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Columbiana County Health District approve first reading of food service fees
LISBON — The proposed food service fees for next year through the Columbiana County Health District appear to be staying the same or decreasing from this year’s fees, with two more readings required for passage. The county health district board held first reading on the proposed fees on Wednesday, along with first reading on environmental […]
Health network adding helicopter in rapid Pennsylvania expansion
WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — Not long after they acquired five Pennsylvania hospitals, a health system will soon launch an air medical helicopter in the Keystone State. WVU Health System…
Health network adding helicopter in rapid Pennsylvania expansion
WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — Not long after they acquired five Pennsylvania hospitals, a health system will soon launch an air medical helicopter in the Keystone State. WVU Health System recently...
Is an Academy of Natural Sciences divorce coming?
Hearings for the museum are coming Monday. Will it make a difference?
Here's how Bengals' second half vs Ravens made NFL history
The Cincinnati Bengals became just the 10th team in NFL history to get shut out in the first half and then score 35 points or more in the second half.
Here's how Bengals' second half vs Ravens made NFL history
The Cincinnati Bengals became just the 10th team in NFL history to get shut out in the first half and then score 35 points or more in the second half.
Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola and her family suffer minor injuries in car crash
Peltola required medical attention after the accident, which happened when another vehicle crashed into the one transporting Peltola and her family, the campaign said.
Why is the U.S. accusing Canada of election interference?
the U.S. Embassy accused Canadian officials of meeting with Democratic lawmakers, urging the use of retaliatory levies to hit Republican states, and running anti-tariff political advertising.
Phantom Blade Zero Preload Time & Date Revealed; Clocks in at 145 GB as PC Requirements Listed
While a lot of PS5 gamers are eagerly awaiting Phantom Blade Zero, some might not know that the game is also releasing day and date on PC. If you're one…
Uganda tightens Ebola border controls and requires returnees from Congo to pay for quarantine
Uganda is reinforcing existing border controls requiring citizens returning from Congo to undergo 21 days of quarantine at their own expense, the Health Ministry said Sunday, as investigators examine how a woman who traveled from Uganda to Nigeria contracted Ebola.
Uganda tightens Ebola border controls and requires returnees from Congo to pay for quarantine
Uganda is reinforcing existing border controls requiring citizens returning from Congo to undergo 21 days of quarantine at their own expense, the Health Ministry said Sunday, as investigators examine how a woman who traveled from Uganda to Nigeria cont...
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney lambasts “abhorrent” Steam AI Disclosure Policy claiming labels double as “political statement”
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called Steam’s AI disclosure policy abhorrent, arguing that it exposes developers to backlash from anti-AI detractors. Valve has implemented and updated the policy since 2024, which states that AI-generated content, including artwork, text, music, and assets, excluding assistant tools, requires formal disclosure.
Can social media bans protect young people’s mental health? Early research suggests that bans aren’t the answer
About 20 countries are looking to ban minors from social media. But bans have not always worked as planned. Here are some other ideas to make platforms safer for kids.
‘Wicker’ star Alexander Skarsgård says he’s ‘not very good with being earnest’
‘Wicker’ star Alexander Skarsgård says he’s ‘not very good with being earnest,’ which his latest role, as a sexy basket, required.
This fifth-generation family business in rural Pa. is making 4,500 brooms for Salem
On Etsy, the Meckleys have made close to 20,000 sales.
‘Once we lose these, they’re gone forever’: What will become of the dioramas at the Academy of Natural Sciences?
The museum’s closure could endanger the 32 dioramas. Moving them can cost millions.
Democrats Bob Brooks, Paige Cognetti lead GOP incumbents in pair of key Pa. swing seats
Republicans are on pace to lose the two U.S. House seats they flipped just two years ago, according to a new Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll.
Hurricanes Tried to Acquire Forward in Hellebuyck Trade Push
The Carolina Hurricanes tried to land a forward, as they looked to make a serious push for Connor Hellebuyck. The post Hurricanes Tried to Acquire Forward in Hellebuyck Trade Push appeared first on HEAVY.
Clifton ‘Jackie’ Jackson: A towering gentleman of the bass
Clifton ‘Jackie’ Jackson embodies Robert Farris Thompson’s classic concept of the ‘aesthetic of the cool’, also referred to by the ancient Yoruba concept of itutu. He was the elegant bassist whose lines were as refined as his demeanour. Calling him the ‘Rolls-Royce of Reggae Bassists’ isn’t to suggest he didn’t roll with some of the deepest, lilting roots grooves like others. He added an unmatched touch, poise and musical sophistication to the bottom end while retaining every bit of the heavy, syncopated pulse required for authentic Jamaican music.
Should the Baltimore Orioles Target Steven Kwan?
The Baltimore Orioles could acquire Steven Kwan this offseason.
Jesse Welles sang about politics and insects — and covered Black Sabbath and Bob Dylan
The rapidly rising "Join ICE" protest singer played solo and with a band on North Broad Street, and covered Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Google gives Fitbit a major health upgrade with one catch
Some of its most advanced insights require a $9.99 subscription.
Two Shelby tax renewals on Nov. 3 ballot for health department and city parks department
Shelby's health and parks department requires tax revenue from Shelby residents to operate. Funding is on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Gamers are now playing Steam games directly on PlayStation 5, no streaming required
Steam games are reaching playable states on PS5 through Wine-based compatibility tools. Cyberpunk 2077, Cuphead and Hollow Knight are among the tested titles.
States are forcing hospitals to offer more people financial aid. In Oregon, it’s working.
Four years ago, Oregon hospitals were under fire from state authorities and patient advocates. Hospitals, critics said, had made it too hard for patients to apply for and receive help paying their bills. Within months, the state enacted a sweeping law that required hospitals to proactively screen patients and give financial aid to those who […]
Americans agree on health care costs. Why can't Congress act?
Opinion: Patients need health care relief they can actually feel.
Harrison’s Brady Lawhon scores his second touchdown against Northwest
Harrison’s Brady Lawhon scores his second rushing touchdown of the night against Northwest on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026.
Sonoma County health center leaders say Prop. 44 would cripple their operation and lead to service cuts
The state initiative would require at least 90% of a health center’s total revenue be spent on healthcare services, leaving only 10% of revenues for other costs, including administrative operations — and that strict threshold is where…
Business Park Companies Are Showing up to Support New Albany
Building a community requires more than just housing and roads. It requires a sustainable economic engine that fuels public services, supports public education and elevates the quality of life for every resident. In New Albany, that engine is the New Albany International Business Park.
City finds targeted Kercheval businesses are in compliance
A review of licensing and zoning requirements was requested by a Detroit City Council member.
Connor Hellebuyck traded to Devils, ending dramatic Jets saga
The Devils acquired Connor Hellebuyck in a blockbuster trade with the Jets. Here are the full details of the deal.
Political ads on Facebook, after the Meta ban
Since 6 October 2025, Meta has no longer allowed paid advertising on political, electoral or social matters in the European Union. The company decided in response to Regulation (EU) 2024 / 900 on transparency and targeting political advertising (TTPA), applicable from 10 October 2025, the requirements of which it considers "impossible to apply '[1, 2].
Experian Health buys eInsights to boost insurance discovery
Experian Health, the healthcare arm of global data and technology business Experian, has acquired eInsights, a healthcare technology firm that helps providers locate patient insurance coverage that was overlooked or unavailable at the point of care. The deal broadens Experian Health’s insurance discovery capabilities beyond the early stages of the revenue cycle and gives providers […]
Parkview Health keeps securing more partnerships
The Indiana health system reached another hospital affiliation agreement with Goshen Health and is planning to acquire Ovation Healthcare.
School board candidates support more mental health care, differ on approach
Candidates for school boards around the state generally agreed with a new law that will require the hiring of more mental health counselors, but those responding to a survey said more resources will be needed, while some called for more parental involvement.
LEGO Ideas Build, Paint and Play! (40889) Officially Announced
LEGO has officially revealed a new gift with purchase set that will be coming out next week with the LEGO Ideas Build, Paint and Play! (40889). Releasing on October 28, the set has 158 pieces and will require a $130 general purchase on the LEGO Shop or in stores. The set was the winning build from t
Hamilton County removes $6.5M minimum bid for Business Development Center
Hamilton County is eliminating a $6.5 million minimum bid requirement for the county-owned building at 100 Cherokee Blvd. known as the Business Development Center, which the County Commission voted to declare as surplus in May.
Aetherion Expands Houston Industrial Water Treatment Business
Aetherion expands its Houston water treatment operations. Workforce growth and added services support its strategy to acquire regional providers.
Cone Health to acquire three Reidsville pharmacies
Cone Health is acquiring three pharmacies in Reidsville with the hopes of expanding affordable access, onsite vaccinations and continuing community-based care.
Medicaid work rules lift Molina Healthcare’s pay, CEO says
Molina Healthcare says six states are boosting the Medicaid insurers pay next year in part because of work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks.
INTEGRIS Health to join Kaiser Permanente-backed Risant Health
Oklahoma's largest nonprofit health system and one of its biggest private employers will become the third health system to be acquired by Risant Health, pending regulatory approvals.
Call for Abstracts — 2027 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Generative AI in Healthcare: Law & Regulation - Petrie-Flom Center
The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce our 2027 Annual Conference, Generative AI in Healthcare: Law and Regulation. Generative AI –- artificial intelligence designed to produce output, such as text or images, that normally require human intelligence — has become a…
Navvis Introduces New Solution to Help Health Systems Build the Operating Capabilities Required to Achieve High Performance in CJR-X
ST. LOUIS, October 22, 2026--Navvis, the leading value-based care enablement company, today announced a new CJR-X solution built to help health systems achieve high performance in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) mandatory and newly finalized Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Expanded (CJR-X) model. Joint replacement is one of the most profitable service lines for health systems across the U.S. today, and CJR-X gives health systems a mandatory new way to protect and grow
Introspection required if EU Inc fails, says start-up lobbyist
European start-ups have a new voice in Brussels. Startups for Europe, created from the merger of lobby groups Allied for Startups and the European Startup Network, is hoping to harness the momentum behind EU-Inc, a campaign that united start-ups and investors behind demands for a new pan-European company regime.At a launch event for the new association in Brussels on October 1, the mood was remarkably upbeat compared to a typical Eurobubble gathering, more Silicon Valley than Schuman roundabout.When asked whether this reflects a feeling that Europe is on the right track, chief executive Serena Borbotti-Frison said it’s a “scary” moment as the continent looks to boost its competitiveness amid a new technological arms race.“What is at stake is quite intense, and the way we can answer is by delivering, but also with hope,” she told Science|Business. “It’s what our industry does. It’s not about identifying a pain point and then saying it’s too hard.”For many in the start-up community, that sense of hope is dwindling. In March, the European Commission presented its proposal for EU Inc, naming its initiative after the grassroots campaign.EU Inc was meant to be a gamechanger: the ability to incorporate within 48 hours for less than €100 and scale up across Europe; a harmonised stock option regime enabling start-ups to compete for talent; and simplified insolvency procedures for innovative start-ups to reduce the cost of failure.However, haggling by EU governments has raised concerns that EU Inc will be stripped of the very features, including stock option harmonisation, that are meant to make it attractive for companies.“I fear we are proving to ourselves that the model doesn’t work,” Borbotti-Frison said of the policymaking process. “Everyone agrees we should have EU Inc. Everyone agrees it’s hard to scale and we need to scale to answer the competitiveness [challenge], and still we cannot deliver? [. . .] What does that say about ourselves?”The Commission has made EU Inc a cornerstone of its single market reform, and has agreed with the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to target an agreement by the end of 2026. However, several points are currently holding up an agreement, including national rules around employee participation in management decisions, and the provision that employee stock options always be taxed at the point of sale. Some EU governments have reportedly pushed back on the Commission’s choice of legal basis, contending that anything related to taxation requires unanimity in the Council.Trade unions have also protested against EU Inc, fearing it will be exploited by companies looking to undermine workers’ rights.“If this doesn’t work, it’s introspection time, on the way our institutions work, maybe the way our lobbies work, and maybe the way the cooperation between them works,” Borbotti-Frison said.“Is it in the national interest? Is it a gap between political will and technical ability to operate? Is it speed? I don't know, but something needs to be fixed.”Ahead of last week’s European Council meeting, EU-Inc campaigners tried a new strategy: appealing directly to EU presidents and prime ministers. In an open letter, they urged EU leaders to “step in and give your negotiating teams a clear mandate to change course and reverse their objections to the Commission’s original proposal.”Lessons from EU-IncLike its predecessors, Startups for Europe will represent national start-up associations, but it is also targeting investors. The founding sponsors are venture capital firm Atomico and EQT, the investor selected earlier this year to manage the €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund.It also wants to harness the knowledge and cross-border experience of European success stories. “Take the list of the 100 biggest unicorns in Europe. We are speaking to all of them,” Borbotti-Frison said. The association plans to publish a full list of supporters following the Slush tech conference in Helsinki in November.Andreas Klinger and Simon Schaefer, two key figures in the EU-Inc campaign, are both on the board of the new association, and Startups for Europe wants to take the lessons from their campaign.What was unprecedented about EU-Inc was “how rooted it was, and how strong it was in bringing everyone on board behind one clear pain point and solution to fix it,” Borbotti-Frison said. “This is an inspiration for us, and then we need to turn it into something more systematic, more bridged in Brussels, more connected to the policymaking game, and to scale it.”If it’s possible to unite such a broad coalition, it’s because the European start-up ecosystem is now mature, she said. “Maybe it was not ten years ago. Maybe it was not five years ago. But now, it’s mature to speak with one voice.”Open and liberal EuropeThe association plans to campaign on files related to three “pain points,” Borbotti-Frison said: “start and scale in Europe, fundraise and invest in Europe, and making Europe the most innovative continent.”As well as EU Inc, she cited public procurement, the EU’s simplification push, the Savings and Investments Union, and files related to AI adoption and technological sovereignty as priorities for the coming months.What these files have in common is that they relate not to subsidies but to the framework conditions influencing the availability of mostly private, or in the case of procurement, public, funding.Related articlesEmployee participation disagreement delays MEPs’ vote on EU IncCommission urges EU governments not to water down EU IncEU’s ‘ultra-fast’ €5B scale-up fund is set up to win, says its fund managerThe budget dispute over the next Horizon Europe programme will also impact start-ups, which are supported notably through the European Innovation Council. But EU innovation funding is a drop in the ocean compared to venture capital and public procurement budgets.“If competitiveness and innovation are a priority, then the [EU budget] should reflect it,” Borbotti-Frison said. However, she added that the main question is not how much public money is invested, but “how do we create the right conditions for the market to solve the problem?”The Scaleup Europe Fund mixes both approaches, using €1 billion in EU funding to crowd in private investors and address Europe’s lack of large-scale, late-stage growth funds. “It’s a proof of concept. Ideally, then the market will do it itself,” Borbotti-Frison said.Startups for Europe is also focused on bringing an alternative political narrative. Amid competing visions for open, global markets on the one side and a protectionist Europe on the other, it wants to offer “a third voice, to say we can be proudly European and build a strong continent in a liberal economy, open to the world, and global.”It can be tempting, when thinking about how Europe can better support innovation, to look across the Atlantic. But while it’s important to compare statistics to see where Europe needs to catch up, that’s where the comparison should stop, Borbotti-Frison said. “On everything else, we need to do it our own way. We don't have the same history. We don't have the same political model. We don't have the same way of life.”Many of the key files that could benefit the start-up community, including EU Inc and the Savings and Investments Union, rely on closer integration within Europe, making it easier to operate across borders.While the Commission has made deepening the single market a political priority, support at national level is more precarious. The coming months will see pivotal elections in Spain and France, while the German government has also been coming under pressure domestically. In each country, far-right parties have been gaining ground.When asked if she was concerned the political situation could jeopardise this progress, Borbotti-Frison responded: “Of course. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t.” However, she continues to believe that cooperation is the only way forward. “Doing it alone is not the solution. It’s also not who we are, it’s not the model we are building, and it’s not the scale we need.”
Main Line Health ups malpractice reserves
Plus, Villanova has 12 interns working in and around the Vatican.
Small Business Owners Putting up Personal Assets to Keep Businesses Afloat, New Equifax Canada Survey Finds
One in four business owners have been required to personally guarantee business financing with their own home and assets; younger entrepreneurs show greater reliance on credit as a financial safety netTORONTO, Oct. 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The financial pressures facing Canadian small businesses are extending beyond the business itself, with some owners relying on personal credit and assets to support their companies, according to a new Equifax Canada survey. One in four surveyed business ow
Chancellor to pitch budget at wealth creators
John Healey is expected to cut red tape requirements, particularly for smaller businesses
Vaisala Viewlinc Cloud Suite supports life science innovation from laboratory to regulated operations
Vaisala Viewlinc Cloud Suite Vaisala Viewlinc Cloud Suite and Care for Viewlinc enable professional-quality monitoring as critical operations evolve. Vaisala, a global leader in measurement instruments and intelligence, introduces Viewlinc Cloud Suite, a cloud-based environmental monitoring offering designed to help organizations establish professional-quality monitoring from day one and build on the same platform as their requirements evolve. The launch is complemented by Vaisala Care for Viewl
Kaiser Permanente’s Risant Health moves to add third system: Analysis
Risant has signed an agreement to acquire INTEGRIS Health in Oklahoma. Kaiser Permanente has said Risant is looking to add more community hospitals.
Jacksonville Jaguars Trade Pitch Acquires $36 Million OL From Eagles
The Jacksonville Jaguars are approaching their Week 7 clash.Ahead of the meeting, they are floating in several trade rumors.According to one NFL writer, they could be in the running to acquire a $36 million offensive lineman from the Philadelphia Eagles.Jaguars Could Target Eagles’ Landon DickersonZachary Rotman of FanSided unveiled his top trade deadline predictions on […] The post Jacksonville Jaguars Trade Pitch Acquires $36 Million OL From Eagles appeared first on HEAVY.
The New Rules of Global Brand Growth
Last week, BoF, ESW and Shopify gathered senior fashion and retail executives from Thom Browne, Reebok, Alo Yoga, Harvey Nichols, Bang & Olufsen and more in London to discuss how brands can win back consumer spend, protect margins and localise in a climate where global growth requires more consideration than ever.
Side Acquires Boutique Art Studio Roboto Entertainment in Creative Services Push
/PRNewswire/ -- Leading games services provider, Side, today acquired the boutique games art studio, Roboto Entertainment, strengthening its global art...
INTEGRIS Health to join Kaiser Permanente-backed Risant Health
Oklahoma's largest nonprofit health system and one of its biggest private employers will become the third health system to be acquired by Risant Health, pending regulatory approvals.
CentraCare healthcare system to acquire Stellis Health in merger of central Minnesota providers
The two organizations already have a history of collaboration, including at CentraCare-Monticello hospital, where Stellis physicians provide care. The move comes as Minnesota’s healthcare systems face increasing financial pressures.
Bose acquires Skullcandy to help it reach a wider audience
Skullcandy will remain a separate brand under Bose.
Hackensack Meridian Health moves to add New Jersey hospital
Hackensack has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Hunterdon Health and has pledged to invest $230 million in upgrades.
Risant Health to acquire Integris Health
Integris would join Geisinger Health and Cone Health in Risant's portfolio.
INTEGRIS Health in Oklahoma to be acquired by Risant Health under new agreement
INTEGRIS Health and Risant Health have entered into an agreement where Risant Health will acquire INTEGRIS, joining Geisinger and Cone Health.As Oklahoma's larg
Greenwich Entertainment Buys Philip Byron’s ‘Spin Wars’
EXCLUSIVE: Spin Wars, a documentary about the billion-dollar boutique fitness revolution, has landed a buyer. Greenwich Entertainment has acquired the North American distribution rights to the doc, wh...
Midterm Election Update: Medicaid Changes
Major federal changes to Medicaid eligibility and financing from the 2025 reconciliation law are coming, including new work requirements that will affect millions of Medicaid enrollees. KFF’s fact sheet provides an overview of what has changed, what is still ahead, and what the public thinks about Medicaid heading into the midterms.
Fleury Michon buys UK business Allplants
Allplants was acquired out of administration last year by the founders of Deliciously Ella, which was sold to Hero Group in 2024.
OpenAI acquired biotech startup Orchestra Bio to expand its life sciences AI tools
OpenAI will fold Orchestra's team and technology into Rosalind, its AI models and tools for life sciences researchers
Republican congressional candidate Tom Stalcup on how both parties abuse science for political gain
Scientific American spoke to the candidate for Massachusetts’s fourth congressional district about climate change, misinformation and why, when it comes to health care, some socialism may be required
Republican congressional candidate Tom Stalcup on how both parties abuse science for political gain
Scientific American spoke to the candidate for Massachusetts’s fourth congressional district about climate change, misinformation and why, when it comes to health care, some socialism may be required
Jefferson Health-Independence contract dispute worries Jefferson patients with IBX Medicare Advantage plans
IBX Medicare Advantage customers who are Jefferson Health patients have a choice: switch plans or risk losing access to their Jefferson doctors next year.
States Are Forcing Hospitals To Offer More People Financial Aid. In Oregon, It’s Working.
Oregon passed a law to require hospitals to proactively screen patients to see if they qualify for financial aid. Patients got immediate relief. Hospitals pushed to roll back the law following federal cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies.
In China, scientists found a nearly 5-pound fungus so unique it required a new family
The team also found signs that the fungus may spend part of its life hidden inside living trees.
Swiss group agrees $390 million deal for medicines business with operations in North Africa
DKSH agrees to acquire NewBridge Pharmaceuticals in a $390 million deal, gaining a medicines platform with an established North African presence
States Are Forcing Hospitals To Offer More People Financial Aid. In Oregon, It’s Working.
Oregon passed a law to require hospitals to proactively screen patients to see if they qualify for financial aid. Patients got immediate relief. Hospitals pushed to roll back the law following federal cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Kawhi Leonard Shining as Teammate and Leader Through Preseason
The newly acquired superstar is making a big impact on his new teammates ahead of the regular season opener.
New Richland Lab Could Transform How Scientists Study Microbes and Boost Regional Jobs
The BriefGroundbreaking held Tuesday: PNNL officially began construction on the M2PC lab, a 30,800-square-foot facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science that will study soil microbes to improve crop productivity and develop new biotechnology applications. The facility will be open to researchers from around the nation and the world.Research timelines could shrink dramatically: The facility's automation and AI capabilities could reduce experiments that currently take six months to just 72 hours, allowing scientists to explore more possibilities faster than ever before.New jobs coming to the Tri-Cities: The project is expected to create positions for automation engineers, AI experts, roboticists, technicians, and skilled craftspeople, with the facility opening in 2029.RICHLAND, Wash. — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory broke ground Tuesday on a first-of-its-kind facility that could accelerate scientific discoveries about the microscopic organisms living in soil—organisms that may hold the key to growing more food and developing new energy technologies.The Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability, or M2PC, represents a significant investment in automation and artificial intelligence to speed up research that traditionally takes years to complete. The 30,800-square-foot facility will house more than 100 connected automated instruments designed to study microbes at a pace and scale never before possible.Reshaping Agriculture's FutureThe M2PC facility will not put a new tool directly into a farmer's hands tomorrow morning, but it is actively reshaping the commercial pipeline to solve agriculture's biggest headache with biologicals: inconsistent field performance. For years, PNNL researchers have explored how microbes work and how they might help produce useful materials, advance energy technologies, and address challenges involving critical materials and minerals. But those experiments have been limited by what researchers could accomplish by hand."They can be used to provide nutrients to a plant so that the plant would grow more. So, like increasing your crop productivity, for example," said Douglas Mans, PNNL's Associate Laboratory Director for Integrated Discovery Sciences.PNNL's own research shows soil microbes can help plants access nutrients and withstand drought—benefits that could prove crucial as farmers face growing environmental pressures. The M2PC facility will allow scientists to identify and optimize useful microbes faster than ever before, accelerating the development of biological solutions that actually work consistently in the field.What Makes M2PC UniqueThe Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability differs from traditional research labs because it operates as a first-of-its-kind, AI-enabled autonomous laboratory designed to shrink experimental timelines from years down to months or weeks. The M2PC lab will connect more than 100 automated instruments to grow microbes, prepare samples, measure their behavior, and link observations to the molecular processes behind them. Artificial intelligence will help analyze results and guide the next experiments, allowing scientists to explore more questions faster.Deb Gracio, PNNL Director, emphasized the transformative potential during Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony: "Research that has taken years will become possible in months and hopefully in weeks."That acceleration is already being demonstrated. PNNL's smaller automated lab, called the Anaerobic Microbial Phenotyping Platform or AMP2, completed three experimental cycles in just 72 hours—a process that normally would have taken about six months."That normally would have taken us about six months … and we were able to do that in 72 hours," Mans said.The AMP2 laboratory is not being closed or replaced. Instead, the current 1,800-square-foot laboratory serves as an active prototype and precursor for the much larger M2PC facility. AMP2 will continue operating as a separate lab designed to run anaerobic experiments—those conducted in the absence of oxygen—while M2PC will focus on aerobic research.Broader Applications Beyond AgricultureWhile improving crop productivity is one important application, the M2PC facility is designed to support research into multiple areas critical to national priorities. The lab will advance research into biofuels, manufacturing materials, and energy technologies. It will also help researchers understand how microbes respond to environmental changes and how to design biological systems for biotechnology applications.As a flagship component of the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, M2PC represents a significant investment in using artificial intelligence and automation to accelerate U.S. scientific discovery. Dorothy Koch, Associate Director of the DOE Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research program, highlighted the facility's importance during the groundbreaking."M2PC will accelerate biological discovery and design," Koch said, noting that the facility is expected to conduct a minimum of 500 strain experiments per week, 100 microbiome experiments per week, and take a million measurements per month.Economic Opportunity for the RegionBeyond the scientific breakthroughs, the M2PC project represents significant economic opportunity for the Tri-Cities region. The facility will require hiring automation engineers, AI experts, technicians skilled in operating robotics, and specialized craftspeople to build and maintain the sophisticated equipment."We're anticipating that type of hiring," Mans said when asked about job creation.PNNL has already begun recruiting talent nationally and internationally for positions related to the smaller AMP2 lab, bringing automation engineers from cities like Boston and San Francisco to work in the region. The M2PC facility is expected to accelerate that trend."This capability won't really exist anywhere else in the world," Mans said, suggesting the facility could become a draw for scientific talent seeking to work on cutting-edge biotechnology research.Timeline and Next StepsThe M2PC facility is expected to open in 2029. Between now and then, construction crews will level and prepare the ground, while the building takes shape. Simultaneously, Ginkgo Bio Works, the automation contractor, will build the facility's automation components off-site so they can be installed as the building is completed.In the interim, PNNL researchers and the broader scientific community will begin planning the first experiments to be conducted in the facility, ensuring research is lined up and ready to begin as soon as the doors open.The groundbreaking ceremony included representatives from the Department of Energy, PNNL leadership, and elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, underscoring the project's significance to the region and the nation's biotechnology future. News The U.S. Department of Energy Secretary tours Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Dan Hanson, Apple Valley News Now News Beyond DNA: Scientists Explore New Frontiers in Biology Research Dan Hanson, Apple Valley News Now News TRIDEC optimistic that Hanford, PNNL will see funding in national budget Robert Desaulniers News Big picture science: monitoring the Yakima River Basin News PNNL research could shape the future of fighting fentanyl COPYRIGHT 2026 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
Could Steelers Snatch Pro Bowl WR From Latest Opponent?
The Pittsburgh Steelers could acquire another playmaker from one of their recent opponents. The Pittsburgh Steelers are once again in […]
Chandler family acquires specialty truck manufacturer
Springdale business owners Chris and Morgan Chandler recently acquired Stephenson Specialty Trucks LLC, a Parsons, Kan.-based manufacturer of vacuum, grapple, roll-off and hook lift trucks. Financial terms of the deal...
Chandler family acquires specialty truck manufacturer
Springdale business owners Chris and Morgan Chandler recently acquired Stephenson Specialty Trucks LLC, a Parsons, Kan.-based manufacturer of vacuum, grapple, roll-off and hook lift trucks. Financial terms of the deal...
OpenAI acquires startup Orchestra Bio to beef up its biotech business
OpenAI says it's adding Orchestra's team and technology to work on Rosalind, its AI model for life sciences research, and to its related Rosalind Workbench tool, a harness that aims to help researchers plan experiments and analyze results.
Hackensack Meridian Health signs definitive agreement to acquire Hunterdon Health, commits $230M
Hackensack Meridian Health has signed a definitive agreement to pick up Central New Jersey’s Hunterdon Health, a $230 million deal that would grow the state’s largest health system to 19 total hosp | The announcement did not outline a potential timeline for the merger, which would add a nineteenth hospital to New Jersey's largest health system.
Former sheriff accused of killing judge wins pause on second mental health evaluation
LETCHER COUNTY, Ky. (WJHL) — The former Letcher County sheriff accused of killing a judge in his chambers has managed to temporarily halt an order that would have required him to undergo a second m…
Lionsgate Stock Jumps on Report Legendary Submitted a New Takeover Offer
Legendary Entertainment has revived its bid to acquire Lionsgate, according to a Bloomberg report.
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
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A note to readers: Science, accountability and elections
Dear readers, As early voting begins, I wanted to share some news — and why it connects to the decisions we make at the ballot box. I’ve been selected for the inaugural cohort of the South Atlantic Climate Journalism Hub mentorship program, hosted by Covering Climate Now. I’m excited to join this group, learn from scientists and fellow journalists, and expand my science reporting. Science directly ties to governance. Local officials make decisions about where development goes, how infrastructure is maintained, what emergency preparations receive funding, and how communities rebuild after disasters. Understanding the evidence behind those decisions helps us evaluate whether our government is serving us well. Here in western North Carolina, those connections are all around us, in Lake Lure and beyond. Flood maps inform decisions about property and development. Engineering assessments help identify risks at dams and bridges. Rainfall forecasts guide emergency preparations. Geological information helps explain landslide hazards. Water testing gives communities information they need to assess conditions. Meteorologists’ knowledge and public perception of weather events shape public safety. Each involves scientific or technical knowledge. Each also raises questions about public responsibility: What did officials know? How did they use that information? What did they tell the public? What did taxpayers receive for their money? A study can identify a problem. Elected officials still have to decide what to do about it, how to pay for it, and how to explain their choices. Reporting should examine both the evidence and the response. That is where I want to strengthen my work. My reporting on Helene recovery, infrastructure, flooding, public safety, and public spending has repeatedly brought me to questions that require scientific expertise alongside public records. This mentorship may help me better understand the research, ask more precise questions, and explain the answers clearly. I also bring the perspective of someone living with these concerns. I live downstream of Lake Lure Dam, and landslides affected my property during Helene. Those experiences bring urgency to my questions. Careful reporting helps establish the answers. Readers deserve to know what the evidence shows, where uncertainty remains, and whether officials accurately describe the information guiding their decisions. You also deserve scrutiny of proposed solutions: what they cost, what they are expected to accomplish, and what risks remain. Access to that information matters. As a mostly deaf journalist who relies on written communication, I will continue pressing for written public warnings, records, and explanations that people can read and use in real time. As you consider the candidates seeking your vote, consider how they approach evidence, preparedness, and transparency. Do they support local journalism, even when it’s not parroting a press release? Do they explain weather events clearly in plain English and explain their decisions after them? Make supporting records available? Acknowledge uncertainty? Follow through when a report identifies a risk? Those are practical questions about governing. Thank you for supporting Cops & Congress and the work that makes these questions part of the public conversation. I’m grateful to David Dickson and the CC Now team for this opportunity, and I look forward to bringing what I learn back to you. Annie DanceEditor & Publisher, Cops & Congress — Learn more about this newsletter, ethics policy, how you can help shape this work, and support it. Follow on X and Facebook. Send constructive criticism, fan mail, and tips with public documents for future stories: CopsandCongress@gmail.com ICYMI: View the Cops & Congress archive — Annie Dance is the publisher of Cops & Congress, a newsletter that analyzes what happens when crime, courts, disaster, democracy, and small-town policies collide. Views expressed here are covered by the First Amendment. Dance has a Bachelor of Arts from Manhattan University in Communication with a focus in Journalism and Government. She has been a journalist for over 20 years. Share Upgrade now or give a gift subscription
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9,450 Shares of Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. $LYV Bought by Cordatus Wealth Management LLC
Cordatus Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV - Free Report) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 9,450 shares of
1,906,905 Shares in Tencent Music Entertainment Group Sponsored ADR $TME Bought by Assenagon Asset Management S.A.
Assenagon Asset Management S.A. acquired a new position in Tencent Music Entertainment Group Sponsored ADR (NYSE:TME - Free Report) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,906,905 shares of the comp
GLP-1 Drugs and Mental Health: Effects on Depression and Anxiety
GLP-1 receptor agonists affect pathways involved in mood, appetite, and reward, prompting research into their potential benefits for depression, substance use disorders, and binge eating. Psychiatric treatment benefits remain unproven, while conflicting observational findings and reassuring trial evidence require careful interpretation.
Proposed New Visa for Home Health Aides and Nursing Assistants: What Healthcare Staffing Companies Need to Know
A new policy proposal published by the Brookings Institution recommends creating a temporary work visa that would let US employers sponsor foreign home health aides, personal care aides, and nursing assistants to help ease a growing shortage of caregivers. The September 29 proposal, authored by Brookings scholar Tara Watson through the Hamilton Project, would create an “H-1D” visa category built specifically for the direct-care workforce, launching as a pilot program of 30,000 visas per year. It would require employers to pay wages near the top of the local market, guarantee workers a minimum number of weekly hours, and contemplate a potential pathway to permanent residence after six years, although implementing that pathway would require additional changes to immigration law. The H-1D is only a proposal at this point. No H-1D legislation has been enacted, and employers cannot currently sponsor workers under this proposed classification. But if the idea gains traction, healthcare staffing companies could find themselves with both a significant recruiting opportunity and a new set of compliance obligations. This Insight walks through the proposal’s general immigration and employment requirements, then turns to the specific opportunities and challenges it could create for staffing firms.
PS5 console jailbreak on latest 14.10 firmware shared before GTA 6 release date
PlayStation may have hoped it would take longer to compromise the current 14.10 firmware. However, a homebrew developer has found a way to exploit Sony's software. The PS5 console jailbreak could enable piracy of games like GTA 6 that require the update.