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5 Things You Should Do First Thing In The Morning To Be Happier All Day

If you roll out of bed feeling tired or stressed, these a.m. habits can help you turn your mood around.

Jun 13 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • huffpost.com

How Jalen Brunson has outperformed every expectation with Knicks: ‘Gold dust’

Jalen Brunson was asked during these finals what teams missed on him in the draft process. With a smirk, he uttered one word: “Everything.”

Jun 13 • 5:30 AM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com

In Retrospect: Poland, Russia, Europe

In April I spent a few days with Zryw, a Polish non-profit organization that recruits young people to enter politics and public life. Their aim is to build a new generation of civic leaders in Poland. I’ve followed their evolution from the beginning; my son is one of the founders. (“Zryw” means “impulse” or “burst of speed” in Polish). Julie Chmielewska, one of Zryw’s leaders, interviewed me at the event. Here is the conversation, lightly edited for grammar and context: Julia Chmielewska: Assuming that culture shapes institutions, could we conclude that some cultures are more prone to authoritarianism? Anne Applebaum: I don’t think so. Every culture, every nation, and every country has the potential for change. When we look at history, we can see that nations do change. Poland has changed, for example, from the 1980s to today. There’s a completely different mentality here than the one I encountered when I first visited, in 1988. The current generation sees the world through a different frame. So no, I don’t believe that certain nations are doomed to authoritarianism, or to anything. Of course, there are political and cultural traditions, but they can always be challenged. JC: So do you think there’s something intrinsic in human nature that pushes people to democracy, freedom? AA: I think there is something in human nature, a deep instinct, that pushes people towards freedom, yes. People who live in authoritarian countries – and I’ve heard this from them over and over again – sooner or later find themselves angered by a feeling of helplessness. They can see the unfairness of crooked courts, irrational political decisions. They naturally dislike the fact that somebody has all the power while they have none. In those circumstances, people who have no political background at all sometimes are politicized just by that frustration. I’m thinking of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, for example, who was a Belarusian housewife, until the circumstances of her husband’s arrest forced her to become a politician. I met a woman who is a Uyghur from China, and who had come to live in Turkey. After several of her family members were arrested, she too was propelled into a political role. These kinds of experiences make people interested in democracy or political reform, even if they thought they didn’t care. I also think that the opposite is true: some people instinctively prefer homogeneity, order, hierarchy. They don’t like the confrontation of opinions or the noise of debate, and they lean towards a single leader or a unified regime. I think that most of modern history is shaped by the clash between those two different sides of human nature. JC: Which force do you find more powerful today? AA: I think they both have a lot of power and there’s no way of predicting who wins. Even in countries that seem very shut off or stuck in an authoritarian system can change. We’ve seen that happen. And vice versa, I think democracies can also begin to fail and slide into authoritarianism. So it’s very important not to be complacent in either direction. JC: I want to go into your history and your experiences. You’ve lived in Russia during a time of incredible change in the late 80s, and then you came back to do research in post-Soviet Russia. AA: I was a student in Russia just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I then traveled and worked there extensively in the 1990s, and I met people who really were full of hope. They hoped that Russia could become a democracy, or at least a place that guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press. These weren’t ideas that came from Washington. Although now the narrative in the Kremlin is different, I met many people who were working towards exactly that kind of transformation. A friend of mine ran a series of seminars – once a year, and then later several times a year, in cities all over Russia – designed to get people to discuss politics in new ways. She invited young politicians and journalists, as well as foreigners. I went to many of them, in Moscow as well as Volgograd and Novosibirsk. Over two decades, hundreds of people came to these seminars, and all of them wanted Russia to be different. I remain convinced that many Russians still want Russia to be different. It’s just that the old system, in the form of Putin, a representative of that system, returned. The KGB reimposed their power. And this wasn’t because of something to do with culture, this was to do with money and politics, and who was in charge. JC: You’ve partially answered my question... I wanted to ask whether that excitement of the 1990s was an exception from the Russian historical norm which has been rather authoritarian? AA: Of course, if you look at the history of Russia since the 18th century, there have always been liberal groups, reformers and revolutionaries. There were the Decembrists, in the early 19th century, and the rural populists later on, who tried to organize the peasantry. A significant group of liberal Russians appeared at the turn of the 20th century, people like the father of the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who was a Russian politician before the revolution. These groups were small in number, but sometimes had a broader significance. The Russian dissident movement in the 1950s and 1960s actually invented the modern human rights movement. It was their idea to hold the leaders of the Soviet Union accountable for the language they used, to remind them of the treaties they had signed and the promised they had made. They created the Helsinki group, for example, that held Soviet leadership to the language of the Helsinki Treaty, which formally ended the Second World War and which contained guarantees of human rights, at least on paper. That idea spread to Eastern Europe, and similar tactics were used here in Poland. (Benjamin Nathans recently wrote a great book about the Soviet dissidents, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause) JC: But seemingly, even if they do ever get power, they could never hold on to it. AA: We don’t know, because they have never really had power. But in any case, we also don’t know what will happen in the future. There is no reason to assume that Russia will forever be condemned to totalitarianism. Even during the first fifteen years of Putin’s regime there was some form of democratic politics. Only when the full-scale war began did he bring everything to an end: he shut down all remaining independent organizations and killed his most important opponent, Alexi Navalny. But does that mean he is popular, that he enjoys legitimacy? Even now, we don’t really know what Russians think about him, or about the war. There is no way of doing real polling in Russia because nobody will answer an independent pollster over the phone. JC: Do you think that the flock of young people, especially young men, who fled Russia after the start of the war represent a continuation of liberal movements that refuse to partake in the authoritarian state, or do you think they are moving for the sake of self-preservation – “I don’t want to go to the army, so I leave”? AA: I’m sure it’s both. I actually know many people who left Russia for political reasons either in the very last years before the war, or else just after the war began. JC: And do you see a change in the young generation versus the old one that have fled? AA: It’s hard for me to say because the people who I know were mostly already politicized. I do know some younger people who left, but most of them were already either active in the opposition, or working as journalists. Many of them very self-consciously think of themselves as maintaining Russian culture abroad, just as in the 20th century the Soviet dissidents or the anti-communist White Russians once thought of themselves as people who maintained the true Russian culture, outside of Bolshevik Russia. JC: Let’s move on to Poland. One of your first experiences with Poland was reporting on Margaret Thatcher’s first state visit, in the autumn of 1988. You followed her around the farmers’ market. AA: She was making a symbolic gesture. She wanted to welcome free markets, but the only one she could really visit was the farmers’ market at Hala Mirowska. JC: And I want to talk about this area because today you can look out of any window in that district, Mirów, and see rows and rows of skyscrapers. How does it feel to see a country built from the ground in such a short time, both politically and economically? AA: You know, when you’re living in a period of dramatic change, it’s always hard to know whether the change is positive or negative. The transformation in Poland created winners and losers, as well as new classes of people, new political movements of different kinds. At the time, it sometimes just felt like turbulence. Now, we can look back at the 1990s and early 2000s in Poland and see in retrospect that the country was headed in towards prosperity and European integration. In around 2009 or 2010, I remember speaking to a woman who worked cleaning government offices, and who asked me if her daughter should study in Amsterdam or in London. This seemed to me to be a real transformation, and it happened very fast: within a few years, Poles stopped feeling like second-class Europeans, and a generation of younger Poles appeared who had no qualms about crossing borders. JC: We again live in turbulent times. Do you think we’re heading towards positive outcomes? AA: I can’t make predictions, because everything that happens tomorrow depends on what people do today. Also, history doesn’t have a trajectory. It doesn’t move in a particular direction. You only think it does afterwards. As I said, you can look afterwards at Poland in the 1990s and you could say this was a period of great progress. But not everybody at the time saw that. Sometimes people are very wrong about a given country’s trajectory. I remember people writing about Ukraine in the 1990s, about how dangerous it was that Ukraine was independent, that this was going to be an anti-semitic state, that Ukrainian nationalism was going to come back... and although you can say many bad things about Ukraine, the country made many bad choices, actually it became a pretty tolerant state which now has a Jewish president and until recently a Muslim defense minister. JC: In the 1990s Poland’s and Ukraine’s GDP were roughly similar. Ukraine was even a bit richer. So the starting point was similar for both of these countries, but they’ve turned out very, very differently. Even if we stop in 2014. Why do you think Ukraine “chose East”? Was it external influence? AA: No, I think Ukraine was in a different position. First of all, central and eastern Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union since the 1920s, and had therefore experienced a longer period of occupation, repression, Sovietization and even Russification. Ukraine did not have, as Poland did, an alternative elite: a large cadre of economists and politicians, who already had some experience in opposition politics and in independent thinking. In Poland, the transformative finance minister, Leszek Balcerowicz, had already thought about how an economy might be decentralized before he took office. We can argue about how successful he was, but at least he was prepared to try something new. In Ukraine, people weren’t prepared. For one, there hadn’t been much space even for an illegal opposition in the previous couple of decades. Ukraine was also in many ways still emerging from colonial occupation. For the previous couple of centuries, many of the most capable Ukrainians had moved to Russia, and the first generation of leaders in independent Ukraine tended to be former Soviet apparatchiks. They didn’t immediately seek to become closer to western Europe. Instead, they looked for some kind of economic and political “third way” and an accomodation with Russia. Ukraine became stuck in this position, half-in, half-out and became pretty profoundly corrupt. JC: The Polish alternative elite had a vision of where they wanted the country to go. I think the general perception now is that this vision ends with the next election, right? Is this a natural process of gaining power? AA: Their vision, and it was shared by the time by politicians who now call themselves both left and right, was that Poland should join the EU and NATO, as fast as possible. My husband (Radek Sikorski) was in the very first government that said it wanted to join NATO. At the time this was taken very badly in Washington: the demand for NATO membership absolutely came from Poland, not from the US. But even then, in the early 1990s, many Poles already understood that the Russian sphere of influence would grow once again, that it was important to become part of the transatlantic alliance and an integrated Europe as fast as possible: NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe, all of the trading and security alliances. That consensus lasted through several different governments and over many years, even governments containing former communists. For twenty years, right, left and center disagreed about many things, but they all agreed on the direction that the country should go. In retrospect, that consensus created the basis for prosperity in Poland. JC: And regarding the Polish-Ukrainian relations. We know that antagonisms, e.g. the myth of Wołyń [a massacre of Poles that took place in what is now Western Ukraine, in 1943] are increasingly used in Polish political discourse today. In Ukraine, nationalist historians make heroes out of UPA, the Ukrainian revolutionary army, which is held responsible for this tragedy. Where do you see a start for burying the hatchet? Is the reconciliation of our nations possible? AA: So here’s a strange thing: For more than a decade after they both gained independence, Poland and Ukraine participated in a number of projects that were designed to solve exactly these kinds of Polish-Ukrainian differences. Books were published that were jointly written by Polish and Ukrainian historians, monuments were built. These projects were successful: If you’d asked me this question in 2010, I would have said that there are no real historical issues between Poland and Ukraine, that the two countries had mostly reconciled. For a number of reasons, this began to shift. In Poland, children and grandchildren of victims of the Wołyń massacre felt their tragedy hadn’t been fully recognized. In Ukraine, nationalist groups wanted the UPA partisans who had fought against the Soviet Union recognized for their heroism, despite the fact that some in this broad and not well-defined group were also linked to Wołyń. In both eastern Poland and western Ukraine, the memory of the ethnic cleansing that took place there in the late 1940s - Poles were moved West, Ukrainians East - to accomodate new borders has left feelings of displacement and bitterness. The wave of Ukrainian immigration, which started before the war, may have provoked some of this. But don’t underestimate the role played by Russia, which has always wanted to create discord between Poland and Ukraine, and pumps out propaganda to that effect in both countries. Vandalism on both sides of the border, damage done to cemeteries and monuments, is sometimes carried out by provacateurs working for Russia, just to create bad feelings. The Polish-Ukrainian conflict also hides a different reality: although there are real grievances and bad memories, the truth is that the biggest tragedies both nations experienced in the twentieth century were inflicted by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. That should unite these two countries, not divide them. JC: This week (19.04.2026 – Ed.) in Hungary we saw that using historical narratives to create grievance has no longer worked. Are you optimistic about the direction after Orban’s loss? AA: The Hungarian election was really important because it shows that people can actually resist powerful, dominant propaganda. The ruling party Fidesz controlled all of the TV, 90% of the newspapers, the constitutional court, the bureaucracy... and yet people had the nerve to vote against it and resist it. It’s also an important election because Hungary created a huge network of well-funded think tanks and foundations that were funding other far right groups and projects. So that loss is going to have a knock-on effect in other places too, maybe even in Poland. JC: What you’ve said about resisting propaganda reminds me of one of the interviews you did about talking to Russians in the post-Soviet era who claimed that people knew that the system was lying. Why do people choose to believe in these regimes anyway? AA: Because it’s useful. Stephen Kotkin, an American historian, once described how people would learn how to “speak Bolshevik”: It was just a language that you needed to use in order to get by in society. If you didn’t talk the way the regime wanted you to talk, then you might have problems, or lose your job, or your kids would not get into university. It was a way of getting along. Communist Poland was similar, at least in the early years. When I was writing a book about the Sovietization of Eastern Europe after World War II, I met a lot of people who wanted to talk a lot about the war, when many of them had done really heroic things. But almost nobody wanted to talk about the decade afterwards, between 1945 and 1956. This was when you had the short period of terror, violence and Polish Stalinism. To stay safe, people felt the need to just go along with what others were saying, or stay out of politics, or use communist jargon without necessarily believing it. I don’t judge them for it, and I wouldn’t describe all of those people as collaborators. It’s easy to feel moral certainty in retrospect, because we know that communism ended. But if you were living in 1949, it might not have been clear to you that communism was going to end. In very repressive societies, maybe about 10% of people who are really evil – collaborators, torturers. Maybe 10% of people are really brave and who find ways to resist. And then around 80% of people have kids, they have parents, they have to have jobs and they’ve had to get through it somehow. Strange though it may sound, I’ve found that the work I did on that book is now very useful in explaining some of what’s going on in the United States today. There are plenty of members of the Republican Party in Congress who know perfectly well that Donald Trump says many things that aren’t true. But they avoid criticizing him because it’s inconvenient, because they would get in trouble, because someone would attack them on the internet. So actually you don’t even need mass terror to get people to conform. JC: Is Gen Z reinventing agency? AA: We’ll see. In any generation you can find groups of people who want agency. If you live in a society that’s unfair, for example where a tiny number of people have captured most of the wealth, then at a certain point people rebel. This is always easier for younger people, who have you have less to lose. The question now is how the internet will affect the relationships between citizens and the state, and how it will change organizations. The “Twitter revolutions” people spoke about as early as 2008-9, mass protests organized online, have often proved to be very superficial. Although you can easily join something just by clicking, the work of creating a real movement requires physical participation. Successful mass movements of the past, for example the Civil Rights movement in the United States, were built by people who had spent many years together. They had participated in non-violent workshops together. They practiced and prepared. Just using the you can get everybody to show up at a certain moment, but then when the protest is broken up, nothing happens. It’s also true that the repressive regimes have more recently learned how to use the internet to undermine leaders and movements. Most of all, they now understand how to make people cynical. The form of propaganda that most modern authoritarians use - and I think the Russians really pioneered this - deploys sneering cynicism. Instead of praising the rulers, the regime propagandists mock the opposition movement leadership for being supposedly corrupt or sexually degenerate, with the goal of undermining any kind of idealism. JC: MAGA grew on the internet? AA: MAGA is a real grassroots movement. They had symbols, red hats, they showed up at rallies. But you’re right that the cynicism, the sarcasm and the distrust that the movement embodies came originally from the internet, and this is different. Fifty years ago, most European political parties had a social base in real organizations, in trade unions for Social Democrats, in church groups for Christian Democrats. As people stopped going to church and as the trade unions became smaller, the social base of these parties disappeared. Now people who wouldn’t have known one another in the past meet on the internet and create new movements, many of which don’t last. JC: Is history ending? Going in stale circles? AA: History never ends. In truth, human beings want contradictory things at the same time: order and freedom, stability and change. These things are never resolved, and when a society swings too far in one direction, people always push it the other way. But each time that happens, the result is different. Certainly it is true that we are now in a period when old philosophers and ideas from the 1930s are undergoing a revival. Carl Schmitt, who was a philosopher who was very influential on the Nazis, is back as an influence on both the far left and the far right, once again inspiring people to think that all politics has to be existential, that all politics is about defining and defeating enemies. In the US, some are also bringing back dominionism, the idea that we need a Christian and not a secular state. It’s also true that we are living through a more fundamental shift. The old left-right divide, which was mostly about the size of the state, is much less important now. Instead, we are arguing about more fundamental things: what are our rights, what protects our freedom. Or how much power do we want to give small elites, versus how much power to give ordinary people. In America a small group of very wealthy people now control information, because they control the social media platforms and AI, which means they determine what people will read and learn. Finding a way to preserve preserve zones of autonomy and independent thinking, this is going to be the main task for the next generation. JC: What is the one book that a person interested in Central Europe should read? AA: You could read my book “Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe” which tells the story of how the Soviet Union imposed its culture on the region. Or read Tim Snyder’s history of the region, “The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569-1999.” And everyone should read “The Captive Mind” by Czesław Miłosz, which describes exactly the phenomenon we were talking about: why do people collaborate? I joined Scott Galloway and the brilliant Fiona Hill in a discussion about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the future of global power, and what these conflicts reveal about America's role in the world. Scott told us that this was the 400th edition of his podcast, which is quite a number: My friend Francesco Chiamulera runs a brilliant series of literary events, Una Colline di Libri, A Hill of Books, in the Prosecco Hills, a region of vineyards and elegant hill towns in the Veneto, north of Venice. We did an event in Vittorio Veneto and also drove and biked around the countryside. Buy Autocracy Inc Buy Iron Curtain Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

Jun 13 • 4:15 AM EDT • Politics • anneapplebaum.substack.com

Bandai Namco hosting big Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch sale with lowest prices ever for Tales of Berseria and Xillia Remastered, Once Upon a Katamari, more

A huge Bandai Namco sale started up on the eShop this week with tons of big discounts for games like Tales of Berseria and Xillia Remastered, Once Upon a Katamari, and more. Many games are at new low prices. Most of these titles are for Nintendo Switch, but can also be played on Switch 2 through backwards compatibility. The full list...

Jun 13 • 12:50 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Rating the June 2026 Nintendo Direct, plus which games were missing

We go over all of the Switch and Switch 2 announcements from the June 2026 Nintendo Direct and rate the whole presentation out of 5 stars.

Jun 13 • 12:00 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Valve just imported 13 tons of VR headsets in one day

And probably 141 tons of Steam Machines in the past 50 days.

Jun 12 • 9:32 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

USA Takes Early Lead In World Cup Opener vs. Paraguay Due To Own Goal In 7th Minute

Things couldn't have started much better for the United States in its World Cup opener.

Jun 12 • 9:21 PM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com

World Cup Roundup: Co-Hosts USA And Canada Make History

Here is everything you might have missed from Day 2 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Jun 12 • 8:46 PM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com

The top 3 rumored iOS 27 features I hope Apple launches in September

iOS 27 rumors promised things we didn’t see at WWDC 26 but may still launch with the iPhone 18 Pro.

Jun 12 • 8:19 PM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com

Zelda: Ocarina of Time Nintendo Switch 2 remake was one of the most popular titles of Summer Game Fest 2026, according to data

Top 10 most popular games of Summer Games Fest revealed, with Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake placing high.

Jun 12 • 5:06 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Here’s everything new in iOS 27 and more, per Apple’s keynote list

Here are all the iOS 27 features Apple listed on its big keynote slide. Even more changes are coming, but this is everything from that slide.

Jun 12 • 1:57 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

These 20-Somethings Are Turning to Double Mastectomies | WSJ Health for June 12

Plus, scientists documented a controversial DNA-editing feat, and there’s a giant new wellness center in New York

Jun 12 • 12:55 PM EDT • Health • wsj.com

10 things we learned about Mike McCarthy and the Steelers during spring workouts

Aaron Rodgers reported early for the voluntary portion of the Steelers’ offseason workouts. Other star players who might typically skip OTAs also...

Jun 12 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • post-gazette.com

Nothing, the brand that took OnePlus' shelf space, just scored its biggest US win yet

What began as an online-only experiment is now one Best Buy run away for millions.

Jun 12 • 9:09 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com

Scientists Tracked These Strange Arctic Icebergs and Found Something Unexpected on the Seafloor

Researchers traced new undersea ecosystems of soft coral, sea anemones, sponges, and more to large rocks and mineral deposits ferried by icebergs from dry land to the Arctic floor.

Jun 12 • 8:50 AM EDT • Science • gizmodo.com

Club Science: Pride

School may be out for summer, but the Science Museum of Minnesota in Saint Paul is keeping the curiosity alive with something exciting for grown-ups. Caillean Kapoor, visitor experience manager at the Science Museum, joined Minnesota Live to share details about Club Science: Pride, a vibrant 21-plus night happening Saturday, June 13 starting at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are still available and include museum admission, an Omnitheater show and a drink ticket.

Jun 12 • 8:22 AM EDT • Science • kstp.com

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror

Not With a Bang by Temi Oh; Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh; Atomic Coffin by Benedict Anning; The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden; Bad Things Happen Here by Mark Morris

Jun 12 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

A mysterious ‘cold blob’ in the ocean has puzzled scientists. A new study says it’s an ominous sign

In the North Atlantic Ocean, south of Greenland and Iceland, a swath of water is doing something very strange. While the rest of the ocean heats up; it’s been getting colder. A team of scientists say ...

Jun 12 • 5:52 AM EDT • Science • yahoo.com

Cafe, country store, and retail pop-ups draw visitors to quaint CT town. There’s something new.

It’s called a Connecticut business that draws from afar and “leaves a lasting impact far beyond its storefront.”

Jun 12 • 5:15 AM EDT • Business • courant.com

Vikings: Justin Jefferson notes issues with Kyler Murray, JJ McCarthy

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson noted J.J. McCarthy and Kyler Murray have things to work on before training camp.

Jun 11 • 11:32 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Salesforce's AI Business Is Growing More Than 200%, but the Stock Is Near a 52-Week Low. Something Has to Give.

Investors seem convinced artificial intelligence will disrupt the software giant. Its most recent results tell a different story.

Jun 11 • 10:02 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company update Palworld lawsuit, limited to older versions only

There’s been another development involving Nintendo and The Pokemon Company’s lawsuit against Palworld. When all is said and done, the legal battle will only involve the current version of the game. It’s now been discovered that Nintendo and The Pokemon Company amended the scope of their claims. Originally, they were going after all versions of Palworld. However, things have changed...

Jun 11 • 8:27 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Death after TAVR: New data support use of better patient assessments

A vast majority of patient deaths in the first year after TAVR have nothing to do with heart health. Could care teams be doing more to identify high-risk patients?

Jun 11 • 4:00 PM EDT • Business • cardiovascularbusiness.com

12 things to do around the Seattle area this weekend

From World Cup watch parties to interactive theater, here are the latest local things to do around the Seattle area.

Jun 11 • 4:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • seattletimes.com

The secrets you shouldn’t keep from your doctor

Most of us hide stuff from our doctors. But there are things you should never lie about.

Jun 11 • 4:00 PM EDT • Health • vox.com

Oh boy, Xbox's chief strategist is floating the idea of in-game ads — but says "The question is not 'Can we cram ads in everything?'"

Microsoft's Xbox CSO Matthew Ball thinks in-game ads could help "keep our products affordable."

Jun 11 • 2:31 PM EDT • Technology • windowscentral.com

Best of Santa Cruz County entertainment, arts & food events this weekend, June 11-14

With the weekend nearly here, check out things to do around Santa Cruz County with a recommendation from Lily Belli and a specially curated list from Lookout's BOLO events calendar.

Jun 11 • 2:18 PM EDT • Entertainment • lookout.co

New Xbox Exec Advocates For Something Everyone Hates To Help Save Gaming

Matthew Ball says the idea is not to "cram ads in everything," but to find a way to put ads in games in a more acceptable manner.

Jun 11 • 2:13 PM EDT • Technology • gamespot.com

Community Health in Action: Manor College at the Byrd Cancer Expo

The All Things Cancer + Wellness Expo is designed to provide free access to essential health services, educational resources and community support. Manor College Dental Hygiene students delivered an oral health initiative at the annual Byrd Cancer Foundation Wellness and Cancer Expo on April 18. The entire Dental Hygiene cohort participated to provide over 30 Read more >

Jun 11 • 1:55 PM EDT • Health • manor.edu

Mike Greenberg Rips 'Disgraceful' Fan Behavior During NBA Finals

Mike Greenberg is a lifelong fan of the New York Knicks, but make no mistake, he doesn't condone everything the fan base has done during this year's playoff run. After the Knicks erased a 29-point deficit to defeat the Spurs in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, a fan chucked an object at Victor Wembanyama ...

Jun 11 • 1:40 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Star Fox designer "choked up" by graphics in new Nintendo Switch 2 remake

Ever since it was announced, Star Fox has been drawing plenty of attention thanks to its unusually realistic visuals – a style not often associated with Nintendo titles. The impressive presentation has already left many fans eager to see more of the game ahead of its June 25 launch on Nintendo Switch 2. As of this week, players have been...

Jun 11 • 12:52 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

How Trump has deceived himself on Iran

President Donald Trump is nothing if not studied at crafting elaborate alternate realities.

Jun 11 • 12:51 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

When aerosol sprays become a deadly health hazard

Key Takeaways: Dusting or huffing is a dangerous trend where people use inhalants such as deodorants and hair spray to get high.The trend is popular on various social media channels.Inhaling these dangerous aerosols can cause brain damage, breathing and heart issues, and even death.Experts say it's important to have a conversation with your kids...

Jun 11 • 12:18 PM EDT • Health • newsroom.osfhealthcare.org

I left Canada and moved to California for love; gave up everything

After falling in love on vacation, I gave up everything and sold my dream condo so I could leave Canada and move to the US to be with my partner.

Jun 11 • 12:16 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Stranger Than Heaven Devs Say Adding Tupac To The Game Was A 'Good Idea'

'This was something we thought would add value to our game,' said Masayoshi Yokoyama

Jun 11 • 11:35 AM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

One of fall's coolest games has been delayed to October to avoid a September crush

Last Sunday, a trailer that aired during an online Xbox event showed Valor Mortis, an upcoming action game that re-imagines the age of Napoleonic wars as a conflict with the plague-ridden undead. It’s a first-person game that mixes Dark Souls-style combat with parkour—it’s from the developers of the acclaimed, fast-paced cyberpunk wall-running Ghostrunner games—and a setting like nothing else that’s out there. Valor Mortis’ trailer concluded with a release date: September 24. But by the time it aired, the teams behind the game knew that was no longer Valor Mortis’ release date. Days ago, they’d learned the hard way that September 24 would be untenable and that they’d have to change it. Today, they’ve announced a new one, October 13, after speaking to Game File about getting out of the bind they recently found themselves in. “When we picked September 24th, it looked like a very, very clear date,” Blake Rochkind, head of publisher Lyrical Games, told me during an impromptu interview on Monday in Los Angeles. “Very quickly it became not such a clear date.” Lyrical and development studio One More Level had a feeling the deate might need to change, Rochkind recalled. But they had to lock in September 24 “many, many weeks” ago. Really, though, who could know if that was the right call when they made it? “There were so many unknowns,” Rochkind said. “This was before Sony State of Play, before Xbox Showcase, before Nintendo Direct, before Summer Games Fest.” Then on Tuesday, June 2, during a PlayStation showcase held just five days before their planned release date reveal, things changed. “As soon as Control announced September 24th, we knew we were moving the date.” It wasn’t just the PlayStation showcase reveal of the release date for Remedy’s upcoming third-person thriller. There were others. And changing their own trailer this close to its airing, Rochkind would later tell me, wasn’t possible.

Jun 11 • 11:01 AM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news

I'm glad Apple isn't hyping up agentic AI (yet)

Apple is more focused on delivering usable features with Siri AI, instead of hyping up agentic AI. That's a good thing.

Jun 11 • 9:45 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Inbox: That’s part of the beauty of this sport

Micah Parsons is real in everything he says and everything he does

Jun 11 • 9:30 AM EDT • Sports • packers.com

A Google director quit over the company's Pentagon AI deal

"Proactively harming people is not something that I can or will be involved with," a Google director wrote in his resignation letter.

Jun 11 • 9:16 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Scientists Were Studying a 5,300-Year-Old Mummy. They Found Something Living on His Remains.

Ötzi the Iceman was discovered in 1991, and is a treasure trove of information about the Copper Age.

Jun 11 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • popularmechanics.com

How long will Justin Jefferson stay in Minnesota? Kyler Murray, J.J. McCarthy can stop the clock from ticking

If the Vikings struggle again in 2026, things will get interesting with their superstar receiver

Jun 11 • 8:03 AM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com

Five things to know about women and sport

Women's sports are on a winning streak, reaching new heights and shattering records. From the 2024 Olympics achieving gender parity to the growing audience for women's sports, there is much to celebrate and explore. Yet many gender gaps remain. Here are five key things to know about women and sport:

Jun 11 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • lac.unwomen.org

When policy impedes healthcare, what are the solutions?

Yes, there’s money on the way from the federal government. But communities and healthcare systems are also taking things into their own hands.

Jun 11 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • marketplace.org

Several things I like about macOS 27 Golden Gate that have nothing to do with AI

AI aside, Golden Gate includes a bunch of subtle-but-helpful improvements.

Jun 11 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

How preparing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans is unlike anything else in sports

The iconic and grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans is the most challenging race in motorsports. It's also the race everyone wants most to win.

Jun 11 • 7:00 AM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com

Social Security is Facing a Political Crisis

On Tuesday the Social Security Trustees released their latest report on the system’s finances. The numbers didn’t change much: Unless something is done, the Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, Social Security’s official name, will be unable to pay full benefits starting in either 2032 or 2034, depending on some technical issues. That’s not far away: If the Trustees are right, the prospect of a Social Security crisis will loom over the next presidential administration. It’s important to understand, however, the nature of the looming crisis. It won’t be an economic crisis. It won’t even be a serious fiscal crisis. Whatever you may have heard, Social Security isn’t in danger of going bankrupt. What we’re facing, instead, is potential political crisis. Congress and the White House could easily take action to sustain America’s retirement system. But given the current state of our politics, there’s no guarantee that they will. There is a widespread misunderstanding of how Social Security works. While Social Security was designed to look like a pension fund, it isn’t. A pension fund pays benefits out of a stock of assets it has accumulated over time. In contrast, Social Security operates as a government transfer program, like food stamps or Medicaid. Now, unlike food stamps — but like the highway trust fund — Social Security is on paper supported by a dedicated tax, the payroll tax, that is assigned to that program. But I say “on paper” because from an economic point of view assigning the payroll tax to Social Security is just an accounting convention. What matters for the U.S. economy is the overall balance between government spending and government revenue, not the difference between one type of spending and one source of revenue. So there’s no inherent economic significance to the fact that by 2034 payroll tax receipts will be insufficient to cover promised benefits. There is, however, a legislative issue. As long as the Social Security Administration can pay benefits out of payroll taxes and its cash reserve, there’s no need for Congress to vote each year to authorize benefits — they just keep going out until further notice. However, once those resources become insufficient, benefits will fall —by 17 percent according to the Trustees — unless Congress passes new legislation that “tops up” Social Security’s finances. Yet the current administration and Republican party are such extremists that there is a real risk that Social Security will be held hostage on behalf of their goals. If this should come to pass, the hostage-takers will claim that shoring up Social Security is unaffordable. Right on cue, Mike Johnson, the Trump-sycophant Speaker of the House, declared on Monday that “entitlement programs” like Social Security “have to be adjusted and fixed,” and that Republicans will introduce a plan to that effect next year. But this is a ploy, because while the cost of maintaining Social Security benefits at their promised level isn’t trivial, it is in fact affordable. According to the Trustees’ report, the actuarial balance of OASDI up through 2050 — the amount of additional funds it would need to keep paying full benefits for the next 25 years — is 1.06 percent of GDP. To put that number in perspective, the Trump administration proposes increasing military spending next year by $420 billion, equivalent to about 1.4 percent of GDP – without any discussion of whether that’s affordable Yet how did we get to the point where Social Security will need to be topped up? The main answer is that we have an aging population, with a growing ratio of retirees collecting benefits to workers paying into the system: Trump’s anti-immigration policies are making this problem worse. According to the Trustees’ report, lower immigration will deepen Social Security’s financial hole because many immigrants are working-age adults who will pay into the system for decades before they collect benefits. In fact, this problem may be much bigger than the report acknowledges: The report’s baseline assumption is that we’ll have net immigration of almost 1.2 million people a year, and even the pessimistic case assumes 750,000 a year. Meanwhile actual net immigration has already been cut far below that — and may now be negative. Moreover, Social Security is being financially damaged by growing income inequality in America. Payroll taxes are levied only on wages up to $184,500, and they don’t touch capital income. With the distribution of income increasingly shifting from labor to capital, as well as becoming more unequal among wage-earners, revenue from the Social Security payroll tax has been falling as a share of national income. From 1990 to 2024, it fell from 5.02 percent of gross domestic income to 4.46 percent. Which brings me to the question that, these days, we ask about everything: How might Social Security be affected by the advent of AI? A short answer: If, as many of us fear, AI accelerates rising income inequality, it will further reduce the payroll tax receipts that currently pay for Social Security and further endanger its finances. On the other hand, if AI, as its advocates promise, leads to faster economic growth, it will increase the potential tax base that could and should be used to support Social Security and other social insurance programs. But to take advantage of that larger base, we’ll have to get serious about taxing wealth and capital income. Is Social Security in trouble? Yes, but only because of the way its financing is currently structured — a structure that no longer works well because our society and economy have become so unequal. Moreover, Trump’s immigration policies are further endangering its already deteriorating financial condition. So don’t believe Republicans’ gaslighting that it will be necessary to cut Social Security benefits. All that is necessary to preserve Social Security is political will to raise taxes on the wealthy and a sensible immigration policy. MUSICAL CODA Actually 67 under current law.

Jun 11 • 6:34 AM EDT • Politics • paulkrugman.substack.com

5 things to know about SpaceX's historic IPO

SpaceX is ready to go public in the largest IPO ever. Business Insider rounded up what investors need to know about the offering.

Jun 11 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Brandon Aiyuk said something interesting in latest rant against 49ers

Brandon Aiyuk recently spoke out against the 49ers again. He said something interesting, which could impact his upcoming season.

Jun 11 • 3:03 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Scarlet, gray and something more: The science of sports fandom at Ohio State

The November air in Columbus was bitter and cold as more than 100,000 fans packed into Ohio Stadium for the 2024 edition of The Game. At the time, The No. 2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes were 19.5-point favorites against unranked Michigan. A Buckeye win over the Wolverines was something that many Ohio State students had […]

Jun 10 • 9:42 PM EDT • Science • thelantern.com

Winston Marshall: UK politicians ‘won’t do anything’ to stop violence

WARNING: Graphic content — Grammy-winning musician Winston Marshall discusses a Sudanese migrant accused in the stabbing of a Belfast man in Northern Ireland on ‘The Will Cain Show.’

Jun 10 • 5:24 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com

2026 World Cup: Predictions, rankings, team-by-team schedules, rosters and everything else you need to know before kickoff

Jun 10 • 4:52 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Here’s everything new in Android 17 QPR1 Beta 4 [Gallery]

With Android 17 QPR1 Beta 4 today, Google is rolling out a much needed update that addresses various bugs from the last big release.

Jun 10 • 4:44 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

How Tifa Made It Into Street Fighter 6 And Why She's Special

She's here, and she's cool, but she's not a sign of things to come

Jun 10 • 4:00 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

The Cove Continues Its Tradition of Unique Entertainment with The Slippery Chickens

By Peter Lyons Hall One of the reasons Greenwood Lake’s The Cove Restaurant has become a favorite destination for both residents and visitors is proprietor Bobby Perreira’s commitment to showcasing unique and memorable entertainment. Perreira has built a reputation for bringing distinctive performers to his lakeside venue—artists who offer something beyond the ordinary cover-band experience. […]

Jun 10 • 2:58 PM EDT • Entertainment • wvdispatch.com

Video: Kingdom Hearts 3 Nintendo Switch 2 vs. PS5 vs. Steam Deck graphics comparison

Watch a brand new Kingdom Hearts 3 graphics comparison video for the Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Steam Deck versions.

Jun 10 • 2:48 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

David Harbour confirms past 'disagreement' with Millie Bobby Brown amid bullying rumors

David Harbour confirms prior 'arguments, disagreements' with 'Stranger Things' costar Millie Bobby Brown while addressing rumors that she filed a bullying and harassment claim against him.

Jun 10 • 2:31 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

The next victim of the Supreme Court’s voting rights decision will be workers

The Trump administration wants to extend Justice Sam Alito’s approach to race to everything.

Jun 10 • 2:05 PM EDT • Politics • vox.com

Final Fantasy 14 receives first Nintendo Switch 2 gameplay trailer

We now have a good look at Final Fantasy 14 on Nintendo Switch 2 with a proper gameplay trailer. Square Enix announced a port of the game at the end of April during the Fan Festival. However, we didn’t really get a look at the Nintendo Switch 2 version at all. A few seconds of footage did appear during yesterday’...

Jun 10 • 1:06 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

How the “Every Year After” finale sets up season 2 to adapt “One Golden Summer”

That one photo could change everything for Charlie.

Jun 10 • 1:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Sony 'Exploring New Ways' to Deliver PS Plus Games

Spreading things out

Jun 10 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • pushsquare.com

Gears of War: E-Day – Everything We Learned Behind Closed Doors at Xbox

IGN interviews The Coalition to find out more on Xbox console exclusive Gears of War: E-Day.

Jun 10 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • ign.com

Gemini Is Down? Live Updates on Google Workspace's AI Errors

It's not just you. Many Google users are encountering "Something went wrong" issues on Wednesday.

Jun 10 • 10:38 AM EDT • Technology • cnet.com

Surprising things about visiting San Antonio, Texas, from New Englander

As a New Englander, I was surprised to find all that the Texas city of San Antonio had to offer, including bustling art, wine, and dining scenes.

Jun 10 • 10:33 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Scientists Have Detected Something Deeply Alarming at the Bottom of the Ocean

"It has implications for extreme weather events in North America and Europe."

Jun 10 • 9:39 AM EDT • Science • yahoo.com

Destiny 2’s Monument Of Triumph Update Is A Beautiful, Tragic Ending

Destiny 2's finale update, Monument of Triumph, has arrived, and it's everything it needed to be. But it's an utter tragedy the game will die after this.

Jun 10 • 9:19 AM EDT • Technology • forbes.com

2026 World Cup viewer's guide: Format, new rules, predictions, how to watch and everything you need to know before kickoff

Jun 10 • 9:03 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Opinion | No Country for Ambitious Women

Republicans have spent years disparaging all things associated with women. Now Democrats are following suit.

Jun 10 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

The magic of Omaha: Why the College World Series is unlike anything else in sports that's worth the trip

Planning a trip to the College World Series? Here's why Omaha's atmosphere, food scene, and fan culture make it a bucket list sporting event.

Jun 10 • 8:54 AM EDT • Sports • foxnews.com

MCWS 2026: College baseball has become a perfect parity showcase

With a whole new set of teams competing in the MCWS yet again, nothing needs to change in college baseball.

Jun 10 • 7:45 AM EDT • Sports • espn.com

Digimon Story: Time Stranger releases demo for Nintendo Switch 2, Switch

Digimon Story: Time Stranger will be on Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch next month, and to prepare fans for the launch, Bandai Namco just put out a demo. It can be downloaded via the Nintendo eShop pages now worldwide. The first part of the demo offers the opening of the main game in its entirety. This lets players experience exploration,...

Jun 10 • 7:29 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

I went to the Xbox Showcase, met with Xbox execs, fans, and developers — Something HAS changed ... but for how long?

Xbox is on a tear right now, with a lot of positive momentum. But one question I wanted to ask above all others: are they ACTUALLY in it for the long haul?

Jun 10 • 7:11 AM EDT • Technology • windowscentral.com

New OMB rule could break science in the United States

The drug that saved your mother. The treatment your doctor recommended. The clinical trial that bought someone you love more time. None of it was inevitable. It required a system built to operate outside politics and sustained over decades, because science doesn’t operate on the timeline of a politician. That system is now under direct threat. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed a new rule to regulate all federal grants, not just science, but housing, education, defense, NASA and everything in between, that would fundamentally change how research is conducted in the United States. There have been a lot of fires in the past 16 months, and if everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. But this is a very big deal. These rules would strip away the independence that has kept science from becoming a political tool. The good news is there’s still something we can all do. How the grant system was designed to work When I was a new faculty member, I was full of millions of ideas, so I sat down and wrote an NIH proposal. I worked on it for months and thought it was so good. Then I sent it to my mentor. It came back covered in comments. Places where my reasoning wasn’t as airtight as I’d thought, methods that could be stronger, gaps in my thinking that I had been too close to the work to see. It stung, as honest feedback always does, but peer review almost always makes the work better. In fact, it’s the backbone of how American science has functioned for generations. At NIH, submitted proposals go to a panel of scientists who have experience in the field. These are the people who can read research methods and spot their weaknesses, who understand when an experiment is designed well and when it isn’t. Applications are scored rigorously, and often only the top 3-20% of proposals receive funding. The people making funding decisions are required to justify them based on these reviews. To be clear: this is not a perfect system, and good science still goes unfunded more often than any of us would like due to limited resources. There is also criticism that peer review may undervalue bold ideas that are risky but could have high payoffs. But the peer review system is nonetheless a meaningful part of the grant selection process. While thoughtful and careful changes could improve the system, the changes being proposed by OMB will not make things better. The rule that could change everything Through this OMB proposal, the system that helps decide what gets funded is being dismantled. There are many troubling elements buried in this proposal, but three provisions stand out in particular. Each would be damaging alone. Together, they would change what kind of science gets done in America, and who it serves. 1. Political appointees would decide which science gets funded, and peer review would be explicitly sidelined or ignored. The guidelines your doctor follows, the standards that determine what’s in your air and water, the drugs that get approved for your family: all of it starts with a funding decision. Right now, that decision is made by scientists who can evaluate whether the work is actually sound and whether it could move the needle forward. Under this proposal, funding decisions could be made by political appointees. The careful, expertise-driven review process that shapes grant funding would be effectively sidelined. That means that a poorly designed study could get funded simply because someone in a political office liked the sound of it, while rigorous, important work doesn’t get funded because it no longer aligns with the administration’s priorities. In other words, critical work that benefits all of us could now be missed just because it has become politically inconvenient. 2. Grants could be canceled at any point, without warning, in the middle of ongoing work. Say your tax dollars have been paying for a cancer study for two years. The grant was awarded for five years, so the team is mid-experiment. There are three additional years’ worth of answers that could change how the disease is treated for hundreds of thousands of people. With this new rule, the federal government could cancel the remaining funding tomorrow, walk away from the commitment it made with your money, and have no legal obligation to finish what it started. This is a huge waste of money. There are rarely other sources of funding for this work, which means the team, the graduate students, postdocs, and research staff who have dedicated years of their careers to this project could lose their jobs. Patients who have contributed their time to studies may not see it turn into useful learnings for others. Every hour of work already completed could result in nothing useful. Science can take decades to get to tangible outcomes. It needs a stable funding system to flourish. 3. Researchers would have a harder time communicating their findings without pre-approval from the federal government. There is a saying from Sir Mark Walport: “Science isn’t finished until it’s communicated.” Science is no use to anyone if it is kept locked away in the labs that produced the data. The proposed rule could make communicating research findings harder in a number of ways: Make it harder for scientists to widely share their findings in scientific journals. Publication costs, including journal fees that allow for broad public access, could not be paid for by federal funds which is often how scientists pay these costs. Restrict researchers from engaging publicly about how their findings should inform policy or public health guidelines. This would restrict scientists from doing the work that transforms years of lab work into decisions that actually affect people’s lives. Make it harder for scientists to attend conferences. Conferences would now need to be approved by the federal agency at the time of grant award. This disadvantages conferences or publications that are not politically aligned. Conferences are a key way in which scientists learn about work happening in their field so they can collaborate and build on each other’s findings. What good is science with a muzzle? The long-term impact These changes could (and hopefully would) be reversed under the next administration. But by then, damage has been done. Once projects are halted or denied funding by political appointees, people leave their science careers for other paths or even leave the country to do their amazing science elsewhere. You cannot pause a scientific study the way you pause a subscription you decided isn’t useful anymore. You cannot freeze a research team that depends on salaries to feed their families, causing a scramble for replacement funding that, in most cases, simply does not exist. When the money stops, everything stops, and all the work in progress and its potential are lost. Despite all of the language about reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, this new proposed rule increases the administrative burden tremendously. Every researcher watching this unfold will make a rational decision: don’t start anything that will take a decade to finish. This includes not building a team around funding that could vanish, or asking the big questions that need patience and stability to answer. The most consequential science, the kind that produces the treatments and the breakthroughs that reach your doctor’s office twenty years from now, is exactly the science that would be abandoned first. This is still a proposal, so we can all do something Some worry this rule is already a done deal. But by law, OMB is required to open a public comment period. Those comments matter because they inform members of Congress, they can be used in litigation, and they create a public record. So here’s what you can do: Submit a public comment. The public comment period on this proposed change is open until July 13. Anyone can submit a comment, and OMB is required to respond to substantial ones. Each comment must be different to count as distinct; identical comments will be counted only once. Comment as an individual, not on behalf of your organization. Here’s a full resource to help you, with useful examples, but in general: Share a story about how science or federal funding has benefitted you or is involved in your work. Are you or someone you loved a cancer survivor? Do you know someone with Alzheimer’s? Have you received NIH/NSF or other federal funding? All of these can be stories you use to highlight why you care. Explain why you’re worried about these proposed changes. You can use the wording found here or in other resources to help you. Ask them to withdraw this proposed rule. Contact your elected representatives. Congress allocates money to federal agencies to spend, and it has oversight of how that process works. You can let your representatives know this proposed change concerns you and ask them to intervene. There are levers they can push that can help at this moment. Let others know why federal funding matters. This isn’t just about science, but ALL federal grants, including for education systems, defense projects, and more. The process, including the importance of federal funding, is invisible to many. We can all make it more visible by sharing how science benefits us and why we value it. You can also share this article, or any of the resources linked here, to help spread awareness! Bottom line We are quickly losing ground in scientific research in the U.S. More changes, like the proposed rule by OMB, would decimate our ability to conduct research here, leaving us all worse off: fewer treatments for pancreatic cancer, less research on pollution impacts, fewer answers for patients with rare disease, and more unaddressed health needs. The impact will be very real for all of us, regardless of where we stand politically. Using our voices for science is more important than ever. Love, LM Big thanks to Dr. Megan Ranney for reading this over and providing brilliant insights, as always. Dr. Liz Marnik, PhD, is Executive Director of The Evidence Collective at YLE and a science communicator and immunologist working at the intersection of public trust, science, and public health. You can find her on Substack, LinkedIn, Instagram and Threads. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “Translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. The YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

Jun 10 • 6:04 AM EDT • Science • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Commentary: Spencer Pratt could have been a real contender. His greatest enemy was himself

Spencer Pratt had a few things going for him when he launched an insurgent campaign to become Los Angeles' next mayor.

Jun 10 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • latimes.com

Apple Made a Sports App That Does Almost Nothing. It’s Incredible.

There are no chatbots, betting odds, or videos. That’s what makes it perfect.

Jun 10 • 5:45 AM EDT • Sports • slate.com

The White House’s Top Science Goal Is Ignorance

Shutting down scientific inquiry because it discovers things you don’t like is a bit like turning off all the instruments on your plane because they warn you there’s a mountain ahead. It may satisfy your immediate urge to live in denial but will soon turn deadly.

Jun 10 • 5:30 AM EDT • Science • bloomberg.com

iPhone 17's 8GB Limit Costs It These Two Siri AI Features in iOS 27

Apple this week revealed what its most advanced on-device AI model does, and the feature list is shorter than the hardware requirements might suggest. In its Siri AI announcement during WWDC 2026, Apple confirmed that the model powers two things: more expressive Siri voices and a major accuracy gain for systemwide dictation. Both require 12GB of unified memory.

Jun 10 • 5:19 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Logitech Mobi Fold review: The ultra-compact travel mouse

The Mobi Fold is an excellent travel accessory for anyone who wants something that’s better than the built-in touchpad on their laptop.

Jun 10 • 3:01 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Kean misses narrow vote giving Trump immigration effort $70 billion NJ Spotlight News

'These gulags shouldn't exist in our country,' says Conaway, while House speaker praises GOP for doing 'responsible thing'

Jun 10 • 12:15 AM EDT • Politics • njspotlightnews.org

James Van Der Beek's first wife says he gave blessing to her new marriage before his death

James Van Der Beek's first wife, Heather McComb, says the late 'Dawson's Creek' actor gave his blessing to her new marriage before his death: 'Something that I will always hold on my heart.'

Jun 9 • 8:24 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Haunting Sounds of The World's Largest Living Thing Recorded

The giant has something to say.

Jun 9 • 8:12 PM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com

Earth's first animals barely evolved until sex changed everything

Earth’s earliest animals may have held evolution back because they reproduced asexually, creating low-competition communities that changed very little over time. When environmental pressures pushed them toward sexual reproduction, biodiversity exploded and evolution accelerated dramatically.

Jun 9 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

California's slow vote count faces changes as Supreme Court decision on late ballots looms

The U.S. Supreme Court could soon rule that California cannot accept ballots after election day. Experts are unsure what effect that would have on the counting process, but say there are other steps the state could take to speed things up.

Jun 9 • 3:45 PM EDT • Politics • latimes.com

Democratic National Committee: Local small businesses continue to suffer under Trump and his cost-spiking Republicans, forcing them to raise prices on families and cut jobs for workers

According to new data released today by The National Federation of Independent Business, small businesses throughout America continue to suffer under Donald Trump and his cost-spiking Republicans. With everything — from food and utilities to gas and building materials — becoming more...

Jun 9 • 3:13 PM EDT • Business • wispolitics.com

Toby Fox shares update on what's happening with Deltarune Chapter 6

Work continues on Deltarune, and creator Toby Fox provided an update on Chapter 6 today. In case you missed the news, fans won’t have to wait long to experience the next part of the game. Chapter 5 was featured in the Nintendo Direct presentation today and we learned that it’s coming out later in the month. In a newsletter, Fox...

Jun 9 • 2:35 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Xenoblade Genesis reveals director, composers, character designers

Nintendo didn’t have a whole lot to say about Xenoblade Genesis following the Direct reveal, but we now have information about its director, composers, and character designers. First up, Tetsuya Takashi is acting as general director. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise given his involvement with the franchise and Monolith Soft as a whole. Yoko Shimomura is the main...

Jun 9 • 1:47 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

From tennis to T-ball, the White House's South Lawn is no stranger to sports. But not like the UFC

The White House's South Lawn is no stranger to sporting events. But it's never seen anything like the UFC bout Trump is hosting on Sunday.

Jun 9 • 1:31 PM EDT • Sports • nbcwashington.com

From tennis to T-ball, the White House's South Lawn is no stranger to sports. But not like the UFC

The White House's South Lawn is no stranger to sporting events. But it's never seen anything like the UFC bout Trump is hosting on Sunday.

Jun 9 • 1:31 PM EDT • Sports • nbcmiami.com

MacOS Golden Gate Fixes the Most Un-Apple-Like Thing About MacOS

Commentary: MacOS Tahoe's worst feature is finally being addressed, and it has nothing to do with AI or Siri.

Jun 9 • 12:55 PM EDT • Technology • cnet.com

Here’s everything new for Apple Maps in iOS 27

iOS 27 is packed with a variety of new features for iPhone, including in Apple Maps. Here’s everything new for Apple Maps in iOS 27.

Jun 9 • 11:59 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

Developer behind Star Fox on Nintendo Switch 2 has been revealed, and it's surprising

The developer behind Star Fox on Nintendo Switch 2 has now been revealed, and it’s probably what most hadn’t been expected. This is not an internal Nintendo team or even another studio that was previously thrown around. Instead, it’s being handled by Velan. Who is Velan, you ask? Well, the company actually teamed up previously with Nintendo on Mario Kart...

Jun 9 • 11:34 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave boxart, screenshots

Following today’s Nintendo Direct, the official boxart has come in for Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave. We also have a new set of screenshots. Here’s an overview of the game: The Heroic Games are about to begin! A brand-new entry in the Fire Emblem series is coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 system. Discover an intertwining story of strength and steel...

Jun 9 • 11:06 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave gets Nintendo Switch 2 release date, Dagdan Collection revealed

After it was announced close to a year ago, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave received its release date on Nintendo Switch 2 today. The game will be available on September 17, 2026. A special edition has also been revealed, pictured above. We originally found out about Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave during a Nintendo Direct last September. Nintendo only committed to a...

Jun 9 • 10:17 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Siri AI, Apple Intelligence, iOS 27: Everything You Missed at WWDC 2026

We're in Cupertino for Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. Can Tim Cook save Siri and Apple's AI ambitions on his way out the door?

Jun 9 • 9:23 AM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Jennifer Lopez reveals what she would've done in her canceled MTV VMAs performance with Madonna, Britney Spears

"We rehearsed and everything. I went to Madonna's house," Lopez said on "Watch What Happens Live," though she ultimately had to drop out.

Jun 9 • 8:54 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com