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Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
Health Minute: September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and in the U.S. the number of new cases continues to increase with the steepest rise in advanced stages of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But early diagnosis significantly improves odds of survival. In today’s Health Minute, Mandy Gaither explains why screening is not “one size fits all” and what experts say every man should do when it comes to this cancer.
The Odds: Israel’s Image
Heyde Center entertainment
Todd Oliver and Irving The Talking Dog will be on stage at the Heyde Center For The Arts Sunday, Sept. 13, at 2 p.m. A nationally-recognized Ventriloquist and comedian, Oliver
Science says we're not special. But here's why that could be wrong – and why we should be thankful we've not been swallowed by the Sun | BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Time and place explain the Sun’s odd chemistry. Analysis of 79 ‘solar twins’ suggests we’re different – but not special.
Why a shorter eating window may not mean better metabolic health
In a nationally representative cross-sectional study of 16,973 Korean adults, researchers identified three distinct eating patterns based on the timing and distribution of daily energy intake. Eating later within a shorter daily window was associated with higher odds of metabolic syndrome, elevated blood pressure, triglycerides, and fasting glucose, while frequent grazing showed a mixed metabolic profile.
Browns news: Deshaun Watson a team captain for Week 1
The Cleveland Browns and head coach Todd Monken have opted to deploy captains on a week-to-week basis this year, rather than instill season-long captains. The team is young and still trying to figure things out, and Monken believes there are more leaders on the team than just five. Monken will name two offensive, two defensive, and one special […] The post Browns news: Deshaun Watson a team captain for Week 1 appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Orchard Place names Haselhuhn vice president of advancement
Orchard Place has named Adam Haselhuhn its new vice president of advancement, effective Sept. 14. Haselhuhn has more than 14 years of experience in higher education and healthcare philanthropy, most recently serving in senior development leadership roles at the John Stoddard Cancer Center and UnityPoint Health – Des Moines Foundation. He previously served as director…
This cosmic particle was never meant to reach Earth. Now, scientists think they finally know why it did
In 2022, researchers detected a very odd photon from an enormous gamma ray burst that should have been destroyed on its way to Earth
2026 NFL Odds: Which Squads Will Reach 10 Wins?
Fourteen teams are favored to reach 10 wins. Is your team one of them? See the odds.
Updated NFL Conference Championship odds entering 2026-27 season
Here's an updated AFC and NFC Championship odds entering the 2026 NFL season.
The Odds: Inflation Nation
Six decades of politics (but little government)
The first aired episode of “Star Trek,” entitled “The Man Trap,” premiered on September 8, 1966 — 60 years ago today. I’m actually editing a political science fiction issue of The Forum right now, and it’s prompted to me think a lot about the ways that Trek deals with politics and government and what it’s offered us as commentary. The @smotus report is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe The original TV series ran from 1966 to 1969. It had a loyal but modest following, but the audience grew substantially with the series in syndication for years after that. The franchise developed its first motion picture in 1979, followed by five sequels, and then a whole other series of films built around the “Next Generation” series that first aired in 1987. In recent decades, several more TV series have built up around it, including the current “Strange New Worlds,” now in its fourth season. Throughout the past six decades, the franchise has offered us a good many insights into US politics and international relations, although often disguised as science fiction yarns. The original series was largely a Cold War fable, with the United Federation of Planets (a stand-in for the US) perpetually at odds with the Klingon Empire (a stand-in for the USSR). The “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” episode (1969) posited a planet divided into two races, largely indistinguishable to outsiders, but nonetheless constituting a brutal racial hierarchy. “Patterns of Force” (1968) showed a struggling planet where the leader had attempted to construct a benevolent dictatorship — literally Nazism without bigotry — and found that authoritarianism could not exist apart from hierarchy and oppression. (Relatedly, I’d put “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” high on a list of dad films about the end of the Cold War, near “The Hunt for Red October.”) Get 20% off for 1 year Indeed, the original series itself was something of a political statement, with a multi-racial crew running the Enterprise, a diverse and largely peaceful Federation mostly free from want and oppression, and protected by Starfleet, an armed force whose scientific mission was at least as important as its military one. Famously, when Nichelle Nichols wanted to walk away from the role of Uhura on the original series, none other than Martin Luther King, Jr. met with her and urged her to remain on the show, discussing the importance of viewers seeing an intelligent Black woman as part of the command team three centuries hence. Later series in the Trek franchise offered a good deal of political commentary on their own, but probably none as explicitly and incisively as “Deep Space Nine,” which ran from 1993 to 1999. The episodes surrounding the Dominion War, especially the “In The Pale Moonlight” (1998), showed the compromises, sacrifices, and moral rot associated with winning even a just war — probably better than any series would until “Andor” (2022-25). In “Far Beyond The Stars” (1998), Captain Benjamin Sisko is somehow transplanted to the role of a science fiction writer in 1950s New York. The writer is frequently sidelined and his ideas stolen because publishers don’t want to credit a Black writer. Several series have depicted the secretive Section 31 — an unacknowledged black ops security force operating within Starfleet. These episodes often end up using Section 31 as a foil to show the dangers of a lawless group within a lawful society, even (especially) when that group posits itself as essential for everyone else’s freedom to continue. The current “Strange New Worlds” has played with a few political themes. I found the first two seasons of this show among the best that the Trek franchise has produced in decades, but this season and the last have really been struggling for ideas. Yet one interesting thread is the idea that the diplomatic and enlightened leadership style of Captain Christopher Pike will not work in all situations. “A Quality of Mercy” (2022), which I wrote about here, puts Pike in the middle of a battle with a Romulan vessel in an alternate timeline, and finds that Pike’s conciliatory style would actually make a lengthy and deadly war more likely, while a quick and more violent approach might have prevented the war. This season’s opener, “Valles Marineris,” shows a pre-lightspeed civilization locked in a war to the death with a neighboring planet. The idea of an alliance or a federation hasn’t even occurred to them — their ship’s commander is curious but doesn’t see it as an option. For a franchise as political as “Star Trek,” one thing we almost never see is the government. We get occasional glimpses of Starfleet’s council — mostly uniformed people at a rectangular table — but almost no sense of how the Federation is governed. Are there elections? Who is in the legislature? How much power does the president have? What kind of factional divisions do they wrestle with and how? The shows and films are pretty silent on this. We’ve seen a few military tribunals within Starfleet, but little about how civilians deal with crime and injustice. With recent years seeing some of the franchise’s more interesting plot lines and casts, it seems clear that Star Trek is still full of energy and ideas. Given the erosion of American democracy and the reshuffling of the international order, there’s no shortage of material for future shows to comment on. I’m not sure we should toast to 60 more years, but cheers to a show that continues to teach us about ourselves. Share
Islanders News: Eyes on Eiserman, Gold
Not a lot of “news” fodder coming out of a long holiday weekend in the U.S., but Labor Day is behind us and training camp is now on the horizon. Islanders News Elsewhere
Mod Revives Multi-GPU Gaming With Dedicated DLSS 5 GPU for Impressive FPS Gain
If you were around during what many consider the golden age of PC gaming, back when SLI was still possible, and, going back even further, when gamers put dedicated PhysX cards into their PCs, the latest trick shown off by modder, Marcelo Guibout, on YouTube. Guibot showed off a gaming setup using...
Senate candidate Todd Achilles talks costs, health care at Twin Falls County Fair
The Twin Falls County Fair wrapped up as independent U.S. Senate candidate Todd Achilles campaigned there, discussing rising costs, health care and congressional reform with voters in the Magic Valley.
Todd Monken Weighs in on Browns QB Rumors
Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken has weighed in on all the rumors surrounding the team's quarterback situation.
Titans Rookie is a Dark Horse for an NFL Award
While Carnell Tate climbs the offensive leaderboards, another Titans rookie looks to defy longshot betting odds and flourish within Robert Saleh’s revamped Tennessee front four.
Final Fantasy Resonance modders have already reinstated the original mobile game's biggest icon, Ariana Grande
Final Fantasy Resonance isn't even out yet, but modders are already reviving characters from Brave Exvius, including Kingdom Hearts' Sora and Ariana Grande.
Notre Dame football vs. Rice | How to watch, listen, odds
Here are things to know about Notre Dame football vs. Rice on Saturday, Sept. 12. How to watch, listen and odds.
The Odds: American Workers’ Woes
Supreme Court Could Resolve Marijuana Business Licensing Disputes, Congressional Report Says
A new report from congressional researchers says that a split among circuit courts about whether state marijuana business licensing systems can discriminate against out-of-state residents “likely increases the odds” that the Supreme Court will take up and resolve the issue. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, published on Thursday, examines the Dormant Commerce Clause of […]
Country music star touring at 57 despite incurable illness. Here’s what we know
He has long defied the odds.
Mizzou Opening Odds: Tigers favored in Lawrence
The Tigers head to the bad place favored by a score.
The core anti-Pangram constituency is phony writers
Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week. The Verdict, by Kelsey Piper A lot of people hate AI for drowning the internet in slop and displacing human creatives. You might think that these people would be thrilled by a program that can identify and flag AI-generated work. But many people who hate AI also hate Pangram, an impressively accurate AI detector that produces very few false positives, according to high-quality independent research. This loathing found its most recent expression in a bizarre Wired article that amplifies a wide range of false arguments from Pangram skeptics: that AI detectors are racist (they’re not) or ableist (they’re not)1 or don’t work (this one does)2. Rather than starting from the premise that it would be really valuable to have a working AI detector and scrutinizing Pangram to make sure it lives up to that promise, the article starts from the premise that Pangram obviously has bad vibes and sets out to discover why. (One answer: The CEO microwaved lunch during an interview!) Why aren’t writers who resent Pangram more eager to distinguish themselves from posters who are having ChatGPT ghostwrite all their work? There are a few different things at play, but I think one key dynamic is this: These are often the same people. A core constituency for arguments like Wired’s is “writers” who are using AI to write their posts but resent this fact being made public. They stand to lose from AI detectors because AI detectors call them out. Share When Substack announced a partnership with Pangram, a sizable fraction of the platform’s authors rose up in outrage. Some people had experience with other AI detectors that didn’t work, and some felt that AI writing ought to be encouraged — both of which are fair enough. But the fury was fueled by authors passionately insisting that Pangram kept wrongly accusing them on almost every post they published. Pangram can be wrong, especially on short passages. But in the overwhelming majority of cases where Pangram looked at a whole blog post rather than a single paragraph, the program correctly detected work as AI. Even if we can’t be 100% sure in any individual case, we can notice the trend in the aggregate. Wired quotes Sam Illingworth, a professor of critical AI literacy at Edinburgh Napier University, who said, “I don’t think [AI detectors] work. … I think that detectors are prejudiced against certain people.” This spring, he said that he used AI for research and editing; this summer he acknowledged that in addition to research and editing, he also uses it “now and then for a turn of phrase I keep.” Pangram informs us that most of his posts are 100% AI-written (some are mixed AI-and-human) and that 100% AI-written posts started appearing last year. The favorable interpretation is that, as someone whose recent work Pangram consistently mistakes for AI, Illingworth sees Pangram’s flaws firsthand. The unfavorable interpretation is that the tool’s credibility trades off against his own, because its account of who writes his posts is not consistent with his. Illingworth is not alone in insisting the detector does not work. “It’s a Monday night in late July, and I’m pasting my own Substack draft into an AI detector for the first time. Not because I’m worried. Because I’m curious. I wrote every word of it myself, the way I write everything, out loud in my head first, in a rhythm that still carries the accent of a language I learned to think in before I learned to write in this one,” begins one Substack post by an author indignant that Pangram flags her writing as AI. “That’s the part I had to sit with before I could write this.” If you, like me, have worked with AIs a lot, you won’t even need Pangram there. The author of that piece is AI. It is obviously AI! I checked 10 other posts on the blog, and they were also obviously AI! “I have spent 22 years as an award-winning author and essayist. And now this bullshit tool that learned from MY writing is going to accuse me of plagiarism,” popular Substack writer Carlyn Beccia wrote in an anti-Pangram post. “For the last and final time, AI DETECTORS DO NOT WORK.” Here’s what her writing sounded like in 2020: “Most success stories revolve around one person who believed enough in you to say — give it a try. We call these people muses, but they are so much more than that. They are the strong man giants whose shoulders we stand on so we can see the horizon. Throughout the editing process, I am sure my editor felt less like a giant of greatness and more like Atlas with the world on her shoulders.” Pangram says it was 100% human-written. (So were other articles of hers in 2020.) And here’s what it sounds like now: “And then there is the reshuffling, which sounds like paperwork until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork. The Trump regime recently moved special education oversight from the Education Department to HHS. That is not a minor bureaucratic transfer. It changes the frame.”3 Pangram says this is mostly AI. I am not convinced that Pangram is wrong. In my own experience, Pangram is very effective on long texts — if it marks a long essay as AI, the essay was either written by AI or deliberately written to sound like AI. On tweet-length or paragraph-length texts, it’s not perfectly reliable. It seems to work just as well for non-native English speakers as for native speakers. While I have seen dozens of claims of pre-2022 text returning a positive result on Pangram, I have tried repeatedly to corroborate those and have never once succeeded. To be clear, I’m absolutely not saying that complaining about Pangram suggests a writer is a cheat. There are plenty of other concerns. Most are mistakenly premised, such as the false claim that Pangram trains on work you put into it, but others are reasonable: It’s unreliable on sufficiently short text segments; it creates an internet witch-hunt mentality when there are defensible uses of AI; people who are open about their AI use are sometimes blamed, when the only people really doing something wrong are the ones who hide it; and it isn’t perfect, so a single positive result shouldn’t be taken as decisive proof of misconduct. I’m happy to concede that Pangram is imperfect and possible to over-rely on. If an author’s posts are mostly non-AI and one scans as partially AI, this could be a mistake. It’s also possible to defeat Pangram with intentional effort. If you think we need something more robust and more reliable, fine! But if you don’t like AI and don’t like Pangram, your attitude really ought to be that it’s a shame that our existing tools for AI detection are imperfect, and it’s important to invent better ones. If your stance is instead that AI is evil and so is looking for AI, then ultimately you’re contributing to the sloppification of the internet. You’re making it harder for people who write their own text to distinguish themselves, and providing cover for authors who are definitely not writing their own text. Subscribe Top stories this week, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs Commentators often worry that the decline of reading could mean the decline of liberal democracy — but deliberative governance actually predated widespread literacy. This week, Maibritt Henkel pointed out that many liberal cultures thrive on a culture of raucous, interactive debate, which can happen in-person as easily, if not more so, than in text. Read on, dear reader, to learn more. It may actually cheer you up: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) [ Reading won’t save liberalism ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) Maibritt Henkel · Sep 1 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) It used to be bad to downplay climate change (if we mean denying its reality). Today, it’s actually good to downplay climate change (if we mean keeping the issue out of political fights so we can make real progress). This counterintuitive view is called “climate hushing,” and contributor Alex Trembath argued that it’s the key to enacting good policy going forward. Get up to speed on the latest in climate politics: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) [ We won’t stop climate change by talking about it ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Alex Trembath · Sep 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing up for the forces of liberalism against Donald Trump’s assault on our closest ally. So, why is one prominent left-wing commenter attacking Carney? Columnist Matthew Yglesias explains: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) [ When "economic liberty" means central planning ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) Matthew Yglesias · Aug 31 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) 🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟 Shout out to my home state of California, whose legislature passed two housing bills this week. One requires a housing density minimum in transit-oriented areas of the state’s most transit-rich cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Long Beach). Another bill closes two common loopholes used by third parties to delay housing projects, including an opportunity to challenge maps of a given lot created by the developer after a project has been approved. Shout out to our big-state rival, Texas, where pro-housing SB 785 took effect this week. The new state law requires municipalities to have at least one district permitted for manufactured housing without a special permit. This will promote zoning changes in 44% of municipalities. The company Fervo Energy signed a deal with Google for what is set to be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility, proving a technology can work at a scale that could be crucial to a decarbonized, energy-abundant economy. Share Worth watching… This week, forecasting legend Nate Silver joined Jerusalem, Matt, and Jeremiah on a crowded episode of the pod. It was a party. And speaking of parties, our round table debated the factional lines within the Democratic Party: Is it possible to be center-left and also anti-establishment? Watch or listen to find out: The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the areas that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024, but musician Bobby Pulido is running to flip it back. Right now, The Argument/Split Ticket’s model has him running 1.1 points behind his Republican opponent in a district Trump won by 18 points. Tune in to find out how he differs from national Democrats and what he thinks he can to do win this seat. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders was among the first politicians to call for a ban on superintelligence. My guest this week, Andrea Miotti, has been lobbying to ban superintelligence for several years, most recently in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. I asked him how he gets legislators to take speculative risks seriously, and we dug into what plans might look like to actually pass a ban. Listen to learn more: What’s News with The Argument The Argument recommends, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs If we ever lose track of Justin Zuckerman, I’ll have the team split up and check all the movie theaters in the city. I’m shocked (and a little jealous) at how often he gets out to see good cinema. This week, he brings us It Ends, a “horror-ish movie,” which he described as a “Gen Z Waiting for Godot.” I was intrigued before he added that it was “funny, dark and existential” — at which point I was fully locked in. I guess I also had existential themes on the mind this week. One morning, a single line from a poem I read long ago just came to me: “Is death a stretch of time in which a life is just a flash?” The poem is called “From 20,000 Feet” by Heather McHugh. I suggest the version in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, which, by tradition, my best friend and I always bring backpacking, extra weight be damned. We’ll stay thematically dark for just one more rec from senior editor John Robert Thomason, whose upcoming trip to Baltimore reminded him to suggest Michael Clune’s memoir White Out (about being addicted to heroin in Baltimore in the 1990s). Ben Lerner’s blurb called it _“_Disturbing, brilliant, hilarious—it’s as if Proust had written Jesus’ Son.” John told me this “seems accurate, with the caveat that I’ve never read Proust.” I, personally, have also shelved Proust until retirement. At this point, I was a little concerned for the team since all of us tossed out such psychologically grim material — maybe we’re all down about the end of summer — but thankfully, at least a few of us were into more upbeat selections. Milan Singh recommended Made In’s 5-quart stainless clad saucier, suggesting he had some fun in the kitchen. Jeremiah Johnson asked if he could recommend yet more Carly Rae Jepsen. Once denied, he offered up Game Changer instead_,_ calling it “the most wildly creative game show, maybe in the entire history of the genre.” Eli Richman mentioned _Lucky, “_a B-tier show with an A-tier cast and an S-tier theme song.” I suppose he was recommending the song, Horns of a Bull. Still, despite these cheerier recs, I couldn’t help but be concerned that we were subconsciously worried about racing toward summer’s end — the end of swim trunks and splashing around. Then a message landed reminding me of the three-day weekend to come. A whole extra day for sunshine. One more swim in the lake. I was grateful this called to mind yet another line from a poem, one by Mary Oliver, the patron saint of every gorgeous summer day (and about whom a documentary is now out). Speaking to God in the poem “Thirst,” she wrote: grant me, in your mercy,a little more time. Love for the earthand love for you are having such a longconversation in my heart. We have merch! We have quarter-zips, keychains, hats, and stickers. Each one is a great conversation starter in its own way. Buy them here. Subscribe More to read: [ The Opening Argument ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite)[ Seeing like an elite ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) Kobe Yank-Jacobs · Sep 4 What do Americans hear when they watch Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President JD Vance rail against the elite? Are they thinking of right-wing tech billionaires? Imperious college professors? Liberal magazine writers? [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) [ The Weekly Scroll ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline)[ God is back on the timeline ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) Jeremiah Johnson · Sep 5 This week, we’re talking about Substack’s new religious debates, the continuing MAGA influencer scandal, how to retire from YouTube, and aura battles. [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) 1 This was a legitimate thing to worry about, but doesn’t seem to be a problem given the actual technology: Marijke Van Vlasselaer, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, and Bram Spruyt’s 2026 paper looks at whether Pangram is less accurate when evaluating the work of non-native speakers of English. It isn’t. That’s because Pangram isn’t really looking at how “unusual” a piece of writing is but whether it has the characteristic patterns of LLMs. The Wired article makes an odd gesture at a different Pangram-is-racist argument. There were several controversies this summer during which upcoming books were canceled after being discovered to be AI-written: “The three novels mentioned earlier — Shy Girl, Daggermouth, and Call Me, easily publishing’s biggest AI-detection scandals — were all written by writers of color.” But come on! As Zvi Mowshowitz put it: “They were not primarily written by people of color. They were primarily written by AIs.” That’s the whole problem! And as my colleague Jeremiah Johnson recently observed with respect to Cambridge’s Arday scandal, a community being unwilling to call out fraud if it’s perpetuated by people of color is not an anti-racist tendency; it is ultimately quite racist. 2 Many non-Pangram detectors don’t work, but many possible airplane designs also don’t work, and no one considers this a general argument against aviation; the thing that matters is whether any detection works. 3 The phrase “empires have always loved” mysteriously became all the rage in the last few years. See here, here, here, here and here. Before 2025, the only use of that phrase I have been able to find is a single Tweet. The logic of the sentence, too, is incoherent in an AI-characteristic way. “...sounds like paperwork, until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork”? Does remembering that make it sound less like paperwork? It’s a craft-ful sentence, but what is it actually saying??
ESPN discusses Browns' Todd Monken and his playcalling history
Todd Monken and his playcalling get discussed ahead of Week 1.
Tennessee opens as a big road favorite over Georgia Tech
Well, that is quite the vote of confidence from the oddsmakers. The Tennessee Volunteers have had a Week 2 road date at Georgia Tech circled for quite a while on the calendar. The Vols’ biggest non-conference game, it’s one that could be a true swing game to the season for the Big Orange. It’s one […]
Betting odds released for Michigan Football vs Oklahoma
The betting odds for Michigan Football vs Oklahoma have been released, and the Wolverines open the week as the underdogs:
Wisconsin vs. Notre Dame: How to watch + betting odds
Can the Badgers defy the odds on Sunday?
Gasperini to start Mora in Champions League clash
Rodrigo Mora has taken over Roma. Gian Piero Gasperini is obsessed with the 2007-born player: he coddles him: “He’s an extraordinary talent. He’s already won two championships at just 19 years o...
Rise & Dine: Irish Hollow offers unique country charm
GALENA, Ill. — At the turn of the 20th century, a visitor traveling between Elizabeth and Galena would have encountered the village of Rodden.
Titans HC Robert Saleh Can Easily Get NFL Honor
Inheriting a struggling roster and high betting odds, Robert Saleh aims to transform Nashville’s fortunes by snapping a losing culture and securing a definitive postseason return.
After years of defying the odds, California's David Valadao faces new test as Latinos turn on Trump
Republican congressman David Valadao has defied the odds before, winning elections in California districts with big Democratic registration advantages
After years of defying the odds, California's David Valadao faces new test as Latinos turn on Trump
Republican congressman David Valadao has defied the odds before, winning elections in California districts with big Democratic registration advantages.
Michigan football vs Western Michigan time, channel, streaming and odds
Michigan football takes on Western Michigan in an in-state battle to kick off the 2026 season.
Notre Dame Emerges as 2027 CFP Favorite, Odds Show
The latest data and lines show that Notre Dame lands the best odds, but there could be some challengers ready to take over. The post Notre Dame Emerges as 2027 CFP Favorite, Odds Show appeared first on HEAVY.
From cockroach milk to stepping on snakes, Ig Nobel awards celebrates science at its oddest
Cockroach milk, kissing evolution and the underwear soil test were among the unusual real studies honored at the Ig Nobel ceremony in Zurich.
From cockroach milk to stepping on snakes, Ig Nobel awards celebrates science at its oddest
Cockroach milk, kissing evolution and the underwear soil test were among the unusual real studies honored at the Ig Nobel ceremony in Zurich.
Wisconsin vs. Notre Dame: Picks, predictions, and odds
How are we feeling for Week 1?
15 discouraging hours with Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and 10 brilliant ones with He Who Watches
In the last few weeks, while playing some video games that I might review, I emailed two cries for help. I sent the first to a rep for Capcom, confessing that the company’s samurai game Onimusha Way of the Sword (out today for PC and console) was crushing me. “Feels like I’m playing ‘hard’ mode, not ‘normal,’” I wrote. “And I don’t want to have to knock it down to “story”. I’m exploring, trying to level my gear, but these two-phase boss fights with no mid-fight checkpoints are brutal.” I wagered I was only about halfway through the game, if that. I wasn’t sure I could keep up with the steepening difficulty curve. Was I missing something? Then, on Monday, I took some photos of some puzzles that were baffling me in the mind-bending He Who Watches (out now on PC), wrote out lengthy descriptions of how I’d been trying to solve them and asked Bobby Vanden, the game’s solo developer, for a nudge in the right direction. I told Vanden I’d spent hours on these puzzles. “I’m stuck in triplicate,” I told him. Could he tell me if the solutions I was attempting were even on the right track? I didn’t mention that the puzzles—coupled with major time pressures from other work—were stressing me out so much that playing the game was giving me headaches. This double dose of panic was unusual. I’m used to managing a workload full of reporting and reviewing, used to a crowded schedule and the need to stay calm amid the bustle. But I was stressed about these games. No one was forcing me to review them, nor even play them. I’d simply found them interesting enough to start, hoped they’d be interesting enough to write about and I’d sunk hours into them assuming I’d made the right call. Suddenly, however, I felt trapped. I was emailing for a way out. Above: This guy took me about an hour to beat. The feedback I got from Capcom confirmed my fears. They didn’t say it, but I will: Onimusha Way of the Sword is not for me. It’s a brutally hard game in need of a normal difficulty level. It’s a game that spikes so severely during its abundant boss fights—yet offers such flawed ways to improve when outside of them—that it feels like a bait-and-switch. In the new Onimusha, you play as famed samurai Musashi Miyamoto, aided by a magical soul-absorbing gauntlet that is possessed by a lady who offers advice. (Way of the Sword is a continuation of Capcom’s long-dormant Onimusha series, but that set-up had me wondering if the company was cribbing from their ill-fated Bionic Commando reboot; read about “wife-arm” when you get a chance). Way of the Sword is partially set in 17th century Kyoto, an explorable city where Miyamoto can fight demons, help civilians and eventually rescue ghostly dogs. The city evolves over time, with new mini adventures and obtainable loot on offer, all feeding into systems that promise to upgrade your gear and sword-fighting skills. Upgrades, however, are so incremental as to be imperceptible, causing the exploration of Kyoto to feel like inconsequential busywork. From that hub, players can go on linear missions into forests and old temples, where they will encounter many of the game’s tough bosses. Combat in Way of the Sword is akin to many modern melee games. Players are asked to mix attacks with dodges and parries. They’re encouraged to deplete an enemy’s stamina bar in order to do greater damage to its health bar. The old Onimusha games’ signature move was the issen, a counter-attack so sudden it’s all but pre-emptive. You strike just as they begin to strike toward you, beating them to the cut. By definition, the issen is a high risk move, leaving you wide open to pain. It feels risky in the game, especially against bosses, who can maul you in just a few blows. A game might train you to perform an issen well by offering a variety of lesser enemies who are not as tough as the boss but get close. Or it might offer a toehold against bosses by saving or checkpointing the player’s progress when a boss’ first health bar has been destroyed and before the second health bar appears. It might offer the less skilled player a chance to over-level their character, should the player simply commit to playing through its optional sidequests. Way of the Sword does none of this. Fighting its trivially easy grunt enemies and then its ferociously adept bosses is like playing a game of chess where I’ve got a rook, while the opposing side is all pawns and five queens. Bosses simply don’t checkpoint. You may be able to clear a boss’ first phase without taking much damage. Good for you. Do it again, every time you fail the second phase. As for the the central Kyoto hub, I kept pace with all of its added side activities and never felt like I was overpowered. Bosses could still easily buckle me. The new Onimusha, I concluded, is just too discouraging to keep playing. The advice I got from Capcom had been well-intentioned. They reminded me of the game’s various systems. They alerted me to an optional assist that flashes recommended button inputs (basically: counter this move; dodge that move). It was a little helpful. So was dropping down to “story mode,” which I tried last night. Story mode turns on those button prompts by default. It makes countering and dodging way too easy, nearly automatic. I don’t consider myself a master of action games like these, but I’ve cleared the likes of God of War, Stellar Blade, Star Wars Jedi and others of sub-Sekiro difficulty and had a fun time doing so. Not here. Not yet. Unless they patch Onimusha: Way of the Sword and add a middle difficulty or just checkpoint the damn bosses when they’re between health bars, my streak of loving Capcom games released in 2026 will likely end at two. It’s a shame, because I was having a good time finding those ghostly dogs. And then there’s He Who Watches, a phenomenal first person puzzle game with Portal vibes, except instead of a portal gun you’ve got a magical bow that shoots one arrow that can activate switches or be used to drag blocks. The twist is an actual twist: you can also walk on walls and the ceiling, reorienting gravity as you do, thereby placing blocks onto those other surfaces. Walking on walls and ceilings to solve problems is really the best thing. Would that I could in reality. He Who Watches consists of locked-room challenges, each brief enough to only require about a minute to actually solving, though it will take five, 10, eventually 30 minutes to figure out said solutions. They are not obvious! It’s a game of layered mechanics and shocking solutions. For example, see if you can follow this: You can drag a block to a wall. Then you can walk on the wall, which now feels like the floor, and drag that block across the wall. Later, back on the floor, you might realize you can look up. The block is still on the wall, stuck to it. You can shoot your magic arrow to its underside. Doing so creates a tether, so that you can yank the block off the wall and carry it, as if it were a balloon, into the spot where you need it to be to solve the puzzle. Here, watch Vanden explain some of the game’s basics in this launch trailer: As with any great puzzle game, the solutions to He Who Watches’ puzzles elicit relief and amazement. Oh my god, that worked! I didn’t even think that could be possible! Learning to solve the game’s puzzles feels like learning magic. But, oh, does the game get hard. Its Steam reviews, mostly glowing, are full of players remarking how quickly He Who Watches made them sweat. Wrote one: “loving this one already although my brain is hurting!” Wrote another: “As you get further in the game it feels like you need an IQ level of at least 120+.” Vanden has shown some mercy. Each locked room puzzle includes an optional junior version of the puzzle, meant to teach you. Difficulty nevertheless ramps severely. By the time I was emailing Vanden for help, I was struggling to even clear one of the hint puzzles. When I messaged him, my stress was exacerbated by strange things I’d found in the game’s various hubs: suspicious passageways, odd blocks and some intriguing locked doors. These were hints of secrets, I realized, yet I sensed I needed to play further into the game to understand them. I was stuck, but I wanted to see the rest. Vanden offered to give me the exact solutions, to solve those three puzzles for me, but first he gave four nudges. Three were for the specific puzzles, but his best hint was for all and ultimately proved to be a terrific life lesson: go back a bit, he suggested. Do the puzzles right before those. They were teaching you something. Focus on what their lesson was. Don’t rush, in other words. Recognize what you’ve accomplished. Build off of that. I did so. I absorbed the lessons. I saw those three tough puzzles in a new light. I solved one the night after he wrote back, another the morning after. I left a third for another time. I didn’t need it and I wanted to plunge deeper into the game, closer to the moment when I was sure I could start unlocking those secret doors. My head stopped hurting, too. He Who Watches feels special. It’s got more challenges, and I’m undeterred. It’s also nice that its puzzles don’t have a surprise second health bar. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: In brief… 🎮 Ilari Kuittinen, co-founder of Helsinki-based Housemarque (Super Stardust HD, Resogun, Returnal) has stepped down from his studio, after a 31-year run, saying he’s “ taking a rare and well-deserved breather.” Sony purchased Housemarque in 2021, and the studio released its newest game, Saros, earlier this year. Trend-watch: Sony-owned Insomniac saw its founder Ted Price retire in early 2025, after a 30-year run. Sony-owned Sucker Punch saw its co-founder Brian Fleming step down in late 2025, after a 28-year run. 👀 Savvy Games Group chief Brian Ward is stepping down from the Saudi-government-backed games conglomerate, Bloomberg reports. No word on a long-term successor yet, nor if this augurs any closer integration between Savvy and Electronic Arts. EA was purchased by a consortium led by Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, in early August. 💿 Square Enix has denied a Japanese media report that the company was planning to go private. In very different Square Enix news, the company revealed that the physical version of Final Fantasy VII: Revelation, the April 2027 finale of its radical remakes of FFVII, will include just one disc in its case, requiring a download for the rest. The first two FFVII remakes in the trilogy shipped on two discs apiece. While Square hasn’t commented on the reason why, a feature here in Game File last month broke down the processes and costs for physical games. The expense of a second disc comes out of the game publisher’s cut of each copy. Square could be saving in excess of a dollar a copy with this move. 🟥 Grand Theft Auto IV’s 26-minute ’‘extended look” gameplay showcase that premiered on Netflix last week—and was exclusive to the platform for six hours—drew 31.1 million views in its first four days, the streamer announced. (Netflix calculates views as total viewed hours divided by runtime; excludes replays). Compared to YouTube: The version that later premiered on Rockstar Games’ YouTube channel is sitting at 22.6 million views after seven days (YouTube’s more liberal counting system tallies anyone who viewed even just the first few second.) Compared to other Netflix mega-events: Last year, Stranger Things season 5’s first four episodes, which debuted together, drew a record 59.6 million views in their first few days on Netflix. For more of a live event type of comparison, in 2024, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match drew 65 million concurrent streams as it happened; Netflix didn’t release live numbers for the GTA premiere. ☁️ Microsoft is changing the way it charges for cloud gaming, from an all-you-can-play offer for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, to caps for the subscription’s tiers (15 hours per month at the Ultimate tier), with the option to buy more hours in bulk beyond that. The company also said it will sell batches of cloud gaming time to non-Game Pass subscribers, details TBA. Microsoft does not release figures for cloud game usage, but said its changes would impact 4% of Game Pass subscribers. That implies a small portion of its subscribers exceed the 15-hour monthly mark. Cloud gaming offers the promise of playing games without the need for console or PC hardware, as the graphics, sound and controls are all transmitted via a streaming connection. Microsoft notes that its cloud gaming service can be used for a range of things, including Xbox One players using it to play newer-gen Xbox Series games via streaming; and people playing games via streaming, sans any console, “in markets where consoles are less available or affordable.” (That latter use case could even be relevant in Xbox’s home market soon, as console prices keep rising.) Take Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick recently told investors he expects game-streaming tech, which has been only lightly adopted by gamers for over a decade, to be widely used within three years. 🇺🇸 The Trump administration has published multiple agenda-driven web video games to the White House’s website. One called Build The Wall partially clones Tetris as it asks players to build a wall to stop a “zombie border siege.” While actual Tetris involves clearing lines and basically not building a wall, the Trump-backed game omits the line-clearing aspect (and omits the fun as well). On Instagram, Tetris’ official license holders reacted by stating: “At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them. To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community. P.S. The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of ‘Build the Wall.’ P.P.S.: We take copyright infringement very seriously.” Item 3: The week ahead: Tuesday, September 8 Game releases: Mewgenics (consoles; already out on PC) is an engrossing tactical combat game (with cats). It is getting its console port right after the release of a Star Wars tactics game and ahead of the late September launch of a Fire Emblem–a bumper crop for the genre. Wanderburg (PC) is an auto-shooting game like Vampire Survivors, but you’re a castle on wheels Event: Nintendo airs a 30-minute Nintendo Direct (10am ET) focused on The Legend of Zelda’s 40th Anniversary. A full unveiling of the upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is expected. Will they also show footage from next year’s live action movie? Tease the next big 3D Zelda? Add Link to Mario Kart World? Shadow-drop a new Tingle game? Wednesday, September 9 Event: Nintendo again! On this day, they’re planning to air a 45-minute Nintendo Direct (10am ET) focused on games heading to Switch 2 this winter. Followed by about an hour of gameplay demoed by the company’s Treehouse team. The September Nintendo Directs are always some of the year’s biggest. The 2025 edition included announcements of several major 2026 Switch/Switch 2 games: Pokémon Pokopia, Mario Tennis Fever, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave. Plus the return of the Virtual Boy. Friday, September 11 Game release: EA Sports NHL 27 (PlayStation, Xbox) is a hockey game. There are so few that an indie studio that had been making wacky sci-fi first-person shooters just announced that, hey, we’re going to fill a void and make a hockey game for PC.
Who pays if PEEHIP’s rising health care costs outpace state funding?
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WBMA) — Alabama’s public education health insurance plan says it needs another $222 million in funding next year just to maintain current bene
ESPN Ups Its Tennis Coverage Behind Andy Roddick And RedZone
TNT's "whiparound"-style tennis coverage comes to ESPN as Andy Roddick impresses in the first year of a new 12-year deal to air the U.S. Open
Browns’ Todd Monken Dismisses Heat Complaints With Blunt ‘Blessing’ Message
Todd Monken has a hard job ahead of the 2026 NFL season. He has to lead the Cleveland Browns, a team that had a very poor 2025 campaign. There is a lot of expectations on both him and the team for the coming games. Despite this being his first head coaching role in the league, […] The post Browns’ Todd Monken Dismisses Heat Complaints With Blunt ‘Blessing’ Message appeared first on Gridiron Heroics.
Colorado Stuns Georgia Tech in Final Minutes, 14-13
Colorado pulled off one of the biggest comebacks of the opening week Thursday night, stunning Georgia Tech 14-13 at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. The Buffaloes trailed by six points late in the fourth quarter before finding the end zone in the final minutes to steal the victory. Colorado’s win avenged last season’s 27-20 loss…
NT government says no more ‘coddling criminals’ or ‘identity politics’ after experts walk out over ignored advice
Independent experts and organisations tasked with improving justice outcomes for First Nations people say Territorian government is not entering into ‘genuine partnership’
Blizzard Might Be Teasing A New StarCraft Game
There's something odd happening on the StarCraft website. While the content still features StarCraft Remastered, which launched back in 2017, the page now seems to be glitching out, with various elements, images, and text blocks flickering on-screen randomly. Could Blizzard be teasing a new StarCraft game?
New DLSS 5 Swapper tool can mod DLSS 5 into games that don't support DLSS at all
The modding community has released a new version of DLSS Swapper made specifically for DLSS 5, simplifying and automating DLSS 5 modding in games.
Kentucky vs. Youngstown State prediction, odds for Week 1 football game
It's Kentucky vs. Youngstown State in Week 1 of the 2026 college football season. Who will win? See our prediction for the game.
Chad Powers season two review – Glen Powell’s sweet sports comedy scores a touchdown
The Hollywood hottie is back as the quarterback in disguise, in an oddball comedy that is naughty, lovable and disarmingly unique
Tech, Entertainment and the 1/5 Odds Meaning Made Simple
How on-demand, data and mobile reshaped entertainment, and made things like the 1/5 odds meaning a two-minute read instead of insider jargon.
Former UK President Lee Todd advocates for a new science center in Kentucky
Former University of Kentucky President Lee Todd is pushing for the creation of a Kentucky Science Center, saying the emphasis on the subject is lagging behind reading and math.
Colorado vs. Georgia Tech: Season Opener Set for Thursday Night
The 2026 college football season officially gets underway for two Power Four programs on Thursday night when the Colorado Buffaloes travel to Atlanta to take on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. ET on ESPN at Bobby Dodd Stadium, with Georgia Tech looking to begin the season with another win…
Modding Platform Nexus Mods Now Owns SteamDB
Nexus Mods said the community-led SteamDB site will operate as it always has, while becoming stronger and better resourced.
My Friend Has Big Plans for Our Toddlers. Uh, This Isn’t Happening.
You can't force a friendship!
Running Back Market Rebounds, Todd Gurley Has Thoughts
Former Rams rusher Todd Gurley is happy to see top running backs Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson and Jonathan Taylor land big-money extensions in 2026.
Todd Monken Is 'Absolutely Not' Bothered By Deshaun Watson Backlash
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SoHo neighbors, businesses at odds ahead of $93M flood relief vote
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The Odds: A Midterm about Trump?
Tim Cook is out as Apple CEO, showed us how to succeed a legend
Apple's newly departed CEO, Tim Cook, beat the odds as Steve Jobs' successor by combining his strengths and judgment with Jobs' values.
Leaked DLSS 5 is Being Tested on RTX 20-series "Turing" GPUs, Now Runs on Emulators and Old DirectX Titles
The leaked DLSS 5 DLL keeps finding new homes, and support has now spread to RTX 20-series "Turing" GPUs. That architecture is three whole generations behind the NVIDIA-recommended "Blackwell," and modders are showing no signs of stopping either. Developer ShortFuse has released new DLSS-NR...
Wellsburg Health Care Center and Red Cross host Community House blood drive in Follansbee
WTOV NBC 9 provides local news, weather forecasts, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Steubenville and nearby towns and communities in the Ohio Valley area including, in Ohio Steubenville, St. Clairsville, Wintersville, Cadiz, Bellaire, Toronto, Martins Ferry, Barnesville, Shadyside, Bridgeport, and Mingo Junction and in West Virginia Wheeling, Weirton, Moundsville, New Martinsville, and Wellsburg.
Kalshi bans ex-Rep. Santos after concluding he likely was insider trading
On the eve of Trump’s speech, Kalshi put the odds of Santos attending at close to 75%.
The Odds: Independent Wallet Woes
Betting odds released for Michigan vs Western Michigan
Will Michigan cover the spread against Western Michigan? Here’s a look at the betting odds.
Aboard the Mothership: Todd Graves’ past, present and future collide in original restaurant
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Grass Is Latest Issue With Bills’ New Stadium
The field will be re-sodded ahead of Buffalo’s Week 2 home opener.
Arizona opens as huge favorite vs. NAU
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Democratic Senate control has moved from a reach to a toss-up
The four-seat gain Democrats need to win control once seemed all but out of reach. Odds are looking up, though the party still faces a tough path, with toss-up races in a half dozen (mostly red) states.
Michigan State Spartans Football odds for 2026
What do the sportsbooks predict for the Spartans’ 2026 season?
Elversberg: The tiny town looking to defy odds in Bundesliga
Elversberg has no train station and a population of just 13,000, but its football team have enjoyed a meteoric rise from the regional German leagues to the Bundesliga.
Florida basketball inks new contract with Todd Golden
Florida basketball coach Todd Golden signed a new contract. Here are the details.
Packers vs. Cardinals Tonight: How to Watch, Odds & Prediction
The Green Bay Packers will finish their preseason at Lambeau Field on Friday night with a matchup against the Arizona Cardinals that gives Matt LaFleur one final look at the bottom half of his roster before cuts.Green Bay hosts Arizona after splitting its first two preseason games, including a 33-13 win at Denver last week. […] The post Packers vs. Cardinals Tonight: How to Watch, Odds & Prediction appeared first on HEAVY.
DLSS 5 Patched to Work on RTX 4000 "Ada Lovelace" GPUs Despite No Official Support
The modding community has been hard at work ever since the untimely release of DLSS-NR, a precursor to DLSS 5. Now, modders have gotten NVIDIA's leaked DLSS 5 tool working on RTX 4000 series cards, even though the tool was only built for RTX 5000 Blackwell hardware. The DLL leaked earlier this...
DLSS 5 leaked and modders are putting Nvidia’s AI effects on everything
Here comes another round of “yassified” memes.
C-WIN: Uniting against data centers : The issue that transcends politics
Commentary from the California Water Impact Network Seldom have our political differences been more pronounced. Republicans and Democrats are at odds on a myriad of issues, and the bitter polarization of the American polity is the result. That’s how it seems, anyway. But semblances can be deceptive. Yes, the schism between Right and Left appeared irreconcilable in 2024, when Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House. But much has changed since then. Trump’s polls are at their nadir, with […]
Todd Monken shares Browns’ QB dilemma after Dillon Gabriel shines
Dillon Gabriel’s three-touchdown game gives the Browns a tough QB decision.
The Odds: Midterm Red Alert
In AP interview, Attorney General Todd Blanche defends his record as political pressure mounts
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Attorney General Todd Blanche’s fidelity to President Donald Trump nearly cost him his confirmation. Now comes Blanche’s real test.
In AP Interview, Attorney General Todd Blanche Defends His Record as Political Pressure Mounts
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Attorney General Todd Blanche’s fidelity to President Donald Trump nearly cost him his confirmation. Now comes Blanche’s real test. Trump’s former personal attorney has stepped into the commanding role facing a challenge that other leaders of the Republican president’s ...
DLSS 5 Gets Modded Into Skyrim With Dramatic Changes to Lighting and Character Faces
NVIDIA announced DLSS 5 back in March to a decidedly mixed reaction, as many gamers did not particularly like the modifications it made to character faces. While it is not officially out yet, an early-access build of NBA 2K27 was found to contain a DLSS Neural Rendering DLL, believed to be a...
Wyoming Governor Objects to ‘Very Odd’ D.O.J. Election Monitoring
Governor Mark Gordon, a Republican, said he was concerned by the behavior of election observers who visited a polling station in Cheyenne.
The Literacy Crisis Reaches Dog-Bear Science
“New analysis of more than 300 bear encounters suggests our canine companions often increase odds of conflict and rarely serve as early warning systems many recreationists assume,” reads a subhead in Mountain Journal. The thing is, that study reaches no such conclusion. But you have to read beyond the abstract to understand that. Mountain Journal is not alone. Let’s look at a brief list of takeaways published elsewhere just to establish that none of them seem to know how to read science. Wes Siler’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Here’s CBC: “A new peer-reviewed study, The Canine Conundrum: Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country?, dug into conflicts similar to what the video depicts, by analyzing 326 reported human-bear conflicts from 1901 to 2023 involving dogs.” “The study found 54 per cent of conflicts were started by dogs. In the encounters researchers included in the study, five people and 56 dogs were killed, and 170 people were injured.” “Lana Ciarniello, an independent researcher who co-authored the study, said researchers found when a person goes hiking with at least one other person, the odds of a negative bear encounter decrease by 50 per cent.” “However, when a dog is involved, the chances of a negative bear encounter increase because ‘a dog really adds a chaotic factor into the mix of recreation,’ said Ciarniello.” Again, the study finds no data supporting that conclusion. “Hiking with your pet dog may make you feel safer in bear country—but a hiker’s recent encounter and a new study prove that the numbers don’t add up,” writes Backpacker, which is now part of Outside. The numbers don’t add up to support this take. There’s plenty more examples, but all are equally dumb, so I’ll stop there. How did so many people get this so wrong? Three reasons: 1) the study is published behind a paywall, with only the abstract freely available. 2) the methodology sets out to create work relevant to a hyper-specific audience, not the public. And 3) the dataset studied is almost absurdly limited and doesn’t bear (get it?!) comparison to wider information. Let’s work through all three. The Problem is Money I understand the irony, since I’m writing about this on a subscription-model newsletter, but information wants to be free. The study is published by The Wildlife Society and costs $16 to access. Reprinting it is specifically prohibited by the terms of use, so I can only share snippets and my conclusions with you here. Having worked as a journalist for 24 years, I can report with some authority that journalists are both lazy and cheap. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that much of the material you’re seeing written about this study is drawn from the freely-available abstract (above) only, and not a deep dive into its methodology or data. And that’s a problem, because abstracts are where researchers are able to break from their numbers and editorialize their opinions about conclusions. So what’s getting reported isn’t based on numbers, it’s based on an opinion designed for a specific audience, not the general public. Hell yeah ladies, kick that bear’s ass. The Methodology is Designed to Support a Predetermined Conclusion One of the biggest issues with the science that everyone likes to cite about bear spray’s efficacy is that no one understands that study was designed for a specific audience, looking for a specific answer. And since that audience is not the public, and our safety was not the question being asked, its conclusion is rendered irrelevant to our needs. Yes, I’m talking about Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, which was created by Tom Smith and Stephen Herrero, two of the same scientists who put together this dog-bear conflict analysis. In the spray study, the purpose was to present relevant agencies with the information they needed to issue their field workers with bear spray. As such, incidents where people were unable to access the spray or similarly failed to get it deployed in time were excluded from the results, and only incidents they deemed successful were included. Could a ranger roll down their vehicle’s window and scare a bear away from a dumpster by spraying it? Turns out the answer was yes, and that was good enough for the purposes of that study. The sample size of actual bear attacks—the thing you and I would want bear spray to provide a solution to, was too small to draw conclusions from, and didn’t indicate success in that role. Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country? has similar limitations. “Insights provided here are intended to help wildlife managers create effective guidelines regarding the presence of domestic dogs in bear habitat,” is explained clearly by the study’s text. To conduct the study, Smith and Herrero went looking for publicly available reports of dog-bear conflicts: “All incidents included in our analysis involved at least one bear, one dog, and one person who was at immediate risk of injury (e.g., not in a protective structure such as a cabin or vehicle), injured, or killed,” explains the report’s methodology. Why is that a problem? “We recognize that data used in this study are biased in that people generally only report adverse interactions with bears, not benign ones. Consequently, we assume that for the most part, people and their dogs pass through bear country without incident.” As was the problem with the bear spray study, people are drawing conclusions here from a study that was never intended to be relevant to the general public. The Smith-Herrero database famously excludes Alaska’s Defense of Life and Property records, which are elsewhere considered the largest and most authoritative source on human-bear conflict. The Dataset is Absurdly Limited A 2009 study conducted by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife estimates that each year there are at least 43,000 documented complaints of human-bear conflict across North America. Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country? Examined those reports for years ranging from 1901 to 2023, and only managed to find 326 such incidents that met the criteria explained above. Let’s do some quick math, poorly. 43,000 incidents x 122 years = 5,246,000 total incidents of documented human-bear conflict. Smith and Herrero were only able to find 326 incidents that met their criteria for dog+human+bear+risk or occurrence of injury. That means there’s a 0.006 percent chance that the study’s conclusion—that dogs make bear encounters more dangerous—even gets a chance of occurring. And remember, that’s only in documented conflicts. There’s no way to know how many people across North America run into a bear in any given year without any conflict, but it’s probably safe to assume that the total number is well in excess of 43,000. And, dig deeper into the study and you can find further restrictions that skew its conclusions even more. “While the people involved in these incidents did not report the level of training their dogs had received, it is our assumption that most were untrained companion dogs as opposed to well-trained bear dogs, such as Karelians and livestock guardian breeds that have proven to be significant aids in bear country,” the study’s methodology explains. And that’s a problem, because an ongoing study here in Montana is finding that the simple presence of a Kangal like our youngest dog Teddy can reduce visits to private property from grizzly bears by 87.8 percent. In addition to being a badass, Teddy is also a companion animal. And in my admittedly limited sample size of the three dogs currently present in our living room, she’s no more effective than her mutt brothers. Plenty of people own a dog capable of deterring bears, even if they didn’t set out to own a bear dog. The real purpose of this study appears to be a recommendation that leashes are mandated and recreationists pursue training in their deterrent of choice. But that doesn’t make for sensational headlines. Are There Any Real Takeaways Here? Let’s throw some numbers around, just to try and get our hands around what the larger picture might look like for bears and dogs here. The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 42.6 percent of American households own a dog. The Canadian Animal Health Institute says roughly 35 percent of households in Canuckistan own a dog. In an attempt to create the worst possible result for dogs, let’s run with that 35 percent number. And given that outdoorsy and rural people are more likely to both own a dog, and have bear encounters, let’s just make a giant assumption and apply that number to those 43,000 conflicts documented annually. If 35 percent of 43,000 human-bear encounters involve a dog, then we can assume that at least 15,050 dog-bear conflicts are occurring annually in North America. 15,050 x 122 = 1,836,100. Smith and Herrero were only able to find 326 incidents that met their human, dog, chance or occurrence of injury criteria across 122 years. And only 170 documented human injuries. So, with all the obvious caveats about these numbers in no way describing reality beyond narrow study parameters, what they actually found is that your risk of injury if your dog tangles with a bear is only 0.009 percent. I’ll take those odds next time I’m hiking my dogs in bear country. Top photo: “Superintendent Horace Albright, eating pancakes with bears, at Lake Lodge, Yellowstone National Park.” NPS. A journalist with more than two decades of experience working around the world, Wes Siler is here to cut through the outrage and disinformation to bring you the factual, insightful, actionable reporting you need to understand what’s going on. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports this reporting, and buys personal access to Wes, who will help you save money on gear, plan outdoor adventures, and prepare for real life, and who promises he’s less salty in real life than he sometimes comes across as on the Internet. Wes Siler’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. 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