plan is to run for reelection, if I’m still healthy and I still have this passion I have right now. And it’s no secret, every day someone calls me and wants me to run for governor. Some people don’t think the […]
A campaign hangover, one political sign at a time
Thousands came down, but officials say signs still crowd roadsides and intersections.
What to know before attending this year’s Farm Science Review
Harvest is quickly approaching! It is incredible seeing what can happen with a more favorable than usual spring. However, while there is still some time, have you considered visiting the Farm Science Review? It’s a great way to connect leading industry professionals, learn from the experts, and see the latest and greatest innovations in agriculture.
Even blue California wants lower taxes and smaller government
A new survey of Californians’ political views shows the Democrats are still dominant, but a majority of voters wants lower taxes and smaller government.
Risky business: Is Bend maxed out on food carts?
Food carts have been a staple in Bend for over a decade. The arrival of new carts and another pod on the horizon suggests the scene still has room to […]
Julia Stiles and pro partner Ezra Sosa admit to a ‘hard day’ during “DWTS” rehearsals
“You can still be hard on me,” the actress tells the pro during an interview with EW.
Sony's PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90
Sony’s PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90 Sony won’t license disc pressing to anyone else, Microsoft does, and a former PlayStation boss thinks that’s the whole problem. When Sony DADC chief Dietmar Tanzer spoke with an Austrian broadcaster in July about PlayStation disc production at the Thalgau plant, a number of press outlets misunderstood the report, writing that production would fall to a tenth of current levels. It won’t. Sony DADC confirmed to Game this week that the figure is a 10 percent decline, not a decline to 10 percent. “To clarify and avoid any misleading information: in that statement Dietmar anticipated an overall product volume decline by 10 percent, not a decline down to 10 percent,” a spokesperson with Sony DADC told Game. That figure covers 2028. Tanzer didn’t put a number on the years after, and the spokesperson declined to comment further. What we do know is that on July 1, PlayStation announced that physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028 and that the transition has no impact on games that have already released in disc format or will be releasing in disc format prior to that month. “So, there will be reorders going to the market after January 2028,” the Sony DADC spokesperson said. “For details around that I would ask you to liaise with the PR team from PlayStation, as we can’t speak or comment on their behalf.” PlayStation officials did not respond to questions about reorders or other disc-related matters. But I did recently speak with Shawn Layden, Game Industry Strategic Advisor and former chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, who called a future without physical PlayStation discs “depressing, but solvable.” then added, “I think.” The chief hurdle to third-party manufacturing of collector’s editions or any other version of a PlayStation game disc is that Sony owns the proprietary process to press those discs, Layden said. “And unless they decide or determine a way to license that to some of these bespoke disc manufacturers, there’s no way to make it happen,” he said. Layden was careful to add that he understands the concept but doesn’t have “line of sight on the particulars.” “Depressing but solvable, I think.” — Shawn Layden Microsoft already licenses replication to outside plants. Xbox discs are pressed by manufacturers Microsoft certifies as Authorized Replicators, a term defined in its publisher agreements, with the approved list set at the company’s sole discretion and Microsoft retaining the right to halt manufacture. The structure is still in place today: publishers select an Authorized Replicator in Partner Center and submit a bill of materials created with a Microsoft representative. Sony, by contrast, presses PlayStation discs through Sony DADC, its own manufacturing subsidiary. No one I spoke with said they were in discussions with Sony about doing that, and PlayStation hasn’t responded to questions about whether it would be open to a licensing deal. There is an obvious reason Sony might not want to. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed it out on the day of the announcement: it’s a platform-led decision, he wrote, designed to cut costs, eliminate the resale market, and drive all revenue through the PlayStation Store. The math is not subtle. On a $70 third-party game sold through the PlayStation Store, Sony keeps $21. Sold at retail, Ahmad says, it earns about half that. Licensing disc replication to an outside manufacturer might not be worth it. And even if it were, it seems unlikely that such a deal would come from boutique companies like iam8bit, which sells collector’s editions of video games. “We would absolutely love to find a way forward to continue making physical PlayStation games,” said Jon Gibson, co-owner and co-creative director of the company. “We are big believers in giving humans the option to truly own media. If we can play a role in helping make that a reality for the future of PlayStation games, count iam8bit in!” If it were to happen, it would most likely be with a company like Conectiv Supply Chain Solutions, a Memphis-based manufacturer of optical discs and vinyl records that also runs third-party logistics, fulfillment and distribution for packaged media. The company, which was formed in 2025 when Los Angeles private equity firm Variant Equity Advisors purchased Vantiva’s Supply Chain Solutions division, traces its lineage back to Technicolor. When it sold the division, Vantiva described the business as having served video game creators for more than 25 years. Conectiv is also buying, not shrinking. Last month it acquired SDS, the distributor for Universal and Warner Bros. home entertainment, consolidating those studios’ packaged-media pipeline from pressing plant to retail shelf. I reached out to Conectiv and its CEO, but haven’t heard back. Layden pointed to music and books in our discussion about the ongoing value of physical media. “No one ever saw the comeback of cassette tape,” he said. “And vinyl didn’t so much come back. The flame went down, the fire’s dying, but the ember was always there, and it just kind of came back. Much like the book business. We thought we’d all be on Kindles right now. “I believe that physical media is crucial and important. One of the things that makes us gamers, one of the core game mechanics, going back to the beginning of time, is collecting stuff. “Did you get all the diamonds in Crash Bandicoot? Did you get all the stars in Mario? And we like to collect our games. And we have a game shelf. And we put all our boxes up there. And if you’re super hardcore, when you buy a game, you buy two copies, right? One stays in the shrink wrap, and you play the other one. What happens to that important cultural part of the gaming world? You know, we buy the steelbook and the three-disc Final Fantasy set and the figurine and, you know, you can’t download any of that. “What happens to that?” And Layden believes it shouldn’t have been a revenue question for PlayStation. “This was a core thing to the experience of our most devoted fans,” he said. “Yeah, it’s fan service. Why would we take that away? Well, we can’t afford to. It’s already 120 bucks, you know, limited edition special purchase onyx box version of whatever, and those sell at a higher rate than the box selling at $69.99 does. So yeah, the market has said they will continue to buy them. You’re just saying you just don’t want to make them anymore.” Layden said he was recently talking with someone about these sorts of business decisions and how they’re made. Too often, he said, it’s all about the financials and nothing else. “OK, we can do this and save this much money, or we can invest this to look at that outcome, or we can do this and have this happen over there, or move this team to Sri Lanka,” he said. “But each one of those, someone also has to have a ledger there saying, ‘OK, what is the brand impact from that move?’ “Iif you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” — Shawn Layden “If we do that, dollars and cents work out. I get it. That’s just math. But what’s the brand impact? Are people going to say, ‘Good move, you guys?’ Or are they going to say, ‘We hate you guys. Quit doing that.’ And sometimes they say, ‘We hate you.’ Then you take a note and say, OK, how much of that can we live with? How much ‘we hate you’ is OK. And when does it go over the line? “I see a lot of companies making decisions which, objectively speaking, I don’t know what the dollar end of that was for you, Mr. Company, but your brand value just dropped 30 percent. So I hope it was worth it.” Of course, shifting to a digital-only model for games raises other issues beyond simply wanting to collect. The biggest is ownership. Layden pointed out that once you go to a streaming-only or download-only model, it’s just a digital footprint on a hard drive. “What does ownership mean anymore?” he said. “It’s a genuine question. Well, in fact, it’s not even a question anymore. It’s like you are shifting the model from ownership to accessibility. “And what’s always been true, which people forget, is you’ve never been able to sell your iTunes library. And you can’t sell your PlayStation download library. So if you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” The touching tribute found in the credits for Star Wars Zero Company. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Interview and Hands-On with a Minoan Masterpiece Star Wars Zero Company hands-on: Attack Astromechs, permadeath, and delightfully fatal Rube Goldberg tactics Control Resonant opens up as you get stronger — and as characters start trusting you
Israel's water crisis eases, but algae bloom still threatens desalination
Israel's Water Authority said supplies to households and agriculture have stabilized through controlled desalination, increased flows from the Sea of Galilee and hundreds of groundwater wells, but it gave no estimate for when the algae bloom will subside
Israel's water crisis eases, but algae bloom still threatens desalination
The Water Authority said supplies to households and agriculture have stabilized through controlled desalination, increased flows from the Sea of Galilee and hundreds of groundwater wells, but it gave no estimate for when the algae bloom will subside
Yankees' AL East Dream is More Realistic Than You Think
The New York Yankees still have a chance of winning the AL East.
Bob Reiter: Chicago built the labor movement. Its work isn’t finished.
As the Chicago Federation of Labor marks 130 years, the lessons that built the city’s labor movement still matter: Workers accomplish more when they stand together.
Liverpool target Minteh can still get dream move
Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler says Yankuba Minteh can still "fulfil his dream" move in future after the Seagulls turned down Liverpool's offers for the winger.
Has Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT) Fallen Far Enough To Look Cheap?
Flutter Entertainment’s share price has undergone a sharp reset over the past year, yet broader valuation checks still suggest the stock screens as inexpensive. This puts recent price weakness in contrast with a more constructive read from its fundamentals-based metrics. The share price has fallen 65% over the past year, indicating a major reset in investor expectations for Flutter Entertainment. Regulatory clarity around U.S. sports prediction markets, including the New Jersey petition...
Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson opens up on mental health struggle after injury setback: “I still have hope
After sustaining an injury in Switzerland last month, Jackson has brought her season to a close citing struggles with her mental health.
The Future of Porto-Linked Juventus Man Still Uncertain
Federico Gatti has been in limbo throughout the summer, and his future continues to be uncertain, even though Juventus repelled a late attempt to lure him by Porto. The market is still open in such a ...
Why Julián Álvarez’s Barcelona Dream Still Faces Atlético’s Veto
Julián Álvarez ended the summer window still on Atlético Madrid’s books, but that outcome has settled almost nothing. Barcelona spent the entire market chasing the Argentine, Atlético publicly r...
Roma monitoring Zinchenko and Guerreiro
Roma is still looking for a few players to bolster Coach Gian Piero Gasperini’s squad. Their sights are firmly set on a left-back. With several options falling through while negotiations were ongoin...
Water damage at Nehalem Bay Health Center and Pharmacy fully repaired
The failure of a plumbing connection at the Nehalem Bay Health Center & Pharmacy (NBHCP) on May 12, 2026. resulted in considerable damage to flooring, dry wall and some equipment,
Yankees’ Max Fried Plan Vs. Padres Comes With Risk
Max Fried is still working himself back to full strength from injury.Because of that, the New York Yankees seem likely to employ a fascinating strategy with him when he takes the mound on Friday against the San Diego Padres.Fried is the scheduled starting pitcher, and that’s not really in question. He should get the ball […] The post Yankees’ Max Fried Plan Vs. Padres Comes With Risk appeared first on HEAVY.
English: College football politics are ravaging the game — for Texas, the show still goes on
It’s a hellish era for college football teams. It has become typical for us to go through the same cycle of previously unbelievable news over the offseason. The transfer portal has always resulted in some messiness, as well as highly dubious tampering claims, and finding replacements for head coaches always brings on a little bit...
Wisconsin health officials urge measles vaccination as school year begins
State health officials are reminding parents and caregivers that as the new school year gets underway, there’s still time for your children to get vaccinated against measles.
Wisconsin health officials urge measles vaccination as school year begins
State health officials are reminding parents and caregivers that as the new school year gets underway, there’s still time for your children to get vaccinated against measles.
Wisconsin health officials urge measles vaccination as school year begins
State health officials are reminding parents and caregivers that as the new school year gets underway, there’s still time for your children to get vaccinated against measles.
Wisconsin health officials urge measles vaccination as school year begins
State health officials are reminding parents and caregivers that as the new school year gets underway, there’s still time for your children to get vaccinated against measles.
Wisconsin health officials urge measles vaccination as school year begins
State health officials are reminding parents and caregivers that as the new school year gets underway, there’s still time for your children to get vaccinated against measles.
Wisconsin health officials urge measles vaccination as school year begins
State health officials are reminding parents and caregivers that as the new school year gets underway, there’s still time for your children to get vaccinated against measles.
Vaping still a growing concern for Montana schools and health leaders
Montana schools are prioritizing vaping education and prevention as health officials warn 1 in 5 students have used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days.
'Al the Jelly Man,' a familiar face on the South Shore and Cape, asks for community's help amid health challenges
“I still want to get out and meet people and talk and everything. But it's just — it's something I cannot do.”
GOP mayor rejects Trump renaming Lake Ontario, speaks to OutFront: It’s ‘part of our identity’
Cyclospora season ends but health officials still investigate cases
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — While the official U.S. Cyclospora season concluded on Aug. 31, federal and state health agencies are still actively identifying and investigating cases. This has been the largest Cyclospora outbreak ever recorded in the United States, with over 11,400 confirmed illnesses reported across at least 20 states. Dr. Angela Walla, a […]
Hydrate early, limit alcohol: ASU health director shares game day safety tips
While kickoff signals the long-awaited start of fall for many Alabamians, dangerously high temperatures still pose a serious threat to football fans and athletes alike.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani says 9/11 memorial service should be about remembrance, not politics
Baptist Health scoops up Coconut Creek Kohl’s store for $54M
Baptist Health South Florida dropped $53.5 million on a Kohl’s department store in Coconut Creek. The retailer, led by CEO Michael Bender, sold the 92,700-square-foot stand-alone store at 6950 North State Road 7 for $577 per square foot. Kohl’s acquired the 8.2-acre property for $14.8 million in 2008, soon after the store was built. Last year, the company announced plans to shutter 27 stores in underperforming locations, though no additional closure announcements have been made since then. The store is still open, and plans for the site are being evaluated, a Baptist Health spokesperson told the South Florida Business Journal. […]
Help available for Mainers struggling to afford healthcare
Rising affordability challenges are forcing some Mainers to drop their health insurance coverage but healthcare advocates said financial help is still available. Residents who use the state’s marketplace, CoverME.gov, will see rate increases of more than 13% next year while small-group market rates jump nearly 15% — another double-digit increase. Ann Woloson, executive director of the Augusta-based group
Blizzard Might Be Teasing A New StarCraft Game
There's something odd happening on the StarCraft website. While the content still features StarCraft Remastered, which launched back in 2017, the page now seems to be glitching out, with various elements, images, and text blocks flickering on-screen randomly. Could Blizzard be teasing a new StarCraft game?
Johnson County weighs new mental health court to divert defendants from jail
Johnson County leaders are considering a new criminal mental health court designed to keep people with mental health needs out of jail and better connected to t
I held the first truly bezel-free phone
There’s no bezel, but there is still a bit of a frame.
Ebola Outbreak 'Still Evolving' As Deaths Pass 3,000
More than 3,000 people have now died in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak out of 6,250 confirmed cases, the Africa Centres for
Dave Bautista unveils 'God of War' transformation after series recast
Dave Bautista may not be heading back into the ring anytime soon, but he's still got that fighting spirit.
NBA insider reveals timeline for Kawhi Leonard-Raptors trade after Clippers punishment
The Los Angeles Clippers traded Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors earlier in the offseason and then mayhem happened. Now, with everything cleared up, it seems like it will still be able to go through.
These Giant Short-Throw Projectors Really, Really Want You to Replace Your TV
Short-throw projectors are getting faster, brighter, and better looking. They're still really expensive.
NASA scientists discover a giant 10-sided pattern on Saturn
A huge 10-sided atmospheric pattern has appeared around Saturn’s south pole, giving the planet a surprising counterpart to its famous northern hexagon. Hubble data suggest the strange decagon only began emerging in the past few years and is still growing stronger. Researchers hope continued observations will reveal why it suddenly formed and whether it could persist for decades.
Eagles TEs coach excited about Stowers' development, but preaches patience
While Eagles TEs coach Ryan Mahaffey has been excited by Eli Stowers’ development, he’s still preaching patience.
Backed By More Than $100M Investment: DEAG Founder Peter Schwenkow's New European Live & Family Entertainment Group
Peter Schwenkow is planning the launch of a new European live and family entertainment group, bolstered by up to €100 million of equity from Swiss private
Jake Johnson hopes hustle, political conditions add up to upset over Republican Brad Finstad
Rochester math teacher Jake Johnson is waging a stiff challenge to Republican incumbent Rep. Brad Finstad. Johnson has gained national Democratic attention but still has an uphill climb to reach a seat in Congress.
Meet the South's first Black gay congressman
Rep. Everton Blair will serve just four months in Congress. Still, the South's first Black gay man in the House has plans for his short time there.
3 farmers, 3 paths to better soil health
From organic rotations to no-till corn, these farmers share the practices they've tested, the results they've seen and what they'd change.
Dana White Calls Hawaii Dream Destination for UFC
UFC president Dana White said that going to Hawaii is a dream destination for the world’s leading MMA promotion.Despite Hawaii having two of the most popular fighters in MMA history, former UFC champions BJ Penn and Max Holloway, coming from “The Aloha State,” the UFC has still never held an event on the Hawaiian Islands, […] The post Dana White Calls Hawaii Dream Destination for UFC appeared first on HEAVY.
Cardinals rumors: Arizona making progress on Michael Wilson contract extension
The Arizona Cardinals are in for a rough 2026 campaign . After a tumultuous 2025 campaign, Arizona is still quite far from light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. While they have some intriguing pieces on their roster, it’s unfortunately not going to be enough to contend in the best division in the NFL this year. That being said, the best thing […] The post Cardinals rumors: Arizona making progress on Michael Wilson contract extension appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Saints Lose WR to Browns After Taking Cedric Tillman From Cleveland
Cedric Tillman coming to the New Orleans Saints has been viewed as a pretty big deal.The former Cleveland Browns wide receiver was available, and the Saints pounced to add him to their practice squad earlier this week.Lost in the shuffle was that there’s also a wideout going back from the Saints to the Browns: Bub […] The post Saints Lose WR to Browns After Taking Cedric Tillman From Cleveland appeared first on HEAVY.
Google’s next Pixel Fold reportedly adopting the same crease-less display as Apple
We’re still a few days out from the debut of Apple’s first iPhone foldable which, as many have expected for...
Sony and Microsoft say they’re not obligated to pass U.S. tariff refunds to consumers, echoing Nintendo
Back in July, Sony executives told investors that the company expected to receive $508 million in refunds from the U.S. government, after tariffs that the PlayStation-maker paid were ruled mostly in 2025 were found to be illegal. “Most” of the refund would by recouped by Sony’s gaming division, its chief financial officer said. This week, Sony’s lawyers are arguing that the company is not legally obligated to pass those proceeds on to consumers who paid for recently price-hiked PlayStation consoles. That’s in the face of a lawsuit from gamers calling on them to do exactly that. “Paying fair market price for voluntarily purchased consumer goods is not a legally cognizable injury in fact,” the lawyers wrote in a legal motion filed on Monday, as they asked a judge in California’s Northern District to dismiss a potential class action lawsuit over the tariff refunds. Microsoft made a similar argument two weeks ahead of Sony’s lawyers, in a similar lawsuit brought by a gamer in federal court in Washington State. As Microsoft’s legal team put it on August 21, in their request for a dismissal of that lawsuit: “There is nothing unjust about Plaintiff purchasing an Xbox at an advertised price and getting exactly what he paid for—regardless of whatever theory he devised months later about Microsoft’s cost structure.” Both legal fights are set to go on for some time. How things got to this point U.S. tariffs impacting a wide range of imported goods, including game consoles, had kicked off in early 2025. In May 2025, Microsoft raised the price of its Xbox consoles, citing “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” They raised them again that September. In August of that year, Sony raised the price of PlayStation 5 consoles, citing “a challenging economic environment.” Sony later told investors that its tariff fees for the fall quarter were nearly $200 million. in February of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the 2025 tariffs illegal, prompting impacted companies to begin to request refunds. In turn, consumers began suing the likes of Sony and Microsoft to get what they said was their share. The gamers in the Microsoft and Sony lawsuits argue that the 2025 price hikes of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, which added $50 or more to their sticker price, were due to illegal tariffs and should now be returned to consumers. The Sony suit started in May, when a group of gamers sued in federal court in California, saying Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation) would be unjustly enriching itself if it did not pass tariff refunds to its PS5 buyers. “Sony is poised to be paid twice for the same unlawful tariff burden: once by its customers (through elevated prices) and once by the U.S. government (through tariff refunds),” the gamers’ lawyers wrote at the time. They called for Sony to partially reimburse anyone who bought a PlayStation in the U.S. since August 1, 2025. The Microsoft suit, filed by gamer Trevor Hastings against the Xbox giant in July, made similar claims. The console makers push back In late July, Nintendo’s lawyers, facing a similar suit accusing them of double-dipping on tariffs and refunds, replied with arguments that previewed Microsoft’s and Sony’s: “Nintendo or one of its retailers set a price for each product, and consumers decided whether that price was worth paying,” they wrote. Sony has buttressed that Nintendo-style argument this week by saying that the gamers have failed to prove that tariffs were the reason for its August 2025 PS5 price hike. They call thatclaim “speculative and illogical.” Other factors, including “inflation, currency fluctuations, component costs, logistics, competitive dynamics, or demand,” could have played a role. (No, the Sony lawyers do not break down the costs and factors that officially triggered the price increases). Microsoft has also argued that there’s no proof in these lawsuits that tariffs drove all or some of the price increase, as it seeks to dismiss the tariff refund suit it’s facing: “Plaintiff provides no specific allegations that would establish any pricing differential attributable to tariffs or suggest any possibility that Microsoft applied then or could recreate now any dollar-for-dollar calculation of tariff-related pricing—any more than it could any other market factor that affects pricing.” To further skewer the gamer side’s argument in its case, Sony’s lawyers have pointed to what might be a surprising defense: yet another PlayStation 5 price hike from this past spring, after the tariffs were ruled illegal. “If the original price increase were attributable to tariffs, SIE [Sony Interactive Entertainment, aka PlayStation] would have had no reason to raise prices again after the Supreme Court invalidated the IEEPA tariffs.” … “If tariffs were the cause of the price increases, one would expect SIE to lower prices once the tariffs were eliminated—not raise them again. Instead, the timeline confirms that the pricing of PlayStation consoles includes a diverse and dynamic set of input costs.” Judges have not yet ruled on the arguments made by Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. Last week, Panic, the company behind the small, yellow Playdate handheld said it would be passing its tariff refunds on to consumers. It is the only gaming hardware maker to have made such a pledge. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my reporting, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: A reporter’s second Second Life Wagner James Au, who from 2003-2006 was paid by San Francisco-based tech company Linden Lab to be a full-time journalist embedded in their virtual world Second Life, is returning to the company. This time, he’ll be an editorial advisor and business development specialist, he tells Game File. The new role will involve trying to share the stories of people inhabiting Second Life’s ongoing online world with reporters and by extension the public. Au plans to continue to also chronicle some of that through his long-running blog New World Notes. I’ve known Au since the mid-2000s and featured him in a 2007 article for the Columbia Journalism Review about reporters like him opening up virtual news outlets within Second Life. As I wrote at the time: On April 22, 2003, writing as Hamlet Linden for the New World Notes blog on Second Life’s Web site, Au introduced himself. “For the next few months, Linden Lab has invited me to set aside my journalist cap, and instead, don the digital beanie of their in-house virtual correspondent.” He wasn’t paid to keep it positive. He wrote about builders and eccentrics, but then in August of that year, he reported on a tax revolt against Linden Lab (a complaint about the fees it charges users who build stuff) led by a resident whose avatar was a big cat. Second Life has always been less of a video game and more of a virtual world where people can live, hang out, make art, sell virtual items and flirt. Back in 2007, Au described touring it as “sort of like underwater lucid dreaming.” For the past two decades, Au has maintained New World Notes as an independent publication. But he said he’s been drawn back to Second Life and Linden Lab as a place to directly work. The virtual world has around 650,000 monthly active users, he said, “which is actually about what it was during the hype wave.” Au says he’s still finding rich stories in Second Life, the kind that keep him interested 20 years into the beat: “Over the last few months for instance, I wrote about an SL creator in Venezuela whose apartment was destroyed by the earthquakes, so the global SL community rallied to get him back on his feet,” he told me. “Then there’s the woman from a Middle Eastern country who explored her lesbian sexuality in SL, then earned enough from her virtual jewelry to escape her abusive family situation and country.” Au wants to beckon more reporters to give Second Life another look. He argues that it is often ahead of internet trends, noting, for example, an early backlash in the community against AI-made art. Now the platform is drawing curiosity from more of the user-generated content community who’ve grown up with the likes of Roblox, according to Au. “Second Life was too early during its hype wave in 2005-2010, but it now feels right for a new wave of interest,” he told me.
GOP ads contradict Trump’s rosy view of the economy
For months, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that consumer prices are falling ahead of this year’s 2026 midterm elections. Now some Republican candidates are running campaign ads that acknowledge reality. CNN’s Daniel Dale reports.
Republican Senator Calls On Trump to Replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
Sen. Thom Tillis is urging the President to oust Hegseth because of what he described as “inept management.”
CNBC Sport: Josh Harris on signing LeBron James, rebuilding the Commanders and rising sports values
CNBC's Michael Ozanian sits down with Josh Harris, managing partner of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment.
Lack of child care still a key need for WV businesses while state slowrolls lawmakers' bill
West Virginia’s business leaders continue to beat the drum that the state is woefully short on affordable childcare spots. They say it is one of the reasons the state continues to have the nation’s worst workforce participation of a little more than 50%.
The Devil Works Hard, But Whoever Is Keeping The IS Alive At Lexus Works Harder
Despite entering its thirteenth year of life, the Lexus IS is still soldiering on with a new Special Appearance Package that has some great green paint.
Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen Fixes the Sequel’s Biggest Flaw, but Combat Still Fights the Player for Control
We went hands-on with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen at gamescom 2026, checking out the new features and content in the upcoming DLC.
The line in the SEC between college professional sports still matters
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A Staggering Fish Could Have Been Alive Before the United States Existed—and May Still Be Swimming Today, Research Suggests
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Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard & Vanessa Redgrave Join Animated Movie ‘The Turning Door’
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The Medical Minute: Is BMI telling the whole story?
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Middleton leads Johnson in race for Texas attorney general, but the contest is unusually close
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Surprise Switch 2 Upgrade Brings Wild 8-Player Split-Screen Mode To Mario Kart 8 Deluxe For Free
Still the king
Dear Early-Career Expert: You Are Still Valued
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A strange, dark object is warping the Universe. Scientists still don’t know what it is | BBC Sky at Night Magazine
The lowest-mass dark object ever found in the Universe, discovered by using a global network of humanity's most powerful telescopes.
We've spent billions searching for dark matter and still haven't found it. Why are scientists obsessed with finding something they can't see? | BBC Sky at Night Magazine
If dark matter is invisible and can't be detected, why are scientists spending so much time and money searching for it?
This week in Santa Cruz County business: Leadership shakeup at Driscoll’s; Watsonville’s new distillery takes inspiration from the sea
In her weekly look at local business, Jessica M. Pasko reports on high-level departures at Watsonville-based berry giant Driscoll's, a new distillery in South County and plenty of names, numbers and dates to know.
$21+ Billion Business Process Management Market Outlook 2026-2035 | AI and Automation Drive the Next Wave of BPM Growth
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Pangram Has Emerged as the Gold Standard of AI Detection. Should You Trust It?
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Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
A service run from Latvia offers payment for short, social-media-friendly clips designed to look like grassroots GOP support.
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
FiveThirtyEight’s Podcast Hosts Reunite for a New Show
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Fire destroys Forest City building, home to family business for over 100 years
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MNPD: Mental health team not on scene before North Nashville officer-involved shooting
Fox 17 provides local news, weather, sports, traffic and entertainment for Nashville and nearby towns and communities in Middle Tennessee, including Forest Hills, Brentwood, Franklin, Fairview, Dickson, Clarksville, White House, Greenbrier, Springfield, Gallatin, Hartsville, Lebanon, Mt Juliet, Smyrna, College Grove, Thompson’s Station, Centerville, Murfreesboro, Columbia, Lewisburg, Shelbyville, Manchester, McMinnville, Smithville, Sparta, Cookeville, Hohenwald, Waverly, Camden, Paris, Lafayette, Portland, and in Kentucky, Russelville, Bowling Green, Franklin, Alvaton, Scottsville, Hopkinsville, Glasgow.
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.
Giants' Malik Nabers Concerns Simply Won't Rest
The New York Giants' concerns about Malik Nabers are still floating around.
Animal shelter is still overcrowded, St. Louis County health chief says
The shelter is designed for about 80 dogs — but had 184 on Tuesday, the St. Louis County health director said.
Cleveland Clinic survey highlights social media's influence on men's health
Seventy-four percent of men rarely or never trust health information shared by influencers, yet 39% admit they tried a new diet or wellness trend after seeing it on social media.
Rockstar Games unveils its official GTA Online RP server, mere months before GTA 6
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Biggest Questions Remaining After Panthers Trim Roster to 53 Players
Here's what we're still wondering after the Panthers finalized the roster.
A Grip on Sports: Saying goodbye is never easy. Saying goodbye to a guy like Joe Palmquist is even tougher. Saying 'thanks' isn't. Nor should it ever be.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • I know. I should be spending the next 1,000 words or so railing about the Seattle Mariners. Or raving about the Seahawks. Anticipating the Apple Cup. Or wondering what happened to Eastern last weekend. But I’m not. All that will still be here tomorrow. Joe Palmquist won’t. And that makes me want to cry. Again.
Microsoft 365 outage drags on, but things are improving
Microsoft 365 and Outlook are still seeing service degradations on Tuesday, the company's status page indicates.