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Cinemark theaters to offer $5 Bring Your Own Bucket popcorn deal
Calling all kernel connoisseurs: Cinemark is reprising its Bring Your Own Bucket popcorn deal, and you'd "butter" believe it's "a-MAIZE-ing."
Du-Pec takes the Silver Bucket Showdown against Winnebago
Friday night, for the first time since 1989 Pecatonica (in this case Du-Pec) squared off with Winnebago in IHSA football. The battle saw the Du-Pec Rivermen emerge with the Silver Bucket and a 23-0 win.
‘These are real people’: 9 Sacramento businesses targeted within days, 1 arrest made
(FOX40.COM) — Sacramento police arrested 46-year-old Darrell Buckner in connection to five out of nine recent burglaries targeting businesses in midtown and downtown Sacramento. “These …
CB South edged by Downingtown West in Week 2 football
Central Bucks South, with co-coaches, falls to Downingtown West in rematch of 2023 PIAA Class 6A District One championship game.
Vandalia Health CAMC Women and Children's Hospital implements postpartum education program
Vandalia Health CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital now gives new moms bracelets identifying their postpartum status. Its POST-BIRTH program highlights nine warning signs to help providers quickly recognize complications and improve maternal safety.
15 discouraging hours with Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and 10 brilliant ones with He Who Watches
In the last few weeks, while playing some video games that I might review, I emailed two cries for help. I sent the first to a rep for Capcom, confessing that the company’s samurai game Onimusha Way of the Sword (out today for PC and console) was crushing me. “Feels like I’m playing ‘hard’ mode, not ‘normal,’” I wrote. “And I don’t want to have to knock it down to “story”. I’m exploring, trying to level my gear, but these two-phase boss fights with no mid-fight checkpoints are brutal.” I wagered I was only about halfway through the game, if that. I wasn’t sure I could keep up with the steepening difficulty curve. Was I missing something? Then, on Monday, I took some photos of some puzzles that were baffling me in the mind-bending He Who Watches (out now on PC), wrote out lengthy descriptions of how I’d been trying to solve them and asked Bobby Vanden, the game’s solo developer, for a nudge in the right direction. I told Vanden I’d spent hours on these puzzles. “I’m stuck in triplicate,” I told him. Could he tell me if the solutions I was attempting were even on the right track? I didn’t mention that the puzzles—coupled with major time pressures from other work—were stressing me out so much that playing the game was giving me headaches. This double dose of panic was unusual. I’m used to managing a workload full of reporting and reviewing, used to a crowded schedule and the need to stay calm amid the bustle. But I was stressed about these games. No one was forcing me to review them, nor even play them. I’d simply found them interesting enough to start, hoped they’d be interesting enough to write about and I’d sunk hours into them assuming I’d made the right call. Suddenly, however, I felt trapped. I was emailing for a way out. Above: This guy took me about an hour to beat. The feedback I got from Capcom confirmed my fears. They didn’t say it, but I will: Onimusha Way of the Sword is not for me. It’s a brutally hard game in need of a normal difficulty level. It’s a game that spikes so severely during its abundant boss fights—yet offers such flawed ways to improve when outside of them—that it feels like a bait-and-switch. In the new Onimusha, you play as famed samurai Musashi Miyamoto, aided by a magical soul-absorbing gauntlet that is possessed by a lady who offers advice. (Way of the Sword is a continuation of Capcom’s long-dormant Onimusha series, but that set-up had me wondering if the company was cribbing from their ill-fated Bionic Commando reboot; read about “wife-arm” when you get a chance). Way of the Sword is partially set in 17th century Kyoto, an explorable city where Miyamoto can fight demons, help civilians and eventually rescue ghostly dogs. The city evolves over time, with new mini adventures and obtainable loot on offer, all feeding into systems that promise to upgrade your gear and sword-fighting skills. Upgrades, however, are so incremental as to be imperceptible, causing the exploration of Kyoto to feel like inconsequential busywork. From that hub, players can go on linear missions into forests and old temples, where they will encounter many of the game’s tough bosses. Combat in Way of the Sword is akin to many modern melee games. Players are asked to mix attacks with dodges and parries. They’re encouraged to deplete an enemy’s stamina bar in order to do greater damage to its health bar. The old Onimusha games’ signature move was the issen, a counter-attack so sudden it’s all but pre-emptive. You strike just as they begin to strike toward you, beating them to the cut. By definition, the issen is a high risk move, leaving you wide open to pain. It feels risky in the game, especially against bosses, who can maul you in just a few blows. A game might train you to perform an issen well by offering a variety of lesser enemies who are not as tough as the boss but get close. Or it might offer a toehold against bosses by saving or checkpointing the player’s progress when a boss’ first health bar has been destroyed and before the second health bar appears. It might offer the less skilled player a chance to over-level their character, should the player simply commit to playing through its optional sidequests. Way of the Sword does none of this. Fighting its trivially easy grunt enemies and then its ferociously adept bosses is like playing a game of chess where I’ve got a rook, while the opposing side is all pawns and five queens. Bosses simply don’t checkpoint. You may be able to clear a boss’ first phase without taking much damage. Good for you. Do it again, every time you fail the second phase. As for the the central Kyoto hub, I kept pace with all of its added side activities and never felt like I was overpowered. Bosses could still easily buckle me. The new Onimusha, I concluded, is just too discouraging to keep playing. The advice I got from Capcom had been well-intentioned. They reminded me of the game’s various systems. They alerted me to an optional assist that flashes recommended button inputs (basically: counter this move; dodge that move). It was a little helpful. So was dropping down to “story mode,” which I tried last night. Story mode turns on those button prompts by default. It makes countering and dodging way too easy, nearly automatic. I don’t consider myself a master of action games like these, but I’ve cleared the likes of God of War, Stellar Blade, Star Wars Jedi and others of sub-Sekiro difficulty and had a fun time doing so. Not here. Not yet. Unless they patch Onimusha: Way of the Sword and add a middle difficulty or just checkpoint the damn bosses when they’re between health bars, my streak of loving Capcom games released in 2026 will likely end at two. It’s a shame, because I was having a good time finding those ghostly dogs. And then there’s He Who Watches, a phenomenal first person puzzle game with Portal vibes, except instead of a portal gun you’ve got a magical bow that shoots one arrow that can activate switches or be used to drag blocks. The twist is an actual twist: you can also walk on walls and the ceiling, reorienting gravity as you do, thereby placing blocks onto those other surfaces. Walking on walls and ceilings to solve problems is really the best thing. Would that I could in reality. He Who Watches consists of locked-room challenges, each brief enough to only require about a minute to actually solving, though it will take five, 10, eventually 30 minutes to figure out said solutions. They are not obvious! It’s a game of layered mechanics and shocking solutions. For example, see if you can follow this: You can drag a block to a wall. Then you can walk on the wall, which now feels like the floor, and drag that block across the wall. Later, back on the floor, you might realize you can look up. The block is still on the wall, stuck to it. You can shoot your magic arrow to its underside. Doing so creates a tether, so that you can yank the block off the wall and carry it, as if it were a balloon, into the spot where you need it to be to solve the puzzle. Here, watch Vanden explain some of the game’s basics in this launch trailer: As with any great puzzle game, the solutions to He Who Watches’ puzzles elicit relief and amazement. Oh my god, that worked! I didn’t even think that could be possible! Learning to solve the game’s puzzles feels like learning magic. But, oh, does the game get hard. Its Steam reviews, mostly glowing, are full of players remarking how quickly He Who Watches made them sweat. Wrote one: “loving this one already although my brain is hurting!” Wrote another: “As you get further in the game it feels like you need an IQ level of at least 120+.” Vanden has shown some mercy. Each locked room puzzle includes an optional junior version of the puzzle, meant to teach you. Difficulty nevertheless ramps severely. By the time I was emailing Vanden for help, I was struggling to even clear one of the hint puzzles. When I messaged him, my stress was exacerbated by strange things I’d found in the game’s various hubs: suspicious passageways, odd blocks and some intriguing locked doors. These were hints of secrets, I realized, yet I sensed I needed to play further into the game to understand them. I was stuck, but I wanted to see the rest. Vanden offered to give me the exact solutions, to solve those three puzzles for me, but first he gave four nudges. Three were for the specific puzzles, but his best hint was for all and ultimately proved to be a terrific life lesson: go back a bit, he suggested. Do the puzzles right before those. They were teaching you something. Focus on what their lesson was. Don’t rush, in other words. Recognize what you’ve accomplished. Build off of that. I did so. I absorbed the lessons. I saw those three tough puzzles in a new light. I solved one the night after he wrote back, another the morning after. I left a third for another time. I didn’t need it and I wanted to plunge deeper into the game, closer to the moment when I was sure I could start unlocking those secret doors. My head stopped hurting, too. He Who Watches feels special. It’s got more challenges, and I’m undeterred. It’s also nice that its puzzles don’t have a surprise second health bar. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: In brief… 🎮 Ilari Kuittinen, co-founder of Helsinki-based Housemarque (Super Stardust HD, Resogun, Returnal) has stepped down from his studio, after a 31-year run, saying he’s “ taking a rare and well-deserved breather.” Sony purchased Housemarque in 2021, and the studio released its newest game, Saros, earlier this year. Trend-watch: Sony-owned Insomniac saw its founder Ted Price retire in early 2025, after a 30-year run. Sony-owned Sucker Punch saw its co-founder Brian Fleming step down in late 2025, after a 28-year run. 👀 Savvy Games Group chief Brian Ward is stepping down from the Saudi-government-backed games conglomerate, Bloomberg reports. No word on a long-term successor yet, nor if this augurs any closer integration between Savvy and Electronic Arts. EA was purchased by a consortium led by Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, in early August. 💿 Square Enix has denied a Japanese media report that the company was planning to go private. In very different Square Enix news, the company revealed that the physical version of Final Fantasy VII: Revelation, the April 2027 finale of its radical remakes of FFVII, will include just one disc in its case, requiring a download for the rest. The first two FFVII remakes in the trilogy shipped on two discs apiece. While Square hasn’t commented on the reason why, a feature here in Game File last month broke down the processes and costs for physical games. The expense of a second disc comes out of the game publisher’s cut of each copy. Square could be saving in excess of a dollar a copy with this move. 🟥 Grand Theft Auto IV’s 26-minute ’‘extended look” gameplay showcase that premiered on Netflix last week—and was exclusive to the platform for six hours—drew 31.1 million views in its first four days, the streamer announced. (Netflix calculates views as total viewed hours divided by runtime; excludes replays). Compared to YouTube: The version that later premiered on Rockstar Games’ YouTube channel is sitting at 22.6 million views after seven days (YouTube’s more liberal counting system tallies anyone who viewed even just the first few second.) Compared to other Netflix mega-events: Last year, Stranger Things season 5’s first four episodes, which debuted together, drew a record 59.6 million views in their first few days on Netflix. For more of a live event type of comparison, in 2024, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match drew 65 million concurrent streams as it happened; Netflix didn’t release live numbers for the GTA premiere. ☁️ Microsoft is changing the way it charges for cloud gaming, from an all-you-can-play offer for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, to caps for the subscription’s tiers (15 hours per month at the Ultimate tier), with the option to buy more hours in bulk beyond that. The company also said it will sell batches of cloud gaming time to non-Game Pass subscribers, details TBA. Microsoft does not release figures for cloud game usage, but said its changes would impact 4% of Game Pass subscribers. That implies a small portion of its subscribers exceed the 15-hour monthly mark. Cloud gaming offers the promise of playing games without the need for console or PC hardware, as the graphics, sound and controls are all transmitted via a streaming connection. Microsoft notes that its cloud gaming service can be used for a range of things, including Xbox One players using it to play newer-gen Xbox Series games via streaming; and people playing games via streaming, sans any console, “in markets where consoles are less available or affordable.” (That latter use case could even be relevant in Xbox’s home market soon, as console prices keep rising.) Take Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick recently told investors he expects game-streaming tech, which has been only lightly adopted by gamers for over a decade, to be widely used within three years. 🇺🇸 The Trump administration has published multiple agenda-driven web video games to the White House’s website. One called Build The Wall partially clones Tetris as it asks players to build a wall to stop a “zombie border siege.” While actual Tetris involves clearing lines and basically not building a wall, the Trump-backed game omits the line-clearing aspect (and omits the fun as well). On Instagram, Tetris’ official license holders reacted by stating: “At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them. To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community. P.S. The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of ‘Build the Wall.’ P.P.S.: We take copyright infringement very seriously.” Item 3: The week ahead: Tuesday, September 8 Game releases: Mewgenics (consoles; already out on PC) is an engrossing tactical combat game (with cats). It is getting its console port right after the release of a Star Wars tactics game and ahead of the late September launch of a Fire Emblem–a bumper crop for the genre. Wanderburg (PC) is an auto-shooting game like Vampire Survivors, but you’re a castle on wheels Event: Nintendo airs a 30-minute Nintendo Direct (10am ET) focused on The Legend of Zelda’s 40th Anniversary. A full unveiling of the upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is expected. Will they also show footage from next year’s live action movie? Tease the next big 3D Zelda? Add Link to Mario Kart World? Shadow-drop a new Tingle game? Wednesday, September 9 Event: Nintendo again! On this day, they’re planning to air a 45-minute Nintendo Direct (10am ET) focused on games heading to Switch 2 this winter. Followed by about an hour of gameplay demoed by the company’s Treehouse team. The September Nintendo Directs are always some of the year’s biggest. The 2025 edition included announcements of several major 2026 Switch/Switch 2 games: Pokémon Pokopia, Mario Tennis Fever, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave. Plus the return of the Virtual Boy. Friday, September 11 Game release: EA Sports NHL 27 (PlayStation, Xbox) is a hockey game. There are so few that an indie studio that had been making wacky sci-fi first-person shooters just announced that, hey, we’re going to fill a void and make a hockey game for PC.
Milwaukee Bucks sign 7-foot center John Butler Jr.
The Milwaukee Bucks signed center John Butler Jr., who played for the Wisconsin Herd, to take part in training camp.
The big business of personal protection: How private security became a $50 billion industry
Private security spending and guard employment have climbed as companies and communities respond to high-profile attacks, even as violent crime falls.
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
Ursinus to Launch First Graduate Program in College’s History
Ursinus College will launch its first graduate program, an online M.S. in Exercise and Sport Science, beginning May 2027.
Bickley: Cardinals take critical step forward with Michael Wilson extension
Cardinals take care of business by extending the 26-year-old wideout after a breakout season in 2025 and buck past trends of failing to extend blossoming talent.
Rooney and Kate Mara had to speak in unison in 'Bucking Fastard'
Werner Herzog's new film "Bucking Fastard" features sisters Rooney and Kate Mara playing siblings who speak in unison.
Rooney and Kate Mara had to speak in unison in ‘Bucking Fastard’
Werner Herzog's new film “Bucking Fastard” features sisters Rooney and Kate Mara playing siblings who speak in unison.
Starbucks and Peanuts celebrate fall with a global merch collection inspired by 'The Great Pumpkin'
The collaboration includes limited-edition merchandise featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts™ gang, including the Peanuts™ + Starbucks® Snoopy™ glass cold cup.
8 facts about Columbus sports history
The Buckeyes aren't the only game town.
Venice Film Festival heats up with McDonagh’s ‘Wild Horse Nine’ and Herzog’s ‘Bucking Fastard’
The Venice Film Festival is showcasing the world premieres of “Wild Horse Nine” and Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” Thursday.
Welcome to the US Open. Please bring your wallet
The U.S. Open has beceom a bucket-list event. But at what cost?
Scientists discover why snake embryos twist into spirals
Snake embryos begin life curled into a distinctive right-handed spiral, and scientists may finally know why. Their bodies grow faster than their guts, creating a tether that forces the lengthening embryo to buckle and twist inside the egg. Researchers reached the conclusion after studying more than 900 embryos and using CT scans to reveal the hidden anatomy behind the coils.
Republican Candidate in Key House Race Bet on Her Own Campaign
The trading platform Kalshi issued a three-year suspension to the candidate, Laurie Buckhout, and fined her nearly $2,600. Ms. Buckhout said she had made a “dumb mistake.”
Kalshi suspends N.C. GOP candidate for U.S. House
“I bet on myself,” GOP candidate Laurie Buckhout says.
Colorado Sues EarnIn For “Immoral, Unethical, Oppressive and Unscrupulous” Business Practices
Hey all, Jason here. When this hits your inbox, I should be en route to the airport — not to go anywhere myself, just to pick up my better half. I must admit, it’s been strange to be home alone (well, with two dogs) for two weeks! Really lets me “optimize” to spending more time on reading/writing/working, whether that’s healthy or not! Looking forward to getting back into a (somewhat) more balance routine. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading Compare Notes With the People Who Built Modern Fintech Partner content: Remitly CEO Sebastian Gunningham. Increase founder Darragh Buckley. Linda Du, Co-founder & President at Valon. They’ll unpack the decisions behind building and scaling major financial products: what they got right, what broke, what they would do differently, and how AI and new infrastructure are changing the operator playbook. Most events tell you where fintech is going. NerdCon puts the people who built the present in the room and asks them what comes next. Expect an operator-led conversation grounded in real products, real trade-offs and lessons earned the hard way. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% on Regular tickets with code FBW20 before standard pricing ends September 11. Meet the Builders Things To Know & Other Good Reads Advent and Stripe Abandon $50 Billion Pursuit of PayPal (Bloomberg) Trump Family’s New Crypto Bank Is Backed by Abu Dhabi Sheikh (Wall Street Journal) The multiplying risks of financing data centres (FT) Let the Bond Market Speak (Wall Street Journal) Did we waste a crisis? Modest proposals to reform deposit insurance. (Fintech Takes Banking) Untangling Guggenheim: How Private Credit Built Its Own Universe (Net Interest) The Hater’s Guide To Circular Financing — Part One (Ed Zitron) Fiat Ventures Rebrands to FGV Capital, Announces $35M Oversubscribed Fund II (BusinessWire) Socure Announces Strategic Growth Investment at $5.2B Valuation and Acquires Agentic Operations Platform Fravity (Socure) Listen: When Consumer Protection Disclosures Work Too Well (Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast) Colorado Sues EarnIn For “Immoral, Unethical, Oppressive and Unscrupulous” Business Practices When Andreessen Horowitz led EarnIn’s $39 million Series B in 2017, Alex Rampell, a partner at the storied venture capital firm, described EarnIn’s small-dollar advance product as “free,” relying on “entirely on voluntary contributions instead of fees.” Rampell favorably compared EarnIn’s approach to typical payday loans, writing, “Payday loans historically have had the potential to be a slippery slope for consumers into financial distress: opaque systems and steep fees that are hard to repay and set individuals back further than where they started. For many Americans living paycheck to paycheck, that kind of slide into debt can be extremely difficult to recover from.” But EarnIn’s product — which, the company says, isn’t a “loan,” legally speaking — ends up being anything but free for most users. While it is technically possible to take a no-fee advance from the company, most users incur “Lightning Speed” (instant funding) fees and/or ostensibly optional tips that combined can equate to annualized percent rates that can reach over 1,000%. With an average term of 9.77 days, even fees and tips that are small on an absolute dollar basis are equivalent to high APRs on an annualized basis. A lawsuit filed last week by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser against EarnIn describes the company and its product and business practices quite differently than Andreessen’s Rampell; “EarnIn’s business practices are unfair because they are immoral, unethical, oppressive and unscrupulous,” the complaint, filed in District Court in Denver, Colorado, says. EarnIn’s marquee product, Cash Out, isn’t a loan, the company says, as Cash Out is not “[f]orward [l]ooking” because “[t]he money is transferred based on earnings to date,” does not carry a mandatory fee to access funds, and is “non-recourse,” meaning EarnIn cannot pursue recovery from users who don’t repay advanced funds. EarnIn is sometimes referred to as an “Earned Wage Advance” service. Though, unlike some others in the broader category, EarnIn does not integrate with employers’ payroll or time and attendance systems. Rather, EarnIn attempts to verify a user’s income and employment, by examining direct deposit transaction data in their linked external bank account, by using GPS location and Bluetooth data to estimate a user’s time spent at work, if they work in a fixed location, and/or by having a user provided a work email address. While repayment is theoretically optional, as EarnIn would have no recourse, such as reporting non-payment to the credit bureaus or a collections agency, this is anything but clear to users of the EarnIn app, Colorado’s complaint argues. During the process of taking a Cash Out, users must agree to a preauthorized debit of the amount advanced, plus any expedited funding fee and/or tips. Though users technically can revoke this ACH authorization, the fact that they have this right isn’t presented to users during the Cash Out process, but rather is included in linked terms and conditions few users are likely to actually read. And users who do wish to revoke their ACH authorization must do so three or more days before the scheduled transaction date by emailing EarnIn’s customer support. Similarly, EarnIn’s marketing claims that it carries “no interest” and “no mandatory fees” is technically true, but is not the reality for many of the app’s users, the Colorado complaint argues. Further, EarnIn has extensively marketed to users the ability to “access your pay today,” to get “instant” funds, and to get funds “the same day you work” — when, in reality, this speed of access was only possible by paying the additional, undisclosed Lightning Speed fee. The Colorado complaint highlights this contradiction specifically, noting: EarnIn tells consumers that they can ‘Make any day payday with EarnIn’ and that there no ‘hidden’ or ‘mandatory fees.’ For a consumer to access their pay on the same day requested, they would have to pay the Lightning Speed fee. In the fine print of the advertisement EarnIn discloses that ‘[f]ees apply to use Lightning Speed,’ a direct contradiction to the larger text of the advertisement, and a fact that would not be immediately understood by a consumer as ‘Lightning Speed’ is not defined nor explained. Like other small-dollar lending services, rather than explicitly charge interest, EarnIn collects a markup on the optional Lighting Speed fee, which, given the nature of the transactions, many users opt for, as well as offering users the option to leave “tips.” EarnIn leverages either Real-Time Payments (RTP) rails or push-to-card via debit rails if a user opts for the optional Lightning Speed. But while these capabilities cost EarnIn, on average, $0.075 or $0.20 per transaction, respectively, EarnIn charges users significantly more. Initially, EarnIn charged as little as $1.99 for Cash Outs up to $24. But EarnIn has hiked these fees multiple times, and now charges $4.99 for Cash Outs up to $75 and $6.99 for those over $75. According to the Colorado complaint, EarnIn leverages “dark patterns” to manipulate users and to make it more difficult to avoid tipping. Examples of these “road blocks” highlighted in the complaint include: As of 2023, in the EarnIn app, a consumer attempting to get a loan under the default settings had to make at least eighteen separate taps to complete the transaction and reduce the tip to $0. There is an alternative method to leave a $0 tip, via the “Custom tip” feature, but EarnIn made this option difficult to access by visually deemphasizing it and positioning it near devices’ “home” button. Using language and imagery such as “Tip to pay it forward,” “Your generosity supports the service + helps,” “Your tips make a difference,” and “[t]he APR for this cash out is 0%. Your tips help support us.” While Lightning Speed and tipping are, in theory, both optional, in practice, users nearly always ended up paying something. According to the Colorado suit, users were charged either a tip or an expedite fee for more than 92% of transactions, with an average APR of nearly 388%. And, although the advances are “non-recourse,” EarnIn successfully collects on nearly all transactions — 99.18%, according to the complaint, which, Colorado argues, “demonstrat[es] that EarnIn’s advances function as high cost loans, not voluntary payments.” The share of EarnIn users incurring fees — despite the product being marketed as 0% APR — is hard to reconcile with Andreessen investor Rampell’s favorable description of EarnIn vs. “opaque systems and steep fees” associated with payday loans, which, Rampell says, can be “extremely difficult” for borrowers to extricate themselves from. According to Colorado’s suit, EarnIn’s Cash Out product “trapped many consumers in extreme cycles of high-cost reborrowing.” The suit gives an example of one consumer in the state, who took out a whopping 1,151 loans, paying a total of $4,038.50 in Lightning Speed expedited funding fees on loans that averaged the equivalent of 1,421% APR. Another Colorado user, the suit says, took out 1,033 loans, paying $8,561.22 in tips and fees at an average APR of 1,539% . These types of usage patterns demonstrate “the severe and repeated financial harm caused by EarnIn’s illegal lending model,” the Colorado complaint argues. In aggregate, from January 2023 through July 2025, EarnIn extended 3.1 million loans to 56,778 users in Colorado — an average of nearly 55 transactions per person during the time period. EarnIn lent more than $300 million and collected more than $16 million from Colorado users in Lightning Speed fees and in tips. Ultimately, the Colorado complaint argues that “EarnIn’s Cash Outs are loans under Colorado law, and EarnIn’s contention that its product is not a loan based on its disclaimer of any legal repayment obligation lacks any real-world significance given how the Cash Out transactions actually operate in practice.” Colorado further argues that “EarnIn was not working with companies here in providing consumers with funds but acted as a third-party lender and charged illegally high rates, used deceptive design strategies to extract some charges, and trapped consumers in repeat borrowing. Colorado will continue to stand up for consumers and hold companies accountable when they violate our credit laws or attempt to evade them through misleading practices.” Colorado’s suit alleges EarnIn assesses finance charge in excess of that permitted by Colorado law, that EarnIn failed to make legally required disclosures to Colorado borrowers, that EarnIn made supervised loans to consumers without obtaining the requisite license, that EarnIn violated the state’s Deferred Deposit Loan Act, that EarnIn engage in unfair and deceptive trade practices, and that EarnIn made false or misleading statements concerning price. The suit seeks a court order enjoining EarnIn from violating relevant Colorado laws, for EarnIn to refund amounts charged in excess of state law, fees, costs, and penalties, and other relief the court deems to be just. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Q2 Quarterly Banking Profile: Five Quick Takeaways The FDIC released its quarterly banking profile, which is always worth a read, for the second quarter. The profile provides an aggregate snapshot about the overall health of the 4,238 institutions whose deposits are insured by the FDIC, who, collectively, hold more than $26 trillion in assets and saw a total net income of more than $90 billion in the second quarter. Net income was up 12% vs. Q1 2026, with lower provisions and realized gains on securities helping to drive the improvement, somewhat offset by increases in non-interest expense and applicable income taxes. Overall net interest margin was basically flat quarter over quarter (up 1 basis point vs. Q1 2026), though community banks saw NIM grow by 10 basis points, to 3.81%. Unsurprisingly, given that interest rates haven’t changed, unrealized losses on securities changed little, edging up slightly to $326.7 billion vs. $325.1 billion in Q1 2026. Aggregate credit quality has remained benign, with asset quality actually improving slightly in Q2. Overall, institutions reported a 9 basis point decline in their past-due and non-accrual rate, to 1.44%. Net charge off rate also declined by 2 basis points, to 0.57%. And finally, the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund stands at $161.1 billion, making the DIF reserve ratio 1.48% — above the statutory minimum of 1.35%, but still below the designated target reserve ratio of 2%. [Paid Subscriber Exclusive] Nissan Withdraws ILC App, State Associations Plan BankChain Alliance, FDIC Defines “Unsafe or Unsound Practice” For First Time Automaker Nissan withdrew its application to charter a Utah industrial loan company and its corresponding application to the FDIC for deposit insurance last week, on August 19th. Nissan’s application had been outstanding for more than a year, as it originally applied in June 2025. Recent applications to the OCC to form national banks have been decisioned, one way or the other, substantially more quickly than has historically been the case.
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Why some of America's biggest brands are losing ground in China
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Apple bucks global slump in smartphone shipments and sales
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The player Ohio State can’t afford to lose
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What Ovaries Reveal About the Secret Ways Women Age, According to Francesca Duncan
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The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump's tendency to avoid blame when things go awry
President Harry Truman famously kept a “The Buck Stops Here” sign on his White House desk
The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump's tendency to avoid blame when things go awry
President Harry Truman famously kept a “The Buck Stops Here” sign on his White House desk.
The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump's tendency to avoid blame when things go awry
President Harry Truman famously kept a “The Buck Stops Here” sign on his White House desk.
As a new Bucks chapter begins, team president wants more fans
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West Virginia math and English scores top pre-COVID levels as science slips
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Politicians among mourners gathered for funeral service of Ann Widdecombe
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2 men used counterfeit money at Bucks County businesses, police say
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Hialeah's Bucky Dent Water Park shuts down days after reopening over health violations, permit issues
Health Dept. survey asks where residents look for health information
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Did Klutch Sports Group, Nuggets’ Peyton Watson misread his market?
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What is Political Courage?
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The Senate eked out a summer break. But bigger fights are coming
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Upcoming PBS docuseries, 'Bucks County, USA,' to examine suburbs' political division
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Lindsey Buckingham reveals where he and Stevie Nicks stand after longtime feud
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Burger chain bucks California trend, doubles down on Golden State despite rising costs
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Joe Buck, Troy Aikman enter contract year at ESPN
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Construction meets data science in Buildots Intelligence Lab
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Ohio State and Oregon are 1-2 in preseason coaches poll
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Jays Lose To Astros
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How Mateer 'shows up in the depths of preparation,' according to Ben Arbuckle
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Evaluating Bucks' Best and Worst Moves of 2026 NBA Offseason
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Apartment complex on 606 trail sold for $42M
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Courageous Colorado bucks Trump’s federal stupidity
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Bannock County Fair returns to Downey with new attractions, live entertainment
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Bucks Co-Owner Explains the Giannis Antetokounmpo Trade
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Brown, Acton bet voters want change as Democrats keep Ohio close
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After Hobbes vs Rousseau: Politics must move beyond human nature
Since the great debate between Hobbes and Rousseau, our political theory has been organised around a single question: is human nature essentially good or essentially corrupt? Graham Harman, the philosopher behind object-oriented ontology, argues that this is simply the wrong question to be asking. The real forces governing our collective fate - climate change, artificial intelligence, geography, and pandemics - are non-human; therefore, questions about human nature are not the central ones. Instead, Harman proposes a politics reorganised around our relationship to non-human objects and environments, in which quasi-government institutions incentivise and deter actions with the aim of extending the survival of the human race. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This has become one of the most popular phrases among twenty-first-century intellectuals. Often misattributed to Fredric Jameson, it has been warmly embraced by such influential authors as Slavoj Žižek and the tragically departed Mark Fisher, and has fueled the notion that the major problem with the political Left is that it simply needs to become more speculative and creative. Naturally, this is never a bad idea in any human pursuit. But what if the political distinction between Left, Right, and Center itself results from a failure of imagination? SUGGESTED READING Hobbes vs Rousseau: are we inherently evil? By Robin Douglass This particular division has been with us only since the summer of 1789. During the simmering prelude to the French Revolution, it referred originally to the physical position in the National Assembly of radical figures on one side and loyal monarchists on the other. These positions are linked with two entirely different camps of modern political theory. On the Left we find a series of authors ranging from the moderate (Locke) to the supercharged (Rousseau) to the truly radical (Marx), all of them contending that exploitation of the many by the few justifies revolutionary overthrow of the existing order. On the Right they are countered by the likes of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Schmitt, a group of thinkers convinced that corrupt human nature can be tamed only by force. In the words of the Nazi supporter Schmitt: “One could test all theories of nature and state and political ideas according to their anthropology and classify these as to whether they consciously or unconsciously presuppose [humans] to be by nature evil or by nature good.” This is the division we continue to face today, even in the daily retail politics of Western democracies.___Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims.___The most refreshing feature of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s 2021 book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was their awareness that the forced choice between Rousseau and Hobbes (as they put it) is no longer sufficient. Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims. Far from being stationed “beyond good and evil,” we seem to be fully entangled with both. We are not naturally good or evil, Graeber and Wengrow contend, but naturally experimental and imaginative. They rest their case on the archaeological record, which seems to bear witness to numerous episodes of seasonally shifting governments and festivals, which vacillate in the same society (even in the same year) between the egalitarian and the dictatorial. Such praise of political experiment makes a good fit with the generally anarchist position defended by these authors. Yet it is also what I find most disappointing in their position. Although they are right that the forced choice between Hobbes and Rousseau falls short of what our new situation requires, the authors simply replace it with praise for the human being as a political tinkerer and performer. In other words, they give us just another theory of human nature, one that would not have been out of place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. What other options might we have?___The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature… We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them___One fresh approach would be to treat politics within a broader framework than human nature, given that the polis does not exist in a vacuum filled exclusively with people. When Bruno Latour went to observe the baboons of Kenya with the San Diego anthropologist Shirley Strum, they jointly concluded that these primates were more socially interdependent than our own species. Each baboon is so reliant on the dynamics of the group that they find themselves locked into constant surveillance of their potentially dangerous peers. The group structure turns out to be inherently volatile. Humans, by contrast, are able to stabilize their societies to a large degree through the mediation of inanimate objects. Although one’s position in society may seem to fluctuate over time, considerable stability is produced through such items as apartment keys, wedding rings, and identification cards, all of them serving to secure us a place distinct from that of our fellows. The Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris has written at length about the crucial role of documents in establishing social relations, making him a hero among notaries in his country. Proper names and license plates cement our position amidst other humans, as do symbolic achievements such as graduation from a top university or distinguished wartime service with its various medals and ribbons. None of this is found among baboons, despite their closeness to us on the evolutionary tree: after all, we did share a common ancestor just 25 to 30 million years ago. SUGGESTED VIEWING The goodness paradox With Richard Wrangham The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature, whether understood in the manner of the Left or of the Right. We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them. But initially, it is true, we face non-human things primarily in the form of constraints. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to form a human civilization underwater, deep underground, atop Mount Everest, or in outer space. Human dependence on the non-social background takes on subtler form in discussions of political geography, especially unloved on the more idealistic Left. Consider the luckless position of Poland during World War II, sandwiched between Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other. By contrast, note the good fortune of the United States in not having a military peer positioned on any land border. Anglo-American geopolitics, since the writings of the American naval commander Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, has been wedded to the notion that one or more liberal offshore naval powers should prevent any authoritarian “heartland” regime from gaining effective control of Eurasia. That remains the case whether the opponent is the impatient Napoleon, the swashbuckling German Kaiser, the villainous Hitler, the murderous Stalin, or the industrial juggernaut Chinese. In their current Foreign Affairs article “Heartland vs. Rimland,” Michael Beckley and Hal Brands analyze the current and coming state of the world on the basis of these same rather durable principles. In recent years a similar outlook has been embraced, in inverted form, by the Putin-loving Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an icon of the Rightist intellectual underworld. For Dugin, the Anglo-Saxons are an evil force bent on destroying the spiritually superior people of the land: much like Athens in its failed war with Sparta, or Carthage in its eventual collapse against Rome. But the shared notion on both sides is that any strategy that fails to take geography into account is likely to end up as a defeated form of excessive optimism.___When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole.___More striking for us today than geography is the non-human object called climate, which threatens rimland and heartland equally. Even if we contend that humans are one hundred percent responsible for triggering the climate crisis, it remains non-human in the sense of being an independent force beyond our effective control. In a major work published just before his death in 2002, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted the tendency of evolutionary theorists to focus too closely on the fate of individuals in view of their successful or failed adaptation to circumstances. With climate change, however, we confront a force that goes well beyond the scope of any individual life. Whereas Richard Dawkins extended evolutionary questions downward from individuals to the sub-individual gene, Gould pushed it upward, speaking of entire species or clades as impacted by environmental change. The asteroid that struck the Yucatán 66 million years ago is only the most famous example of this sort. In the wake of that catastrophe, large animals needing abundant supplies of food were at a fatal disadvantage by contrast with the smaller birds and mammals of the planet. When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole. The effect is to shift our attention away from individual beings towards the survival of the group.In the United States in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked considerable backlash among those who asserted a nearly absolute degree of individual freedom. In California I encountered those who demanded that their businesses be allowed to reopen, that it was enough to cover their mouths but not their noses, or that they should have the right to enter any public area despite refusing vaccination. Yet public health is probably the clearest argument against libertarianism, which often merely asserts the autonomy of individuals against any claims of the commons. In normal times the individual is worth defending; under conditions that threaten the survival of part or all of our species, compulsion may be our only resort, as with perfectly reasonable blackouts and rations in wartime. To rebuild human society under the constraints of climate change will be one of the great challenges of the century to come, as will our improvised grappling with artificial intelligence. Such phenomena pose existential risks for humanity, and leave far less room for tolerance of individual brattiness. Cases are mounting of devastating wildfires caused by arson. Recently it was reported that there is even a website where one can bet on the location of coming wildfires, raising the specter of deliberate blazes set to collect on wagers. The death penalty has steadily lost support in a world where many stress the infinite value of human life. But if we focus instead on entire ecosystems, those who purposely burn the forests may begin to look worse than serial murderers.___The politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere.___So far I have spoken of force, authority, and punishment: measures sure to have greater appeal to those who identify with what we know as the Right. But other implications of the post-anthropocentric world are likely to have different backers. If non-human objects are seen as structuring political space, it stands to reason that they can no longer be introduced solely by the pace of technical breakthrough. Fields ranging from cybernetics to energy will demand increased politicization once they are reconceived not just as products of individual human investment, but as renovations of collective political geography. This need not involve world government, with its inherent risk of tyranny, but may involve quasi-governmental enforcers of prestige along the lines of a less corrupt FIFA or International Olympic Committee, punishing deviant states not with violence but with less tangible incentives.Politics will never lose its historic links with conflict and faction. But rather than factions aligned by differing theories of human nature, the politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere. This will prove just as incommensurable with the modern Left/Right spectrum as a globe is with a two-dimensional map.
What to do this weekend: Reggae at Riverview, Science of Speed and Lawrenceville Art Crawl
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Science grants opened my world. Proposed cuts would cut students off at knees
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Can a Democrat buck history and win a Mississippi Senate seat for the first time in 44 years?
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Can Anyone Spare a Buck For Texas?
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Former Ohio State defensive back signs massive extension with Browns
Former Ohio State and current Cleveland Browns defensive back Denzel Ward signed a massive contract extension with the Browns.
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Science with Stevie: The Full Buck Moon
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National Youth Science Camp welcomes 2026 delegates to West Virginia
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Third time’s the charm for Stone Temple Pilots
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$70 for a popcorn bucket? Movie theaters are seeing big business with blockbuster collectables
AMC, the world’s largest theater chain, estimates it will see $100 million in revenue this year alone from its collectable popcorn buckets.
$70 for a popcorn bucket? Movie theaters are seeing big business with blockbuster collectables
AMC, the world’s largest theater chain, estimates it will see $100 million in revenue this year alone from its collectable popcorn buckets.
Collectable popcorn buckets are big business for movie theaters
Theaters that are always in search of revenue streams have clearly hit upon a winner in those very lucrative collectable popcorn buckets that seem to be ubiquitous with blockbuster movies. KTLA's David Lazarus explains.
$70 for a popcorn bucket? Movie theaters are seeing big business with blockbuster collectables
AMC, the world’s largest theater chain, estimates it will see $100 million in revenue this year alone from its collectable popcorn buckets.
$70 for a popcorn bucket? Movie theaters are seeing big business with blockbuster collectables
AMC, the world’s largest theater chain, estimates it will see $100 million in revenue this year alone from its collectable popcorn buckets.
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Ranking Members Markey, Velázquez Push to Roll Back Trump Administration’s Discriminatory SBA Lending Policy that Blocks Immigrant Entrepreneurs from Pursuing the American Dream
Bicameral resolution would rescind Trump administration policy banning green card holders from accessing SBA loans Resolution Text (PDF) | One-Pager (PDF) (Washington, July 23) – Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY-7) today introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to rescind the Trump administration’s policy that bans green card holders from accessing essential Small Business Administration (SBA) loans to start and grow their businesses and invest in Main Streets nationwide. Trump’s SBA restrictions buck decades of precedent, attacking immigrant small business owners who are lawfully in the U.S. with no justification. The Trump administration’s green card holder ban is the most recent escalation of SBA’s draconian citizenship restrictions that are killing jobs and putting the American Dream further out of reach for entrepreneurs. In Fiscal Year 2025, the SBA made an estimated $5.7 billion in loans to green card holders, which supported more than 80,000 American jobs. Ranking Member Markey’s introduction of the CRA resolution follows his introduction of the Investing in the American Dream Act alongside Ranking Member Velázquez earlier this year. The Investing in the American Dream Act would roll back the SBA’s draconian lending restrictions and restore previous SBA lending policies for immigrant entrepreneurs lawfully in the U.S., including green card holders, refugees, and asylees. More than 100 organizations have called for the passage of the legislation and over 60 Massachusetts state legislators have raised concerns about the impact of the citizenship restrictions in their local communities. “Once again, Donald Trump is shutting hardworking immigrants out of the American Dream with his discriminatory and dangerous policies, fear tactics, and violent rhetoric. The anti-small business lending requirements implemented by Trump’s SBA won’t Make America Great Again—they are Making America Hate Again,” said Ranking Member Markey. “I am fighting every single day to roll back Trump’s brazen attempt to steal the American Dream from entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country who enrich our communities, strengthen our Main Streets, and create jobs in the United States.” “Starting and owning your own business is one of the pillars of the American Dream. Under the Trump Administration, the SBA has sought to deny immigrant small business owners and entrepreneurs that dream by preventing them from accessing the capital they need to grow and scale their businesses. Not only is this policy cruel, but it is also self-defeating and holds our country back economically. As Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, I will do everything in my power to reverse this terrible policy,” said Ranking Member Velázquez. Massachusetts state legislators applauded Ranking Member Markey’s actions and emphasized the critical contributions of green card holders to Bay State communities and the Commonwealth’s economy. "Green card holders are our neighbors, workers, entrepreneurs, and taxpayers,” said Massachusetts State Senator Adam Gómez (D-Springfield), Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses. “They open restaurants, launch small businesses, create jobs, and contribute every day to the economic strength of Massachusetts. Denying lawful permanent residents access to SBA loan programs doesn't make our economy stronger—it makes it harder for small businesses to succeed. I support this resolution because opportunity should never be limited by unnecessary barriers that prevent hardworking people from investing in their communities and pursuing the American dream." “Senator Markey’s CRA Resolution provides a valuable moment for our federal leaders to show their commitment to small businesses and the American Dream,” said Massachusetts State Representative Andy X. Vargas (D-Haverhill), House Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses. “The SBA’s recent policy restricting lawful residents from accessing the popular 7(a) and 504 programs has shut out some of the most entrepreneurial and hard-working members of our community from much-need capital. In Massachusetts, these programs have invested millions of dollars into small businesses owned by green card holders, supporting thousands of jobs. This should not be a partisan issue. People who worked hard, have legal status, and contribute so much to their communities via employment and economic impact don’t deserve to be in the crosshairs for political purposes. The Senator’s resolution is a step forward in restoring access to the American Dream that small business owners across the country deserve.” Several small business advocates and stakeholders voiced their support for Ranking Member Markey’s efforts to roll back Trump SBA’s discriminatory lending rules. “Immigrant-owned businesses are the foundation of the American economy. They power our neighborhoods, provide essential services, and employ our loved ones. Yet, systemic hurdles like the Small Business Administration’s citizenship restrictions unfairly block their path to prosperity," said Elizabeth Sweet, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. "We applaud Senator Markey’s continued leadership and look forward to a future where immigrant entrepreneurs can share their ingenuity without arbitrary restrictions that hold us all back.” “Independent restaurants have always been built by people willing to work hard, take risks, and invest in their communities. When lawfully authorized entrepreneurs lose access to the financing they need to start or grow a business, we all lose. These are the businesses creating jobs, filling storefronts, and strengthening our neighborhoods. Access to capital should help good businesses succeed, and that’s exactly what restoring these SBA loan programs would do,” said Jen Ziskin, Executive Director of Massachusetts Restaurants United. “At the Latino Economic Development Corporation, we see firsthand that access to capital transforms lives, creates jobs, and strengthens neighborhoods. Many of the entrepreneurs we serve are lawful permanent residents who have invested their savings, opened businesses, and employ local residents. Restricting access to SBA financing doesn’t just impact business owners, it limits economic opportunity for entire communities. Main Street succeeds when every qualified entrepreneur has a fair chance to grow,” said Andrew Melendez, CEO and Founder of the Latino Economic Development Corporation. "Immigrants and immigrant-owned businesses are the heart and soul of small business communities in cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth, and across America. Limiting access to these SBA loans not only sends the wrong message about immigration, it will have significant negative economic impact on our small business ecosystem,” said Keith Mahoney, Vice President of Public Affairs at the Boston Foundation. “The SBA’s recent policy changes that prevent Legal Permanent Residents, and other non-citizens from participating in any of the SBA’s valuable programs are changes that are unwelcome, immoral, and antithetical to our purpose, our mission, and our vision for Massachusetts communities and businesses. Immigrant entrepreneurs and others have expressed concern that Common Capital will ‘report them to ICE,’ so loan demand has decreased. There is no valid reason for excluding Legal Permanent Residents and other noncitizens who are lawfully present in the U.S. from accessing the SBA’s programs. Immigrant entrepreneurs start businesses, they create jobs, they support their families and their communities. Our government should be in the business of encouraging their full participation in our economy,” said Raymond Lanza-Weil, President of Common Capital. "ECCHO-Latino now represents over 400 educators and 300 microbusinesses across Massachusetts, where immigrants make up 60% of the childcare workforce. When a green card holder is ready to grow her business—from expanding her home child care to opening a center—she shouldn't be turned away by local banks simply because of federal citizenship rules. Blocking access to SBA loans kills opportunity and deepens our state's childcare crisis. ECCHO-Latino strongly supports Senator Markey and Representative Velázquez in passing this resolution to put Main Street first," said Harold Antonio Blanco, Co-Founder & Executive Director of ECCHO-Latino Inc. "This is exactly how political ideology ruins an economy. Washington has taken lawful, tax-paying entrepreneurs who live in our communities, invest in America, and hire American workers, and declared their businesses ineligible for critical financing simply because a green card holder owns even a fraction of the company. Using policies ostensibly aimed at illegal immigration to punish lawful permanent residents is nothing short of ideological overreach and economic self-sabotage. The SBA exists to help viable small businesses grow, rather than imposing nativist tests that ignore an entrepreneur’s credit history, business plan, or ability to create jobs. When the federal government closes the door on qualified entrepreneurs, they’re also closing the door on American entrepreneurship and on American workers, while handing future companies, jobs, innovation, and investment to our competitors. America should be competing to attract people who want to invest and build here, not creating arbitrary barriers that drive their talent and capital elsewhere,” said Javier Palomarez, President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). "The U.S. Small Business Administration's decision to prohibit legal permanent residents, including green card holders, from accessing SBA-backed loans has the potential for disastrous consequences that could reverberate throughout America's economy for years to come. After all, immigrants are twice as likely to start small businesses as U.S.-born individuals. Congress must overturn rules requiring the SBA to block legal permanent residents from accessing lending resources because so many of the entrepreneurs who drive job creation in this country were born outside the United States," said John Arensemeyer, Founder and CEO of Small Business Majority. “NCRC supports the Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn SBA’s citizenship restrictions that bar green-card holders from receiving the 7(a) and 504 loans. When qualified entrepreneurs are denied access to SBA loans, all of Main Street gets hurt. Communities lose jobs. Neighborhoods lose services. Local economies lose the opportunity to build wealth and shrink disparities,” said Jesse Van Tol, President & CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). “We cannot afford to have the American Dream out of reach for hard-working, immigrant small business owners.” “Asian Americans and Asian immigrants have been integral in building local economies. They create businesses, jobs, and opportunities in communities across the country that benefit everyone. Lawful permanent residents pay taxes, invest in their communities, and strengthen Main Street, yet the SBA's discriminatory citizenship restrictions unfairly deny them access to the same tools that help small businesses grow and succeed. We applaud congressional leaders for advancing this resolution to overturn the latest restrictions on SBA lending for green card holders, and we urge lawmakers to also pass the Investing in the American Dream Act to fully restore access to SBA loan programs for all eligible people in the United States. Ensuring that immigrant-owned small businesses have a fair opportunity to access capital is essential to building a stronger, more inclusive economy that works for all,” said Joanna Derman, Director of Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights and National Security at Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). "Immigrant-owned businesses often turn to SBA 7(a) and 504 loans because they face higher denial rates from traditional lenders,” said Imani Augustus, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Opportunity. "These programs provide the capital they need to expand operations, hire workers, and invest in their businesses. Reversing the ban on lawful permanent residents is a critical first step toward ensuring these financing tools are accessible to everyone strengthening their communities through entrepreneurship. We applaud this action and urge Congress to fully restore access by passing the Investing in the American Dream Act.” "Last year, nearly 5,700 SBA loans worth $5.7 billion went to businesses owned by green card holders, supporting more than 80,000 jobs. These are entrepreneurs who have put down roots here, hired their neighbors, and invested in the communities they call home. Barring them from capital doesn't protect Main Street—it starves it. What should matter is the strength of a business and its potential to grow, not the immigration status of its owner. This resolution doesn’t eliminate all the citizenship restrictions in SBA’s policy change, but it’s a step toward restoring a commonsense principle that stood for more than 30 years," said Howard Wial, Director of Research at ICIC. "I'm encouraged to see Congress moving to reopen access to capital for green card holders, a key tool for small business survival. Green card holders accounted for an estimated 5,700 SBA loans in Fiscal Year 2025, worth $5.7 billion and supporting more than 80,000 jobs across the country. That capital is often what keeps a business operating through its toughest stretches when cash flow gets tight. When qualified entrepreneurs lose access to that capital over their immigration status rather than their ability to repay a loan, it's the local economy that pays the price,” said Small Business for America's Future Co-Chair Shaundell Newsome, Founder of Sumnu Marketing. “Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and entrepreneurs —including green card holders — take risks every day to build businesses, create jobs, and strengthen communities. SBA loan programs should be administered with clear, consistent standards that safeguard public resources while ensuring these programs remain focused on supporting eligible entrepreneurs and job creators. This resolution responds to the opportunity to support all entrepreneurs and preserve the integrity of federally supported lending programs. We applaud the introduction of this resolution and remain committed to policies that strengthen small businesses, promote economic growth, and maintain confidence in these vital lending programs,” said Carolina Martinez, CEO of CAMEO Network. “National CAPACD wholeheartedly supports the introduction of this resolution aimed at overturning the SBA's misguided policy prohibiting immigrants from accessing the 7(a) and 504 loan programs. As a coalition, we are committed to creating systems, organizations, and societies that are fair and just. We believe we and our economy are stronger when we uplift our rich and diverse communities. Access to capital helps small businesses create jobs, build wealth, and strengthen neighborhoods. Restoring this pathway is an important first step toward ensuring immigrant entrepreneurs can continue to grow their businesses and contribute positively to our economy as a whole. We urge Congress to build on this momentum by passing the Investing in the American Dream Act, which would fully restore fair access to safe and affordable credit and uphold our commitment to a fair economy that works for everyone,” said Seema Agnani, CEO of National CAPACD. Ranking Member Markey is fighting for small business owners and immigrants that rely on SBA loans to start and run their businesses, create jobs, and contribute to their communities. In May, Ranking Member Markey highlighted the significant contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country and condemned the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on immigrant communities at a Small Business Committee hearing. MIRA’s Elizabeth Sweet, who participated in Ranking Member Markey’s listening session earlier in May, provided testimony at the hearing. Also in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a listening session at the Urban College of Boston to hear directly from several Massachusetts immigrant small business owners, lenders, and chambers of commerce how President Trump’s cruel and callous anti-immigrant policies are hurting Main Streets in the Bay State. Earlier in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a press conference alongside Ranking Member Velázquez, Democratic lawmakers, and stakeholders to condemn the Trump administration’s harmful anti-immigrant lending policies and to introduce the Investing in the American Dream Act. In March, Ranking Member Markey released a comprehensive report detailing the harms to small business owners, workers, and consumers caused by the Trump administration’s ICE raids in communities across the country. In February, Ranking Member Markey introduced the Small Business ICE Disruption Fund Act, which would provide grants to small businesses that have been impacted by the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement actions on Main Streets across the United States. Earlier in February, Ranking Member Markey, Ranking Member Velázquez, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) sent a letter urging the SBA to rescind their lending rule change that bars legal permanent residents from receiving SBA loans. Previously, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez released a statement condemning the actions of the SBA after it announced that small businesses with legal permanent residents will be barred from receiving SBA loans. In December 2025, Ranking Member Markey and all Democratic members of the Senate Small Business Committee sent a letter to the SBA reiterating concerns with the SBA’s citizenship requirements and highlighting a drop in SBA lending volume. In September 2025, Ranking Member Markey heard directly from SBA lenders about the issues with the citizenship verification requirements. In July 2025, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez sent a letter to the SBA expressing serious concerns with the agency’s new, draconian citizenship verification requirements that require small businesses seeking SBA loans to be 100% owned by U.S. citizens, nationals, and legal permanent residents. SBA has not responded to the letter. ###
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Movie Theaters Embrace the Bewilderingly Lucrative Business of Buckets
Once, a tub of popcorn was just a tub of popcorn. Now, “collectible concession vessels” could make one chain more than $100 million.