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Eagles-Commanders Week 8 game will NOT be flexed out of Sunday night

For better or for worse, you’ve gotta stay up late to watch the Birds next weekend.

Oct 20 • 11:47 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Apple is looking for a cellular modem engineer as it eyes 6G

Apple is looking for an experienced cellular modem systems engineer to help develop its next generation of cellular modems as the company transitions toward 6G.

Oct 20 • 9:18 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

Ohio State faces a major test without Julian Sayin

Who will be the Buckeyes' next signal caller in Sayin's absence?

Oct 20 • 8:24 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

New Richland Lab Could Transform How Scientists Study Microbes and Boost Regional Jobs

The BriefGroundbreaking held Tuesday: PNNL officially began construction on the M2PC lab, a 30,800-square-foot facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science that will study soil microbes to improve crop productivity and develop new biotechnology applications. The facility will be open to researchers from around the nation and the world.Research timelines could shrink dramatically: The facility's automation and AI capabilities could reduce experiments that currently take six months to just 72 hours, allowing scientists to explore more possibilities faster than ever before.New jobs coming to the Tri-Cities: The project is expected to create positions for automation engineers, AI experts, roboticists, technicians, and skilled craftspeople, with the facility opening in 2029.RICHLAND, Wash. — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory broke ground Tuesday on a first-of-its-kind facility that could accelerate scientific discoveries about the microscopic organisms living in soil—organisms that may hold the key to growing more food and developing new energy technologies.The Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability, or M2PC, represents a significant investment in automation and artificial intelligence to speed up research that traditionally takes years to complete. The 30,800-square-foot facility will house more than 100 connected automated instruments designed to study microbes at a pace and scale never before possible.Reshaping Agriculture's FutureThe M2PC facility will not put a new tool directly into a farmer's hands tomorrow morning, but it is actively reshaping the commercial pipeline to solve agriculture's biggest headache with biologicals: inconsistent field performance. For years, PNNL researchers have explored how microbes work and how they might help produce useful materials, advance energy technologies, and address challenges involving critical materials and minerals. But those experiments have been limited by what researchers could accomplish by hand."They can be used to provide nutrients to a plant so that the plant would grow more. So, like increasing your crop productivity, for example," said Douglas Mans, PNNL's Associate Laboratory Director for Integrated Discovery Sciences.PNNL's own research shows soil microbes can help plants access nutrients and withstand drought—benefits that could prove crucial as farmers face growing environmental pressures. The M2PC facility will allow scientists to identify and optimize useful microbes faster than ever before, accelerating the development of biological solutions that actually work consistently in the field.What Makes M2PC UniqueThe Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability differs from traditional research labs because it operates as a first-of-its-kind, AI-enabled autonomous laboratory designed to shrink experimental timelines from years down to months or weeks. The M2PC lab will connect more than 100 automated instruments to grow microbes, prepare samples, measure their behavior, and link observations to the molecular processes behind them. Artificial intelligence will help analyze results and guide the next experiments, allowing scientists to explore more questions faster.Deb Gracio, PNNL Director, emphasized the transformative potential during Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony: "Research that has taken years will become possible in months and hopefully in weeks."That acceleration is already being demonstrated. PNNL's smaller automated lab, called the Anaerobic Microbial Phenotyping Platform or AMP2, completed three experimental cycles in just 72 hours—a process that normally would have taken about six months."That normally would have taken us about six months … and we were able to do that in 72 hours," Mans said.The AMP2 laboratory is not being closed or replaced. Instead, the current 1,800-square-foot laboratory serves as an active prototype and precursor for the much larger M2PC facility. AMP2 will continue operating as a separate lab designed to run anaerobic experiments—those conducted in the absence of oxygen—while M2PC will focus on aerobic research.Broader Applications Beyond AgricultureWhile improving crop productivity is one important application, the M2PC facility is designed to support research into multiple areas critical to national priorities. The lab will advance research into biofuels, manufacturing materials, and energy technologies. It will also help researchers understand how microbes respond to environmental changes and how to design biological systems for biotechnology applications.As a flagship component of the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, M2PC represents a significant investment in using artificial intelligence and automation to accelerate U.S. scientific discovery. Dorothy Koch, Associate Director of the DOE Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research program, highlighted the facility's importance during the groundbreaking."M2PC will accelerate biological discovery and design," Koch said, noting that the facility is expected to conduct a minimum of 500 strain experiments per week, 100 microbiome experiments per week, and take a million measurements per month.Economic Opportunity for the RegionBeyond the scientific breakthroughs, the M2PC project represents significant economic opportunity for the Tri-Cities region. The facility will require hiring automation engineers, AI experts, technicians skilled in operating robotics, and specialized craftspeople to build and maintain the sophisticated equipment."We're anticipating that type of hiring," Mans said when asked about job creation.PNNL has already begun recruiting talent nationally and internationally for positions related to the smaller AMP2 lab, bringing automation engineers from cities like Boston and San Francisco to work in the region. The M2PC facility is expected to accelerate that trend."This capability won't really exist anywhere else in the world," Mans said, suggesting the facility could become a draw for scientific talent seeking to work on cutting-edge biotechnology research.Timeline and Next StepsThe M2PC facility is expected to open in 2029. Between now and then, construction crews will level and prepare the ground, while the building takes shape. Simultaneously, Ginkgo Bio Works, the automation contractor, will build the facility's automation components off-site so they can be installed as the building is completed.In the interim, PNNL researchers and the broader scientific community will begin planning the first experiments to be conducted in the facility, ensuring research is lined up and ready to begin as soon as the doors open.The groundbreaking ceremony included representatives from the Department of Energy, PNNL leadership, and elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, underscoring the project's significance to the region and the nation's biotechnology future. News The U.S. Department of Energy Secretary tours Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Dan Hanson, Apple Valley News Now News Beyond DNA: Scientists Explore New Frontiers in Biology Research Dan Hanson, Apple Valley News Now News TRIDEC optimistic that Hanford, PNNL will see funding in national budget Robert Desaulniers News Big picture science: monitoring the Yakima River Basin News PNNL research could shape the future of fighting fentanyl ​COPYRIGHT 2026 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

Oct 20 • 7:44 PM EDT • Science • applevalleynewsnow.com

Gravity & Other Myths Bringing Acrobatics Show to Eisenhower Auditorium

An Australian physical theater troupe will bring a performance built around acrobatics, repetition and the pursuit of mastery to Penn State next

Oct 20 • 5:48 PM EDT • Entertainment • statecollege.com

October 22 Vallejo/Vacaville Arts-Entertainment Source: Faces and Places

“Building APAPA with you has been one of the greatest honors of our lives. We are proud of these past 25 years, and we are excited to see what this generation and future generations will do next,” C.C. Yin proudly said.

Oct 20 • 5:44 PM EDT • Entertainment • timesheraldonline.com

Windows and Xbox teams reportedly clashed over OS experience for gaming, as next-gen Xbox Helix console slips into 2028

A new report claims the Windows and Xbox teams have clashed over the direction of the OS for Microsoft's next-gen Xbox consoles.

Oct 20 • 5:44 PM EDT • Technology • windowscentral.com

Report: Microsoft's Project Helix planned for 2028 at $1,200 to $1,800 price

Xbox maker is also apparently planning its own gaming handheld for next year.

Oct 20 • 5:14 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

Investors are piling into retail real estate. This Wheaton deal shows why.

Local real estate investment firm Core Acquisitions flipped the Rice Lake Square shopping center for $52.8 million just two and a half years after buying it.

Oct 20 • 4:41 PM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

Kaiser Permanente Hawaiʻi invites Maui students to explore health care careers

Kaiser Permanente Hawaiʻi is helping inspire the next generation of health care professionals through its upcoming Career Exploration Day on Saturday, Nov. 14, in partnership with Maui Economic Development Board’s STEMworks program.

Oct 20 • 4:00 PM EDT • Health • mauinow.com

iPad Mini 8 Expected Next Week With These 10 New Features

Apple reportedly plans to unveil an iPad mini 8 with an OLED display next week, with those invited to Apple's Los Angeles experience on Wednesday, October 28 expected to receive hands-on time with the device, alongside MacBook Pro models with touch-enabled OLED displays, a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip, and an iMac with an M6 chip.

Oct 20 • 3:35 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Microsoft reportedly plans Xbox handheld in 2027, next-gen console in 2028

The next Xbox could cost between $1,200 and $1,800 if Microsoft doesn’t subsidize it.

Oct 20 • 2:45 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Steam Next Fest Has Become A Massive Disaster And A Grim Look At The Future

The vibes are rotten this time around as Next Fest features thousands of AI slop demos

Oct 20 • 2:36 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

Samsung Has Already Found the Next Way to Unfold a Phone

A leaker claims that the long-awaited Galaxy Z Slide is finally upon us.

Oct 20 • 2:20 PM EDT • Technology • gizmodo.com

Exclusive | Christina Applegate's next steps towards finding cause of worsening health issues revealed after incorrect MS diagnosis

Oct 20 • 2:03 PM EDT • Health • nypost.com

Jay-Z, U2 and ‘Star Wars' headline NFL's next big entertainment events

U2 will headline the NFL's first Thanksgiving Eve halftime show, while Jay-Z is reportedly set for Super Bowl LXI and a "Star Wars" alternate broadcast will recreate the game in animation.

Oct 20 • 1:54 PM EDT • Entertainment • sports.yahoo.com

Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.

Oct 20 • 1:47 PM EDT • Technology • bigtechnology.com

Romania Politics Government

Romanian Prime Minister Luca Niculescu, left, smiles standing next to Romanian President Nicusor Dan after a swearing in ceremony for the new government at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in Bucharest,

Oct 20 • 1:38 PM EDT • Politics • postregister.com

Seattle’s Brudi Brothers on opening for Kacey Musgraves, new album

The Seattle folk trio have played their share of milestone stages. But the next one is a different beast.

Oct 20 • 1:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • yakimaherald.com

Yankees Reportedly Reach Decision On Aaron Boone's Future

The New York Yankees are bringing back Aaron Boone as their manager next season

Oct 20 • 12:57 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

iOS 27.2 adds new features in six iPhone apps, here’s what’s coming

iOS 27.2 launches next week with new features for iPhone users, including improvements across six Apple apps. Here’s what’s coming.

Oct 20 • 12:18 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

More Than Athletes: How UT Health Sciences Is Preparing the Next Generation of Sports Pharmacists

As the sports pharmacy field grows, UT Health Sciences College of Pharmacy students are learning to explore this career path.

Oct 20 • 12:02 PM EDT • Health • news.uthsc.edu

More Than Athletes: How UT Health Sciences Is Preparing the Next Generation of Sports Pharmacists

As the sports pharmacy field grows, UT Health Sciences College of Pharmacy students are learning to explore this career path.

Oct 20 • 12:02 PM EDT • Sports • news.uthsc.edu

Inside the GOP’s next battle over women’s sports

The Education Department is facing pressure to rescind a policy that’s helped expand women’s athletics — and conservative women leaders are frustrated.

Oct 20 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • politico.com

Coming to XBOX Game Pass: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, The Séance of Blake Manor, and More

Ghosts to question and a planet to save. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable few weeks to me! We have another batch of games coming soon to Game Pass, so clear a little room in that “Play Next List” and let’s get to it!

Oct 20 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • news.xbox.com

Will PENN Entertainment (PENN) Beat Estimates Again in Its Next Earnings Report?

PENN Entertainment (PENN) has an impressive earnings surprise history and currently possesses the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely beat in its next quarterly report.

Oct 20 • 11:10 AM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com

Jeremy Renner’s “Mayor of Kingstown” gets final season premiere date: A first look at season 5

The Paramount+ show will return next year.

Oct 20 • 11:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Video. Reaching for the Starmus: Science and music festival back in Tenerife

Video. Mixing Nobel prize-winners, astronauts and artists, the Starmus Festival has been uniting key figures over the past decade at one event to spark creativity, curiosity and a greater understanding of the universe. Its co-founder, Garik Israelian says its all about inspiring the next generation.

Oct 20 • 10:49 AM EDT • Science • euronews.com

How Aday Mara's height, weight, wingspan compare to Victor Wembanyama

Aday Mara is being billed as the next Victor Wembanyama stopper, which has led to people comparing their physical traits.

Oct 20 • 10:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

tvOS 27.2 adds three new features to your Apple TV 4K

tvOS 27.2 is coming next week, bringing several new features—including screen saver upgrades—to Apple TV 4K users. Here’s what’s new.

Oct 20 • 9:57 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

Aprio Broadens its AI-Powered Advisory Partnership with Intuit to Further Accelerate Mid-Market Business Growth

/PRNewswire/ -- Aprio, the 20th largest business advisory and accounting firm in the U.S. today announced the next phase of a strategic partnership with...

Oct 20 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • prnewswire.com

Midseason report card grade for USC football special teams

Trent Mosley, in the return game alone (not counting what he does as a receiver), takes the Trojans' special teams unit to the next level

Oct 20 • 7:26 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

France’s crisis sounds familiar. Is America next?

France is on fire, and it faces a political and an economic reckoning that feels dangerously familiar to Americans.

Oct 20 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com

Pfizer makes ‘business decision’ to end phase 2 trial of autoimmune drug as program’s future uncertain

Pfizer has called time on a phase 2 trial of its CXCR5 antibody in an autoimmune blood disorder, with the company tight-lipped on whether this marks the end of the road for the asset. The Big Pharma had been evaluating the therapy, dubbed PF-06835375, in a phase 2 study of 61 patients with primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) that kicked off in 2022, according to the federal trials register. However, Pfizer confirmed to Fierce on Monday that this study had been terminated “due to a business decision.” “The decision to terminate the trial was not based on any safety concerns,” a spokesperson pointed out. At time of publication, PF-06835375 remained listed on Pfizer’s website for both ITP and lupus. A phase 1 study in lupus wrapped up in 2022, according to the trials database. ITP is an autoimmune disorder characterized by a low platelet count. Novartis was at one point evaluating its B-cell-depleting antibody ianalumab—recently approved as Fabhalta to treat immunoglobulin A nephropathy—as a potential treatment ITP. But the therapy struggled to demonstrate a benefit in the clinic for this indication. When contacted by Fierce, Pfizer wouldn’t confirm whether all work on PF-06835375 has been halted, and whether the company has any other plans to explore C-X-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CXCR5) as a mechanism. CXCR5 is found in blood cancers such as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma chemokine receptor. However, there is little expression in normal tissue, which has led some drug developers to explore its potential. Vincerx Pharma had at one point been planning to take an anti-CXCR5 ADC into the clinic to treat B-cell malignancies, but that ambition was scrapped due to cash constraints. Where Big Pharma is placing its bets is one of the hot topics being discussed at Fierce Biotech's high-impact event in London next month. Find out more information and register by clicking on the banner below: [ ](https://qtxasset.com/quartz/qcloud5/media/image/where_big_pharma_is_placing_its_bets.png?VersionId=B8JrRbJ.pFUSK1pJgjeWHLGm_18RdLAy)

Oct 20 • 3:59 AM EDT • Business • fiercebiotech.com

Jacobe Smith Accepts Short Notice Fight for UFC Vegas 123

After a quick win earlier this month against Bruce Whitehead, Jacobe Smith already has his next fight booked. The undefeated welterweight takes on Randy Brown at UFC Vegas 123 in Las Vegas on October 31st. Brown was without an opponent after Carlos Leal pulled out due to an injury. Multiple sources have confirmed the fight […] The post Jacobe Smith Accepts Short Notice Fight for UFC Vegas 123 appeared first on HEAVY.

Oct 20 • 1:34 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Aaron Boone Gets Terrible Update For Long-Term Yankees Future

The New York Yankees upset many fans by bringing back Aaron Boone as manager for next season. Most fans were already aware, but an official report confirmed today Boone will continue his MLB managing career in New York. Another disappointing early playoff exit for the Yankees has fans questioning if the team has any chance […] The post Aaron Boone Gets Terrible Update For Long-Term Yankees Future appeared first on HEAVY.

Oct 20 • 12:08 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

FNCS Solos Last Chance Qualifier in NA West: Session 1

Keep your FNCS Solos journey alive in the Last Chance Qualifier! LCQ Round 1 is open to eligible players who participated in an FNCS Solos Qualifier Round 1 session but have not already advanced to the LCQ Final or the FNCS Solos Finals. Players will compete in a single three-hour session with up to 11 matches. After the session concludes, the top 70 players in each region will advance to the LCQ Final. The LCQ Final lasts approximately two and a half hours and features up to five matches. Every match provides a direct path to the Finals: the player who earns the Victory Royale will receive 1,000 points and immediately qualify for the FNCS Solos Finals. Once qualified through a Victory Royale, that player may not compete in any remaining LCQ Final matches. After the LCQ Final concludes, the next 17 highest-scoring players who have not earned a Victory Royale will also advance to the FNCS Solos Finals. This is your last chance to secure a spot—good luck and have fun!

Oct 19 • 9:00 PM EDT • Technology • fortnitetracker.com

First Alert Forward: Cherokee Street’s push to fill empty storefronts

Business owners on Cherokee Street are working to build on the neighborhood’s comeback by helping the next generation of entrepreneurs get started.

Oct 19 • 8:52 PM EDT • Business • firstalert4.com

SnakePit Post-season GDT, #17

Two ways tonight can go. We either see a Rays victory, and they move on to the World Series, starting on Friday in Milwaukee. We spend the next three days staring out the window, twiddling our thumbs and waiting for that to start. Or the Guardians prevail, and we look forward to a winner-take-all battle […]

Oct 19 • 8:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Toppenish School District receives $7.5 million federal grant to expand mental health services for students

The BriefThe Toppenish School District has been awarded up to $7.5 million through Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a federal grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).The grant will provide up to $1.5 million annually over five years to expand mental health services, strengthen substance use prevention and intervention, and improve access to support for students.District officials say the funding will help address identified gaps in services, particularly drug and alcohol counseling at the high school level, and will allow the district to build capacity for long-term mental health support.TOPPENISH, WASHINGTON — The Toppenish School District has been awarded up to $7.5 million through Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a federal grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), to expand mental health services and substance use prevention for students.District officials said access to mental health resources has been limited, making it difficult for some students and families to get the support they need. The federal Project AWARE grant will help address those challenges by bringing schools and local healthcare providers together to better support students.The grant will provide up to $1.5 million annually over five years to expand mental health services, strengthen substance use prevention and intervention, and improve access to support for Toppenish students. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jeff Camero said the district is focused on coordinating with service providers in the area to work as a unified team."We made the awareness with the grant. But looking at all the service providers in the area and how can we all together work as a team?" Camero said.Camero said the district wants to use those resources to reach students earlier and provide more support for those struggling with their mental health. The district plans to address a range of mental health challenges, from anxiety and depression to youth suicide risk. Camero emphasized the importance of supporting students in grades eight through twelve, where suicide rates are a particular concern."Making sure from anxiety to depression, making sure that we can help support our students at those levels, but also the youth suicide risk, looking at that as a top in this area, in our grades, you know, eight, for example, eight through 12, looking at suicide rate and looking at how whether we look at the ACES or whatever program we're looking at, that's federal, how that connects and how we can better serve our students with this extra funding," Camero said.The funding will allow the district to bring in additional staff, including mental health and substance use specialists, to work directly with students and connect families with community resources. The district is already posting positions, including a director role, with additional positions expected to follow.District officials are also thinking beyond the grant's five-year timeline. Brittany Kaple, Director of Public Relations for the Toppenish School District, said the intent is to build capacity and establish connections that will sustain mental health services even after the grant funding ends."We do have the director position already posted, with some of our other positions following really close behind that. But the intent is to, you know, it's a five-year grant, so those positions would be funded for that five years. But there's also the intent to build capacity and make those connections so that at the end of the grant, when that money, you know, if that money is not renewed," Kaple said.As student mental health needs continue to evolve, access to drug and alcohol counseling has become an important priority for the district. Kaple said teachers and staff have been raising concerns about the need for more support, especially at the high school level."And that was something that was also an identified need by our high school staff when the superintendent met with them last school year. They said that that was a really great need, something that they felt was a gap in services that we were providing for our students. And so this is going to be one way to help support that need," Kaple said.The Toppenish School District says its goal is to ensure students and families have access to the support they need, both now and in the years ahead. Additional positions, including drug and alcohol counselors and family engagement specialists, are expected to be posted in the coming weeks. News Sunnyside City Council navigates 2027 budget planning Monique Garcia News "Dancing with the Stars" champion J.R. Martinez shares message of resilience during Central Washington visit Tyler Wargo News Toppenish, Mattawa educators honored at state Educator of the Year Awards Erin Wencl News Kennewick educator named 2027 Washington Teacher of the Year Erin Wencl News Voters to decide the next Yakima County Sheriff Monique Garcia ​COPYRIGHT 2026 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

Oct 19 • 7:59 PM EDT • Health • applevalleynewsnow.com

Steam Fans Are Begging for a No-AI Filter as Steam Next Fest Is Filled With Slop

Steam Next Fest, Valve's festival for indie games and demos, started earlier today, and while there are usually a ton of low-effort games, there seems to be more than usual this time around.

Oct 19 • 5:38 PM EDT • Technology • ign.com

Buckeyes' Get Two Primetime Kickoffs Announced to Start Bye Week

The Ohio State Buckeyes got the kick times of their next two games against a pair of their top opponents.

Oct 19 • 5:29 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Why Next Season Is Pivotal For Braves' AJ Smith-Shawver

The starting right-hander wrapped up the season with an underwhelming 6.61 ERA and has struggled to stay healthy.

Oct 19 • 5:20 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Seating supplier Lear names finance VP as its next CFO

Lear tapped a 23-year company veteran to serve as its next CFO

Oct 19 • 5:18 PM EDT • Business • crainsdetroit.com

What placing Romeo Doubs on IR means for the Patriots

The veteran wide receiver will be out for at least the next four weeks.

Oct 19 • 5:15 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Spanberger demands 6-year rate freeze in Dominion merger

Gov. Abigail Spanberger called for the Virginia State Corporation Commission to reject the $67 billion merger between Dominion Energy and Florida's NextEra Energy unless the two utilities agree to freeze residential power rates for six years and triple monthly customer bill credits.

Oct 19 • 4:59 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Officials Estimate 100,000 In Danger Of Losing Healthcare Coverage As ACA Changes Loom

HARTFORD, CT — The estimated 100,000 customers who are projected to lose their healthcare coverage as a result of new requirements mandated by HR1 next year are families, neighbors and community members, Charter Oak Health Center President and CEO Vernette Townsend said Monday.

Oct 19 • 4:50 PM EDT • Health • ctnewsjunkie.com

HomePod 27.2 Adds Sound Glow to Existing HomePod Models

Apple's latest software update for the HomePod brings a new Sound Glow feature to the HomePod, HomePod mini, and HomePod mini 2. Apple introduced Sound Glow as a HomePod mini 2 feature, but it's available for the second-generation HomePod and the original HomePod mini too. HomePod Software 27.2 is available as a release candidate update for developers and public beta testers, but it should launch next week.

Oct 19 • 4:31 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Changing the mental health conversation, one swing at a time

Next18, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit, offers retreats for military veterans and first responders that combine the game of golf with mental wellness education.

Oct 19 • 3:42 PM EDT • Health • police1.com

Could Sony's Bungie Build the Next Star Wars Battlefront Game?

Skywalkers

Oct 19 • 2:45 PM EDT • Technology • pushsquare.com

HHS issues seven nonconformity letters in crackdown on health data blocking

The Trump administration is seeking to give patients access to electronic health information through the enforcement of regulations and “troubleshooting call[s].”

Oct 19 • 2:03 PM EDT • Health • nextgov.com

Apple releases iOS 27.2 RC for iPhone

Apple has released the first iOS 27.2 release candidate for iPhone. The update brings Apple’s next iPhone software release one...

Oct 19 • 1:25 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

Steam Next Fest October 2026 Features Over 40 PC VR Demos

The final Steam Next Fest of 2026 is live, with over 40 PC VR demos available, and we have the full rundown.

Oct 19 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • uploadvr.com

AI game clones are making indie developers afraid to show their work

Delayed Steam Next Fest demo is a sign of a growing problem for indie devs.

Oct 19 • 12:59 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

Apple Announcing New Products Next Week: 'Pro and Tell'

Apple's Greg Joswiak today hinted at new product announcements coming next week, sharing a social media post that says "Can't wait to pro and tell next week". Rumors suggest Apple is planning to debut the new MacBook Pro with an OLED touchscreen display, an M6 entry-level MacBook Pro, an M6 iMac, an iPad mini with an OLED display. Can't wait to pro and tell next week.

Oct 19 • 12:05 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

PlayStation 6 RAM and Storage Alone May Cost $680, According to Leaker

The PlayStation 6 hasn't even been announced yet, but little rumors pop up now and then that add speculation on what to expect from Sony's next-gen console. The latest is a shocking claim that the RAM and storage configuration of the console will cost more than the entirety of the PS5.

Oct 19 • 11:51 AM EDT • Technology • ign.com

AI Cloning Threatens To End Public Playtests For Video Games

Moonlighter dev Digital Sun has cancelled plans for a public playtest of its next game, for fears of Claude clones

Oct 19 • 11:30 AM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

Free 2-K coming to all of Staten Island and the Bronx as Mamdani, Hochul unveil 10,000-seat expansion

New York City will add 10,000 free 2-K seats next fall, expanding the program to all five boroughs, including the entirety of Staten Island and the Bronx,

Oct 19 • 11:15 AM EDT • Politics • amny.com

Christiane Amanpour announces she will leave CNN next June

CNN legend Christiane Amanpour, the network’s chief international anchor, said Monday that she will sign off from CNN next June.

Oct 19 • 11:04 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com

RWS Global sponsors new IAAPA Foundation Entertainment Task Force Scholarship

RWS Global is proud to sponsor the new IAAPA Foundation Entertainment Task Force Scholarship, supporting the next generation of talent shaping live entertainment. The program recognizes both sides …

Oct 19 • 10:22 AM EDT • Entertainment • amusementtoday.com

Jay Leno to perform in Hershey in 2027

Comedian and former talk show host Jay Leno will perform in Hershey next spring.

Oct 19 • 10:15 AM EDT • Entertainment • lancasteronline.com

From Shelby roots to mental health leadership: Megan Davidson to become NAMI-RC executive director

A desire to serve others has guided Megan Davidson from her childhood in Shelby to her next role leading the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Richland County (NAMI-RC).

Oct 19 • 10:00 AM EDT • Health • richlandsource.com

Shyne on his return to music, Belize politics and his next chapter

| 1010 WINS

Oct 19 • 8:59 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com

Four questions with ThinkTennessee President Erin Hafkenschiel

Over the next several weeks, Tennesseans will head the polls to elect the state’s next governor. Meanwhile, Tennessee continues to face exponential growth and development — an issue the state’s

Oct 19 • 8:45 AM EDT • Politics • nashvillepost.com

Small business sit-down: How to get yours off the ground

Small businesses help drive the local economy, but getting one off the ground, or taking it to the next level, brings big questions about funding, cash flow, and planning for growth.

Oct 19 • 8:12 AM EDT • Business • wistv.com

Is smart farming really smart business?

From eerie driverless tractors to precision spraying and sowing, AI is transforming America’s agricultural life

Oct 19 • 8:02 AM EDT • Business • ft.com

Step inside NextGen, the building designed to transform the future of health

See how Mizzou scientists are turning discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease.

Oct 19 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • showme.missouri.edu

The next Call of Duty will introduce a new sub-series to the franchise

It's been five years since Vanguard - the most recent Call of Duty sub-franchise - but Activision is finally ready to develop a new one.

Oct 19 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

Medicare Advantage's next golden goose: Special Needs Plans

Chronic Condition Special Needs Plans enrollment has more than doubled since 2024.

Oct 19 • 6:02 AM EDT • Health • modernhealthcare.com

Sarina Wiegman signs new England contract until 2029

Sarina Wiegman has signed a two-year contract extension to remain England Women’s head coach until the end of the 2029 European Championships. The 56-year-old Dutch coach’s contract with England was due to expire after next summer’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil. The extension means Wiegman will remain in post through next summer’s World Cup and Euro 2029, as well the 2027 Nations League campaign next spring which will serve as a qualification pathway for a Team GB squad at the 2028 Olympic Games

Oct 19 • 6:01 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

America’s next big healthcare reform might already be underway

Colorado found a way to make health care cheaper. Other states are paying attention.

Oct 19 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • vox.com

Taiwan Railway to ban political advertising in stations from 2027

State-owned Taiwan Railway Corp. (TR) on Monday said it would ban political advertisements in its stations with effect from next year, following criticism that such ads violated administrative neutrality.

Oct 19 • 5:18 AM EDT • Politics • focustaiwan.tw

Governor Greg Abbott doesn't believe the polls and says Texans will put him in office for a fourth term

In an interview with Lone Star Politics, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes a lot of news. He commits to tough new data center laws next session. He explains why he doesn’t want to debate his opponent in November, State lawmaker Gina Hinojosa. And he lays out his priorities if elected once again.

Oct 19 • 5:03 AM EDT • Politics • nbcdfw.com

At a Last-Hope Health Clinic, Desperation, Kindness and Fear for What’s Next

These doctors and community health workers are a safety net for patients losing coverage as premiums soar and Medicaid cuts mount, even as their clinic struggles to stay afloat.

Oct 19 • 5:01 AM EDT • Health • nytimes.com

Galaxy S27 series case image adds weight to earlier design leaks

Previous leaks about Samsung’s next flagship non-foldable smartphones, the Galaxy S27, Galaxy S27+, Galaxy S27 Pro, and Galaxy S27 Ultra, have revealed renders

Oct 19 • 2:04 AM EDT • Technology • sammobile.com

Weekly Recap: Open-science AV partnership and benchmark performance pledge

Valeo SE (EURONEXT:FR) is partnering with KE:SAI to co-develop an open-science autonomous driving system for general vehicles, aiming to match and surpass major public driving benchmarks while committing to reproducible AI research and openly publishing results.Previous Week RecapThis is an AI-gene…

Oct 19 • 1:00 AM EDT • Science • tradingview.com

MGPI to rebrand as Sempreon

Move represents the next chapter for Atchison, Kan.-based company.

Oct 19 • 12:00 AM EDT • Business • bakingbusiness.com

German business leaders more optimistic about growth, survey finds

German business leaders are becoming more optimistic about their companies' prospects for the first time in years, with 86% expecting growth over the next three years, a survey by consultancy KPMG showed. That was up 14 percentage points from 72% last year.

Oct 18 • 11:48 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Putin proposes summit with Trump and Xi to discuss Ukraine deal, WSJ says

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a summit next month with US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to negotiate an end to the four-year-old Ukraine

Oct 18 • 10:54 PM EDT • Politics • yahoo.com

Not upgrading to iPhone 18 Pro or Duo? Here’s what’s coming next year

iPhone Duo preorders just begun, and iPhone 18 Pro has been on the market for about a month. Of course,...

Oct 18 • 10:16 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

Moore Agency's M.Cast 2027 report calls next year an 'AI hinge' year

The Tallahassee agency's third annual trends report launches Monday at PRSA ICON in Orlando.

Oct 18 • 8:00 PM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Latino voters helped put Trump back in the White House. What's their next move?

The path to a U.S. House majority runs through heavily Latino districts in states such as Arizona, Colorado and Texas, where Democrats are counting on disaffected Trump supporters to swing back their way.

Oct 18 • 4:46 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Anthony Volpe hasn’t earned the Yankees’ next opening

Eleven starts at second base shouldn’t settle the Yankees‘ next everyday job. Anthony Volpe deserves to compete for it, but […]

Oct 18 • 4:39 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Streaming’s Biggest Show Returns…and a Buzzy Genre Struggles

(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.) Obviously, the big news of the week (if not month) is Netflix letting go of executive Bela Bajaria, their chief content officer. I’m going to cover this in my next “Most Important Story of the Week”, but I also have a data angle that I might publish before then. (Too much news this month, am I right?) But first, I have a bonus Streaming Ratings Report issue for you. Today’s article is a bit of a grab bag of topics I’ve wanted to write about, but couldn’t squeeze into the (already very long) Streaming Ratings Report issues. The NFL drives huge viewership numbers, so I’ve got a look at that. A whole bunch of TV shows returned to the traditional broadcast channels, and I have thoughts. And I have a quick look at adult animated shows, since a couple flopped earlier this month. Plus, the Emmys aired earlier this month, and we got some fun data bout how popular those nominated shows are and why I’m not optimistic about the show’s future. That’s a lot, so let’s dive right in. Subscribe Sports - Football Remains the King of Streaming Over the last two Streaming Ratings Reports, I sorta ignored the biggest “show” each week. (I was tempted to say “piece of content” but I know that word bugs folks.) In my database, I call these “specials”, and they sure are special. I speak of the king of American TV: football!!! Streaming football is back and, unlike some other sports, it routinely dominates all viewership. Probably the best way to show this is to update one of my favorite graphics, the “40 Million Hour Club”1 since football games have joined that club each week they’ve premiered: (Yep, that’s the data through 28-Sep, the first four weeks of the season. As a reminder, I take the average minute audience provided by Nielsen, factor out a percentage of linear TV viewers in home markets, and multiply the run time by the three-hour runtime.) Again, the numbers are huge. Let’s start with Netflix. They grabbed the rights to the bonus opening week NFL Kickoff game (which was on YouTube last year) and it put up 18.5 million viewers on average. That nets out to 47.4 million hours of estimated streaming hours. That’s good! Though, notably, it’s well below Christmas Day games from previous years. Compared to other streamers/broadcasters, that’s a bit of a mixed result. On one hand, Netflix’s 18.5 million average is about what YouTube claimed last year, though Nielsen used a bespoke methodology at that time, so I trust this viewership figure more. So that’s good. (The game also shifted from a Friday to a Thursday and that could have helped the viewership as well.) And Netflix continues to best Prime Video in total viewership—as you’ll see next—though Netflix has had much higher-profile (opening week and Christmas Day) games. NBC/Peacock’s opening game the night before averaged 25.1 million average viewers, which is just much bigger than Netflix (or Prime Video). That’s the big caveat to all streaming viewership records: even in success, they can’t compete with traditional linear TV. Previously, I called this my “hierarchy of viewership”, and the data keeps supporting that thesis. The downside for NBC is that this game’s viewership was down compared to previous years, though it may be a counting issue. Here’s a great chart from Sports Media Watch: Indeed, looking at all the opening week games across all windows, Netflix still lags the other primetime windows, but does well compared to the afternoon games: I saw a few folks make the case that streamers still lag traditional broadcasters in reach, and I’d add they really lag compared to “broadcast plus streaming” options like NBC/Peacock, ESPN/Disney+ and CBS/Paramount+. The best data I saw for this came from Samba TV, who charted reach through the 2025 season, and, wow. (Samba TV’s numbers are historically lower than Nielsen’s, so don’t compare their household figures to Nielsen’s hours, but use them as a proxy for the relative reach of the streamers.) The good news is Prime Video is NOT having a down year. Their opening Thursday Night Football game reached 18.6 million viewers (about what Netflix got), but that’s a high for Prime Video on Thursdays and the biggest Thursday night game since 2015. The TNF games the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep continued this streak, getting 43.1 (16.8 million average viewers) and 42.5 total hours (16.6 million average viewers), which were both up from last year. Still, that continues the (typical) season slide: (For those new-to-streaming-football-numbers folks, the viewership declines for Thursday Night Football as the year goes along.) Overall, it appears as if Prime Video is now part of the “football habit”, be it for customers at home or out at places like bars and restaurants. And its viewership is slowly catching up to broadcast. One last chart shows this. Last season, Nielsen started adding out-of-home viewership to the charts, so I try not to do season-to-season comparisons as I did for the first few years. And while Nielsen added Big Data viewing this year, I’m going to compare the last two seasons. Here’s that chart, which shows the season-over-season gains: When it comes to streaming football, we have to keep a few seemingly contradictory thoughts in our head… First, streaming doesn’t come close to matching broadcast’s reach and, thus, viewership. Second, even with that gap, football is still the biggest “thing” on streaming. It’s very, very popular. Third, while some methodology changes have likely helped Prime Video’s numbers, their viewership does appear to be growing. Lastly, yeah, the NFL started the season off poorly, with week one dragging down the numbers in year-over-year comparisons. However—and again, methodology changes may have helped this—the viewership grew compared to previous seasons over the next couple of weeks. So football is still king. On streaming and off. Television - Adult Animation Continues to NOT Make the Streaming Charts In the last two reports, two adult-animated shows whiffed: Netflix’s animated comedy, Dang! Paramount+’s Sega-video-game-inspired fantasy/comedy, Golden Axe. Neither made the charts, but that’s usually the case for animated shows. I mean, here’s literally every animated show that’s made the Nielsen Original charts since the start of 2025: And one of those shows is G_abby’s Dollhouse_! A kids show! The problem with charts like this is that they don’t give you a sense of how many shows miss the charts. Netflix had at least eleven animated flops, including comedies like Big Mouth (a show everyone assumed was popular in the pre-Streaming Ratings Era), Long Story Short, Haunted Hotel, Mating Season, Strip Law, and Alley Cats, and action shows like Blood of Zeus, Castlevania: Nocturne, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Prime Video had at least six animated misses, two in the same universe (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss), three more comedies (#1 Happy Family USA, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy and Kevin) and an action show (The Mighty Nein). Disney+ had MCU and Star Wars animated misses (Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Star Wars: Visions, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld) but I can’t tell how many of those shows were geared towards adults. HBO Max had Harley Quinn and Hulu had Solar Opposites. None of these shows made the charts! That’s a lot of misses! If I remade the chart with all those misses, here’s how it would look: Listen, I know the counter arguments. First, it’s cheaper to produce animated shows than live action. Fair enough, but with viewership this low, even that cheaper price point starts to not matter. Second, just look at the acquired charts. Hit animated comedies can generate viewership for years! Shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers do really, really well. Fair enough, but streaming has failed to recreate the dynamic that Fox has mastered so well. That’s a problem for streaming still. Television - Emmys! The annual Emmys broadcast was a few weeks ago, and I’ve got data on how the nominees performed on streaming, plus hot takes on this year’s viewership (and the big news about the broadcast’s, er, streamcast’s future). 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 top Emmy-nominated shows… ...why I’m worried about the future of the Emmys telecast... ...the pros of broadcast television ...and the cons... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue (since the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep were so light), but then I’ll be all caught up after a deluge of streaming ratings data from Nielsen in September. In the meantime, I’m going to try to take a look at Netflix’s stats to explain why Bela Bajaria is out. But even light weeks give me plenty to talk about. The Great British Baking Show returns to Netflix and Apple TV has a buzzy new star-studded comedy. And Netflix has a controversial-but-appears-to-be-popular new game show. Plus big films like Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner head to streaming. And is East of Eden a hit? After that, The Kardashians return to Hulu, Prime Video has a reboot of Carrie, and Netflix has a horror show, Below. Disclosure Day heads to Peacock, The Housemaid heads to HBO Max_,_ a new Ben Affleck film, Animals, lands on Netflix, and Apple TV has a new John Cena action film based on, checks notes, Hasbro’s Matchbox toys. Okay. Longterm, some interesting TV production news. HBO Max ordered How to Survive Without Me, starring Kaley Cuoco, Joshua Jackson, Ray Romano and Rita Wilson, for fifteen episodes! I love that some streamers (or, at least, HBO Max) are finally ordering TV shows with more than eight episodes. In less wise production news, Landman does not appear to be coming back this year, since it just started production. Frankly, I don’t love this (get your shows out on time) but Landman is so popular, I doubt it matters.

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