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Nicole Bluefort, 2026 Outstanding Women in Business Recipient
Nicole Bluefort started her law practice in her hometown of Lynn, Mass., 15 years ago and later expanded to Boston. In July 2024, she opened an office on Elm Street in Manchester, sensing there was a niche for a practice that could better serve people of color in New Hampshire.
GTA 6 DualSense Controller Scalpers Are Already Cashing In
This is why we can't have nice things.
Chinese Scientists Propose Turning Abandoned Coal Mines Into Farming Laboratories
It makes more sense than you might think.
'Things are Looking Good': Fall Season Underway for Big Blue Sports
The start of the new school year and fall sports season is always a busy time for Athletic Director Kelly Wolff, but that busyness comes with a strong sense of excitement. “Things are looking really good this fall,” said...
4 takeaways from the GOP midterm convention
Trump got his big show. Vance took the baton. ‘Common sense’ was the term. No bad vibes allowed.
Six Flags Entertainment Corporation (NYSE:FUN) Given Consensus Rating of "Hold" by Analysts
Six Flags Entertainment Corporation (NYSE:FUN - Get Free Report) has been given an average rating of "Hold" by the sixteen ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold r
How did ancient Israelites make wine? Scientists are stomping grapes to find out
Researchers use reconstructed Hasmonean winepress, four tons of Merlot and modern sensors in attempt to recreate how residents of Holy Land prepared their libations
New Android malware encrypts files, steals data, and harasses victims
A new Android malware strain called Mantax Otax combines ransomware and spyware capabilities to encrypt files, steal sensitive data, and spam and harass victims.
LG defends smart-TV features amid audio surveillance allegations
Recent accusations against the electronics company have raised new questions about the nonconsensual data it harvests.
Logan Paul believes Conor McGregor boxing match finally makes business sense
Logan Paul is interested in a boxing match against Conor McGregor.
iOS 27 Apple Health App Redesign: Every New Feature Coming in 2026
Apple is planning a major redesign of the Health app on iPhone and iPad, with a long list of new features set to be added. Apple announced the Health app changes at yesterday's iPhone event. The Health app is getting an update because Apple overhauled the sensors in the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4.
Multi-generational business expertise: How legacies in local businesses find sustained success
Join us Sept. 29 for our third Power Breakfast of 2026 as business leaders share how they leverage decades of institutional wisdom. The Greater Fayetteville Business Journal invites you to join us for our third quarterly Power Breakfast, The Family Business Advantage: How Third-Generation Leaders Drive Longevity and Innovation, where business owners, executives and community leaders will come together to explore how multi-generational leadership creates lasting success. We are proud to welcome CEO of Holmes Security Systems, Stephen Wheeler; Director of Communications for Copiers Plus, Drew Smith; Inside Sales at Hubbard Supplyhouse, Mary Grace Hurley; and Managing Partner of Luigi’s Italian Chophouse & Bar, Nate Ernst, as our featured panelists. Representing the third generation of leadership within their family businesses, each brings a unique perspective on honoring decades of tradition while embracing new ideas, technologies and strategies that drive long-term growth. Together, with moderator Lauren Willets, Director of the Family Enterprise Center at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, they will share the challenges, opportunities and lessons learned from leading established organizations into the future.“Growing up in a family business gave me a unique perspective on what business can be. I saw the pride my grandfather and father took in knowing someone was a Copiers Plus customer, and the deep responsibility they felt to support our employees and the families who depended on the business. Seeing that sense of connection firsthand is what drew me to the business, and the legacy they built continues to drive me today. I’m excited to be part of the conversation about how family businesses can honor what previous generations built while continuing to grow and evolve for the future,” shared panelist Drew Smith. “We are so excited to welcome our panelists highlighting long-standing Fayetteville family businesses. This theme has certainly piqued the interest of the business community even beyond Fayetteville. I’m excited to pass the moderator baton over to Lauren Willets. With her background and expertise in the subject, she’s sure to unlock some great talking points and perspectives that will keep the conversation fresh and interesting to our guests. “We are so excited to welcome our panelists highlighting long-standing Fayetteville family businesses. This theme has certainly piqued the interest of the business community A third-generation family business is quite an impressive accomplishment, and we look forward to examining their secrets to a successful succession at this upcoming Power Breakfast!” shared Greater Fayetteville Business Journal Publisher Faith Hatton. Join us at the Cape Fear Botanical Garden for an inspiring morning of networking, thought-provoking discussion and actionable insights into the power of continuity, strategic evolution and visionary leadership. Whether your organization is family-owned or simply focused on creating a lasting legacy, you’ll leave with ideas that can strengthen your business for generations to come.To learn about becoming a Power Breakfast sponsor, contact the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal at 910.240.9697 or marketing@bizfayetteville.com. Tickets are on sale now. Reserve your seat by going to fayettevillepowerbreakfast.com.
Apple Watch Series 12 Ushers in New Health Sensing System, Oura-Like Readiness Score
Starts at $399
Apple Watch Ultra 4 Hands-On: A Closer Look at Its Biggest Upgrades
Finally a battery worthy of an ultra marathon, better health sensors and a powerful processor that keeps it running.
Senphonix Receives National Science Foundation Grant to Advance SleeveSense, a Continuous, Long-Term Vitals Monitoring Platform
/PRNewswire/ -- Senphonix, Inc., a medical-technology startup developing SleeveSense™, a wearable that will continuously monitor patients' vital signs over...
Senphonix Receives National Science Foundation Grant to Advance SleeveSense, a Continuous, Long-Term Vitals Monitoring Platform
Senphonix, Inc., a medical-technology startup developing SleeveSense™, a wearable that will continuously monitor patients' vital signs over days, weeks, or months, today announced it has received a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I award from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) through America's Seed Fund. The award supports engineering to strengthen the patent-pending device's wireless and radio-frequency systems and to move it from prototype toward a manufacturable produ
iPhone Duo Has Similar Main Camera to iPhone 17e
Apple's tech specs suggest the iPhone Duo's Main camera sensor is seemingly a match for the iPhone 17e's, not the standard iPhone 17's. According to Apple's tech specs page for the iPhone Duo, the Main camera is a 26mm, ƒ/1.6 sensor with sensor-shift optical image stabilization and Hybrid Focus Pixels, also enabling a 12MP 2x Telephoto crop from the same sensor.
GTA 6 PS5 Controller Preorders Are Live, But Stock Is Limited
Preorders are live for Grand Theft Auto VI Limited-Edition PS5 DualSense Controllers, but stock is limited. Hurry if you want one.
Apple Watch Series 12 Hands-On: New Sensing System, Health Features And Audio Intelligence
There was a lot more new stuff than expected.
Apple Watch Series 12 hands-on: What's new?
The Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 bring new health sensors, smarter features and a closer look at what's changed.
How geopolitical rifts cut scientific collaboration
Researchers have measured how worsening geopolitical relations hobble scientific collaboration, at last quantifying the impact of rifts between governments on cooperation between labs. Over the last decade, a tenser world has thrown up new barriers to cross-border science. Collaboration between the US and China has dimmed as the two countries have sunk into an ever-deeper rivalry. Links between Russia and Europe have collapsed following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But while a concern, the magnitude of the damage is less than might be expected. For all the geopolitical turmoil of the last decade, international scientific collaborations are near a record high. “Some part of the story is positive,” said Shreyas Gadgin Matha, a social scientist at Harvard University and an author of the new study. “Research collaborations are largely resilient.” Matha and colleagues looked at data on cross-border research papers and patents in the period 2000-23, and analysed how they were impacted by countries’ political relations, as measured by how often states voted together in the United Nations. They found that when states drift apart at the UN by the median difference in votes between all countries, joint scientific papers decline by 3.1% over the next three-year period. To put that in context, over the last decade, the US and China have diverged by around a third of that difference in votes every three years. In other words, on average, it takes quite a significant diplomatic rift even to trigger a small single-digit percentage drop in joint papers. “In the short term, even something like a 3% reduction [in joint papers] is, in some ways, not that big of a number,” said Matha. Research remains more international than ever, according to an analysis extending to 2023 released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2025. We’re still living in an era of unprecedented scientific globalisation, the analysis says, with 27% of papers in OECD countries written across borders. In 1970, just 2% of articles had authors from different countries. Longer-term damage?However, this trend towards increasing international collaboration “has lost momentum and might be partly breaking down,” the OECD analysis says, largely due to a fall in the intensity of US-China joint papers since 2018. Matha and his colleagues stressed they are not complacent about the global science system. For now, “it's pretty resilient,” said co-author Muhammed Yildirim, director of academic research at Harvard’s Growth Lab. But if links are weakened, through the denial of study visas, for example, then this could have a much longer-term effect, cascading through generations of scientists, he added. Related articlesChina becomes Russia’s biggest collaborator after war decimates science ties with the west US scientists prefer German to Chinese collaborators, study finds Horizon Europe is now truly global. But what comes next? Another finding of the study, Burning bridges or bridging divides: Geopolitics and collaboration in research and innovation, is that trust appears easier to destroy than create.The hit to scientific collaboration when countries drift apart is around three times as big as the growth in joint papers when they move closer, the paper finds. “It's far easier to break these ties than to mend them, and that that also perhaps has some larger policy lesson,” said Matha.PatentsThe results around patents were less clear cut. Some methods of analysis found a statistically significant link between a diplomatic rift and a drop in co-patenting, but others did not. According to Yildirim, patents with cross-border inventors are often developed by multinational companies, which may have invested heavily in global R&D facilities, so are less likely to change how they operate simply due to a change in the geopolitical weather. “That's why we might not be seeing the effect immediately in technology,” he said.By contrast, researchers might be more sensitive to geopolitics, because visa policies can quickly affect who meets who at academic conferences, he went on. International collaboration on patents is much lower than for academic articles, the study shows. It peaked at around 10% in 2010, and has since fallen back to around 8%. This could be because China dramatically ramped up domestic patents in the 2010s, said Yildirim, squeezing the international share.
How geopolitical rifts cut scientific collaboration
Researchers have measured how worsening geopolitical relations hobble scientific collaboration, at last quantifying the impact of rifts between governments on cooperation between labs. Over the last decade, a tenser world has thrown up new barriers to cross-border science. Collaboration between the US and China has dimmed as the two countries have sunk into an ever-deeper rivalry. Links between Russia and Europe have collapsed following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But while a concern, the magnitude of the damage is less than might be expected. For all the geopolitical turmoil of the last decade, international scientific collaborations are near a record high. “Some part of the story is positive,” said Shreyas Gadgin Matha, a social scientist at Harvard University and an author of the new study. “Research collaborations are largely resilient.” Matha and colleagues looked at data on cross-border research papers and patents in the period 2000-23, and analysed how they were impacted by countries’ political relations, as measured by how often states voted together in the United Nations. They found that when states drift apart at the UN by the median difference in votes between all countries, joint scientific papers decline by 3.1% over the next three-year period. To put that in context, over the last decade, the US and China have diverged by around a third of that difference in votes every three years. In other words, on average, it takes quite a significant diplomatic rift even to trigger a small single-digit percentage drop in joint papers. “In the short term, even something like a 3% reduction [in joint papers] is, in some ways, not that big of a number,” said Matha. Research remains more international than ever, according to an analysis extending to 2023 released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2025. We’re still living in an era of unprecedented scientific globalisation, the analysis says, with 27% of papers in OECD countries written across borders. In 1970, just 2% of articles had authors from different countries. Longer-term damage?However, this trend towards increasing international collaboration “has lost momentum and might be partly breaking down,” the OECD analysis says, largely due to a fall in the intensity of US-China joint papers since 2018. Matha and his colleagues stressed they are not complacent about the global science system. For now, “it's pretty resilient,” said co-author Muhammed Yildirim, director of academic research at Harvard’s Growth Lab. But if links are weakened, through the denial of study visas, for example, then this could have a much longer-term effect, cascading through generations of scientists, he added. Related articlesChina becomes Russia’s biggest collaborator after war decimates science ties with the west US scientists prefer German to Chinese collaborators, study finds Horizon Europe is now truly global. But what comes next? Another finding of the study, Burning bridges or bridging divides: Geopolitics and collaboration in research and innovation, is that trust appears easier to destroy than create.The hit to scientific collaboration when countries drift apart is around three times as big as the growth in joint papers when they move closer, the paper finds. “It's far easier to break these ties than to mend them, and that that also perhaps has some larger policy lesson,” said Matha.PatentsThe results around patents were less clear cut. Some methods of analysis found a statistically significant link between a diplomatic rift and a drop in co-patenting, but others did not. According to Yildirim, patents with cross-border inventors are often developed by multinational companies, which may have invested heavily in global R&D facilities, so are less likely to change how they operate simply due to a change in the geopolitical weather. “That's why we might not be seeing the effect immediately in technology,” he said.By contrast, researchers might be more sensitive to geopolitics, because visa policies can quickly affect who meets who at academic conferences, he went on. International collaboration on patents is much lower than for academic articles, the study shows. It peaked at around 10% in 2010, and has since fallen back to around 8%. This could be because China dramatically ramped up domestic patents in the 2010s, said Yildirim, squeezing the international share.
Sony’s Limited-Edition GTA 6 DualSense Controller Preorders Are Finally Live in the UK, but Stock Is Expected to Sell Out Fast
Secure your GTA 6 DualSense controller in the UK. Preorders are live for both Vice City-themed PS5 controllers starting at £74.99.
Women's baseball league providing sense of community for fans
The Women's Pro Baseball League is making history in Springfield, offering a space for fans to feel seen.
GTA 6 DualSense pre-orders LIVE — how to secure your limited-edition PS5 controller today
Add some Vice City to your PS5 setup
Ralph Lauren delivers modern take on romance with sensual silhouettes
Ralph Lauren's New York Fashion Week show featured a starry guestlist with actors from Meghann Fahy, Cynthia Erivo, Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki in attendance. The designer's Spring 2027 show
Fetterman appears by video at GOP convention and says he’ll work with Trump
The U.S. senator from Pennsylvania described himself during his remarks as a “common-sense Democrat” who rejected socialism.
Viewpoint: Unlocking Europe’s wildfire data
Europe is already investing in the science, technology and infrastructure needed to understand, prevent and fight wildfires. Copernicus provides satellite-based Earth observation and environmental information, while the European Forest Fire Information System provides information on fire danger and forest fires across Europe. Weather and climate systems add forecasts of heat, drought, wind and humidity; historical fire databases show where fires have occurred; and researchers generate increasingly detailed knowledge about fuels, fire behaviour, forecasting, modelling and risk management. Meanwhile, new European research projects are adding digital twins and other tools to this growing ecosystem.However, these data do not necessarily sit together, nor are they necessarily described, structured or governed in ways that allow them to be used together. Much of the information is public, but some is commercially held. Some is sensitive. Some is subject to legal, security or operational restrictions. Even when data can be legally accessed, different systems may use different formats, terminology and rules.Europe therefore faces an unusual paradox: we have vast amounts of relevant information to respond to the wildfire challenge, but not the means to bring it together. For example, a wildfire researcher or emergency service might need to ask whether a particular combination of vegetation, drought, wind and topography has historically been associated with rapid fire spread. The relevant information may exist in several institutions, using different systems and subject to different conditions of access.The challenge is to conduct an authorised analysis that interacts with these sources, combines the results and respects the rules imposed by each data custodian.An important part of the answer can be found in the Fair principles, the idea that data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. Developed more than a decade ago, these principles have become a central reference point for modern data stewardship, making it easier for people and machines to find data, understand what it means and determine whether it can be reused.Readability by machines is essential, since AI systems will be key to meeting the data challenge. Bring analysis to the dataThe proposition is not to give an AI system unrestricted access to sensitive databases. Quite the opposite. The goal is to make it possible for approved algorithms to go to the data, rather than requiring sensitive data or large datasets to be copied to wherever the analysis happens.Imagine an analysis asking a series of questions of different data stations. At one station it might examine weather and climate data; at another, historical fire records; at another, experimental measurements of fire behaviour. The algorithm does not need to download everything. It can operate within the environment permitted by each data custodian and return only the results that the rules allow to leave.This is sometimes described as data visiting, and related approaches already exist in areas such as federated analysis and federated learning.Sensitive data should therefore not be treated as a free-for-all for machines. This requires appropriate governance at multiple levels. Access needs to be authenticated and authorised. The purpose of an analysis should be defined. The code or model being run should be controlled. Data custodians should be able to specify what can be queried and what results can leave their environment. Activities should be auditable and human oversight should remain where the consequences require it.In other words, the objective is not to trust AI with the data. It is to design systems in which AI never has more access than it needs.As open as possible, as closed as necessaryFair data should also not be confused with open data. Some wildfire data should be openly available. Other information may legitimately need to remain restricted because it concerns critical infrastructure, security, commercial interests, privacy or operational capabilities. The principle should be: as open as possible, as closed as necessary.The important point is that restricted data should not automatically become unusable data. If machines can discover what information exists, understand its meaning, establish where it came from and determine the conditions under which it can be used, authorised analyses can potentially be carried out without the underlying data ever leaving the environment in which it is protected.Restricted data can still be Fair and machine-actionable.This is also an important question of data sovereignty. European institutions should not have to surrender control of their data to a handful of technology platforms in order to benefit from AI. Nor does Europe need to start again by building one giant repository for every piece of wildfire information. The better approach is to connect what already exists.This is the principle behind emerging approaches such as Tryangle, developed through the Leiden Initiative for Fair and Equitable Science. Rather than creating another centralised data warehouse, the approach seeks to provide an interoperable layer through which approved algorithms can visit distributed data sources while respecting the rules of their custodians.In this way, a data station can remain where it is. Its custodians can retain control. Existing databases and applications do not have to be abandoned. What changes is their ability to communicate with other systems through common, machine-readable descriptions, access rules and interoperability mechanisms.But approaches like this need data that meets the Fair principles. Only then can an interoperable ecosystem safely begin to turn fragmented information into collective intelligence.Data infrastructure is wildfire infrastructureThe implications of this approach are entirely practical. Firefighters could gain better intelligence about local and evolving risks. Land managers could test prevention strategies using more comprehensive information about fuels, weather and past fires. Researchers could compare evidence across ecosystems without repeatedly moving huge datasets between institutions. Smaller regions and resource-constrained teams could access analytical capabilities without having to build large data infrastructures themselves.Europe is already investing heavily in satellites, databases, research programmes, forecasting systems and scientific expertise. The question is whether we will connect those investments well enough to turn them into actionable intelligence.That requires policymakers and funders to treat data infrastructure as seriously as physical infrastructure. Data generated or supported through European public funding should be Fair, verifiable and machine actionable by design, wherever legally and ethically possible.Related articlesData Corner: Europe’s burning need for wildfire mitigation researchClimate monitoring must remain a global enterprise, experts sayIn practice, that means funding not only the production of data, but also the infrastructure that makes data usable across systems: metadata, provenance, interoperability, access mechanisms and governance. Where data must remain restricted, we should ensure that it can still be securely discovered, verified and used for authorised analysis.Initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud offer an existing framework through which these principles can be put into practice. What is needed now is to accelerate implementation and make them a standard part of how Europe funds and builds research and innovation systems.We do not need another generation of disconnected databases. The data is already there. The opportunity is to make it work together, securely, responsibly and quickly enough to help prevent the next fire, rather than simply document the last one.Jean-Claude Burgelman is professor emeritus at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and editor-in-chief at Frontiers Policy Lab. For more than 20 years he held leading roles in research and innovation policy at the European Commission.
How 9/11 Changed New York—And America
The attacks 25 years ago inspired a sense of national unity. It has since been shattered.
Odegaard gives Arsenal winning Champions League start at Napoli
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard's sensational late strike broke stern Napoli resistance as the English champions began their bid for Champions League glory with a hard-fought 1-0 win in Naples on Wednesday.It continued a perfect start to the campaign for Arsenal, who began their Premier League title defence with three wins in a row before condemning Massimiliano Allegri's team to a third consecutive defeat.
Apple's Fine Print: Daily Usage Limits for Siri AI, 'Expanded Access' Coming for a Fee
Apple today confirmed that there will be a daily usage limit for Siri AI, with expanded access available for a fee in the future. In the fine print of Apple's announcement of the Health Sensing features coming to the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, Apple says it will have usage limits on Siri AI, intelligent photo editing tools, Image Playground, and Apple Foundation Cloud models in the Shortcuts app.
Tyler groups host fourth annual mental health workshop for Hispanic community
Sense of Self Counseling and Monarca partnered for their fourth annual workshop in Tyler to address mental health awareness and break cultural stigmas within the Hispanic community.
Apple's revamped Health app will calculate your 'health age' and readiness score
The update uses Apple Intelligence to make better sense of your health data.
New Apple Watch Series 12 highlights: improved health sensing system, Readiness app
In an update with few visible changes to the Apple Watch Series 12, in conjunction with watchOS 27, the new model has a new health app called Readiness, and a series of new health monitoring features.
Apple Announces Apple Watch Series 12 With S11 Chip, Upgraded Health Sensors and Ceramic Models
Apple today announced the Apple Watch Ultra 4, featuring a new S11 chip, a redesigned health sensing system, and a larger battery that Apple says delivers two days of battery life. With improved power efficiency, Ultra 4 offers up to 18 hours of workout tracking with full GPS and heart rate monitoring, or 45 hours in its maximum extended workout mode. It comes in Black and Natural titanium, alongside new band colors and a new titanium Hermès band.
C. diff coordinates threat response to survive in gut
Researchers at Vanderbilt Health have discovered a unique system C. diff uses to simultaneously sense and respond to two different threats.
How Social Media and AI Chatbots Are Reshaping Youth Mental Health, and What Congress Can Do About It
It’s hard to move legislation in Washington, DC right now. Congress seems deadlocked on even commonsense ideas. But there is one spot where we still see consistent bipartisan collaboration: youth mental health. That’s because the youth mental health challenge is vast. Nearly half of teenagers and two-thirds of young adults regularly experience mental health distress, yet only a small … Continued
Johnsonville Votes For Sausage Over Political Ads - Midland
Johnsonville has jumped back into electoral politics, this time asking people to vote for something sensible: affordable protein for dinner. The humorous campaign targets viewer fatigue, as record spending on political ads threatens to drain the fun out of every last game, sitcom and streaming pleasure. This time, the company is throwing its hat in the ring for Dinner 2026. Backed by research it conducted with Harris Polls, Johnsonville has learned Americans are already overwhelmed by both politics and meal planning. Sausage is running the dinner race on a core promise to simplify dinner decisions, the company says.
Vrancken has captured imagination of Hearts fans
There was a sense of inevitability about Hearts' late winner against Dundee on Sunday. Much of the credit for Hearts' recent form must go to Wouter Vrancken. The Belgian's style of play has captured the imagination of the Hearts support and, just as importantly, the players have fully embraced his football philosophy.
Pentagon Deploys SCIFs to Encourage Small Business Participation – Association of Defense Communities (ADC)
The Pentagon recently announced a plan to deploy around 50 Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities across the country
The new Apple Watch will use microphone and other sensors to generate AI recaps of your day
Apple will announce the new Apple Watch lineup later today, and Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has the early scoop. He...
From moving people to managing them
Transportation policy used to have a fairly uncomplicated purpose: move people safely, efficiently and reliably. Build roads where people drive. Maintain bridges before they fail. Add capacity where growth overwhelms the system. Provide transit where it makes sense. Infrastructure was supposed to accommodate human behavior. Colorado increasingly prefers the opposite arrangement. Today, transportation policy is […]
Signs of US-style polarisation in Britons’ trust in science
Sense of shared identity makes Greens’ faith in scientists stronger than Reform voters’, study finds
America’s New National Security Science & Technology Strategy
America’s New National Security Science & Technology Strategy Should Test Authority, Not Just Capability The White House is right to make AI, autonomy, resilient PNT, advanced sensing, cyber
Making Sense of Phoenix Suns' Biggest Storyline This Season
As roster shifts trade elite shooting for raw athleticism, Phoenix faces a high-stakes gamble on Miles Bridges to elevate their ceiling amidst looming threats of early-season regression.
Unlocking Forest Diversity from Above: Fieldwork at Smithsonian’s BiodiversiTREE
Laying groundwork for using airborne remote sensing to better understand the characteristics of forest species diversity.
Exclusive: Two of gaming’s biggest names are making a big investment in gaming’s future
The first thing to know about the Nova Games Foundation is that it isn’t about The Game Awards. And it’s not about PlayStation. The ambitious new grant program is the brainchild of Geoff Keighley and Mark Cerny. Keighley is the host of The Game Awards, Summer Game Fest and Opening Night Live. Cerny is a game designer of some 45 years and the lead architect for the PlayStation 4 and 5. But this new thing, which they’re revealing through Game File, isn’t about their day jobs. It’s an unaffiliated, standalone philanthropic project. It’s a bet on the artistic future of video games and a way, they tell me, to give back. “I’m nearing the end of my career,” Cerny recently told me over email. “I’m not done yet, but paying it forward—in the best way possible—is very much on my mind these days,” The Nova Games Foundation is a university-affiliated fellowship program, intended to offer six-figure grants to 20 young game designers each year, potentially for decades to come. It will offer no-strings-attached funding along with mentorship from games industry leaders, a combination intended to aid the development of groundbreaking new games, Cerny and Keighley told me. Nova will begin accepting applications in December, from class of 2026 and 2027 students from 13 affiliated gaming programs at universities in eight countries. The schools working with Nova include the New York University and the University of Southern California in the U.S., along with Abertay University in Scotland, Cnam-Enjmin in France, TH Köln in Germany, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, Cerny and Keighley said. The plan: $100,000 per recipient, with about a quarter of Nova fellows eligible for up to $500,000 more for projects that are shaping up particularly well. Payments will be delivered based on development milestones, and recipients will own their games. Nova will help promote the work, and developers will be free to pursue the publishers and platforms of their choice. Nova can help introduce fellows to publishers, but won’t take a cut. “I’ve always wanted to give back, but given my role in the industry, I’ve never felt it appropriate to commercially invest in games,” Keighley told Game File. “I’ve never owned stock in a game company or taken a financial stake in a game. Nova is philanthropy: we aren’t taking equity or looking to recoup the grants. The return we’re hoping for is creative—helping new voices make games and find their footing. “Mark and I have each made multi-million-dollar donations to establish the foundation, and we intend to keep contributing. We hope others will join us.” Cerny and Keighley have already hired an executive director, John Maconga, and a head of grants, recent Game Developers Conference director Ashley Corrigan, to help launch the effort. They’re working to recruit game industry leaders to join the effort. Keighley says “dozens of leading game directors have already expressed interest in contributing their time.” To name one, they’ve already gotten Josef Fares, lead designer from It Takes Two and Spit Fiction studio Hazelight on board with a donation and pledge to help out. “I’m proud to support Nova because it gives the next generation of creators the freedom to explore their creativity and hopefully bring their unique visions to life,” Fares told Game File. A plan forged from a friendship Keighley and Cerny have known each other a long time. It’s been so long, Cerny isn’t even sure exactly when they met. “We travel in much the same circles and I’m sure first intersected in the 90s or early 2000s,“ Cerny said. Keighley thinks it might have been during his stint writing a column about the mid-’90s console 3DO for a gaming magazine while Cerny was working on games with Crystal Dynamics or on Way of the Warrior with Naughty Dog. They became genuine friends about a 10 years ago, Keighley said, as they bonded over a shared love of games and a hope to improve the industry. “About a decade ago, we started having dinner a few times a year in LA,” Keighley said. “Just to catch up on life and the industry. Those conversations continued over Zoom during COVID. Nova grew out of that friendship and a question we kept coming back to: ‘What could we do to help the next generation of game directors get started?’” Keighley credits Cerny with the idea to figure out a way to put their money and time back into the industry. At one of those dinners, Keighley proposed the idea of a fellowship program. He’d recalled applying for a Rhodes Scholarship when he was younger. “Spoiler: I didn’t get it,” he said. He’d admired the MacArthur Foundation’s so-called “genius grants.” He liked these kinds of programs that recognized people’s talents and gave them the financial boost and the freedom to realize their potential. With Cerny, he had pondered what a game industry version of that could be. Keighley liked the idea of centering the fellowship on students, drawing inspiration from the accomplishments of Jenova Chen, the USC game design graduate who went on to lead the creation of gently moving, ambitious games such as Flower and Journey. Keighley also thought it could be useful to help promising graduates bridge the transition from student to professional. “Joining an established studio isn’t always possible—especially in today’s market—and even then, it isn’t the right path for everyone,” Keighley said. A fellowship, he realized, could give “graduates the time, resources and guidance to pursue a game of their own and not worry about the commercial viability.” As the idea took shape, Cerny also saw an opportunity to enable more games of a certain type: “The target with the grants is games as an artistic medium,” Cerny told me. “We like to say games with ‘artistic, literary and societal value.’” He added: “I’m a pretty big gamer myself, though I tend to gravitate towards the smaller and more unique or artistic titles, games like Neva, Abzu, Gorogoa, Stray or Outer Wilds. I was just playing and Roger on a flight to Japan, and was getting misty eyed to a degree that I was concerned that a flight attendant would ask me if I was OK. “So one fun benefit here is the games that will come out of the Nova Games Foundation – I can’t wait to play them myself.” Cerny believes it will also be useful for Nova fellows to hone their craft and team leadership skills. “We are looking for the next generation of visionaries,” he said. “The trick is that they will also need to have the executive function necessary to drive a small project to completion.” Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my reporting, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Going big with this Keighley and Cerny may have started Nova and may be the ones primarily backing it right now, but they’re dreaming of something that goes beyond them. “Mark and I may have helped get it started, but one of our measures of success is that Nova grows into something the entire games industry feels a sense of ownership in,” Keighley said. “Our ambition is to build a lasting endowment supported by people and companies across the industry, and an equally broad community of creators willing to give their time and experience to the next generation.” The industry has a lot of knowledge that it can pass to the next generation, Keighley said: “Nova can hopefully become a way to connect that generosity with talented young creators at the moment when it can make the biggest difference.” Cerny, who told me he believes Nova can mature “over the next 10 or 20 years,” sees an opportunity to give generations of game makers momentum. “The industry has changed immeasurably since I started in games in 1982,” he said. “These graduates have talent, training and tools that outclass what we had back in the day by an astonishing amount. But they face a tough road ahead getting traction in the industry, and many could benefit from our support. We want to be there to give it to them.” “There’s a personal side to this, too,” Keighley said. “I don’t have children, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I can do for future generations. Games have been my entire career. I’ve been incredibly fortunate, and helping someone else build a life in this industry feels like a meaningful way to give back.” Cerny’s oeuvre dates back to Marble Madness and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He has stood on stage multiple times to reveal the future of PlayStation hardware. He’s been an executive producer for a string of modern PlayStation classics such as The Last Guardian and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Nevertheless, of Nova, he said, “It’s certainly not like anything I’ve done before.” Nova Foundation applications will be due in December and the first wave of fellows will be announced in March 2027. A full list of participating universities and steps students and recent graduates can take to apply to become a Nova Fellow is forthcoming.
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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
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Week 1 College Football Predictions: Bobcats at Huskers
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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.
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GOP consensus elusive on timing, scope of data centers bill
WASHINGTON — As anger mounts over the impacts of data centers, Republicans are wrestling with legislation that would address concerns over increased electricity and water demand that many voters associate
Hisense Brings True-to-Life Color, Eye Comfort and Immersive Entertainment to IFA 2026
Hisense, a leading global brand in consumer electronics and home appliances, is showcasing its latest display, laser and audio innovations at IFA 2026 under the theme "Innovating a Brighter Life," bringing together vivid picture quality, viewing comfort and immersive sound for a more enjoyable home entertainment experience.
Hisense Brings True-to-Life Color, Eye Comfort and Immersive Entertainment to IFA 2026
/PRNewswire/ -- Hisense, a leading global brand in consumer electronics and home appliances, is showcasing its latest display, laser and audio innovations at...
Can Giants Sweep Mets to Win Season Series?
Rookie sensation Matt Wilkinson faces a daunting pitching duel against Nolan McLean as the struggling San Francisco Giants face the New York Mets.
New Business Licenses: 9.4.26
This week's list from Chesterfield and Henrico include restaurants, coffee shops, a salon and more. (BizSense Pro required)
Howie Roseman Reveals Why Eagles Made Polarizing Roster Decision
The Philadelphia Eagles opted to keep four quarterbacks on their roster, a decision that really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. The Eagles have continued to show they have a lot of value at backup quarterback, and that makes sense. As we see multiple times every year when starting quarterbacks go down, teams typically don't have a guy who can come in and make a major impact.
Science: Cockroach Milk Called Theoretically Superior
The reporting on cockroach theoretical milk makes perfect sense: Cockroach milk is among the most nutritious substances on Earth. It’s three times richer in calories than buffalo milk (the previous top contender for the most protein- and calorie-rich milk). …it tasted like pretty much nothing. You could, in theory, splash it into coffee or pour … Continue reading Science: Cockroach Milk Called Theoretically Superior →
SBJ Football: Giants seek business boss
New York Giants searching for chief business officer as new coach John Harbaugh could lead team to upswing: ALso: New study shows brands are missing out by focusing on the Super Bowl and not other NFL opportunities, why DAZN makes sense for EverPass, NFLPA's new chief comms officer and more.
Travel Trending with Kathy Witt: Cuddle up at The Cove
You could call my brief but blissfully unhurried interlude at The Cove in Islamorada, Florida, a midweek work break or a microcation reset. But I call it pure sensory salt-air
Pre-Orders For Sony's GTA 6-Themed DualSense Controllers Will Open On September 10
At $85, the hardware only costs a little bit more than the game.
Nick Saban stars in new TV ad advocating for Cruz, Cantwell NCAA bill
Former college football coach Nick Saban is staring in a new advertisement advocating for the Protect College Sports Act, the bipartisan bill that would regulate college sports backed by Sens. Ted …
GTA 6 is getting two custom PS5 DualSense controllers
Both GTA 6 PS5 controllers will be available via PlayStation Direct…
Scientists just overturned a century-old physics assumption
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered an unexpected form of the Hall effect, overturning the long-held assumption that this electrical response only appears when a magnetic field points perpendicular to a material. Beyond expanding a century-old principle of physics, the finding could eventually lead to simpler magnetic sensors for electronics, transportation, and medical technologies.
A ‘Social Network’ follow-up and a ‘Hunger Games’ prequel headline fall movies
Audiences can also catch “Practical Magic 2,” “Sense and Sensibility” and a transformed Tom Cruise on the big screen.
VCU Health awards cleaning services contract to new vendor, to pay $26M in first year
The contractor transition means at least a temporary layoff of more than 500 employees, though many of them are expected to be rehired by the new vendor.
Fort Bragg Veteran celebrates expansion of high-end experiential entertainment brand
Photo provided by EscapologyAfter 15 years as an Army officer at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville resident Dan Cooke transitioned to business ownership to bring high-end experiential entertainment to North Carolina, applying strict military operational systems to scale his footprint across the state.Cooke got his start in the Army’s Boots to Business program.“Boots to Business was instrumental in preparing me to start a company. The program taught me how to develop a business plan, conduct market and financial analysis and critically evaluate whether a business concept was actually viable,” shared Cooke. “What made the program particularly valuable was that the instructors and mentors had real-world business experience…At the end of the course, I had to present and defend that plan. From there, they directed me to SCORE, where mentors helped me further refine the plan. I eventually presented it to a bank, which was impressed with the level of preparation, and I secured the financing necessary to build the business.”As Cooke neared the end of his military career, he began to wonder what would come next. Through his faith and some valuable mentors, he found the right avenue for his entrepreneurial interests.“While working on my instrument pilot rating, my flight instructor happened to tell me about escape rooms and the economics behind building them. He thought they could make for an interesting business. I took the analytical skills I had developed in the military, along with what I learned through Boots to Business, and began comparing the escape-room model against other opportunities I was considering,” explained Cooke. Cooke opened his first Escapology location in Fayetteville in 2019.“My approach was to start small and prove the model. Fayetteville made sense because I was already there, understood the market and could minimize my initial risk. It also became clear very quickly that I needed a partner that could provide the creative design, branding and industry knowledge that I did not have. After researching a number of options, Escapology became that partner,” added Cooke.Following the success of his initial venue in Fayetteville and a venue in Charlotte that opened in 2023, Cooke recently expanded into Raleigh with his third Escapology venue at Crabtree Valley Mall.His North Carolina footprint now includes:Fayetteville: A 5-room venue launched right after his Army transition in 2019.Charlotte: A 10-room venue opened in 2023, doubling his original operational footprint.Raleigh (Crabtree Valley Mall): A 6-room venue opened in May 2026, with plans to expand to 10 full rooms.Beyond his venues, Cooke expanded his local footprint by launching Jade Solutions in Aberdeen, N.C., an OEM manufacturing business that now builds prop and technical solutions for Escapology venues systemwide.Cooke shared that his long-term goal is to continue expanding Escapology in a healthy and sustainable way while enjoying the journey. “I actually did not start an entertainment business because I personally loved escape rooms. I started a business because I love the game of business itself. Growing up, I loved military simulation games and business tycoon games. I eventually had the opportunity to experience the first of those in the real world — I went to war, led troops and played my part in the military. Today, I would much rather apply that same drive to the real-world game of building businesses.I don't play business computer games anymore. I get to wake up and do it for real every day,” shared Cooke.