SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " mad " 11,908 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
What to expect in Wisconsin's state Supreme Court and mayoral elections
Wisconsin voters will choose a new state Supreme Court justice on Tuesday in an election that will either maintain or expand the court’s liberal majority.
What to expect in Georgia's special congressional runoff to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene
Democrat Shawn Harris and Republican Clay Fuller were the top two vote-getters in the March 10 special election, but neither candidate received the vote majority needed to avoid Tuesday's runoff.
WATCH LIVE: Trump holds news conference after unleashing latest threat against Iran
Sports betting roundup: Michigan favored against UConn in final game of March Madness
There’s only one game left in the college basketball season, with Michigan taking on UConn for the national championship on Monday night. As of Monday morning, Michigan is a 6.5-point favorite. The Wolverines are taking in 70% of the bets and 75% of the money.
UAMS Working with Schools in Carroll, Madison Counties to Develop Behavioral Health Outreach Programs
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Institute for Community Health Innovation will work with schools in Carroll and Madison counties to establish programs aimed at reducing behavioral risk factors for youth, while preparing students for career opportunities in community health. Through a $1.2 million Rural Communities…
Supreme Court clears way for Trump DOJ to wipe out Steve Bannon's conviction
Bannon, now a host of a popular MAGA podcast, was convicted in 2022 for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 attack .
VHC Health development plan faces pushback at environmental meeting
A proposal for a new behavioral health center on S. Carlin Springs Road is facing pushback on environmental impacts and effects on the surrounding neighborhood. Misgivings about the 146-bed, 131,000-square-foot development proposal from VHC Health and Lifepoint Health made their way into discussions at the March 26 meeting of the county's Forestry & Natural Resources
Laura Murray-Kolb receives Aday Award for exceptional global contributions to maternal, child health
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Laura Murray-Kolb has been selected to receive the 2025 Lu Ann Aday Award, a recognition given annually to a Purdue University faculty member who has made a major impact in…
Politics made Alabama power bills high. Politics can lower them.
The Alabama Legislature's attempt to protect state utilities from public outrage over high power bills has a notable weakness.
NHL power rankings: Two teams make coaching changes down stretch
The Golden Knights and Islanders have made coaching changes with the playoffs approaching. Here are the latest USA TODAY NHL power rankings.
Facing Michigan’s ‘Monstars,’ UConn finds itself in the unlikely position of underdog
UConn is one of the most storied programs in college basketball. They’re facing a test in Michigan unlike anything they’ve seen in years.
Breaking a sweat isn’t easy: Mental health barriers to physical activity
Exercise has long been referenced as a way to clear the mind, take away stress or combat mental health disorders, according to postdoctoral scholar and research associate in the University of Wisconsin Wellbeing and Exercise Laboratory Madeleine Connolly. Practices such as yoga in India and tai chi in China have connected the mind and body through...
Scientists Say: Technofossil
Experts predict that the durability of modern, human-made materials will give rise to a radical new form of fossil.
How the Voyager missions rewrote planetary science, tested the limits of 1970s engineering, and became humanity's longest-running experiment in institutional patience
In November 2026, Voyager 1 will become the first human-made object to reach one light-day from Earth. Nearly 49 years after launch, the twin Voyager missions remain the most productive space exploration program ever flown, and a case study in what happens when engineering resilience meets institutional patience.
We've got a winner in our business-focused bracket
A champion has been crowned in our business-focused March Madness bracket: longevity. It won almost 67% of the more than 200 votes.
Lawmakers rethink school bus rules after fatal wreck: week in politics
The fatal Kenwood school bus crash made lawmakers rethink loosening safety rules. Plus, the House blocked a $20 million tax break for FedEx.
Billionaire candidate for California governor catching heat for past business interests, wealth
Hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, among the top Democrats running for governor who has spent more than $100 million of his money on his campaign, faces questions about how he made his wealth.
Starfield's Huge Update Arrives On Xbox This Week, And Here Are The Release Times
For both the Free Lanes and Terran Armada content
Embark on a science adventure at UW-Madison’s Science Expeditions
The community is invited to try hands-on activities at six Exploration Station hubs, tour research spaces, view Science Spectacular Shows, and attend lectures.
Billionaire candidate for California governor catching heat for past business interests, wealth
Hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, among the top Democrats running for governor who has spent more than $100 million of his money on his campaign, faces questions about how he made his wealth.
High school sports weekend top performers had clutch goals and hits
They seized the moment. These high school sports top performers delivered in the clutch over the weekend. See who made the cut.
Meta salaries revealed: How much engineers, researchers made in 2025
See how much Meta paid in 2025, with software engineers earning as much as $450,000. Salary data shows pay ranges across over 5,000 roles.
Real Madrid open to Eduardo Camavinga sale
Real Madrid are open to selling French midfielder Eduardo Camavinga (23), according to a report from L’Équipe. Camavinga’s place in the France squad is being called into question ahead of the W...
Threats inside and out loom for Colorado’s Republicans
Colorado Republicans made strides in 2024 despite an insidious state chairman who tried to defeat successful Republican candidates. Newly elected U.S. Reps. Gabe Evans, Jeff Hurd and Jeff Crank fought off unethical opposition from their own state party chairman, making the Colorado congressional delegation a 4-4 partisan split. Strong state legislative leadership resulted in the […]
Hungary’s illiberal democracy
Viktor Orbán has led Hungary since 2010, and has remade its political institutions. But elections this month pose a major challenge
Atletico Madrid CEO “ashamed” by Barcelona red card controversy
Atletico Madrid’s 2-1 defeat to Barcelona on Saturday has been overshadowed by a controversial call made by the refereeing team at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano. Minutes into the second half, Gerard ...
Trump news at a glance: president accused of ‘threatening possible war crimes’ in Iran post
Chuck Schumer accuses president of ‘ranting like unhinged madman’ in threat to obliterate Iran’s power plants and bridges. Key US politics stories from 5 April
Bhatti: Republicans must restore, strengthen health care after gutting it
Michigan doctors worry about healthcare cuts by Trump and Republicans, impacting Medicaid and low-income families.
President of Myrtle Beach Pelicans stepping down to care for his health
The Myrtle Beach Pelicans have made an announcement regarding the organization’s leadership.
Everything to know of 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament championship game
Only one more game remains before March Madness crowns its next basketball champion. Here's what you need to know about the men's title game:
2026 NCAA national championship live stream: March Madness TV schedule, watch streaming online Monday
Everything you need to know and how to watch Monday's national championship game
GMB Management Software for Multi Location Business
GBPPromote GBPPromote Indore, Madhya Pradesh, April 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GBPPromote, a fast-growing Google Business Profile (GBP) management software, is gaining strong traction among agencies, franchises, enterprises, and individual businesses looking for a simpler and more scalable way to manage their local presence on Google. Adopted widely by franchises, agencies, and enterprise teams for multi-location GMB management, the platform is built to handle the kind of operational work that
How to ‘detox’ your body for free without juice, teas or flushes
Feel like your body needs a reset? What if we told you that you can ‘detox’ for free by leveraging your body’s natural waste removal systems. PolitiFact shares how to do some spring cleaning without paying for a “juice cleanse” or “detox diet.”
Newly discovered fossils give scientists first look at the evolution of early complex animals
Newly discovered fossils have given scientists their first real glimpse of when Earth made a crucial transition from plants and unrecognizably simple animals to the complex creatures that took over the world and would eventually lead to us.
‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump’s expletive-laden threat to Iran
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Bernie Sanders among those responding with alarm to Trump writing ‘open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards’
South Carolina vs. UCLA live updates: Where to watch March Madness women’s NCAA championship, time, channel
Get live updates from the NCAA women’s basketball championship as South Carolina and UCLA meet in the tournament finale. Follow the latest March Madness coverage.
10 Wickedly Cool Carroll Shelby Cars That Made The Man A Legend
Carroll Shelby was an iconic figure in American automotive culture whose cars spoke for themselves. Here are 10 of coolest car he helped create.
🚨Breaking: Good and bad news at Barça
Marc Bernal will be unavailable for this Wednesday’s Champions League clash against Atlético de Madrid, but Araujo, for his part, will be fit. Yesterday, both Araujo and Marc Bernal had to come off...
What is latest Trump approval rating amid economic woes, gas prices?
Donald Trump hits his lowest approval rating over economy fueled by inflation and concerns over gas prices. See what New Jersey polls show about Trump
Where to watch UCLA vs. South Carolina in March Madness Sweet 16: Time, TV Channel
The No. 1 UCLA Bruins face the No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks in the national championship of the women's NCAA Tournament. Here's how to see all the action.
What the Muppets can teach us about Maine politics
For dreamers like me, the Rainbow Connection seems distant. Our political climate has abandoned what I consider the Muppet spirit: a celebration of wistfulness, a collective made strong by diversity and humble and transparent leadership. Contemporary politics has been like shadow puppets: projections designed to obscure the causes of our dysfunctional society. The Muppets offer […]
What the Muppets can teach us about Maine politics
For dreamers like me, the Rainbow Connection seems distant. Our political climate has abandoned what I consider the Muppet spirit: a celebration of wistfulness, a collective made strong by diversity and humble and transparent leadership. Contemporary politics has been like shadow puppets: projections designed to obscure the causes of our dysfunctional society. The Muppets offer […]
COMMENTARY: Politics and vulgarity are not a good mix
If you have sensed that our politicians are using more vulgarity in public discourse in the last 10 years, you are right. In the past, politicians have only occasionally used slang or made a quick ...
New Mexico's court-mandated pathways to mental health care
Lawmakers have made changes in recent years to bolster the treatment system, but advocates say wide gaps render them insufficient.
South Carolina vs UCLA prediction, national championship analysis, March Madness expert picks
Our March Madness experts analyze the National Championship matchup between No. 1 South Carolina vs No. 1 UCLA in the 2026 NCAA Tournament on April 5.
Scientists trap light in a layer 1,000x thinner than hair
Researchers have created a nanoscale structure that traps infrared light in a layer just 40 nanometers thick—over 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. By using a unique material with exceptional light-bending properties, they can confine and intensify light far beyond previous limits. This setup also dramatically boosts light conversion effects, turning infrared into visible blue light. The advance could pave the way for smaller, faster photonic technologies.
Understanding Porsche's 3-Digit Model Names
Porsche's three-digit model names denote cars with different setups. The digits were originally made to denote the company's sequential projects.
WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD CAPS PACESETTER SPORTS INVITATIONAL
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The IU Indianapolis women's track and field squad closed out the two-day Pacesetter Sports Invitational, hosted by Indiana State on Saturday (Apr. 4). Freshman Sarah Madi-Bouabre earned a runner-up finish in the long jump while Paige Schulte finished fifth in the 200m event and sixth in the 400m.
Luca Langoni sparks Revolution to 3-0 victory over Montreal
Luca Langoni scored early before notching his league-high fifth assist on defender Mamadou Fofana's first career goal, and the New England Revolution beat CF Montreal 3-0 on Saturday. New England (2-3-0) has lost all three of its road matches under first-year coach Marko Mitrović, but the Revolution have won their two home matches by a combined 9-1 score. Montreal falls to 1-5-0 as ends a six-match road trip to begin the season.
Weatherly Middle School Science Olympiad team qualifies for states
Weatherly Middle School Science Olympiad team has qualified for the state competition at Penn State Altoona on April 25. The team, made up of sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students, competed at the regional competition at Penn…
I watched The Godfather again at 64 and cried — not because the movie changed, but because I finally understood that the films we watched in our twenties weren’t just entertainment, they were instruction manuals for masculinity, family, and honor that shaped every major decision I ever made
Last week, I found myself alone in my living room, remote in hand, scrolling through streaming options when The Godfather appeared on screen. It had been years since I’d watched it. Decades, really. Something made me click play, and three hours later, I was sitting there with tears streaming down my face. Not because Sonny […]
China's Hypersonic Wind Tunnel Leaves America In The Dust
China is at the cutting edge of technology, and its strongest wind tunnel boasts wind speeds of Mach 30 — far greater than anything that the U.S. has made.
March Madness Final Four live updates: How to watch, time, channel for Illinois vs. UConn, Arizona vs. Michigan
Get live updates from the men’s NCAA Final Four as March Madness continues. Follow the latest as UConn faces Illinois and Arizona plays Michigan.
North Carolina maker blends pottery with mental health advocacy
For Halima Flynt, pottery is more than a creative outlet.
LIVE: Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona
Follow our live updates, including team news coverage, before our text commentary stream of Spanish top flight match.
Lander students win divisions, receive special accolades at 2026 Sceince Fair in Laramie
(Laramie, WY) – Several Lander students made an impact at the Wyoming State Science Fair in March, held at the University of Wyoming, where there were approximately 130 student competitors from across the state who had qualified during the regional science fairs. County 10 caught up with Lander advisor Sam Hartpence, who oversaw students Carson […]
Dan Hurley called his shot: Tarris Reed Jr. would be X-factor for UConn Final Four run
Tarris Reed Jr. started only one game last year. Now, he's an every-game starter for UConn and has led the Huskies on a deep March Madness run.
LIVE! Watch ‘Wilder Vs. Chisora’ Official Video Stream
Two of the hardest hitting heavyweights in boxing will duke it out later tonight (Sat., April 4, 2026) LIVE on DAZN pay-per-view (PPV) from inside the O2 Arena in London, England, as former WBC heavyweight king Deontay Wilder meets British veteran Derek Chisora in the main event. Wilder, who made some outlandish comments earlier this […]
Here’s how NASA cleared the iPhone 17 Pro Max for astronauts on Artemis II
The iPhone 17 Pro Max made it onto Artemis II after NASA cleared it for spaceflight, with each astronaut using one to capture the mission.
Album Review: 6WA by BigXthaPlug & 600 Entertainment
BigXthaPlug spent eight months in Nashville making a country-rap album that debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, put “All the Way” with Bailey Zimmerman at No. 4 on the Hot 100, got him a Rolling Stone cover, and filled arenas with Jelly Roll. And then he came back to Dallas, rounded up four of his signees, and made a gangsta-rap record with N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton on the cover. 6WA is the second group release from 600 Entertainment, named after the 600 block of Meadowridge Street in Ferris, Texas, where BigX and his people grew up. The whole thing is loaded with West Coast samples. From N.W.A.’s “8Ball,” Eazy-E’s “Real Muthaphuckkin G’s” and “Boyz-N-The-Hood,” Ice-T’s “6 in the Mornin’,” Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” and more. BigX is staking his name on the lineup he built—Rosama, MurdaGang PB, Yung Hood, KevanGotBandz, KaineMusic—and claiming a lineage from 1,400 miles away while insisting Dallas is its own thing. A million dollars in cash, split and handed straight to his mother. That’s the first place BigX goes on “From the Bottom.” He’d probably still be in the streets if he didn’t have his son and daughter. He only started rapping to make life better for Carter. Couldn’t start his car back then, now people get starstruck at Starbucks, and he throws the whole field away in one sentence: “How you think we competin’? You on the same bag, I just made me some millions off country.” Goyard bags off a Nashville payday, and he wants you to know exactly how far he’s come from everybody else. “Safe to Say” does something similar but looser. It’s a straight Ice Cube “It Was a Good Day” flip, and BigX nails it. Wakes up, checks both phones, nobody’s locked up, kid accounts look good. Gets pulled over, only catches a warning. Pulls up on the squad to liquor, ladies, and haze. Rosama takes the second verse and matches him. Wakes up to his girl cleaning his cuticles, twins playing peekaboo, pays off his car, calls a cousin, sees the opps and they don’t trip. Lawyer calls, he beat his case. Rosama is the strongest voice in the 600 camp after BigX, and “Life of a Gangster” is why. Third person, riding low, blacked-out windows, snub-nose revolver. A character who chose sticking people up over selling dope. “Quick eraser like a number-two pencil.” He never breaks character, and his delivery drops lower and slower than anything he does on the group cuts, like he’s telling you something at a cookout that he probably shouldn’t. Then on “Long Live Fre$h” he’s a completely different rapper. “Short-bus diamonds, these bitches retarded,” wide-body Durango he can’t even park. That kind of range matters on a group record. MurdaGang PB’s best verse is on the title track. Feds at his door at 6 AM, cameras busted, flushing dope, ram truck putting everybody on the floor. Yung Hood on “The Hottest” just lays out four reasons to keep hustling. Who wants to be broke, women cost money, you need bail, and home has to be straight. It’s funnier and more honest than most rappers get when they’re trying to explain why they sell drugs. KevanGotBandz on “Ain’t Never Slowin’ Down” talks about his father getting caught on the dope while he’s sitting on $300K somewhere in the hills, which is a specific kind of guilt that doesn’t usually make it onto crew tapes. KaineMusic, the newest signee, takes the back half of “Who Dunnit” and introduces herself in third person—“Took flight just to show these hoes how to perform”—but it’s too short to know if she can hold a full song. The flex tracks fill the middle of the LP and mostly run together. “I Go” is Rosama and PB trading brands, guns, and food punchlines. Rosama’s “anemic, my iron tucked low in this shirt” is a slick gun bar, PB fires back with “.223 with a clip ‘bout as big as a toddler” and “I go Burger King, stay with that whopper.” Quick, funny sometimes, but it’s all shopping lists. “Dopeman” is a chant. “6ixer Party” brings Snoop Dogg, who does exactly what you’d expect Snoop Dogg to do. BigX contributes the night’s wildest overshare: “She say she brought a friend too, well, I’m tryna put sausage on her dental.” These songs move fast and don’t overstay, but three or four of them could trade verses and nobody would catch it. Midway through, The D.O.C. shows up for a spoken-word interlude. Tracy Curry. West Dallas native, former N.W.A affiliate, co-writer on a lot of the records getting sampled on this very album. He thanks BigX for the tribute and then gets direct: “This your time, this DFW time. You need to do it like we do it down here.” Leave bread crumbs so everybody behind you can eat. Keep God in your life. It’s fatherly and generous, and it does raise the question of whether 6WA follows that advice. The album borrows heavy. The cover art, the Eazy-E samples, “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted” opening with a direct “Boyz-N-The-Hood” lift, Yung Hood rapping “Flag on my left side, Crip until I die.” But the stuff that actually stays with you is Dallas. BigX talking about Pleasant Grove, Rosama calling himself a country boy, PB recounting a raid that could’ve been last Tuesday. The record smells most like itself when it smells like Ferris, Texas, and least like Compton. BigX on “The Hottest” says his father was the first person he knew who had chickens. Not the way rappers usually wave at the drug trade. He means his actual father, his actual family. On “600 Degrees,” Rosama compares his chopper’s stutter to a speech disorder, PB claims he still has the block on his back even after leaving the city. BigX closes that one saying he used to spin and smack, and now the plaques are platinum. Thirty-two minutes was right for this. Nobody overstays, Tony Coles and Rance and Charley Cooks keep the production punchy, and BigX gives his signees real room instead of crowding every song. 6WA doesn’t reinvent anything. Five rappers, good beats, short clock. Most of what they say you’ve heard before. Some of it—the million to his mother, the cuticles and peekaboo, the four reasons to hustle—you won’t forget. Solid (★★★½☆) Favorite Track(s): “Safe to Say,” “From the Bottom,” “The Hottest” Subscribe
Why Can’t Politics Be More Like March Madness?
In sports we accept the rules and the outcome. Democracy depends on the same spirit.
Arizona Final Four appearances: Wildcats' deepest March Madness runs
How many Final Four appearances does Arizona men's basketball have? Here's a look at the Wildcats' March Madness history:
1 in 5 Louisiana adults report 'frequent mental distress,' the 2nd highest in the nation.
Madison Parish had the highest rates of adults with frequent mental distress in Louisiana. See the statewide data.
Journalists Capsulize Weight Loss News and ACA Premium Pressures
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Women's March Madness games today: Schedule, times, how to watch for April 4
Here's the full NCAA women's basketball schedule, for April 4, including game times, TV channels, scores and how to stream.
Students found a star from the dawn of the universe drifting into the Milky Way
A group of undergraduate students stumbled into a cosmic time capsule—one of the oldest stars ever discovered—while combing through massive astronomy datasets. What began as a class project quickly turned into a breakthrough when they spotted an extraordinarily “pristine” star made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, hinting it formed near the dawn of the universe.
Atlético Madrid vs Barcelona, La Liga: Preview
Barça begin a trio of giant games against Atleti, looking for a big win in the first one to stay in control of the title race
Minnesota volleyball team cancels spring match with UW over team health and safety concerns
MADISON (WKOW) — The volleyball spring match between the Minnesota Gophers and UW Badgers was canceled. It was scheduled for April 10 at the Sonnentag in Eau Claire.
NCAA Tournament expected to expand to 76 teams
The proposed format would add opening-round games and reshape March Madness as soon as 2027.
Trump signs order aimed at stabilizing college sports with threats to federal funding
The threat of cutting funding to cash-starved schools that don’t comply is real, even if the stricter rules that come out of the executive order he signed Friday could take a while to figure out.
Trump signs order aimed at stabilizing college sports with threats to federal funding
The threat of cutting funding to cash-starved schools that don’t comply is real, even if the stricter rules that come out of the executive order he signed Friday could take a while to figure out.
Georgia lawmakers pass bill that lets property owners sue over homeless encampments
Homelessness advocates say the bill would cause law enforcement to arrest people because they have nowhere to sleep and spur frivolous lawsuits paid for by taxpayers.
March Madness Expansion? NCAA Eyes Shocking 76-Team Field
The NCAA is looking to expand March Madness, and a decision is coming soon. NCAA leadership and members of the […]
Fact-checking key moments in Bondi's tenure as Trump's attorney general
PolitiFact has fact-checked Bondi since 2010, during her Florida attorney general run, a seat she held from 2011 to 2019. Here are some key moments and falsehoods from her year-plus in the nation’s top law enforcement spot.
Scientists Have Made French Fry Breakthrough
Researchers have developed a method of making french fries that results in a healthier bite without sacrificing crispiness.
MassLive: Boston, Springfield land on top 10 list of best cities for STEM professionals
Boston and Springfield were among the "Top 10 best metro areas for STEM professionals" in 2018, according to statistics compiled by WalletHub, a personal finance website. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Boston was ranked second and Springfield eighth on the list. Worcester came in at 18th. The full results can be found here. "We made another good list," Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said. "Glad to see our educational and workforce development are starting to pay off - this is all about a good four-letter word - jobs!" The 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country were ranked in 17 key metrics, WalletHub said. The evaluation ranged from "per-capita job openings for STEM graduates to annual median growth for STEM jobs, to projected demand for STEM workers by 2020," according to the summary. Seattle was top-rated, followed in order by Boston; Pittsburgh; Austin, Texas; Minneapolis; Madison, Wisconsin; Salt Lake City; Springfield; Chicago; and Atlanta. Original article: https://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/11/springfield_makes_top_10_natio.html
Company backed by Trump sons looks to sell drone interceptors to Gulf states being attacked by Iran
The sales drive by Florida-based Powerus – which announced a deal last month to bring aboard Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. – positions the company to potentially benefit from a war that their father began.
Downed fighter jet punctures Trump’s and Hegseth’s claims of air invulnerability
An Iran war that was already proving quite unpopular with the American people has entered a new, more problematic phase for President Donald Trump.
Georgia lawmakers fail to settle voting machines conflict before end of annual session
The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state's voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground.
Madrid business escapes serious damage in fire
Firefighters quickly contained a fire over Main Stret Liquors.
Gadsden breaks ground on latest phase of upgraded sports park
Phase 5 of the project will include improvements made along the riverfront.
Gemma 4 and what makes an open model succeed
Having written a lot of model release blog posts, there’s something much harder about reviewing open models when they drop relative to closed models, especially in 2026. In recent years, there were so few open models, so when Llama 3 was released most people were still doing research on Llama 2 and super happy to get an update. When Qwen 3 was released, the Llama 4 fiasco had just gone down, and a whole research community was emerging to study RL on Qwen 2.5 — it was a no brainer to upgrade. Today, when an open model releases, it’s competing with Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-OSS, Arcee Large, Nemotron 3, Olmo 3, and others. The space is populated, but still feels full of hidden opportunity. The potential of open models feels like a dark matter, a potential we know is huge, but few clear recipes and examples for how to unlock it are out there. Agentic AI, OpenClaw, and everything brewing in that space is going to spur mass experimentation in open models to complement the likes of Claude and Codex, not replace them. Especially with open models, the benchmarks at release are an extremely incomplete story. In some ways this is exciting, as new open models have a much higher variance and ability to surprise, but it also points at some structural reasons that make building businesses and great AI experiences around open models harder than the closed alternatives. When a new Claude Opus or GPT drops, spending a few hours with them in my agentic workflows is genuinely a good vibe test. For open models, putting them through this test is a category error. Something else to be said about open models in the era of agents is that they get out of the debate of integration, harnesses, and tools and let us see close to the ground on what exactly is the ability of just a model. Of course, we can’t test some things like search abilities without some tool, but being able to measure exactly the pace of progress of the model alone is a welcome simplification to a systematically opaque AI space. Share The list of factors I’d use to assess a new open-weight model I’m considering investing in includes: Model performance (and size) — how this model performs on benchmarks I care about and how it compares to other models of a similar size. Country of origin — some businesses care deeply about provenance, and if a model was built in China or not. Model license — if a model needs legal approval for use, uptake will be slower at mid-sized and large companies. Tooling at release — many models release with half-broken, or at least substantially slower, implementations in popular software like vLLM, Transformers, SGLANG, etc due to pushing the envelope of architectures or tools. Model fine-tunability — how easy or hard it is to modify the given model to your use-case when you actually try and use it. The core problem is that some of these are immediately available at release, e.g. general performance, license, origin, etc. but others such as tooling take day(s) to week(s) to stabilize, and others are open research questions — with no group systematically monitoring fine-tunability. In the early era of open models, the days of Llama 2 or 3 and Qwen pre v3.5, the architectures were fairly simple and the models tended to work out of the box. Some of this was due to the extremely hard work of the Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc. developer teams. Some is due to the new models being genuinely harder to work with. When it comes to something like Qwen 3.5 or Nemotron 3, with hybrid models (either gated delta net or mamba layers), the tooling is very rough at release. Things you would expect to “just work” often don’t. I’ve been following this area closely since we released Olmo Hybrid with a similar architecture, and Qwen 3.5 is just starting to work well in the various open-source tools that need to all play nice together for RL research. That’s 1.5 months after the release date! This is just to start really investing more into understanding the behavior of the models. Of course, others started working on these models sooner by investing more engineering resources or relying on partially closed software. The fully open and distributed ecosystem takes a long time to get going on some new models. All of this is lead-in for the most important question for open models — how easy is it to adapt to specific use-cases? This is a different problem for different model sizes. Large MoE open-weight models may be used by entities like Cursor who need complex capabilities in their domain, e.g. Composer 2 trained on Kimi K2.5. Other applications can be built on much smaller models, such as Chroma’s Context-1 model for agentic search, built on GPT-OSS 20B. The question of “which models are fine-tunable” is largely background knowledge known by engineers across the industry. There should be a thriving research area here to support the open ecosystem model. The first step is to understand characteristics of different base and post-trained models to understand what they look like. The second step is to tune pretraining recipes for open models so they’re more flexible. Interconnects AI is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe For The ATOM Project and other Interconnects endeavors, we’ve put in substantial effort to measuring adoption trends in the open ecosystem. Everything takes a long time to unfold after a model is first publicly available — and adaptability is why. What we know for sure now, when Qwen has been going from strength to strength with its releases, is that technical staff across the industry has gotten comfortable working with Qwen models. Countless research methods and datasets were made to work with Qwen. It’ll take patience for any other model family to get to this point — a patience I’m not sure many open model builders have. This takes us to Gemma 4, Google’s latest open models. Gemma 3 was released more than a year ago, in March of 2025, and is a bit underrated. Gemma 4 comes in 4 sizes for now, with a bigger, MoE model of over 100B total parameters rumored but not released yet. The models we have today come in sizes of ~5B dense, 8B dense, 26B total 4B active MoE, and 31B dense. I’m most excited that they’re finally adopting a standard Apache 2.0 open source license. This’ll massively boost adoption. The standard of better licenses for strong open-weight LLMs was set by mostly Chinese open model labs in the last 1-2 years, and now U.S. companies are following suit. I will personally be so happy if the horrible Llama licenses and Gemma terms of service were an ~18-month transient dynamic of the industry being nervous about releasing strong open models. The Gemma 4 scores look very solid, the small models have incredible benchmark scores (especially in general domains like LMArena) and the 31B model rivals the recent Qwen 3.5 27B, which is the leading member of that class. The ~30B size range is an important one, as it’s accessible both to researchers and to enterprises looking to deploy the model in real use-cases. Where the 7B model scale is the default for tinkering and research, a 30B model is the default for seeing if an open model can unlock substantial value in your specific workflow — a good mix of intelligence, low price, tractability for downstream training, etc. This takes us back to the above adoption criteria I mentioned for open models and the bigger question — do I think Gemma 4 will be an overwhelming success? Previous Gemma models have been plagued by tooling issues and poorer performance when being finetuned. Gemma 4’s success is going to be entirely determined by ease of use, to a point where a 5-10% swing on benchmarks wouldn’t matter at all. It’s strong enough, small enough, with the right license, and from the U.S., so many companies are going to slot it in. I’m cautiously optimistic that Gemma 4 is going to work better here. Winds are shifting for open models built in America. We saw GPT-OSS go through a bumpy launch to become an overwhelming success. There’s a collective energy around the likes of Reflection, Arcee, Nemotron, Gemma, Olmo, and peers that show substantial demand for building new stacks around open models. There’s capital to be spent on AI stacks across the economy by those who want more ownership of everything, including the model. After launching The ATOM Project 240 days ago, the conversation is shifting into the next stage. Summer of 2025 was a crisis moment where the U.S. AI scene realized it can’t wait and figure out open models after building AGI. The two markets will capture different areas and proceed in parallel. Now that more companies in the U.S. are releasing strong models, we need to improve the ecosystem so that these models are easy to use, understand, and build value around. It’s the hard work to build another inflection point in these adoption plots I’ve been updating consistently, but that’s the work to be done. Join me in it. More data coming soon! Here’s a sneak peek:
Stay tuned, Cincinnati: WKRP is coming to town, N.C. station's director says
The call sign, made famous by a TV sitcom that ran 1978-82, will be transferred by the Raleigh station that acquired it more than a decade ago.
What Trump's Iran war means for Republicans ahead of midterms
This is not the run-up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted.
‘The Madison’ Star Ben Schnetzer Reveals His Favorite Scene to Film
Why there was something magical about that day on set in Montana.
Nintendo has made some changes to Mario user icons in latest Switch 2 and Switch update
A little interesting discovery has been made regarding the recent Switch 2 and Switch update, as Nintendo made some changes to a number of Mario icons. It looks like for the first batch, new renders are being used. The differences can be a bit hard to spot, but they are present. Here’s a look (version 21.2.0 on the left, version...
Madison Public Market dreams, Vanilla Bean closes, a new cooking show
The Cap Times' new food and culture newsletter shares Madison area restaurant news, with recommendations for what to read, watch, listen and eat.
Exclusive: Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a hospital last month in previously undisclosed incident
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a hospital after becoming ill last month at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia, according to people with knowledge of the March 20 incident.
UCLA vs Texas Final Four picks, bold predictions for women's March Madness
Our March Madness experts analyze the Final Four matchup between No. 1 UCLA vs No. 1 Texas in the 2026 NCAA Tournament on April 3.
Kirk Cousins getting paid by Raiders: How QB has cashed in to become one of NFL's richest players
Only two players in NFL history have made more money than Cousins and they are both locks for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Trump calls for a major increase in defense spending alongside cuts in domestic spending
The White House is releasing details of President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget, including a $1.5 trillion defense spending request. That's the largest of its kind in decades.
8 arrests made in federal crackdown on alleged health care fraud in Southern California
Federal officials on Thursday arrested eight people they say were involved in various health care fraud schemes totaling $50 million in and around Los Angeles.
What to know about Todd Blanche, Trump's pick for acting attorney general
Before picking Blanche to help lead and now run the Justice Department, President Donald Trump was his client.
Family-owned Maryland candy business set to close with plans for possible new location
Easter brings a rush of customers to Log Cabin Homemade Chocolates in Bel Air, Maryland, which has been in business for 66 years.
An Art-Science Partnership Offering New Views of Dynamic Landscapes
The immersive and interactive WILDLAND exhibition allowed the public—and the exhibition’s creators—to explore connections among water, trees, fire, and other natural and human-made materials expressed…
Microsoft releases new AI models: competition with OpenAI ramps up
Microsoft AI has made its in-house models for transcription, speech recognition, and image generation available on Foundry.
Chicago travel mistakes I made as a first-time tourist
I spent two days in Chicago for the first time. I regretted exploring too many neighborhoods and visiting in the winter.
Enzo Fernandez: Chelsea drop midfielder for Port Vale and Man City games over Real Madrid comments
Liam Rosenior says Enzo Fernandez will not play in Chelseas next two matches because of comments he made about his future and links with Real Madrid.
A Badgers basketball team builds a foundation for success
The University of Wisconsin-Madison women's basketball program piled up its most wins since 2011.