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Strolling the street with drink in hand could be legalized in 5 Berkeley nightlife area
In “entertainment zones,” you can order booze from a bar and sip it outside places like Berkeley Rep, La Marcha or Chez Panisse.
Top Veterans Affairs official says "latest technology" in health care records coming to Danville
Deputy Secretary Paul R. Lawrence said the Federal Electronic Health Record system will go live in Danville next March.
Schumer dodges questions after bombshell report alleges Dem senator had relationships with House staffers
Chuck Schumer declined to address allegations that Sen. Ruben Gallego had relationships with Democratic House staffers, saying he was focused on Trump.
ZeniMax Online Studios leadership to exit as part of Xbox cuts
There are major changes happening atop Maryland-based ZeniMax Online Studios, developer of the Elder Scrolls Online, Game File has learned. Joe Burba, a 14-year veteran of the studio who was appointed to run it last July, is departing, along with ESO executive producer Susan Kath, studio game director Rich Lambert and production director Ala Diaz. Their roles were listed among hundreds of others cut last week from the Maryland offices of ZeniMax, in a WARN letter sent to the state by ZeniMax and obtained today by Game File. Tonight, BUrbam Kath, Lambert and Diaz notified Zenimax Online Studios workers of plans to “transition” to a new leadership team consisting of promoted ZOS veterans. That transition will occur “over the next few months,” they told workers, according to a copy of the notice reviewed by Game File. “We will remain in place during the transition period to help ensure a smooth handoff.” Last week, Microsoft laid off of 1,600 workers across its vast gaming teams in locations around the U.S. and abroad. Just who has been impacted and how hard various studios have been hit has been emerging day by day. Game File reported last week that Microsoft/ZeniMax notified officials in Maryland that 379 gaming jobs were being cut across the state. They tallied cuts in two locations: one for ZeniMax Media Inc. (covering Elder Scrolls/Starfield/Fallout-maker Bethesda Game Studios and central Bethesda game publishing) and one for ZeniMax Online Studios (Elder Scrolls Online). More than 200 jobs were cut at the latter. Last week’s totals did not reveal job titles, nor did Microsoft announce any leadership changes in the ZeniMax group. That has now happened. Earlier today, Game File obtained from Maryland officials a breakdown of the 379 impacted roles, which, extraordinarily, included “studio head.” Microsoft later confirmed to Game File which studio head that referred to: ZeniMax Online Studios’. Microsoft has since has notified studio employees and internally announced new leadership. ZOS will now be run by Josh Henderson, previously head of business operations at the studio, and Nick Giacomini, who was promoted to game director for ESO last August. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Last week’s news of 200+ cuts at ZeniMax Online Studios generated public sympathy for those workers and questions about the long-term viability of the Elder Scrolls Online. ESO is a massively multiplayer online game that inherently persists on the strength of new content being developed for it. Earlier today, fans and workers in Maryland protested the cuts at the ZeniMax teams in a rally organized by the Communication Workers of America, the union that represents many of the impacted employees. Regarding concerns around the game, a community manager stated on Saturday: “The plan is still to deliver great content, and we will hopefully have an update soon.” In their note to the studio today, the outgoing leaders of ZeniMax Online Studios predicted “growth” for the game: We have tremendous confidence in Josh and Nick, the future of this studio, and the continued growth of ESO. With exciting experiences still ahead for our players as we wrap up work for Update 51 and beyond, we believe that your passion, creativity, and commitment to each other and the community will continue serving as the heartbeat of ESO. The list of jobs cut in the ZeniMax WARN notice in Maryland includes several very senior roles, including: Studio Head Studio Operations Director Studio Game Director Studio Audio Director Studio Art Manager Vice President and Controller VP, Global Sales & Business Development While some of those job descriptions match the exiting ZOS leadership team, Game File couldn’t verify if all were from that studio. The full list of cut roles shared by Maryland officials also covers workers at Bethesda Game Studios and its central publishing office. The following is an excerpt: The list of 379 eliminated ZeniMax jobs in Maryland also includes: four animators three bilingual CS (community service) leads for Chinese, Italian, and Japanese a creative director for the Elder Scrolls Online Player Life Cycle two food service workers seven producers more than 60 senior QA testers. and many others The WARN notice states that almost all of the 379 workers were notified of their layoff on July 6. In fine print, it states: “Approximately 9 employees were notified of the elimination of their position prior to July 6, 2026.” A 2021 mega-merger scaled back Microsoft announced in 2020 that it intended to buy ZeniMax and its network of game studios in 2020, and closed the $7.5 billion deal in March 2021. The purchase, which preceded Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, added several award-winning studios to Microsoft’s portfolio, including Bethesda (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), Arkane (Dishonored), and id Software (Doom). The studios’ output since then included a 2024 Game of the Year contented from MachineGames in the form of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle along with Starfield from Bethesda and the poorly-received Redfall from Arkane Austin. In recent years, a Microsoft repeatedly in cutback mode closed ZeniMax’s Tango Gameworks (which was reconstituted by Krafton) and closed Arkane Austin. The Xbox cuts last week have hit the ZeniMax group hard, with 158 jobs eliminated in Texas, many of them at id, and 379 from the ZeniMax teams in Maryland. Xbox also said last week that it would be entering a consultation process around Arkane Lyon, a process expected to end in a sale, shutdown or other form of divestment. The Lyon team has been working on a game tied to Marvel’s Blade vampire-hunting super-hero.
Vanderbilt Health physicians treating more patients with tick bites this year
Six medically important tick species live in the state, and many Tennesseans encounter ticks in their own yard or neighborhood. Perhaps attributable to changing weather patterns and rising temperatures, Vanderbilt Health’s Emergency Medicine physicians around the region began treating patients with tick bites in March this year.
Independent Testing Shows Which Business Security Products Actually Hold Up When It Matters
When Iranian-linked hackers breached medical device maker Stryker in March 2026, they did not need a sophisticated zero-day exploit to cause chaos. Once inside, they triggered simultaneous factory resets on more than 200,000 corporate devices across 79 countries, grinding order processing, production and shipping to a halt for days. Two months later, Foxconn confirmed that the Nitrogen ransomware group had stolen an alleged 8 terabytes of data from its North American factories, including project
Independent Testing Shows Which Business Security Products Actually Hold Up When It Matters
When Iranian-linked hackers breached medical device maker Stryker in March 2026, they did not need a sophisticated zero-day exploit to cause chaos. Once inside, they triggered simultaneous factory resets on more than 200,000 corporate devices across 79 countries, grinding order processing, production and shipping to a halt for days. Two months later, Foxconn confirmed that the Nitrogen ransomware group had stolen an alleged 8 terabytes of data from its North American factories, including project
Google Maps appears to be rolling out ‘Immersive Navigation’ redesign – do you have it yet? [Poll]
Following its announcement back in March, Google Maps appears to be rolling out its “Immersive Navigation” redesign more broadly, but...
988 Enters Its Fourth Year as Demand Grows and the Mental Health and Substance Use Landscape Shifts
Data as of March 2026 show that demand for 988 continues to rise, with the volume of calls, texts, and chats 15% higher than a year earlier and nearly 50% higher than two years ago. States are also answering more calls in-state, where counselors are more likely to be familiar with local resources.
Pound marches higher as investors focus on UK politics
The pound rose against the dollar on Tuesday as investors took profits after the U.S. currency's recent climb to more than one-year highs ahead of key U.S. inflation data later in the day, while holding steady against the euro.
County Celebrates Pride in Full Color with Free Health Services and Community Activities
County of San Diego employees are back at San Diego Pride this year, marching in the parade and offering a variety of community services and activities throughout Pride Festival weekend.
As small businesses beg for tax relief, Philadelphia sees a $100 million windfall
Mayor Parker’s push for Uber and Amazon taxes failed, but local businesses are paying more nonetheless after BIRT changes.
When regulation is good for business
By now, I think I have established both my view that I am a fan of ESG investing and the benefits of regulating what is and isn’t a sustainable investment, and my view that in Europe, ESG regulation has gone too far and become too costly. It almost feels like the old Aristotelian maxim of doing things in moderation that leads to the best outcomes is valid in regulatory efforts as well. To give you an example, let’s look at a study by the National Bank of Belgium on the impact of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) on fund flows of conventional and ESG funds. The SFDR was announced on 27 November 2019 and came into effect on 10 March 2021. It was implemented in several stages and split funds marketed in the EU into three broad categories: (i) Art. 6 funds that are basically conventional funds without any specific ESG integration, (ii) Art. 8 funds that ‘promote environmental or social characteristics’, which must provide additional reporting how they do that, and (iii) Art. 9 funds that are impact funds. The gaps between the announcement and the phased implementation give us an idea of how fund flows were affected by the regulation. It is clearly visible in the figure below that once the new regulation was announced and when it was initially implemented, fund flows in Art. 8 and Art. 9 funds increased significantly. Conventional Art. 6 funds also saw more inflows, but the increase was not statistically significant. I should add that the data below is pure fund flow, cleaned of performance effects and of any reclassified funds that moved from one classification to another. Note also that once the initial rush in ESG funds was over, additional, stricter regulatory requirements didn’t create that many new flows. This implies that with additional regulation, the funds incurred higher costs to comply but didn’t benefit in terms of new inflows and higher assets under management. Fund flows as the SFDR regulation was implemented in the EU Source: Emiris et al. (2026) When examining the drivers of these flows, the authors of the study found that institutional investors were more likely to switch to ESG funds and particularly so in countries where concerns about sustainability are culturally more accepted. In a society where buy-in into environmental and social risks is higher, private investors were shifting more of their assets into ESG funds as the regulation made it clear which funds are really green and which ones are not. And institutional investors in these countries did so as well, given the societal pressures and reputational risks of sticking with conventional funds. Meanwhile, fund managers reacted to the changing regulatory environment as well. Many funds that were mildly green before the regulation was announced became greener and more sustainable as the regulation was introduced to attract new assets and new investors. Cleverly, and unsurprisingly, these ESG funds also charge on average higher fees, which means that not only did fund managers gather fresh assets, but their profitability increased as well.
"We mean business" - Bethesda union members to march in protest of sweeping Xbox job cuts
In the wake of Microsoft's devastating layoffs, set to impact 3,200 Xbox employees, Bethesda union workers have announced plans to fight back.
Watch China land a reusable rocket for the first time
China's Long March rocket has now matched Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin in returning a first-stage booster.
Banijay Entertainment and All3Media combination completed
Press Release London, July 9, 2026 Banijay Entertainment and All3Media combination creates leading global media and entertainment powerhouse Banijay Group and RedBird IMI have completed the merger of Banijay Entertainment and All3MediaThe combination, first announced in March 2026, creates the world’s largest independent production company, with strengthened capabilities across content production, live events and experiences, digital, and new mediaThe combined Banijay Entertainment is headquarte
From The Sports Desk: Rivals France and Morocco meet to kick off quarterfinals
France has won all five of its games so far in this tournament. Can it continue its march toward a third-consecutive World Cup final? Or will Morocco pull off an upset?
Trump's voter ID bill catches unlikely break as McConnell remains sidelined
Mitch McConnell's weeks-long absence removes one key "no" vote on the SAVE America Act, but Senate Republicans still face a filibuster problem.
Russia heads to sports court to overturn its ban from international track and field
Russia's track and field federation says it has gone to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn a World Athletics ruling suspending its athletes from international events due to the war in Ukraine. World Athletics excluded all athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus from its international events in March 2022, days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Since then, the International Olympic Committee has eased its restrictions on Russia ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics — something the Kremlin hailed as an “important step” — and recommended other sports bodies do the same.
Vikings Get a Little Shade from ESPN
Among the Minnesota Vikings’ fan base, hopes are high for 2026, mainly because the club acquired Kyler Murray in March […]
Hazmat crews respond to Irvine home of teen whose science lab sparked FBI probe
Orange County authorities and the FBI responded Tuesday to a hazmat situation in the same Irvine neighborhood searched by federal agents in March after a teenager’s science experiment triggered a d…
Digital Health Tools and Technologies: An Overview of CMS’ Recent Efforts to Expand Their Use in Medicare
As an increasing share of older adults have adopted digital health technologies over the past several years, and with most expressing interest in using them to manage their health care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has introduced several initiatives to expand the use of digital health technologies in Medicare. This brief summarizes these initiatives and draws on data from various surveys, including KFF Tracking Polls from September 2025 and March 2026, to highlight facts about recent experiences with and use of digital health tools among Medicare beneficiaries and older adults more generally.
Former Afghan ally who died in ICE custody suffered allergic reaction
Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, 41, died on March 14 at a Dallas hospital.
LiUNA Local 955 to picket following MU Health Care layoffs
Following layoffs that affected 74 MU Health Care employees, labor union LiUNA Local 955 plans to picket and march on Monday.
White supremacist group marches on U.S. Capitol on Fourth of July
A few hundred masked members of Patriot Front marched with American and confederate flags
White supremacist group marches on U.S. Capitol on Fourth of July
A few hundred masked members of Patriot Front marched with American and confederate flags
White supremacist group marches on U.S. Capitol on Fourth of July
A few hundred masked members of Patriot Front marched with American and confederate flags
MLB Predictions and Moneyline Picks for Friday, July 3
Colby Marchio’s MLB moneyline leans and insights for Friday, July 3, featuring the Minnesota Twins.
Oregon’s top public health official resigns
Oregon’s top public health official is stepping down from her role after two and a half years. Dr. Sejal Hathi, who joined the Oregon Health Authority in January 2024, will leave Aug. 1 to focus on family and personal priorities, the governor’s office announced Thursday. Hathi, who earns $265,488 per year, joined the Oregon Health […]
MLB Predictions and Moneyline Picks for Thursday, July 2
Colby Marchio’s MLB moneyline leans and insights for Thursday, July 2, featuring the Los Angeles Angels.
NHS to take over troubled Northampton mental health hospital
The removal of almost 300 patients from the Northampton site was ordered by NHS England in March.
Sony will cease production of discs for new PlayStation games in 2028
New games sold for PlayStation consoles will only be available digitally and won’t be sold on discs effective January 2028, Sony has announced. The move applies to all PlayStation games released from that point on, including those made by Sony and those released by third parties. The PlayStation group calls the change “a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” according to a PlayStation blog post reviewed by Game File in advance of its publication. As movies, TV and music have shifted from physical media to an age of downloads and streaming, Sony’s move could speed the demise of physical media in a gaming. The industry has offered consumers games via cartridges, cassettes, floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays across a 50-year stretch. Sony has been reporting to investors in recent years that PlayStation games have been increasingly purchased as downloads, not as discs. The most recent figures show nearly four in five purchases of full games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 were purchased digitally in the past year. Stats like that may cause today’s news to carry an air of the inevitable. But Sony’s declaration for 2028 is still likely to produce a shock, as the biggest gaming platform on the planet that uses game discs leaves them behind. Discs going away, but the fate of game boxes is unknown Sony is committing to still selling games in physical retailers even after they drop discs in 2028. Just how those games will be sold—in boxes with codes inside, as cards marked with digital redemption codes—is unclear. Digital games will also continue to be sold in the online PlayStation Store. New games released for PlayStation consoles prior to January 2028 will be unaffected by the policy change, Sony says. That means the PS5 games of 2027, be they a new Madden, a new God of War, a new Call of Duty, a new Sly Cooper (one can dream?), would still potentially be offered on disc. PlayStation 6 implications Sony’s timeline for a transition to a no-disc era will also spin up more speculation about the timing and configuration of Sony’s next-generation console, the probable PlayStation 6. “This pretty much guarantees that PS6 won’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest,” Piers Harding-Rolls, senior games research analyst at Ampere Analysis tells Game File. Harding-Rolls also concludes from today’s news that “the base version of a PS6 will not include a physical media drive,” as Sony looks to keep costs down on the device. Sony itself is saying nothing about the PS6 today: not its timing, nor how it might or might not support internal or external disc drives in order to run disc-based PS4 and PS5 games, should the console be backwards compatible. The many signs this was coming Industry support for games being released on physical media has been waning. As has consumer interest in them. PC games effectively went all-digital years ago, thanks to the popularity of playing games through Steam and other digital storefronts. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that kept much of the global population home helped shift shopping patterns toward downloads. Sony’s own data shows PlayStation game downloads being an uncommon consumer choice a decade ago and now becoming the norm. On consoles, physical media has been in such decline that Sony and Microsoft both launched their current gen Xbox Series and PS5 consoles in 2020 with cheaper versions that lacked disc drives. In early 2024, Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox, told me that ““[w]e ship games physically and digitally, and we’re really just following what the customers are doing.” He added that the game industry had become an outlier in still supporting disc-based entertainment, even as movies and TV have bailed on discs in favor of downloads and steaming: “Gaming consoles themselves have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive. And this is a real issue, just in terms of the number of manufacturers that are actually building drives and the cost associated with those. And when you think about cogs that we’re going to go put in a console—and as you have fewer suppliers and fewer buyers—the cost of the drive does have an impact.” Last year, the Nintendo’s Switch 2, which uses cartridges rather than discs, introduced the concept of game-key cards, which are physical media that contain no game, just a prompt for a download. Even disc-based games aren’t what they once were, now frequently containing just stubs of games rather than the whole thing. The website Does It Play has tested over 3000 games and found that, for example, that the disc version of this year’s hit 007: First Light, only contained the game’s first mission, with the rest needing to be downloaded. Beyond all that, last week brought the news that Grand Theft Auto VI, likely the biggest game launch this decade, will debut for PS5 and Xbox Series without a disc-based version. Today’s big news comes to you for free. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and ensure more of my work is possible, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Discs helped define PlayStation However the trends in entertainment may be going, it is still remarkable to see PlayStation ditch discs given their importance in PlayStation history: In the late 1990s, the first PlayStation’s support for games on relatively cheap CD-ROMs instead of traditional game cartridges allowed the upstart console to outmaneuver cartridge-based systems from Nintendo and Sega, as it drove down game prices down in the process. (The cheaper disc format even prompted Final Fantasy VII maker Square to taunt Nintendo in a magazine ad, saying that if the game was “available on cartridge, it’d retail for around $1200.”) PlayStation devices often doubled as machines for watching movies and TV on the latest disc-based formats. In the late 2000s, for example, Sony’s pricy PS3 gained traction as a go-to device for playing then-novel Blu-Ray discs. In 2013, Sony effectively roasted the digital game-sharing restrictions proposed by rival Microsoft for its upcoming Xbox One console by showing how games could be shared for the then-upcoming PS4. In a 21-second clip that has over 20 million views on YouTube, one PlayStation executive simply handed a game box—presumably with disc inside—to another, who said “thanks.” Sony’s possible motivations The PlayStation announcement today cites “consumer preferences” and a shift away from discs among “the broader entertainment industry,” but does not delve into the decision-making process that brought Sony to this point. Sony is not discussing the economics of this move (I asked!), but there are a number of potential factors: Abandoning discs will spare Sony the cost of manufacturing and shipping them, which analysts and industry veterans I spoke to said could account for $1 or so of a game’s retail price. For first-party games, that’s direct savings for Sony, though the amount is limited by the winnowing percentage of people who were even buying the disc-based versions. For third-party games, Sony could pass the savings on to partners or just retain the better profit margin for themselves. As the 2024 comments from Phil Spencer alluded to, leaving discs behind could mean leaving disc-drives behind, allowing Sony to produce consoles more cheaply. Switching to digital-only for games could diminish the risks of copies of new games leaking. It would also seemingly make second-hand sales of used games impossible, pushing more people to buy their own copies of games. These economic benefits for Sony could be boons for the games industry overall, Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls tells Game File. Among other things, it could free publishers and retailers from having to worry about securing an inventory of game discs when trying to sell games, he noted. “If there is a way to streamline the business of games retail, I generally think it’s a good thing for the industry as it removes unnecessary costs,” Harding-Rolls said. “This will help offset pressure on margins from other directions – development and staffing costs for example.” Should the industry shift from game boxes that contain discs to smaller, cheaper game cards, Harding-Rolls said, that reduces pressure on publishers and retailers. “The advantage of everything going digital for the industry is that sales can be tracked much more easily and there is less commercial risk for publishers wanting to continue selling via retail,” he said. The shift to no discs will also likely impact game development timelines, as developers will no longer face the same urgency to have a build ready to submit to PlayStation for the production of a disc, as industry experts noted around GTA VI’s no-disc news last week. Instead, projects may gain weeks of development time, in the event delivery deadlines for platform approval move closer to release date. Preservationists’ likely worries While millions of gamers have shifted to digital, there are still people who associate game discs—and only game discs—with actual ownership of PlayStation games. That portion of the gaming community spoke up last week about wanting to buy a version of GTA VI that they could hold in their hands, could lend to a friend and could potentially pop into a well-preserved PS5 console three decades from now and still see it run. Such gamers didn’t want to worry that they’d merely purchased a digital copy that could lose access to the game if, say, the company behind the game someday turns of the servers that transmit downloadable copies. Digital copies of games are inherently less long-lasting, because consumers aren’t actually buying a game (on a disc), just buying access to the game. The fine print in online gaming shops notes this, as does a recent law that went on the books in California in 2025. That lasw requires game publishers doing business in the state to refrain from words like “sell” when offering digital copies of games, unless they explicitly tell consumers that what’s being sold isn’t the game itself but a potentially revocable license to access it. A Sony spokesperson noted to Game File that “[w]ith all digital content, including games, movies, and music, players are purchasing a personal license for non-commercial use.” Regarding the fears of PlayStation games being lost to time in an all-digital era, the rep also noted that Sony remains “committed to delivering experiences from past generations to the new platforms our players are using.” They noted that PlayStation has used emulation and remasters to keep offering its classic games to modern gamers. It’s true that many consumers have become accustomed to not having physical copies of new music albums or movies, but the relative precariousness of digital copies of games is in fact being highlighted today by…. Sony’s other big announcement: the upcoming closure of the PS3 and PS Vita online stores Sony said today that it will be closing the online marketplaces for its PlayStation 3 console and PS Vita handheld in most countries in July 2027 (sooner elsewhere: August 2026 for the PS3 store Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua; late 2026 for PS3 in other Latin American countries and the Middle East). “We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming,” Sony said in its announcement, saying the move “was not an easy decision for us to make.” Sony said that PS3 and Vita marketplaces “are no longer able” to support modern commerce systems, prompting a “need” to close the shops and focus on more modern PlayStation platform stores. The news may spark some deja vu. Sony announced back in March 2021 that it planned to take the PS3, Vita and PlayStation Portable marketplaces offline that summer. The move would have caused some 2,000 digital-only games to become unavailable for new purchasers, according to a VGC analysis at the time. Fans complained loudly. By April 2021, Sony walked back the PS3 and Vita shop closures, with then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan saying “it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here.” This time around, Sony is giving a longer notice period in most regions. The closure of those stores is still likely to cut off access to new purchases of digital-only PS3 and Vita games. The current PlayStation 5 marketplace sells PS5 and PS4 games, as well as a selection of PS1 and PS2 games. It does not sell PS3 games, because games for that platform can’t run on the system (some are offered via a PlayStation Plus streaming option). Vita games also aren’t sold via PS5. Sony says digitally purchased PS3 and Vita games will be downloadable after the stores’ shutdowns “for the foreseeable future.” Sony’s move contrasts with Microsoft’s Xbox platform, which continues to sell and support games from all four Xbox console generations. But it puts it in line with Nintendo, which disabled purchases in the marketplace for its Wii console (a contemporary of the PS3) in 2019. Nintendo discontinued purchases in the online shop for its 3DS portable (a contemporary of the Vita) in 2023. The big questions about Sony’s 2028 post-disc era Will Microsoft follow suit, ending support for new disc-based games on Xbox platforms and therefore all game consoles, too? Whether Microsoft does or not, will third-parties that can no longer release games on discs for PlayStation, simply ditch the disc options across the board? Given the GTA VI no-disc experiment launching this November, will more game publishers decide to forgo disc-based offerings even in 2027? How will no-disc PS5/6 games be packaged and sold in brick-and-mortar retail stores? What becomes of game sharing in an all-digital era? Will Sony modify its current set-up, which currently allows some sharing of digital games across a pair of consoles, to allow more casual lending? (See for example, Nintendo’s year-old system of letting players lend a digital game to another player in a “family group” for up to 14 days.) Will there be a version of a PS6 with a disc drive? Or will a drive be offered as an add-on? And how will gamers who want to retain access to PS4/PS5 disc-based games react to whichever configurations Sony chooses to offer? What will the final disc-based PlayStation game be?
Warhammer: The Old World Battle March
Get the lowdown on the fast-paced game mode set in the World of Legend.
How YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream subscribers can get a payout from Disney's $50M antitrust settlement
Disney's $50 million class action settlement pays YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream subscribers who had plans between April 2019 and March 2026.
Tom Kean Finally Reveals Cause of Absence from D.C.
The New Jersey representative, who has been absent from D.C. since March, revealed in a floor speech that he was hospitalized for depression.
Meitav Investment House Announces Immediate Report Concerning Selected Business Data for May 2026
/PRNewswire/ -- Meitav Investment House (TASE: MTAV) announced today that further to the Company's immediate report dated March 2, 2026 (Reference No....
UK living standards fall despite fastest growth in G7
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as GDP quarterly national accounts show how UK economy fared in January to March 2026
Netflix and Superheroes Are Having a Rough Stretch on Streaming....
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) I have a quick prediction before we start today’s article: You might see this data in future news articles. Not my specific charts or analysis, but the core trend I’ve been monitoring—Netflix is having a lackluster Q2—will become inescapable. Often, folks want to know “What does the data say?” Well, that’s what it says. I haven’t seen this analysis hit the trades really yet, but I have a feeling some other outlets are going to start making this case soon. Remember, you read it here first. You probably have read about the problems facing superhero films at the box office this weekend. Well, this week, I explore whether superheroes are dying on TV as well! And the data says: definitely maybe! We have a lot to cover in today’s Streaming Ratings Report, which covers the two weeks of 18-May and 25-May. Today, I’m just looking at TV, like Netflix’s disappointing Q2, superhero shows underwhelming, a few TV shows dropping off the charts, The Pitt finally ending its epic run on the viewership charts (and whether “view counts” change its status as one of the biggest shows of all time), all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Tomorrow, I’ve got a great rundown of the film side of things. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, Showlabs, TV Time trend data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of May 18th to May 31st, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Netflix’s Q2 Slump Continues Having analyzed streaming ratings for going on half a decade, I have learned to trust my gut, but I’m always relieved when I can find actual data to back it up. For example, after a string of very popular shows like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, The Lincoln Lawyer and The Night Agent came out, week after week, in January and February, my gut wondered if Netflix had enough new and returning TV shows to sustain them throughout the year. Since then, Netflix’s post-March slate of shows has not impressed me. This week seemed to feature a potential new hit, but then, like a classic Duffer Bros. TV show, there was a twist. I speak of The Boroughs, Netflix’s latest (and last) Duffer Bros. produced show. The pitch is “Stranger Things with older actors”. And it topped the Nielsen charts: With just two weeks of viewership, The Boroughs would have been a top 25 debut show last year: But here’s the twist: Netflix has already cancelled The Boroughs! What happened? Likely a few things. First, the show didn’t do as well globally as it did in the US. As What’s on Netflix showed, it lagged behind several other shows that got cancelled. Second, its completion rate was likely low; after an initial burst of interest, it quickly dropped off on the Samba TV and Luminate charts. Third, the Duffer Bros. left Netflix for Paramount, and that may have factored into Netflix’s decision here. (Though I tend to believe that if a show is doing well, Netflix would have kept greenlighting seasons.) Still, just because I can explain why Netflix may have cancelled this show doesn’t mean I’m justifying it. In particular, as I’ve noted before, Netflix is losing a lot of their bigger shows as they reach their natural ends, and they need to replace those shows. This show had the hallmarks of a big new genre show, and it’s their biggest hit of the last few months (in the US at least), but now it’s done. Netflix’s other show this week—The Four Seasons, the second season of the “hit” show from last year—definitely disappointed. Its sophomore season had about half the viewership of the first, only 12.7 million hours. It also only had a two week run on Samba TV, and its numbers were all down on Luminate too. In other words, even with two successes, the Q2 slump for Netflix looks real: I could add to the list of disappointments: Both Lord of the Files and Man on Fire had short runs on the Nielsen charts. Running Point’s sophomore season also opened to about half its viewership, similar to The Four Seasons. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’s second season—see below—didn’t even make any of the three viewership charts I track, unlike the first season. Netflix is absolutely having a dismal second three months of 2026. If this Nielsen data is any indication, and I think it is, I think this will show up in Netflix’s engagement report, and maybe even their financial outcomes. And the rest of June doesn’t look much better. We have two hit shows coming back—Sweet Magnolias, one of their quietest big shows, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, a big hit for them in 2024—but the other big swings are limited series crime thrillers i.e. no future season potential. Like I said above, sometimes when I uncover a juicy nugget like this, other outlets end up writing very similar articles mimicking the data without credit. We’ll see if that happens this time! Share Television - The State of Superhero Shows on Streaming When I first heard the pitch for Spider-Noir—a Sony TV show on Prime Video that binge-released eight episodes first on MGM+ then on Prime Video two days later—I had my doubts. It’s a live-action Spider-Man show set in the 1930s, starring Nicholas Cage, based on a cameo of a character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. No, seriously, that’s the pitch. That could either go terrifically well or horribly wrong. Great because, Spider-Man. He’s the biggest superhero we have. I’ve seen tracking numbers that put the new _Spider-Man: Brand New Da_y as the blockbuster of the year and initial pre-sales back that up. And yet this Spider-Noir pitch feels very esoteric. (Also, the eight-episode binge release feels very “Amazon copying Netflix” again.) So what’s the data say? And what does this say about the future of superhero shows?
Dem running for Pelosi’s seat mocked after anti-Israel hecklers chase him from SF Trans March
Videos show state Sen. Scott Wiener being shouted down by anti-Israel activists in San Francisco, sparking widespread mockery from conservatives.
Maryland Christian Chamber of Commerce blends faith and business as membership grows
Since its launch in March 2026, the Maryland Christian Chamber of Commerce has grown to more than 100 member businesses, hosting networking events, prayer calls and monthly forums. The new organization blends Christian values with business principles to support entrepreneurs and foster a shared sense of purpose across Maryland.
2027 iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e to Get 9GB RAM and A20 Chip
The lower-end iPhone 18 models set to launch in spring 2027 will feature 9GB DRAM, up from 8GB, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo says the A20 chip Apple plans to use for the devices will have 1.5GB x 6 dies for a total of 9GB RAM, instead of 2GB x 4 dies as the current lower-end iPhone 17 models use. By lower-end iPhones, Kuo is likely referencing the iPhone 18 and the iPhone 18e, both of which are rumored to be coming around March or April of 2027.
ISS repair spacewalk highlights concerns about station health
NASA astronauts on the space station are preparing for a spacewalk to repair a robotic arm as safety advisers raise concerns about its long-term health.
First Look: Breguet Releases 3 new Tourbillon Watches for the 225th Anniversary of its Invention
New takes on the Breguet Classique Tourbillon Sidéral, the Tradition Tourbillon and the Marine Tourbillon Équation Marchante.
This autism therapy is covered by many insurers. Why does the military’s plan restrict it?
Logan Cabiao started applied behavior analysis therapy for autism when he was 2. Several years later, TRICARE, the military’s healthcare program, imposed major coverage restrictions.
M5 Ultra Mac Studio Could Launch in 2026 With Up to 768GB of RAM
Despite price increases across the Mac line, Apple is still planning to release a new Mac Studio as soon as this year, reports Bloomberg. Apple plans to introduce a new M5 Ultra chip as the final option in the M5 family before it transitions to the M6, M7, M7 Pro, and M7 Max. The M5 Ultra will come in a new version of the Mac Studio, which hasn't been updated since March 2025.
How should European scientists respond to the US AI kill switch?
Earlier in June, Europe’s worst fears of technological dependence were confirmed when the White House ordered the AI firm Anthropic to stop non-US citizens using its leading models. This kill-switch moment crystalised anxieties in Brussels that the continent, lagging the US on the creation of leading-edge AI models, is now a technological of vassal of Washington. The shock has specific implications for European scientists and universities. Some governments are now worried that with AI being integrated into labs, Donald Trump now has his finger hovering over an off switch for European science. “Having restrictions on this tool, it can have an impact on our own research,” said France’s research minister, Philippe Baptiste, at the VivaTech conference in Paris on June 18.Baptiste, himself a former academic, said that colleagues in mathematics had recently warned him they were now cut off from leading-edge US models, risking their work. “This model is not available anymore now because of the US restriction, and for the first time this had an impact on mathematics,” a field where large language models (LLMs) are making a significant contribution, said Baptiste. So, should European scientists avoid relying on US models in the future? Or would this be a self-harming overreaction? And how is AI being used in science, anyway? What happened?On June 12, it emerged that Washington, citing cybersecurity concerns, had ordered Anthropic to stop non-US citizens using two models: Claude Mythos 5, and Claude Fable 5, a version of Mythos but with guardrails to prevent abuse. Anthropic said Washington’s concerns were overblown. But forced to follow the order, yet with no way to check who was using the models, the company suddenly shut down access for everyone, US citizens included. There’s still no agreement on how to restore broad access. But last week, Bloomberg reported that select US companies, and the US government, still had access to Mythos despite the ban, but the EU’s cybersecurity agency Enisa had been shut out. Class division of researchersIn the longer term, access outside the US should be restored, said Marcel Salathé, co-director of the AI centre at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), because a permanent restriction would be financially ruinous to US AI firms. “Even Trump will eventually budge to economic pressure,” he said.However, US AI firms might end up operating rather like banks, doing due diligence on users of their leading-edge AI models, he went on.European scientists are unlikely to fall foul of such checks, he said. But having a Chinese postgraduate in their lab, or doing a type of research the US disapproved of, could potentially result in access being denied. “It will create a sort of class division of researchers,” he said. More than frontier modelsHowever, successfully deploying AI in science is about far more than just having access to leading LLMs such as Mythos.Instead, many science-specific tools, most famously Alphafold, which predicts protein folding structures, require “far less” computing power to train than frontier models, well within the capabilities of European supercomputers, according to a recent analysis by the Arq Foundation, a Brussel-based AI think tank. Instead, tools such as Alphafold are possible because certain fields, like protein folding, weather prediction or astronomy, have large, clean, standardised datasets that can be used to train predictive models. Rather than compute, “data is the central constraint for AI for science,” the report says. For example, a less powerful physics model trained on CERN’s data “will be more valuable than the best model without certain data,” said Bengüsu Özcan, author of the report. European advantage?Europe could therefore steal a march by using its scientific data and infrastructure to create models US digital giants cannot. “They might actually match or go even beyond what these big [US] companies are doing,” said Özcan.Indeed, some European start-ups hope to create automated testing labs to create the kind of standardised data that could speed up the discovery of new materials. Materials scientists say there’s currently too little data to train models. AI scientistsHowever, even if the bottleneck for AI in science is often data, rather than compute, being at the mercy of the US for LLM access could still become a problem for European scientists. A new class of “AI scientists” based on leading LLMs is also emerging, Özcan’s report says.Unlike domain-specific tools like Alphafold, these try to automate day-to-day scientific work, by providing an overarching tool that coordinates specific models to synthesise existing literature, generate hypotheses or run analysis of data. The problem for Europe, however, is that these tools are sometimes based on US leading models. Google Deepmind’s AI Co-Scientist, for example, is built on Google’s Gemini LLM. Systematic failureThese scientific automation tools are still in their early stages, and still exhibit “systematic failures on scientific tasks,” Özcan’s report says. One of the problems is that the messy, day-to-day process of scientific discovery is largely not documented, meaning LLMs don’t have a good source of data to learn how scientists actually work. Meanwhile, some tasks, such as literature synthesis, don’t typically require access to leading edge models.However, the performance of AI scientific assistants could improve as companies such as Google pour resources into developing them. Rely on US“Unfortunately, for scientific assistants, there is not much we can do right now except rely on US frontier AI,” said Antoine Bosselut, a natural language processing expert based at EPFL. Chinese-built open models, which can run on local computers, lessening the risk of a shutdown, are touted as one alternative to US dependence. There’s also Mistral, once seen as Europe’s main AI hope, but the Paris-based company has seen its recent models fall behind in performance. But the Chinese alternatives are generally not as capable as US frontier AI models, said Bosselut, unless paired with fiddly, custom tools that allows them to act as independent agents. “Most scientists do not have the time,” he said. Don’t jump ship yetAlthough the kill switch moment is seen a warning shot for European scientists, it doesn’t mean labs should abandon US AI tools immediately. “I do not think the right response is simply to abandon US-based models and systems under the banner of sovereignty or independence,” said Mattias Björnmalm, secretary general of the Cesaer university association. “That would be an overreaction.”Related articlesEuropean sovereignty in AI requires ‘ugly trade-offs,’ say experts Robotic lab start-up makes case for €500M EU-funded materials testing facilityAI in science: is it useful? Instead, European researchers need to ask themselves whether they’re becoming dependent on technology that could be turned off in Washington, said Özcan. “They might not see this today, but they should really start asking this question,” she said. European researchers need a plan B, said Salathé. “I would recommend to every researcher, very proactively explore alternatives.”Own toolsIn addition, Björnmalm and others want European research institutions to develop their own scientific AI tools.Instead of signing AI deals with US digital giants, European universities should be using this money to create their own models, which may end up being superior for research, said Sabine Leonelli, an expert on the use of AI in science at the Technical University of Munich. “Universities in Europe seem to be happy to sign commercial contracts with US companies on the assumption [their AI tools] are better,” she said. But US frontier LLMs are typically opaque, and have been developed without independent scientific input, she said. “This is not good enough for science.”Last year, Swiss researchers released Apertus, an LLM designed to be completely transparent, from its development methods to its training data. The idea is that this makes scientific tools built on top of the model far more reproducible than with closed, commercial alternatives.“Europe needs more of this: serious capacity-building that gives researchers, universities and companies credible options,” said Björnmalm.
The Painting That Is Still on Trial in South Korea: How the unending Korean War became a permanent excuse to criminalise expression
By Boram Jang, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty International In a Seoul courtroom in March this year, a prosecutor read out charges against Jeon Seung-il, a former art student, from an indictment first written in 1989. The language had not changed, nor had the charges. Thirty-seven years later, only the young defendant had grown old. In 1989, he was 23 years old in a South Korea still shaped by decades […]
Latest injury has 4-time Cy Young winner thinking retirement
Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander was expected to come off the injured list and start the June 21 game against the White Sox. It would have been his first game since March. But after working his way through a hip injury that landed him on the IL, the 43-year-old Verlander suffered a ...
Sonic Frontiers: Definitive Edition finally announced for Nintendo Switch 2, out now, trailer
After numerous leaks, Sonic Frontiers Definitive Edition has finally been announced for Nintendo Switch 2. Not only that, but you can purchase it now. We’ve heard about this one as early as March. Initially, the game was outed by a classification rating. More recently, the release date was leaked with a few details coming shortly after that. Sonic Frontiers: Definitive...
Two marsupial species once known to science only from fossils, and thought lost for more than 6,000 years, have been confirmed alive in the rainforests of New Guinea’s Vogelkop Peninsula — a discovery made possible by old museum specimens, rare field photographs, fossil fragments and the knowledge of Indigenous Tambrauw and Maybrat elders.
Two marsupials known to science only from fossils, and presumed gone for more than 6,000 years, have turned out to be alive in the rainforests of the Vogelkop Peninsula in Indonesian Papua. The finding was published in March in the Records of the Australian Museum, and it leaned less on a lucky expedition than on […]
Digital Health Institute welcomes French delegation to explore pathways to collaboration
The Houston Methodist-Rice Digital Health Institute recently welcomed Frank Marchetti, Consul General of France in Houston, and his team to discuss health care innovation and avenues for international collaboration.
🌈 The conflictual politics of Pride events
Amid the rise of far-right and anti-gender movements, and given growing internal conflicts and divisions, many LGBTQAI+ people worry about the future of Pride events. But Francesca Romana Ammaturo reveals that throughout its history, Pride has reflected many different visions of activism and community
Latest version of Google Messages comes with useful feature we've seen tested before
Back in January and in March, we saw Google testing this new feature that is finally here.
Long Marches, Heat Struggles for Houston’s World Cup Visitors
“We are not used to these temperatures,” one Dutch fan told FOS.
UAM lands $500,000 grant for Weevil Wellness Center, with funding through March 2027
The University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) received a $500,000 grant to construct an integrated health facility designed to serve students, faculty, and sta
Sony drops “PC”, adds “AI” to official PlayStation business strategy summary
Sony had made some conspicuous edits and updates to its description of PlayStation’s “business environment and strategy,” in a new annual report filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. These changes are part of a 379-word overview of Sony’s strategy for its Game & Network Services (G&NS) division, which is another name for PlayStation. The chunk about PlayStation strategy is part of a voluminous financial report filed by Sony each June. This year’s is 229 pages long. Differences to any part of the filing—word changes made from year to year, as Sony provides a breakdown of its business for investors—can be illuminating. For example: A line from 2025 about how the PlayStation team “aims to achieve sustainable and profitable business growth” has been changed in the 2026 version to “aims to achieve sustainable business growth.” Notice which word they cut? That’s a pretty clear tell about how Sony expects its profit margins to be squeezed this year, due to rising chip costs for its hardware, among other things. A line from 2025 that stated “Sony plans to continue its efforts to deploy its first-party titles to multiple platforms such as PC” had been cut from the 2026 version. That appears to be Sony’s admission by omission that it has backed off releasing its biggest games on PC. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported in March and again in May that Sony’s big single-player marquee games are no longer planned for time-delayed release on PC.1 A whole new chunk has also been added about how “Sony is utilizing AI to unleash the creativity of studios and further enhance the PlayStation experience.” A full breakdown of the changes made from the 2025 version to the 2026 version is below. I’ve redlined them for you…
Rep. Kean to return to Congress after mysterious absence, spokesman says
The New Jersey Republican, who has not been present in the chamber since March because of a "personal medical issue", plans to be back on the job later this month.
Andrews University Students and Faculty Win Awards at Business Conference
Graduate students and faculty in the Andrews University School of Business Administration (SBA) won five awards and presented 17 papers at the Midwest Business Administration Association (MBAA) International Conference, on March 25-26, 2026. Held annually in Chicago, the MBAA International Conference is a multidisciplinary academic gathering, bringing together more than 6,000 academics and professionals, with […]
NJ Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. sets June 30 return date after monthslong absence
New Jersey Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who’s been absent from Congress since March with an unspecified medical issue, is set to return on June 30 | KNSS Radio
Misericordia University Faculty Member Presents Research at International Business History Conference in London
Jennifer M. Black, PhD, Professor and Chair of History at Misericordia University, recently contributed to international scholarship in her field by presenting original research at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Business History Conference (BHC), held March 26–28 in London, England.
Macron’s Nuclear Gamble: Building a European Deterrent Faster Than French Politics Can Tear Down
In early March, French President Emmanuel Macron stood at a windswept submarine base on the Breton coast and quietly buried four decades of French nuclear
Latvia pilots citizen engagement in research grant evaluations
Latvia has introduced an element of citizen engagement to the evaluation of nationally funded research grants. The aim is to both create more connections between science and society, and to improve the quality of its evaluations. The move comes as research funders across Europe are experimenting with ways to improve evaluation processes in the face of a sharpened focus on science’s impact on society. Evaluators of grant applications submitted to Latvia’s Fundamental and Applied Research Programme (FLPP), the country’s main research funder, will this year have the option of consulting citizen feedback on challenges the public thinks science should focus on to inform their decisions. “In recent years, both public discussions and policy-level debates in Latvia have highlighted the importance of demonstrating how publicly funded research contributes to society, the economy and the resolution of real-world challenges,” said a source at the Latvian Council of Science (LCS), which manages the FLPP. “At the same time, research institutions themselves expressed interest in improving the project evaluation framework while continuing to ensure that funding is awarded to the highest-quality projects,” the source added. The citizen input comes from a survey that was conducted between 25 February and 16 March 2025, to which 1,737 people responded. It gathered information on what the public views as problem areas for Latvia, and the role of science and technology in providing solutions to these problems. A summary of these responses has been included as an annex to the FLPP 2026 call for proposals that evaluators can refer to, purely in an advisory manner, when judging proposals. Results from the survey show that the main problem areas identified by the public were in healthcare and public health, followed by the development of new treatment methods and medicines, and then digital technology, data security and cyber security. At the bottom of the list was research aimed at acquiring new knowledge about the universe, matter and the laws of nature. Further analysis looked at the public view of the possible role of science in solving these problems. The survey charted 4,167 individual responses based on open-ended questions that were derived from the participants’ answers. The analysis again found that medical and health sciences topped the scoring, with 788 responses referring to the field. Humanities and the arts were bottom of the list, with 625. Digging further into the details, the survey suggests citizens are aware of and concerned about a number of research areas. This includes technologies and innovation to improve the environment or reduce pollution, the development of modern military technologies and cybersecurity tools, and the development and application of artificial intelligence, among others. “We hope this initiative will help strengthen public trust in science and create a more meaningful dialogue between researchers and society,” the LCS source said, adding that it offers benefits to researchers, evaluators and to the general public. More space for citizen engagement in evaluationsThere is a gradual but increasing use of citizen engagement in research evaluation processes around Europe, especially in healthcare, but it remains relatively rare, said Henry Sauermann, a professor at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin and an expert in citizen science.“Given that we are at a point where citizen involvement is extremely limited, there is presumably space for more, but it's not that we should do it just because we want to do it,” he told Science|Business. He said some research lends itself better to having citizen input, and this usually tends to be on the applied end of the science spectrum where the public can offer useful feedback based on their experiences. He added that advising scientists on certain topics to study is also a useful approach, in the way that Latvia is doing. “The public does fund a lot of science, there's a lot of tax money going into this. We of course do want to preserve academic freedom, but it's also not unreasonable to incorporate more feedback or input from citizens where possible,” he said. Related articlesCitizen science: where, when, and how to let the public contribute to researchHow can Europe cope with a flood of AI-assisted research grant proposals?Data Corner: Horizon Europe’s AI, digital and data call success rate is 5.2%There are several ways of involving citizens in science funding. The most minimal way is having a few representatives on a panel, such as members of a patient group or union. The most direct way is crowdsourcing funding for specific projects. There is an increasing number of online platforms that allow the public to chip in to support scientific proposals.Sauermann studied this in a recent paper and found that it can have its uses, but it still is not clear if there are benefits to it. There are various assumptions linked to citizen engagement, for example that it increases public trust in science, or that it provides a representative view of what the public thinks about science. These are not necessarily true, Sauermann found. People who participate in engagement activities tend to already be very trusting of science, and, on the whole, it is generally the well-off and well educated who contribute, giving a narrow view of public opinion. On whether citizen input can help manage the increasing number of proposals that are being submitted due to assistance from AI, Sauermann is more sceptical. “The obvious answer to the flood of AI-written proposals is AI-driven evaluation,” he said, adding that it doesn’t mean citizen engagement shouldn’t be a part of evaluations in a well thought-out manner. Southern Denmark’s successful approachOne successful example of citizen engagement in science evaluations was implemented in southern Denmark. Between 2019 and 2025, citizens in the region were invited to vote to fund one of five pre-selected projects in the field of healthcare. The project, called A Healthier Southern Denmark, was a collaboration between regional authorities, the University of Southern Denmark, and two media partners. Over the seven years, there were 75,000 votes and significant public engagement online and on social media. “It was a bit of a wild project, we’d never done something like that before and we were a bit nervous about what would be said in the media about it. But actually, people were very positive,” said Anne Kathrine Overgaard, one of the main organisers of the project from the University of Southern Denmark. The university and its researchers have learned a lot from the experience, particularly about engaging with society and shaping their research to match real-world needs. This is important with Europe’s increasing focus on competitiveness and bringing innovations to market faster, Overgaard said. She hopes to see more citizen engagement in evaluation processes and in science more broadly. “For many years, citizen engagement has been a bit of an add-on to proposals, just to check a box. But I think things are changing,” she said. It’s less about citizens just gathering data and more “about the dialogue between the public and the scientists,” she said. The initiative ended last year as the team wanted to regroup to find fresh momentum. The development of AI and AI-written proposals has made Overgaard reflect on how the project could be reworked to help evaluators. She hopes to bring it back in the future. “It could be a good idea to try this initiative again in a slightly re-worked format,” she said.
Tom Holland appears to confirm he and Zendaya are married
Tom Holland has apparently confirmed that he and Zendaya have tied the knot. This comes after months of speculation sparked by Zendaya’s stylist in March. Holland addressed the rumors during
‘Paddington’ stage musical to pack its marmalade sandwiches and travel to Broadway
Paddington Bear is heading to Broadway with “Paddington The Musical” set to play at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in March.
Roundup of third-quarter financial results for Philly-area nonprofit health systems
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was the most profitable nonprofit health system in Southeastern Pennsylvania during the nine months that ended March 31.
Promoter of election conspiracy theories wins GOP primary for Nevada secretary of state
Former state lawmaker Jim Marchant has won the Republican nomination for Nevada secretary of state
Report: Tiger Woods Prioritizing Vanessa Trump's Health After Completing Rehab Stint
It appears Tiger Woods is changing his priorities for the rest of 2026. Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test after being involved in a rollover accident on March 27. The Martin County Sheriff’s Office reported that he had pain pills in ...
Puerto Rican Day Parade marches through Manhattan with pulsing music and vibrant colors
New Yorkers who weren’t partied out after the Knicks championship found another excuse to celebrate as the National Puerto Rican Day Parade marched through Manhattan with pulsing music and vibrant colors.
Puerto Rican Day Parade marches through Manhattan with pulsing music and vibrant colors
New Yorkers who weren’t partied out after the Knicks championship found another excuse to celebrate as the National Puerto Rican Day Parade marched through Manhattan with pulsing music and vibrant colors | Talk 1370
Puerto Rican Day Parade marches through Manhattan with pulsing music and vibrant colors
New Yorkers who weren’t partied out after the Knicks championship found another excuse to celebrate as the National Puerto Rican Day Parade marched through Manhattan with pulsing music and vibrant...
Michigan nursing home cited 18 times for health violations in past year
Medicare gave the facility two stars out of five, based on the most-recent state inspection, completed in March, and the previous three years of complaint- and infection control-related inspections.
What Genres and Streamers Won 2025? And Who Lost? Plus Six Strategy Thoughts
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Okay, time for the tenth and final article in my ten-part series recapping 2025. As I wrote two articles ago, my barometer for whether these articles are worth writing/publishing is whether they yield strategic insights, and once again, every subsection in this article has a strategic takeaway (or two). Honestly, these are the most important takeaways, since I step back and look holistically at the streaming wars in 2025. After I declare which streamers won and lost the year and which genres won and lost the year, I have six bonus thoughts. If you’d like to review the whole series... You can find the film flops here and here. You can find the TV shows flops here and here. You can find the top films here. You can find the top TV shows here, here and here. Then I declared my winners and losers in various categories here. You can find my 2024 recaps here. You can find the 2023 recaps here and here. And my 2022, 2021 and 2020 are all stored here. Yeah, it’s halfway through the year, and I’m just finishing this series up now. This year, I tried to space things out to not clog up my writing calendar, plus I had to wait for Fallout to (finally) drop off the charts. Well, that ended up pushing this series wayyyyy too far back on the calendar. Oh well. Next year, the goal will be to finish this series in March, but frankly, I just need more staff to make that happen. So please subscribe. Or, if you’re an advertiser (movie studio, FYC firm, or other), please reach out. Subscribe Streamer of the Year: Netflix Honorable Mention: Paramount (and CBS) So, just last week, I wrote about how Netflix has lost seven of its top twelve scripted shows in the last year. And I shared two very dour looks at Netflix’s potential slowdown this year and last. Guess what? They’re still the number one streamer in America. In 2025, they dominated new streaming shows (even if most of those new hit shows aren’t coming back for future seasons), they had the two biggest films, and they had the top returning TV show by a mile. The world is complicated, nuanced and messy. There may be warning signs of a future Netflix slowdown, but in 2025, Netflix was still the number one streamer. Note what I didn’t say? That Netflix has “won” the streaming wars, because obviously the streaming wars are still ongoing and, more importantly, YouTube is still growing—so now YouTube has “won” the streaming wars?—while Netflix’s share of TV consumption has stalled out. Avoid simplistic talking points, especially if they’re constantly repeated and could fit on a bumper sticker. I had trouble picking the second-place streamer this year, because all of the candidates for second place—Prime Video, HBO Max, and Paramount+—had some hits, but no one stood out. Then I saw this update from Nielsen on the top shows on TV in the 2025-206 season. Sure enough, Netflix had five of the top ten shows! And they had ten of the top 31 shows and fifteen of the top fifty. But CBS/Paramount+ actually had more shows in the top thirty and the top fifty. Paramount+/CBS had twelve of the top thirty shows and nineteen of the top fifty. Let me emphasize that: CBS/Paramount+ had more top shows in the 2025-2026 season than Netflix. And this look was just for TV shows, not live sports, an arena Netflix barely plays in. Meanwhile, Paramount-Skydance’s market cap is a fraction of Netflix’s. That’s weird, right? Streaming Loser of the Year, TV… 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… ...what streamer lost the year in TV... …whether Netflix could win the title for “film” streamer too… …who won the Disney vs Warner Bros. battle for theaters… ...what TV genres won and lost the year... ...what film genres won and lost the year... ...what film genre people think is thriving on streaming but isn’t… …why F-BOSSS TV shows don’t hold the same sway in the 2020s… …what it means to “flop” as a film on streaming… …UK shows underperforming on streaming… And a lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you’d like to read more about why you should subscribe, please read this article about the Streaming Ratings Report, why it matters, why you need it, and why we cover streaming ratings best.
Soccer Meets Space Science
A soccer ball floats in microgravity in this March 2, 2026, picture from the International Space Station. The space station crew tested soccer balls to study
Michigan Blue Cross to limit mental health benefit. Will thousands lose care?
Beginning March 1, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan will no longer pay for counseling services provided in a private office by limited license providers.
49ers star George Kittle makes bold statement about Mike Evans
The San Francisco 49ers signed star wide receiver Mike Evans away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency in March.
ENTERTAINMENT: Flag Day concert, ‘Anastasia’ musical on weekend ‘set list’
The Little Rock Winds’ 29th annual Flag Day concert, 7 p.m. Sunday on the old parade ground behind the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in MacArthur Park continues the band’s America250 celebration with a program of marches, patriotic songs, and pop tunes.
ENTERTAINMENT: Flag Day concert, ‘Anastasia’ musical on weekend ‘set list’
The Little Rock Winds’ 29th annual Flag Day concert, 7 p.m. Sunday on the old parade ground behind the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in MacArthur Park continues the band’s America250 celebration with a program of marches, patriotic songs, and pop tunes.
Small Business Focus: Organized by Katie: Bringing real-life order to Arlington homes
Starting a business often begins with recognizing a need, and for professional organizer Kathryn “Katie” Kersavage, that need was closer than she realized. Kersavage officially launched Organized by Katie in March 2026, turning more than 15 years of informal experience helping friends and family declutter into a professional service designed for real life. Based in
Business Restructuring Review Vol. 25 No. 3 May-June 2026
In This Issue Texas Bankruptcy Court Adopts Barnet Rule Requiring Foreign Debtor to Have U.S. Assets to Be Eligible for Chapter 15 Relief In In re Siu-Fung Ceramics Holdings Limited, No. 24-33299, 2026 WL 382424 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Feb. 10, 2026), the court denied petitions for chapter 15 recognition of Hong Kong bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings commenced on behalf of an individual debtor and a group of companies that he owned or controlled. According to the court: (i) the corporate debtors' Hong Kong liquidation proceeding was not eligible for chapter 15 recognition because the attorney retainer upon which such relief was based was not funded until nine months after the chapter 15 petition date; and (ii) the individual debtor's Hong Kong bankruptcy case could not be recognized because the debtor's "center of main interests" on the chapter 15 petition date was not in Hong Kong, and he did not even maintain an "establishment" there. [read more …] Southern District of Texas Clarifies Post-Purdue Course for Consensual Third-Party Releases and Gatekeeping Provisions In In re Container Store Group, Inc., 676 B.R. 356 (S.D. Tex. 2026), appeal filed, No. 26-20166 (5th Cir. Apr. 14, 2026), cross appeal filed, No. 26-20166 (5th Cir. Apr. 24, 2026), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas addressed consensual third-party releases and gatekeeping provisions in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 603 U.S. 204 (2024). Consistent with existing Fifth Circuit precedent, the court confirmed that, in appropriate circumstances, consent for third-party releases may be obtained through a creditor's failure to opt out of granting that consent. But, the court ruled, consent through an opt-out mechanism essentially can never be inferred for creditor classes that stand to receive no recovery under a chapter 11 plan and that are deemed to reject the plan by operation of applicable bankruptcy law. Instead, those classes must affirmatively opt in to any release. The court also narrowed and remanded the bankruptcy court's acceptance of a broad gatekeeping provision, ruling that such provisions must correspond to the restrictions established by Fifth Circuit precedent. [read more …] Delaware Bankruptcy Court: Initial Transferee Need Not Be Defendant in Fraudulent Transfer Avoidance and Recovery Litigation The Bankruptcy Code gives a bankruptcy trustee the power to avoid asset transfers that are either made with the intent to defraud creditors or that are "constructively" fraudulent because an insolvent debtor did not receive adequate value in exchange. The Bankruptcy Code also permits recovery of an avoided transfer from not only the initial recipient, but also from subsequent transferees. Courts disagree over whether a transfer must actually be avoided before the trustee can seek recovery from a subsequent transferee and whether the initial transferee must also be a defendant in the recovery litigation against a subsequent transferee. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware weighed in on this debate in Phillips v. SS Associates LLC (In re ONH AFC CS Investors, LLC), No. 23-10931 (CTG), 2026 WL 312892 (Bankr. D. Del. Feb. 4, 2026). The court adopted the majority view, ruling that the initial transferee need not be a defendant in avoidance and recovery litigation against a subsequent transferee, but that the trustee must establish the elements necessary to avoid the initial transfer as part of the recovery litigation. [read more …] New York Bankruptcy Court Weighs In on Adequate Assurance of Future Performance under Assigned Leases and Chapter 11 Plan Exculpation Provisions In order to assume and assign an executory contract or unexpired lease, a bankruptcy trustee must cure most defaults under the agreement and provide "adequate assurance" of the assignee's future performance. However, the Bankruptcy Code provides no guidance as to the meaning of "adequate assurance" other than with respect to shopping center leases. In In re Broadway Realty I Co. LLC, No. 25-11050, 2026 WL 147505 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Jan. 19, 2026), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York examined this issue in connection with a proposed assignment of thousands of residential leases as part of a free-and-clear sale of debtors' properties. The court held that "adequate assurance" does not mean a guarantee of the assignee's future performance, but merely demonstration that the assignee has the ability to satisfy the underlying obligations. The bankruptcy court also ruled that an exculpation provision in the debtors' chapter 11 plan exonerating non-estate fiduciaries from liability for actions taken in connection with the chapter 11 case was unobjectionable, provided it was limited in scope to postpetition conduct and actions taken in connection with implementation of the plan after its effective date. [read more …] Newsworthy Corinne Ball (New York) (Hall of Fame), Bruce Bennett (Los Angeles), Carl E. Black (Cleveland), Jeffrey B. Ellman (Atlanta), Brad B. Erens (Chicago), Gregory M. Gordon (Dallas), Heather Lennox (Cleveland/New York), Joshua M. Mester (Los Angeles), and Kevyn D. Orr (Washington) were included in the 2026 edition of Lawdragon 500 Leading Bankruptcy and Restructuring Lawyers. The Daily Business Review selected Isel M. Perez (Miami) as an "On the Rise" winner for the Florida Legal Awards. The Florida Legal Awards annually recognize those who have made significant contributions to the legal industry in Florida. Dan T. Moss (Washington/New York) was inducted as a Fellow in the 37th Class of the American College of Bankruptcy at its Annual Meeting in March 2026 in San Antonio, Texas. Christine Borries (Munich) was ranked in the practice area Restructuring/Insolvency in the 2026 edition of Chambers Germany. The 2027 edition of The Best Lawyers in Singapore™ recognized Sushma Jobanputra (Singapore) in the practice area Insolvency & Reorganization. The restructuring transaction involving Eissmann Automotive North America, Inc. received the "2025 Turnaround of the Year (Large Company)" at the Turnaround Management Association (Detroit) Annual Awards Reception. T. Daniel Reynolds (Cleveland) and Nick Buchta (Cleveland) represented subsidiaries of Eissmann Group Automotive in connection with the parent company's German insolvency proceedings. Roger Dobson (Sydney) is among 40 Jones Day lawyers recognized by The Best Lawyers in Australia 2027 for his contributions in Banking and Finance Law; Distressed Investing & Debt Trading; Insolvency and Reorganization Law; Litigation. An article written by Corinne Ball (New York) titled "Ard Finance—A Global Enterprise Combining an LME With a Foreign Insolvency Proceeding and Chapter 15" was published in the April 21, 2026, edition of the New York Law Journal. An article written by Alex Sapp (New York) titled "Recent Developments in Section 510—Subordination" was published in the 2025 edition of the Norton Annual Survey on Bankruptcy Law. An article written by Brad B. Erens (Chicago) titled "New York Bankruptcy Court Approves Insider DIP Litigation Financing" was published on April 6, 2026, by Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Corinne Ball (New York), Dan T. Moss (Washington/New York), David S. Torborg (Washington), and Isel M. Perez (Miami) titled "New York District Court Affirms Narrow Scope of 'Public Policy Exception' in Chapter 15 Cases" was published on April 6, 2026, by Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Jeffrey B. Ellman (Atlanta) titled "Statutory Cap on Lease Rejection Damage Claims in Bankruptcy Applies to Solvent Debtors" was published on April 6, 2026, by Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Trisha L. Mowbray (Real Estate; Chicago) and Ryan Sims (Washington) titled "Chapter 11 Plan that Abridged Non-Debtor Lessee's Rights to Remain in Possession After Rejection Unconfirmable as Having Been Proposed in Bad Faith" was published on April 6, 2026, by Lexis Practical Guidance. Lawyer Spotlight: Ben Rosenblum Ben Rosenblum, a partner in the New York Office, represents debtors, creditors, and other parties in out-of-court restructurings and court-supervised proceedings, including chapter 11 cases, municipal bankruptcies, international insolvency matters, and stockbroker liquidations. His experience spans industries such as manufacturing, shipping, mining, aviation, energy, real estate, and telecommunications. Ben's notable debtor representations include Peabody Energy, the City of Detroit, Chrysler LLC, Spansion Japan, and Dana Corporation. Significant creditor representations include General Maritime Corporation, Calpine Corporation, American Home Mortgage, and Murray Energy. He currently represents creditors in Puerto Rico's restructuring. He also has extensive experience advising financial institutions on bankruptcy law as applied to derivatives.
More Small Businesses Are Increasing Prices—Here’s How Accounting Software Can Help
Inflation continues to affect prices, with a net 36% of small business owners reporting raising average selling prices in May—the highest reading since March 2023, according to National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) data published on June 9. If you’re considering raising prices for yo
Six Years on, Local Businesses Still Feel Effects of March 2020 Tornado
Asphalt Beach and FLWR Shop return to East Nashville, while High Garden charts new location
Charlie Crist grows fundraising haul to $1.6M, rolls out major vote-by-mail effort
The Crist campaign and its allied committee raised more than $330,000 from March 1 through May 31.
Gaining Insights into Navigating a Doctoral Program
Six PhD students received support from CRA-WP and Northwestern Computer Science to attend the community-building conference in March.
Weatherhead Women in Business empowers local high school students through leadership symposium | CWRU Newsroom
Members of Weatherhead Women in Business partnered with Saint Joseph Academy in March to help inspire and mentor the next generation of women leaders ...
Small Business Spotlight: Dog-Eared Books
Main St. is home to many local businesses, including the only locally owned bookstore in Ames. Dog-Eared Books has been open since March 8, 2021. They offer a wide variety of books, community events and a small cafe section. The business is owned by Amanda Lepper and Ellyn Grimm, both originally from Ames and both...
Phillies' Rafael Marchan: Mashes second homer
Phillies' Rafael Marchan: Mashes second homer
Ex of “Bad Boys” actress Theresa Randle claims she broke into his home, assaulted him
Randle was previously detained on suspicion of felony domestic violence in March.
Intel was on the brink of downfall. A twist in the AI race could boost its revival
When Lip-Bu Tan took the helm of Intel in March 2025, the company was in desperate need of a turnaround.
Science panel to present hardened structure report findings
The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission is expected to hear from its science advisory panel its findings on the effects hard structures have on sandy, open-ocean coastlines.
‘A calling’: Paid foster parents are changing outcomes for NC children
Crossnore President Brett Loftis, CEO Sarah Norris discuss professional foster parenting and its role in reforming NC’s child welfare system.
Arch Announces Leadership Changes Across Insurance Business
Arch Capital Group and Arch Insurance North America announced a series of leadership changes this week, including executive promotions across its wholesale insurance platform, a planned CEO succession, and the retirement of a longtime property insurance leader.At the parent company level, Arch Capital previously announced that President and Chief Underwriting Officer Nicolas Papadopoulo will succeed Marc Grandisson as chief executive officer effective March 1, 2027. Grandisson will remain executive chairman following the transition.
MacBook Neo is So Popular That Apple Reportedly Doubled Production
On an earnings call in late April, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that customer response to the MacBook Neo was "off the charts," and the popularity of the laptop has reportedly led the company to significantly boost production. Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo this week said he believes that MacBook Neo shipments to Apple were doubled from an initial target of 5 million units to 10 million units in 2026 at some point after the laptop launched in March.
Trump-backed candidate 'confident' Republicans will have great night in California: 'Very excited'
Steve Hilton, one of two main Republicans running in California's jungle primary on Tuesday, said that he appreciated endorsements from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Jason Benetti waiting to learn what else he’ll call for NBC
Jason Benetti has been calling Sunday Night Baseball for NBC since March, but his role beyond baseball at the network is still taking shape. Appearing on the Sports Media Watch Podcast, Benetti revealed that, despite being two months into his role as the face of NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball, the conversation about what else he’ll…
Fulcrum tanks as cancer concerns stymie sickle cell asset, trigger business reorg
Fulcrum Therapeutics’ is down more than 50% Tuesday morning as the biotech discontinues development of its lead asset. Ipsen’s Tazverik, which belongs to the same class, was pulled from the market in March due to the risk of secondary malignancies.
Twins acquire righty reliever Justin Lawrence from Pirates for cash
The Minnesota Twins acquired right-handed reliever Justin Lawrence from the Pittsburgh Pirates for cash on Monday night. The 31-year-old Lawrence was 0-2 with a 5.32 ERA in 23 appearances for the Pirates this season. Lawrence debuted with Colorado in 2021 and spent four seasons with the Rockies before Pittsburgh claimed him off waivers in March 2025.
Local sports loses ‘heart, soul, voice’ and a friend
Old-timers called him the “heart, soul and voice” of Hazleton-area sports, and they weren’t wrong. I called Ron Marchetti my friend. Separated by a generation but bonded by an unabashed, unwavering love of faith, family, friends, com…
Inside Valley Politics: Complete breakdown of runoff elections, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez interview
RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The matchups are set for the November general election. On May 26, Valley voters went to the polls to settle the runoff contests after the March primaries…
Kona-low storm fallout continues to hit North Shore business
Visitor traffic to Waimea Valley has fallen sharply this spring, forcing staff to stretch resources and scale back hiring as fewer travelers make the trip past ongoing traffic restrictions triggered by March’s Kona-low storms.
Meitav Investment House Announces Immediate Report Concerning Selected Business Data for April 2026
/PRNewswire/ -- Meitav Investment House (TASE: MTAV) announced today that further to the Company's immediate report dated March 2, 2026 (Reference No....