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How much and why premiums are going up for small businesses in 2027 - Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker
Each year, health insurers submit rate filings to state regulators outlining their expectations for the coming year and proposing premium changes for Affordable Care Act (ACA)-compliant plans. This analysis examines filings in the small group market, which covers plans offered to small businesses (generally with 50 or fewer full-time equivalent employees). Some of this coverage is […]
Does Tennessee business growth matter if no one enjoys living here?
Tennessee ranks low for most quality of life measures according to a recent report by CNBC and more people leave the state each year.
2026 Tobacco Heritage Day at L.W. Paul Living History Farm in Conway
For many in attendance of Tobacco Heritage Day on Saturday, Aug. 1, tobacco farming wasn't just history — it was part of their childhood. Generations of Horry County families made a living in the tobacco fields, where children often spent summers priming leaves, loading wagons or stringing tobacco by hand before it was cured in barns. Once the county's dominant cash crop, tobacco shaped the local economy and way of life for decades, with thousands of acres planted each year and warehouses bustling during auction season.
UNCW Business School Students Travel to Prague for Real-Life Consulting Experience by Robert Burrus
This article was contributed by Kestrel Smoot, International Programs Coordinator for UNCW’s Cameron School of Business. During the most recent spring semester, 33 upper-level finance and marketing students from the UNCW’s Cameron School of Business traveled to Prague, Czechia, to participate in an intensive international consulting project. Unlike traditional study-abroad programs, the Prague consultancy project focuses on real client engagement. Each year’s project is entirely new, designed through collaboration between faculty and industry partners to identify a current business challenge that students will address. This year, students worked with MAMS-Champi, a Czech non-alcoholic beverage company that is seeking to expand into other global markets. Throughout the first half of the semester, students attend class at UNCW and prepare for their time abroad by conducting preliminary research, developing analytical frameworks, and organizing themselves into specialized teams responsible for tasks such as marketing strategy, industry analysis, consumer segmentation, and competitive evaluation. The course emphasizes independence and teamwork, requiring students to take ownership of their work, manage deadlines, and collaborate across functional groups. Additionally, faculty serve as advisors, allowing students to navigate the complexities of the project much as they would in a professional consulting environment. Once in Prague, students met with company leadership, toured facilities, and refined their recommendations based on real-time feedback. The in-person component is widely regarded as the most transformative aspect of the program because students must synthesize weeks of work into a cohesive presentation and deliver it to the client, demonstrating professionalism, strategic thinking, and adaptability. Beyond the consulting work, students participated in cultural and educational activities that broadened their understanding of global business environments. They explored Prague’s historic districts, learned about Czech culture, and engaged with local professionals. These experiences helped students understand how economic, regulatory, and social factors shape market opportunities. The Prague consultancy project stands as a defining example of the Cameron School of Business’s commitment to experiential learning, consistently strengthening students’ confidence, enhancing their resumes, and serving as a focal point in job interviews. Employers recognize the value of the hands-on experience and transferable skills students gain, underscoring the program’s role in preparing industry-ready graduates for today’s fast-moving business landscape.
The Streaming Bubble Keeps Popping
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) One of my rules is “never bet against PE [private equity]”. This isn’t to say that I agree with their methods or tactics or strategies or financial innovations (aka shenanigans). Just that in the long arc of financial history, they’ve tended to return very good returns to their shareholders. That said, their forays into entertainment have left me...skeptical. I’ve written before about PE’s production company/celebrity production company roll ups, and those haven’t really worked out. Some PE groups tried to “roll up” an industry that isn’t “roll-up-able” for lack of a better term—since the barrier to entry for starting a production company is very low—often paying top dollar for celebrity production companies at the height of streaming valuations. So yeah maybe we can bet against PE when they venture into filmed entertainment. I’ve also noted that studio lots seemed to be a bubble back in 2022. Sure enough… Yikes! That sure sounds like some private equity guys lost some money. The only caveat being that holding a lot of land in Los Angeles is always valuable. But that wasn’t the pitch and likely real estate investment companies overpaid for said land. I mean, Goldman Sachs had to repossess it after all. (Technically, I’m not sure these buyers were traditional private equity, but PE was buying LA studio lots earlier this decade.) All to say: I call out bubbles when I see them, and they often pop. Anywho, my most famous bubble call was the “streaming bubble”, specifically that the major streamers were making too many shows and films. And that it could all come crashing down. Notably, I made this call before the strikes of 2023, but those strikes potentially accelerated the popping. And now it has indeed popped. One of my most popular articles of last year made that exact case. A year later, it’s time to update that analysis. The bottom line is that the streaming contraction continues. Credit where credit is due, Luminate—an analytics company whose data I use weekly in my streaming ratings report—called this out in a recent report I saw highlighted in both Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter. But I’m adding my data to their look, including streaming films and kids TV shows. I’ll also provide some other data that all tells the same picture. Let’s dive in! Subscribe The Number of Streaming TV Shows, Films and Specials Is Declining AGAIN in 2026 Let’s get right to the data, starting with my dataset. Specifically, each week I track every “notable” title to come out on streaming. I try to grab every title on every major streamer, meaning if it’s a first run or original or exclusive, I track it. This helps me call out the “dogs not barking” and the misses/flops each week. So that will be our first series of charts, my weekly collection data. Let’s start with the raw TV show, film and special data, by week. Note: As the years have gone by, I have actually added more sources (going from just one source to five sources) to find new titles, meaning that this data collection is, likely, more accurate now than in the past. Which means my team and I are more likely to have undercounted titles in the past rather than today. I like to cut the data several different ways. Here’s that same look, by quarter, to more sharply show the trends: And here’s the data just looking at the first half of each year. That’s the same data, just cut three different ways with three different time periods. Note that films, TV shows, and specials are all down by 25%, 42% and 17%, respectively, from 2022. The good news is that the number of films and specials actually increased year-over-year from 2025 to 2026, but not enough to offset the 25% decline in TV shows. Now, I also look at kids shows, and here they are pulled out on their own: And here’s that by quarter: This really seems to be a notable area of pullback by the streamers. Kids shows are down 80% from 2022. This reflects some formerly Disney+ shows going to cable TV first, but also pullbacks from HBO Max, Prime Video and Netflix. I also categorize the TV shows by English language and non-English language, and that also reveals a lot of where the drop comes from: And here is by the half-year: In this look, the good news is the drop for English language shows seems to have stabilized in the last year. But the bad news is the long term decline from the 2022 peak. Other Data So I wasn’t the only person to notice this decline in the number of shows. I have a few other data sources for this, though most only go through the end of 2025. As I said, Luminate beat me to the punch, so let’s look at their data. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… What TV loss streaming didn’t make up for... How Netflix has changed their programming slate over time… Ten more images charting the decline of production... What type of films aren’t being made anymore... The good news (for movie theaters)… And more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
The Medical Minute: Back-to-sports season: Injury prevention tips for young athletes
Millions of young athletes get injured each year. Penn State Health sports medicine experts share practical tips to help prevent injuries and keep kids healthy, safe and in the game.
Sketch comedy, coming-of-age stories part of new IF Theatre season
IF Theatre, the organization that puts on IndyFringe each year, has a packed year-round schedule with a variety of stories for 2026-27.
Rise in US preteen suicide rate alarms mental health experts
The number of preteens — ages 8 to 12 — who die by suicide in the United States each year is relatively small. But the total in 2025 was 194 — the most since at least 2001, according to preliminary data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As Hegseth pursues a 'High-T' military, here's what to know about testosterone replacement
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he plans to test U.S. service members’ testosterone levels each year. But when it comes to testosterone levels, optimization isn’t so straightforward.
Games Workshop: Warhammer+ Adds New Features, Increases Price
Warhammer+ subscribers will receive two minis each year and other new rewards, prompting a subscription price increase.
Federal civil rights agency moves to stop requiring demographic data collection after 60 years
The Trump administration is moving to toss aside a 60-year-old requirement for tens of thousands of private sector employers to submit workforce demographic reports each year to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.
Philadelphia offers forgivable $50,000 loans to help small businesses expand
Philadelphia's Boost Your Business program provides funding and other resources for selected companies each year.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
America’s Enterprising Spirit Is Booming After Decades-Long Slump
Hundreds of thousands of people are creating companies each year, ending a decades-long drought.
The States Try to Topple WarnerMount…Thus Begins the Local Antitrust Era
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Well, it looks like it’s time for another strategy column. Can I finally avoid writing about M&A? No, it seems I cannot. Admittedly, I’m a week early with this column, since I usually put it out every other week. But this news couldn’t wait. This will make three “Most Important Stories” in a row with a merger or acquisition as its centerpiece. First, Roku-Fox (an acquisition), then Comcast-NBCUniversal (a divestment!), and now the State AGs and the WGA’s lawsuits against Paramount’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery (antitrust). M&A is usually the “most important” topic any given week, simply because a giant company merging or breaking up (or preventing those outcomes) can have the biggest impact on the streaming board. If you think about these companies as players in a game, changing the number of players is one of the biggest changes you can make. I shouldn’t really complain, either, since this lawsuit is very good news for customers and suppliers (econ speak for talent, workers and indie studios in Hollywood). So let me answer some questions about this potential trial, along with (shudder) making some heavily caveated predictions. I’ll also look at whether Hollywood must consolidate, whether or not the states can win, trouble at X-Box, Netflix’s YouTube binge, and more. Plus, I have five images that visualize this merger and the harm, including three brand new data looks you’ve never seen before. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Can The States and the WGA Stop Hollywood’s Consolidation (Crisis)? If every other newsletter and news outlet is writing about the same story, I try to avoid writing about it as well, but I can’t ignore a story this consequential. The story of the last year was the fate of Warner Bros. Discovery, and this development potentially extends that saga into 2027. As I tried to figure out my angle, I realized, like my last column, I’m again faced with a series of questions. These questions, though, are much more forward-looking. Will the states win? Will the WGA win? If so, what happens to Warner Bros. Discovery? Either way, will this chill the market for future mergers? So you know what that means: predictions. About the future, no less, the hardest thing to predict.1 Just remember: nothing here comes with a guarantee. And the more confident someone is in their predictions, the less you should trust them. This situation is incredibly fluid, nuanced, uncertain and tenuous. So let’s try to explain what may happen. Question: Why File this Lawsuit? I’ll admit, a few months back, I was fairly pessimistic about the fate of this lawsuit. Rumors had started bubbling up that the state Attorneys General (in particular California) wanted to settle with either some minor divestments (usually CNN) or behavioral remedies. And that tracked for me: the states usually settle lawsuits, like the recent John Deere right-to-repair suit. Yet, they plan to fight this. (As they did the LiveNation-Ticketmaster monopolization trial and the Nexstar-Tegna merger.) Honestly, that also makes a ton of sense. Frankly, this move is just good politics for these State AGs. Most are still running for higher and higher office in blue states—some folks have emphasized that only Democratic AGs joined this suit, but given the Ellison/Trump ties, and fears of retribution, that tracks—and a high profile case like this will help them move up the electoral ladder, especially since Paramount and its leadership (the Ellisons, father and heir) have sided with the other side of the political aisle. That makes them unsympathetic to Democratic voters and Hollywood workers in particular. Why did this lawsuit happen? In addition to the very real concerns about industry consolidation, this is why. That said, I don’t think we would have seen this lawsuit for Netflix and Warner Bros., simply because they’re more sympathetic and aligned with Democrats. But those consolidation concerns are real. The “town”—meaning Hollywood and such—really is seeing the damage of mergers on this industry. That’s why the WGA also filed its own lawsuit in defense of workers as well. (Wildcard: What about Europe? Will they try to stop the deal, too? There have been some rumors out of the UK they may try to fight the deal, and UK enforcers just stopped a Getty Images-Shutterstock tie up, so there is precedence. This argument could go either way, though. On one hand, the EU doesn’t need to step in, cause they states are handling it. On the other hand, this could make the EU’s case easier. Just imagine if both sides coordinated. I’ll simply say, “We’ll see!”) Question: Will The State AGs or the WGA Win? Can the state AGs play David to Paramount-Skydance’s Goliath here? That’s really the whole thing, isn’t it? If you know this result, you could make a lot of money. When things are uncertain, it’s tempting to shrug and say, “Eh” meaning it’s a 50/50 proposition. I wouldn’t, though. When in doubt, you should expect that the merging parties succeed. AT&T did successfully buy Warner Bros., after all, and Disney bought Fox without any challenges. Many judges are extremely sympathetic to mergers, and I’d bet the state AGs get a judge who will allow the merger. (Even Obama-appointed judges often allow mergers.) As I understand it, we’ll see two main attacks. First, theatrical films. The AGs are arguing that, when it comes to share of box office and the number of both “wide releases” and blockbuster (or “tentpole”) films, the merging parties will have over 27% market share. Now, the Supreme Court once ruled from on high that any merger that exceeds 30% is presumptively illegal, but that’s guidance, not an ironclad bar. Still, the states will have to argue that this is close to having too much power, and with that power, this will likely further worsen the theater/studio splits in particular. Indeed, as Matthew Stoller pointed out, “just five studios are responsible for 95% of all blockbusters; if this merger goes through, then Paramount and Disney will control 60% of that.” So yes, movie studios will be very concentrated after this merger. Want me to visualize some of that? Well, here’s the share of films that grossed over $200 million at the domestic box office since 2022. (Note: this isn’t all films released in over 3,000 screens, but it is a good look at market power.) First, here are the 43 films by studio: Notice all the blue (Disney), orange (Universal), and purple (Warner Bros)? Yeah, those studios are powerful, and this combines Paramount with one of them. Here’s the look by studio and share of the films that grossed over $200 million: Now, if you look at that and also think, “Huh, should we break up Disney?” I’m with you. I’ve seen some folks poo-poo this idea that this is a real category, but it is! For an upcoming article, I’ve been pulling data on the share of top 100 films at the box office as a share of total box office, and it’s massive. Here’s the chart: (This analysis looks at The-Number’s top 100 films and total domestic box office each year.) To be clear, tentpoles make up 80.7% of the box office each year, so I do think it’s a genuine market. (To be clear, films grossing over $50 million make up 80% of the domestic box office, and films grossing over $100 million make up 64.1%.) I mean, the top 100 films at the box office make up 95% of each year’s grosses. Worse, the combined studios will likely cut output to flex that market power. Everyone can just look at what happened to Disney and Fox to see the precedent. (With fewer films, the remaining theaters have to give more for those few films that remain.) Here’s an image I’ve used a lot, the share of wide-release films from Disney and Fox over time: The AGs will also argue that this consolidation will also impact the cable industry. In this case, the consolidation is actually worse, but that environment is…complicated. Paramount will argue that the cable industry is shrinking. That said, predictions that cable will “go to zero” also don’t look very well supported by the data, as the declines are shrinking, meaning “cable” or “vMVPDs” will likely stabilize at some point. Can the state Attorneys General win on those two main arguments? I honestly don’t know. Again, I’d bet no, since history in general supports that, but it depends on the judge/jury and how they interpret the arguments. Notably, Paramount won’t face accusations about monopoly power in other areas, like streaming, news, sports rights, or vertical integration. I tend to disagree with leaving out sports rights, but I also see the appeal for a simpler case. The states also aren’t really pushing novel theories about labor harm either, which should help. (By the way, Sean McNulty at The Ankler wrote a great run through of potential options, and Capitol Forum also wrote a great paper on theatrical consolidation. Both these pieces predated the lawsuit. Matthew Stoller is also out with his analysis of the pros and cons of the case too.) In some ways, the WGA’s case is even stronger. Quoting Sean McNulty’s summary: “The WGA is citing WARNAMOUNT as crossing a 30% market share in multiple sectors, a number that the Supreme Court has precedent for deeming “presumptively anticompetitive” in a market. According to the WGA numbers, WARNAMOUNT would have represented: - 35% of film writing jobs between 2021 and 2024 - 36% of TV writing projects between 2022 and 2025 - 38% of overall deals between 2021 and 2024” Notably, antitrust enforcers did win recently in the Penguin-Simon & Schuster merger by focusing on labor impact, so don’t count this thinking out. (Wildcard: Will the states try to get a jury trial? Most likely no, they’ll let a judge handle it. If I’m them, though, I’d try to put this in front of a jury. Juries tend to understand monopoly power in a more realistic way than judges faced with legions of economists.) Question: What if They Win? What if They Lose?
COCC Business Center Administrator Earns Pat Tillman Scholar Honors
Central Oregon Community College’s Keith Sherrill, who oversees the Small Business Development Center’s small business management program, has been named a 2026 Pat Tillman Scholar. The national honor, which recognizes leadership impact and service to others, awards academic aid to approximately 60 U.S. military service members, veterans or spouses each year. Fewer than 3% of […]
37th Annual Bill Hoy Kiwanis Rodeo Delivers Three Days of Excitement, Entertainment, and Community Impact - Clarksville Online - Clarksville News, Sports, Events and Information
Clarksville, TN - Thousands recently enjoyed the 37th Annual Bill Hoy Kiwanis Rodeo, a 3-day event that each year brings world-class team roping, barrel
A child can drown in seconds. Doctors want more families to be prepared
About 4,000 to 5,000 Americans drown each year. Most are adults who die in natural bodies of water, such as lakes, ponds or oceans.
UVM Health to suspend weight loss drug coverage for its employees
The hospital said it would expect to save $19 million dollars each year, but staff are skeptical of the long-term costs.
Rep. Young Kim Introduces Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Act to Strengthen U.S. Leadership, Support American Jobs, and Help Families Globally
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Representative Young Kim (CA-40) introduced the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Act to deploy proven, American-made interventions that reduce maternal and child mortality around the globe while supporting U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. Each year, nearly 260,000 women die from preventable pregnancy-related complications. Evidence-based solutions like Multiple Micronutrient Supplement (MMS) prenatal vitamins,
Congress celebrates 'Spirit of '76' for semiquincentennial
Each year, millions of Americans stream through the Capitol Visitor Center to see how our country’s legislative body works
Congress celebrates 'Spirit of '76' for semiquincentennial
Each year, millions of Americans stream through the Capitol Visitor Center to see how our country’s legislative body works
Lawmakers must put women’s health, dignity and lives ahead of politics
Each year since the fall of Roe, the Louisiana Legislature has advanced increasingly aggressive versions of the state's abortion ban, often under the guise of targeting bad actors.
Lawmakers must put women’s health, dignity and lives ahead of politics
Each year since the fall of Roe, the Louisiana Legislature has advanced increasingly aggressive versions of the state's abortion ban, often under the guise of targeting bad actors.
Making Our Own Luck
We are cross-posting a piece that former NIH official Kris Willis wrote for Macroscience. Kris is now the President and Founder of the Woodley Park Institute, for which I’m a board member. Picking winners or hedging bets? Federal science agencies have long wrestled with the question of how to ensure their billions of dollars of grants and contracts result in maximum benefits for Americans. On the surface, it might seem that a goal-oriented, interventionist style of management would be the best policy: prioritize our most pressing problems and distribute funding accordingly.This top-down strategy creates a unique hazard, though: bad choices can send resources in the wrong direction, resulting in slow progress that impedes the delivery of tangible benefits to citizens. Moreover, if decision makers pursue an applied advance when the underlying scientific principles remain poorly understood, they risk costly failures and a loss of support for the research enterprise at large. Examples include Nixon’s 1971 War on Cancer, undertaken on the premise that a cure could be achieved in less than a decade, the drive to build an operational commercial fusion plant by the mid-1990s, and the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, which failed to produce the effective treatments and prevention strategies promised by 2025. The contrasting laissez-faire approach is to hedge your bets. If the path to an advance is impossible to predict, then the wisest choice might be to distribute funding to as widely as possible. The main risk of this strategy is that spreading funding thinly may limit the resources available to the most promising research, resulting in the same negative outcomes as the interventionist approach: limited support for the most promising topics, slow progress, and delayed returns. In reality, at science agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, program managers navigate between these two extremes, setting some funds aside to target high-priority areas and using the rest to cover the widest possible range of meritorious proposals. This middle path seems like the most rational way to proceed, but it still requires making choices. How much should be set aside for high priority topics? What should those topics be? How should we define merit? Expert opinion can provide a helpful guide, but leading experts can have remarkably different opinions about what matters and what should be prioritized. Moreover, experts and administrators alike can be risk averse, giving an edge to high-profile, well-established concepts. What’s really needed is a data-driven framework to help guide decision-making, one that doesn’t simply repackage prestige or incumbency. Recognizing breakthroughs years in advance Many breakthroughs fail to attract funding or recognition at the earliest stages of development. Katalin Karikó, for example, spent years struggling to win grants for work on mRNA that would eventually win her and Drew Weissman a Nobel Prize. Similar stories can be told about Jim Allison’s groundbreaking studies leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy, Stan Pruisner’s demonstration that prions can self-replicate without DNA, or Robin Warren and Barry Marshall’s proof that Helicobacter pylori, not stress, causes ulcers. Yet at some point, the scientific community recognizes and responds to transformative breakthroughs like these. How does that change happen? And what if science funders could identify the areas that are on the cusp of a breakthrough? Those questions led my collaborators and me to study how scientists responded to past breakthroughs. Based on patterns in that data, we developed a means of predicting future breakthroughs, using biomedicine as a proof of concept. It’s worth taking a moment to describe how our approach works. Briefly, our prediction process begins by grouping the 18 million or so peer-reviewed papers in PubMed, the authoritative database of biomedical research, into roughly 50,000 unique topics. A small subset of these topics are so widely acclaimed as breakthroughs that they have been recognized with a major prize like a Nobel or a Lasker Award. We theorized that studying the development of these outliers over time, especially before they gained acclaim, was the key to identifying future instances of them. After defining topics, we chose 21 representative breakthroughs and asked what they looked like before they won prestigious prizes. To answer that question, we re-ran our topic-mapping algorithm repeatedly, winding back the clock one year each time, stringing together the years to follow the progress of each field as it grew and advanced. We found that in each case, the years leading up to a discovery followed a pattern: a burst of papers on a new, rapidly evolving topic, many of which quickly became influential. These characteristics—the percent of papers that are new, the percentage of papers that are brought in from other topics, and the influence of each individual paper—can all be measured separately for any given topic. Together, they act as a predictive signal that is detectable an average of five years before a transformative discovery is made, and up to thirty years before the discovery receives a major prize. Scanning the current research landscape for topics that display this signal allows us to predict what work will likely produce a future breakthrough. Each year we analyzed includes four or five signals, a number that appears to have remained constant across a twenty year time frame. In their classic work on the sociology of science, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar established that the desire to participate in a major discovery is an important motivator for scientists as they consider whether they should take up (or abandon) a research problem. Although further work is needed, the simplest explanation for our results is that this behavior is widespread enough to detect at scale. A foundational advance, or something like it, draws the attention of scientists and causes them to change the direction of their research. They vote with their feet, staking their own reputation and careers by publishing on and citing the new idea. That upswell of interest is the foundation of our breakthrough signal. What kind of research does our model identify as a breakthrough? After building a model based on the patterns in our 21 preselected breakthroughs, we tested it by identifying all early signals of discovery from 1994 through 1997. Of the 18 signals we found in that time period, 17 can be traced forward in time to a breakthrough. Examples include super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (see the image above), the directed evolution of proteins and enzymes (Chemistry Nobel, 2018), and sequencing the human genome (National Medal of Science, 2008). The discovery of the role of leptin signaling in obesity is a particularly interesting case study. Around 1950, scientists noticed the existence of a type of lab mouse that suffered from a unique inherited form of obesity. When given the freedom to choose their own diet, these mice ate more than normal and preferred food that was high in fat. Researchers had few clues as to why the animals overate; early experiments pointed to the existence of a soluble ob factor found circulating in the bloodstream that regulated appetite, but its identity was unknown. In 1994, Jeffrey Friedman and colleagues identified and sequenced the ob gene, noting that the protein it encoded appeared to fit the profile of a circulating factor. A year later, a trio of high-profile publications demonstrated that ob was a hormone that regulated body weight and fat deposition by regulating appetite. One of these was co-authored by Friedman, who christened it leptin from the ancient Greek word for thin. Using our model, the data from 1996 make it clear this advance would become a breakthrough. Scientists had flocked to study the biology of the new hormone, generating the flurry of new papers and citations required to produce a signal. One of these demonstrated that serum leptin concentrations reflected the amount of adipose tissue in the human body, providing clinical validation of the earlier mouse studies. Before the identification of leptin, scientists were unable to point to a specific molecule that controlled appetite and adiposity, so that it was impossible to rule out non-physiological causes of obesity; its characterization fundamentally changed our concept of weight gain. In 2010, Friedman and fellow pioneer Douglas Coleman were awarded a Lasker for the discovery. Our work also identifies breakthroughs in clinical practice and behavioral and social sciences, even though these areas are less likely to draw the attention of major prize committees. One example that falls into this category is the introduction of endovascular aneurysm repair, a minimally invasive surgical procedure for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, a leading cause of death among Americans over the age of 65. Relative to the previous standard of care, it reduces in-hospital mortality by almost four-fold. In 2017, Timothy Chuter received the American College of Surgeons’ prestigious Jacobsen Innovation award for his multiple refinements to the technique. Another under-recognized breakthrough identified by our model is the development of standardized survey instruments to assess the quality of life for HIV+ patients. The antiretroviral cocktails introduced in the mid-1990s reduced AIDS mortality, but treatment came with serious side effects. The new evaluations showed that patients whose disease progressed had worse physical functioning than Americans with other chronic diseases, while those who were asymptomatic maintained a health-related quality of life on par with the overall US population. This evidence made it possible for patients and activists to argue that even in the absence of a total cure, and in spite of the side effects, alleviation of symptoms was a worthwhile priority for clinicians. My colleagues and I have failed to identify any significant recognition for the physicians and health policy experts who pioneered this advance, although in 2016, researchers called for the World Health Organization to set targets for good health-related quality of life as part of its framework to end the AIDS pandemic. From forecasting to funding How should science funders use our predictions? Any serious discussion of what we should do with this new capability needs to begin with an understanding of its limitations. We can’t (and shouldn’t) invest all of our resources in the small number of topics predicted to produce breakthroughs. Innovative new fields are born from existing ones; they rarely arise de novo. If funders don’t maintain a diverse portfolio, the breakthroughs of tomorrow will have no antecedents. Think of this as eating the seed corn, or killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There are also multiple goals of funding beyond basic scientific discovery, including translating discoveries into clinical practice, developing new technologies, supporting economic development, and training new scientists. The investments needed to accomplish these goals are likely different from those required to support emerging breakthroughs. Finally, we must be aware that we may not capture every instance of a breakthrough. The concept is fuzzy, and not every significant discovery is recognized with a major award. Further, breakthroughs are rare, meaning that our dataset is, by necessity, small. This makes formal estimates of accuracy challenging. Although our overall success rate appears to be high, any one signal may turn out to be a false positive. We found one apparent example: the development of the third generation COX-2 inhibitors, Vioxx and Celebrex, which were much celebrated in the early 2000s as effective but non-addictive pain relievers, meets all the algorithmic criteria of a breakthrough. Five years after it received FDA approval, researchers demonstrated that Vioxx was associated with serious cardiovascular complications, and the manufacturer voluntarily pulled the drug from the market. Celebrex remains available, although like other NSAIDs, it carries an FDA warning for increased cardiovascular risk. Decision makers who were overly focused on the breakthrough potential of this research might have wasted substantial resources nurturing an area that ultimately proved to be a failure—but so would those who relied on expert opinion at the time. That said, the potential benefits of funding the next mRNA vaccine or cancer immunotherapy years earlier than we might have are large. When we can’t assume the outcome of an action, it’s worth conducting an experiment. Can targeted support for areas that are poised to produce a breakthrough increase the return on scientific investment without cannibalizing future advances? With the necessary administrative infrastructure in place, conducting this experiment would be straightforward. First, identify all the breakthrough signals between 2018 and 2023, select half at random, and commit to a decade of investment. For biomedicine, a six year window should yield about 30 topics with the potential to produce a breakthrough. Providing strong support to half of these might be accomplished for $300 million a year. That’s roughly half of the recent annual budget of the NIH Common Fund or around 20% of the fiscal year 2025 budget for ARPA-H. After five years, then again at ten, compare to see which group — the one that was actively managed, or the control — produced more breakthroughs, and on what timescale. Although we used biomedicine as an example, the same experiment could just as well be run for physics, materials science, or any other discipline. Any attempt to undertake such an experiment should keep three points top of mind. First, we can predict the topic of future breakthroughs, but the people and vision for how to move the work forward are still important. In practice, this means success requires active program managers with the expertise to develop the science and the authority to do so, including by recruiting investigators. Second, we would be wise to learn from the failures of past attempts to fund transformative research. High among these are funding modestly repackaged work, confusing the genuinely novel with the merely unfamiliar, and relying too much on incumbent investigators. All of these risks can be mitigated by thoroughly and intelligently integrating high quality data into portfolio management. Finally, we need to have patience. Even with strong funding support, producing a breakthrough takes time. If supporting breakthroughs is the best way to nurture the birth of new fields, we also need to accurately describe and properly manage the other two stages, so that we invest wisely throughout the productive lifetime of ideas and divest once they reach the point of diminishing returns. We would benefit from more study of all of these phases, especially the transition from one to another. More research could answer questions like: When does a breakthrough become an established field? How do the availability of funding, the size and characteristics of the available workforce, and the accumulation of evidence that disagrees with prevailing models affect a field’s decline? Exactly how do old ideas give birth to new ones, and can we speed up the process? The more we understand about the dynamics of scientific progress, the better we can maximize the odds that our curiosity leads to results. I’d call that finding a way to make our own luck.
Prime Day has served up several great deals on 4K TVs
With the quality of TVs from each year getting so close, it’s a better idea to save big on last year’s models.
I take a yearly girls' trip on a 14-hour Amtrak train; worth it
Each year, my friends and I travel from Utah to Colorado on an Amtrak train. The long ride is cheap and the perfect place for us to catch up.
Celebrating the Outstanding Spring 2026 Graduates from Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences’ Colleges and Schools
Each year, outstanding graduates from the colleges and schools within Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University are recognized with Commencement awards honoring academic excellence, leadership, service and contributions to their professions and communities. Congratulations to the Spring 2026 honorees. Alumni Association Outstanding Scholar Awards Ellmer College of Health Sciences at Old Dominion University Jodee Pugh Ellmer School of Nursing at Old Dominion University
Celebrating the Outstanding Spring 2026 Graduates from Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences’ Colleges and Schools
Each year, outstanding graduates from the colleges and schools within Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University are recognized with Commencement awards honoring academic excellence, leadership, service and contributions to their professions and communities. Congratulations to the Spring 2026 honorees. Alumni Association Outstanding Scholar Awards Ellmer College of Health Sciences at Old Dominion University Jodee Pugh Ellmer School of Nursing at Old Dominion University
Sean Payton pointed to margins when asked about roster consistency
“When you just look at the way these games are finishing, a record number of three-point games last year. A record number of lead changes in the postseason. The margins each year continue to just get a little bit closer.”
Idaho Office for Refugees celebrates World Refugee Day here in Boise
Celebrated each year on June 20 is World Refugee Day, an international observance to honor the courage and resilience of people forced to flee their home countries to escape persecution
Atacama Desert’s center dried out 20 million years earlier than previously thought
Chile's Atacama Desert, which gets less than 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) of rainfall each year, started to form more than 40 million years ago — 20 million years before the Andes.
Beneath our feet lies a fungal superhighway stretching 68 quadrillion miles
Beneath our feet lies a vast hidden fungal superhighway that helps sustain much of life on Earth—and scientists have now mapped it for the first time. Researchers estimate that these underground networks stretch an astonishing 110 quadrillion kilometers, move about 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide into soils each year, and play a major role in supporting plants and regulating the climate.
The #1 pop song from the year you graduated high school
Stacker pulled data from Billboard's year-end charts to compile a list of the #1 pop song for each year from 1946 to 2024.
Healthy Dudes & Diapers event gives fathers tools for success
Organizers say the event continues to grow each year.
Social Security is Facing a Political Crisis
On Tuesday the Social Security Trustees released their latest report on the system’s finances. The numbers didn’t change much: Unless something is done, the Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, Social Security’s official name, will be unable to pay full benefits starting in either 2032 or 2034, depending on some technical issues. That’s not far away: If the Trustees are right, the prospect of a Social Security crisis will loom over the next presidential administration. It’s important to understand, however, the nature of the looming crisis. It won’t be an economic crisis. It won’t even be a serious fiscal crisis. Whatever you may have heard, Social Security isn’t in danger of going bankrupt. What we’re facing, instead, is potential political crisis. Congress and the White House could easily take action to sustain America’s retirement system. But given the current state of our politics, there’s no guarantee that they will. There is a widespread misunderstanding of how Social Security works. While Social Security was designed to look like a pension fund, it isn’t. A pension fund pays benefits out of a stock of assets it has accumulated over time. In contrast, Social Security operates as a government transfer program, like food stamps or Medicaid. Now, unlike food stamps — but like the highway trust fund — Social Security is on paper supported by a dedicated tax, the payroll tax, that is assigned to that program. But I say “on paper” because from an economic point of view assigning the payroll tax to Social Security is just an accounting convention. What matters for the U.S. economy is the overall balance between government spending and government revenue, not the difference between one type of spending and one source of revenue. So there’s no inherent economic significance to the fact that by 2034 payroll tax receipts will be insufficient to cover promised benefits. There is, however, a legislative issue. As long as the Social Security Administration can pay benefits out of payroll taxes and its cash reserve, there’s no need for Congress to vote each year to authorize benefits — they just keep going out until further notice. However, once those resources become insufficient, benefits will fall —by 17 percent according to the Trustees — unless Congress passes new legislation that “tops up” Social Security’s finances. Yet the current administration and Republican party are such extremists that there is a real risk that Social Security will be held hostage on behalf of their goals. If this should come to pass, the hostage-takers will claim that shoring up Social Security is unaffordable. Right on cue, Mike Johnson, the Trump-sycophant Speaker of the House, declared on Monday that “entitlement programs” like Social Security “have to be adjusted and fixed,” and that Republicans will introduce a plan to that effect next year. But this is a ploy, because while the cost of maintaining Social Security benefits at their promised level isn’t trivial, it is in fact affordable. According to the Trustees’ report, the actuarial balance of OASDI up through 2050 — the amount of additional funds it would need to keep paying full benefits for the next 25 years — is 1.06 percent of GDP. To put that number in perspective, the Trump administration proposes increasing military spending next year by $420 billion, equivalent to about 1.4 percent of GDP – without any discussion of whether that’s affordable Yet how did we get to the point where Social Security will need to be topped up? The main answer is that we have an aging population, with a growing ratio of retirees collecting benefits to workers paying into the system: Trump’s anti-immigration policies are making this problem worse. According to the Trustees’ report, lower immigration will deepen Social Security’s financial hole because many immigrants are working-age adults who will pay into the system for decades before they collect benefits. In fact, this problem may be much bigger than the report acknowledges: The report’s baseline assumption is that we’ll have net immigration of almost 1.2 million people a year, and even the pessimistic case assumes 750,000 a year. Meanwhile actual net immigration has already been cut far below that — and may now be negative. Moreover, Social Security is being financially damaged by growing income inequality in America. Payroll taxes are levied only on wages up to $184,500, and they don’t touch capital income. With the distribution of income increasingly shifting from labor to capital, as well as becoming more unequal among wage-earners, revenue from the Social Security payroll tax has been falling as a share of national income. From 1990 to 2024, it fell from 5.02 percent of gross domestic income to 4.46 percent. Which brings me to the question that, these days, we ask about everything: How might Social Security be affected by the advent of AI? A short answer: If, as many of us fear, AI accelerates rising income inequality, it will further reduce the payroll tax receipts that currently pay for Social Security and further endanger its finances. On the other hand, if AI, as its advocates promise, leads to faster economic growth, it will increase the potential tax base that could and should be used to support Social Security and other social insurance programs. But to take advantage of that larger base, we’ll have to get serious about taxing wealth and capital income. Is Social Security in trouble? Yes, but only because of the way its financing is currently structured — a structure that no longer works well because our society and economy have become so unequal. Moreover, Trump’s immigration policies are further endangering its already deteriorating financial condition. So don’t believe Republicans’ gaslighting that it will be necessary to cut Social Security benefits. All that is necessary to preserve Social Security is political will to raise taxes on the wealthy and a sensible immigration policy. MUSICAL CODA Actually 67 under current law.
KBE accepting nominations for 2026 Kelly Award for Business and Education Partnership
The Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) is accepting nominations for the Kelly Award for Business and Education Partnership. The award is given in the fall of each year to a businessperson or business that has partnered with
U.S. teens are getting their least amount of sleep in decades—lowering their chances to 'lead fulfilling lives as adults,' health experts say
Teens are getting less sleep each year, which can impact their mood, physical well-being and school performance, experts say. Here are solutions they recommend.
West Hartford Business Buzz: June 8, 2026 - We-Ha
A round-up of openings, closings, and other news about West Hartford businesses. Business Buzz is sponsored by NBT Bank, and we are very thankful for their support! By Ronni Newton Each year this week's column tends to be one of the most challenging, because it comes amid a very busy time of
Waco small business owners brace for summer slump as students leave town
Waco small business owners share how they plan for steep summer revenue drops when college students leave town each year.
Graduation 2026: Award winners | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Each year, awards are presented to graduating students, faculty, and staff at Harvard Chan School. Winners were announced at a celebration held in Kresge Cafeteria on May 26.
Inside the program shaping Ascension’s next generation of leaders
For 30 years, Leadership Ascension has worked to develop the next generation of civic and business leaders in one of Louisiana’s fastest-growing parishes, pairing leadership training with hands-on community impact projects. The Ascension Chamber-affiliated program, which runs from January through November, accepts a class of roughly 30 to 36 participants each year representing businesses of […]
Entertainment at The Big E 2026
(MASS APPEAL) – From major headliners to free live music across the fairgrounds, entertainment is a huge part of what makes The Big E such a memorable experience each year. And in 2026, conce…
Health Officials Are Perplexed By Hawaiʻi Snorkeling Deaths
Snorkeling claims the lives of dozens of tourists each year. Some who lost loved ones or nearly drowned themselves say not enough is done to warn people of the risks.
Nevadans have some of the highest grocery bills in the country
According to a study, Nevadans spend almost $10,000 on groceries each year.
First Hand Foundation steps up to save free health screenings for 18,000 KC metro elementary students
A nonprofit is stepping in to save a free health screening program that serves 18,000 Kansas City metro elementary school students each year after Oracle abruptly cut its funding last month.
Fargo Theatre field trips are more than just entertainment for kids
Each year, Fargo's iconic theater brings history of the venue, the city and the entertainment industry to life for students.
Whoa! Netflix is Sending Narnia Heading to Theaters...What This Means for the Future of Film
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Here’s a funny thing about the debate over whether streamers should release their movies in theaters first: Both sides think the other side represents the “conventional wisdom”. If you’ve been reading me for any amount of time, or even just scanned my front page, you know I think movies make more money by having a robust theatrical window compared to going straight-to-streaming. I’ve published thousands of words on this topic. And for years, I felt like I was standing up to a wave of opposition. See, while the “put your films in theaters to make money” take was obvious at any point before 2019, post-streaming revolution, most of the trendy thinkers took the opposite point of view. Big names argued that Netflix putting their film straight-to-streaming (“S-to-S” from here on out) actually made more money. Netflix was “disrupting” theaters, just as they disrupted Blockbuster Video, and since innovation is always good, this too was a great idea. This thinking then leaked into the mainstream business outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. I read many articles whose take boiled down to “Netflix makes tons of money from S-to-S releases” and “theaters were in structural decline” anyways. Covid-19 shutting down theaters and the 2023 strikes shutting down film production seemingly justified this point of view, as the box office struggled to return to 2017-2019 heights. Yet I’ve also read folks arguing the opposite point: the conventional wisdom says to put films in theaters! From some writers’ points of view, “everyone” actually agrees/agreed with my “send your films to theaters” take—especially the stodgy traditional studios—and folks still didn’t understand Netflix’s genius. I feel like, for the last two years, many people have argued this point as if it’s conventional wisdom. You know what? I may have been wrong. At this point, the “S-to-S strategy makes money” might be the minority viewpoint. Especially with the news this month that Netflix will put at least one film—Greta Gerwig’s Narnia film The Magician’s Nephew—in theaters in 2027 for a full 49-day run is big news. So that’s the story of the week, but I’ll also explain why they’re making this move now and why Netflix may not completely embrace theaters, along with other topics, like how I don’t buy Disney’s “super app” strategy, the latest good news out of the unions, my take on the latest attacks against free speech, and a whole lot more. Let’s get started. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Netflix Goes to Theaters! Listen, I promise not to victory lap too hard today. As I just wrote, I’ve argued against sending films straight-to-streaming for—checks calendar—eight years now. Since 2018. Yikes. That’s a long time. And for years, others painted my thinking as “conventional” in that I was standing up for the status quo against trendy, cool disruption. And that’s not cool! But math is math, and I never could make the S-to-S numbers work. The only thing that ever enabled that model was Wall Street’s brief exuberance for it. It seems like the heads of Netflix now agree with me. (There were always rumors that former head of film for Netflix Scott Stuber argued internally for theatrical releases as well.) As they announced: “The Magician’s Nephew_—the first film in a Narnia series of films—will open on 12-Feb-2027, with a 49 day theatrical exclusive run.”_ I’m a little surprised at how little coverage this big change actually got. Credit to Bloomberg for leading with it and Matt Belloni’s The Town for highlighting it with the provocatively titled podcast “Hell Hath Frozen Over”. But after that? Instead of getting as much coverage as, say, the FCC’s latest egregious crackdown on free speech, this news story got crickets. But it’s massively more important for the future business of entertainment. So let’s start with the obvious question… Why Put Your Movies in Theaters? So…why should Netflix put (some!) of their movies in theaters? Well, I’ve already written that in a very, very, very long article from 2022: [ ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) [ The Data Is In: Theatrical Films Massively Outperform Straight-To-Streaming Films ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) Entertainment Strategy Guy · April 5, 2023 [ Read full story ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) To summarize, theatrical runs make much more money, especially blockbusters, because they earn more money per viewing,1 and that helps boost home entertainment sales. Theatrical films also perform as well or better than the streaming-only films. Now, partially this is driven by increased marketing for said films, but said marketing ultimately boosts the awareness of the movies and drives improved streaming and library performance as well. Again, I’ve made this case after reviewing the economic models and streaming data for years. Just last week, Emily Horgan also made the case for kids films! Yes, it is probably conventional wisdom, but that’s also because it’s true! I’d also argue we’ve seen a lot of data in the various studios’ behavior. As I’ve noted before, the more a studio needs to make money, the likelier they are to put films in theaters. As such, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony all send their major films to theaters. Even if they once made a big S-to-S push (*cough* Disney *cough*), they’ve since relented and returned to theaters. The tech companies don’t need to make money, per se, so it took them years to embrace theaters. Apple doesn’t need to make money because it doesn’t disclose their (likely) Quibi-sized losses each year. (They fear bad press more than losing money.) Amazon announced two years ago that they planned to make Amazon-MGM Studios/Prime Video profitable on its own, and guess what? Now they’re putting films in theaters. That leaves Netflix. They’re in between the “no need to make money at all” and the “desperately need to make money to offset linear TV declines”, so they had less pressure to put some films in theaters. Plus, for years, they were the sexy disruptor, and Wall Street rewarded them for that. (Honestly, they still do.) Yet, even Netflix likely saw the money they were leaving on the table (I’ve estimated it at an easy billion dollars before) so they changed their course. I heard one pundit argue that, because Netflix already makes so much money, they don’t need to make more money, which sort of goes against everything I’ve ever learned about business and economics. Again, to be super-nuanced, sending “films to theaters” does not mean EVERY film. TV movies have been a thing for decades. Lifetime films, Hallmark holiday films, Disney Channel Original Movies, and so on, don’t need theatrical runs. But films above a certain budget level (say $25 to 50 million) almost certainly need theaters to maximize their revenue. The Scenarios (with a Dose of Skepticism) Now time for some skepticism: it won’t surprise me at all if Netflix re-changes course. Specifically, Netflix announced that their Narnia film will go to theaters. And I’d bet anything we see KPop Demon Hunters 2: The Huntering2 also goes to theaters, cause it’s the surest hit outside of a Disney animated sequel right now. But how much does Netflix truly commit to theaters? They’ve already tried to emphasize that this is a one-off move. I see three broad scenarios:
18 amazing grads from Binghamton University
Each year, Binghamton University highlights outstanding students as part of our Commencement celebration. Explore the amazing stories of 18 remarkable graduates from the Class of 2026.
AASHTO Journal - Maryland DOT Issues More Purple Line Business Grants
The Maryland Department of Transportation recently issued $600,000 in new grants to support operations at 60 small businesses impacted by the construction of the Purple Line light rail line. [Above photo by the Maryland DOT] The Purple Line Small Business Grant Program distributes funds in three rounds each year. Those grant awards – which vary […]
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BioShock, game prices, GTA, the disappearing NFL deal and more: An interview with Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick
In 20 years of covering the video game beat, I’d probably not spoken more than 20 words with Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, who’s been running the company behind NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and Red Dead Redemption for, you guessed it, nearly 20 years. Last week, though, ahead of a panel I was hosting at the iicon event in Las Vegas, I had about 20 minutes to interview Zelnick. I could ask one question for each year, I joked, as we settled into our seats on opposite sides of a conference table. Take Two’s longtime head of corporate communications, Alan Lewis, was seated at Zelnick’s side. I didn’t quite conduct our chat that way, but we wound up going through a lot, including… The state of BioShock The ramifications of the rising costs of game development The fate of Take Two’s recent multi-game deal with the NFL Some hints about Take Two’s mobile plans Whether Zelnick’s answer to me about Civ VII was a good one The do’s and don’t’s of NBA 2K microtransactions Take Two’s take on the Switch 2 Oh, and GTA VI (Spoiler: if Zelnick had spilled the beans on the price of the game or a release date for a PC version or whether there will be a polka radio station, that would have been this article’s headline). Before all of that, I would learn what it’s like to interview Strauss Zelnick, who is confident, calm and focused on delivering precise answers. To wit, I thought I’d start our chat with something fun, a bit insidery but maybe safe for him to share. The team at Take Two’s Rockstar label delays their games a lot, I noted. Of course, those delays, however painful, tend to be worth it. So, I was wondering how Zelnick finds out about them. Take the most recent postponement back in November 2025, when Rockstar said that GTA VI would not hit its May 26, 2026 release date (just 20 days from now!) and would instead come out on November 19, 2026. Was that news delivered via a call? An email? How does it work? “I work super closely with my team,” Zelnick said. “It's a very thin team at Take Two. The entire senior management team is six executives who sit in one hallway and share two assistants. And then, basically, there are two people who head up each of our labels.” They meet weekly to discuss their business, he said. So no one emails him about a delay? Nothing like that? Zelnick craned his neck to look at my left hand. He asked if I was married. I am, I said. “Does your partner email you to give you information?” he asked. Fair enough. I didn’t get the sense Zelnick was going to read me the minutes of the management meeting where the GTA VI delay was discussed. Slight pivot, maybe I could get some personality insights about one of the most successful gaming execs of the last 20 years, before getting to my big list of questions about specific Take Two games, franchises and policies. I asked: How do you deal with delay news like that? Go for a run? Meditate? “I tend to default to being very calm,” he said. “I’m not a person who freaks out easily.” He noted that he has a daughter with special needs due to an illness, and he shared that that situation had gotten him worked up. It was a personal, family emergency. “But, you know, business is not that,” he said. “I have no trouble distinguishing between, like, a business challenge and an emergency.” He turned to his left to ask Lewis, his colleague of 17 years, a question. “Have you ever seen me freak out?” “Never,” Lewis replied. “You’ve seen me upset,” Zelnick told Lewis. “Have you seen me raise my voice? Maybe how many times? Be honest, because we might as well be.”
Science Club for Girls teaches important lessons through hands-on experience
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Pennsylvania community health centers request $5M for ‘crumbling’ safety net backbone
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San Francisco State University Partners with UC Law San Francisco to Expand Downtown Presence - UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings)
SFSU’s Lam Family College of Business will use classroom and office space at 198 McAllister Street to establish a new downtown campus. San Francisco State University (SFSU) and UC Law San Francisco have reached an agreement that establishes a new downtown home for SFSU’s Lam Family College of Business at UC Law SF’s Academic Village. The agreement places SFSU business students in close proximity to leading employers, industry partners and transit hubs, enhancing opportunities for internships, networking and career advancement. The UC Law SF Academic Village is a shared-campus model designed to foster collaboration among higher education institutions and contribute to San Francisco’s ongoing revitalization. San Francisco State University (SFSU) and UC Law San Francisco have reached an agreement that establishes a new downtown home for graduate business programs from SFSU’s Lam Family College of Business at UC Law SF’s Academic Village. The agreement creates a new downtown campus location for SFSU, giving students direct access to San Francisco’s thriving business environment. Beginning in Fall 2026, graduate business students will take classes at the UC Law SF building at 198 McAllister Street, at the nexus of the Civic Center, Mid-Market and Tenderloin communities. Under the agreement, SFSU will occupy 3,200 square feet of exclusive teaching and office space and will share additional classrooms with UC Law. The move positions students in close proximity to leading employers, industry partners and transit hubs, enhancing opportunities for internships, networking and career advancement. “This partnership is an example of the growing strategic collaborations that expand opportunities for our students,” said SFSU President Lynn Mahoney. “By situating graduate business programs in the city’s urban core, we will help students build connections, gain experience and achieve their goals for meaningful careers and upward mobility.” Students enrolled in select Lam Family College of Business graduate programs will have access to the Academic Village’s modern classrooms, conference facilities, library, study spaces and resident and event support services. The site also includes lounges, on-site dining and newly built, fully furnished, apartment-style housing for students and professionals. As institutional partners, SFSU College of Business students and alumni are eligible for tuition discounts if they enroll in the UC Law SF Master of Legal Studies program, designed for professionals whose work intersects with the law. “San Francisco State University is an excellent addition to our Academic Village, and we are excited to have the Lam Family College of Business join us in the fall,” said UC Law SF Chancellor & Dean David Faigman. “The partnership advances UC Law SF’s commitment to collaborate with California’s other great public schools and adds vibrancy and energy to the heart of the city. Our students and programs will benefit from the interdisciplinary opportunities that will arise.” The UC Law SF Academic Village is a shared-campus model designed to foster collaboration among higher education institutions and contribute to San Francisco’s ongoing revitalization. The Lam Family College of Business will begin occupying its new space there in July 2026, with classes beginning in August. The move continues SFSU’s longstanding presence in downtown San Francisco and reflects a broader effort to align academic programs with the needs of both career-minded students and the region’s expanding and evolving workforce. For more than 60 years, the Lam Family College of Business has delivered high-quality, AACSB-accredited business education across the San Francisco–Silicon Valley region. Its graduate programs — including the MBAand the STEM-designated Master of Science in Business Analytics and Master of Science in Accounting and Analytics — are designed to help students develop the skills they need to navigate the complex challenges of a global, data-driven economy. About San Francisco State University San Francisco State University is a public university serving students from the San Francisco Bay Area, across California and around the world, with nationally acclaimed programs that span a broad range of disciplines. More than 20,000 students enroll at the University each year, and its more than 304,000 graduates have contributed to the economic, cultural and civic fabric of San Francisco and beyond. Through them — and more than 1,300 world-class faculty members — SFSU proudly embraces its legacy of academic excellence, community engagement and commitment to social justice. For more information, visit sfsu.edu. About UC Law SF UC Law San Francisco is a public law school of the University of California, founded in 1878 as the first law school in the UC system. Located in San Francisco’s Civic Center, it offers a comprehensive legal education with a strong emphasis on experiential learning, public service and professional preparation. Through its Academic Village, UC Law SF brings together students, faculty and partner institutions in a collaborative campus environment in the heart of the city. Other Academic Village partners include UC San Francisco, UC Davis, the University of San Francisco and the University of the Pacific Dugoni School of Dentistry. For more information, visit www.uclawsf.edu.
Record-breaking Sun Devil 100 class recognized during honoree luncheon
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Jeep Beach attracts over 250,000 attendees and more than 40,000 Jeep vehicles to Daytona Beach, Florida each year.
Oberlin Launches Rotberg Lecture in African Politics with April 22 Inaugural Talk | Oberlin College and Conservatory
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Dr. Aditya Bardia elected to American Society for Clinical Investigation
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How cutting one costly habit could save small businesses thousands on fuel: expert
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From building stages to checking bags, these LA businesses help make fest season happen
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We’re losing 338 spoken words every day | BBC Science Focus Magazine
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National Public Health Week: How do we contribute to public health in our community?
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]Clean drinking water; safe food and milk; seatbelts and safer road design; smoke-free indoor air; the peace of mind not having to worry about smallpox or polio – these are just a few of the ways that public health makes us all safer. Each year during the first full week of April, the American … Continue reading
AI That Forecasts Hurricanes Years Ahead: Inside BU Research
At Boston University, research is the driving force behind innovation that spans industries and shapes the future. BU empowers faculty and students to tackle complex global challenges, producing thousands of publications each year and fueling breakthroughs that extend far beyond campus. Learn more about the innovators whose work powers discoveries on and off campus. Boston […]
The Vibe Coding Effect? Apple’s App Store Saw 84% Jump in New Apps in Quarter
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These women had their breasts removed to thwart cancer. Then came the pain.
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Illinois business leaders want more funding for child care as facilities close and demand increases
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The cockfighting business on the border: Illegal breeding farms in the US and birds sold for thousands of dollars to cartels in Mexico
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Charles County Science Fair Winners Announced Following Annual Expo
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Banijay Entertainment Dials Up Global Scripted with Premium Series Mania Slate
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New dispute emerges around Subnautica 2’s early access release
Lawyers for the ousted—and now partially reinstated—leadership team of Unknown Worlds, the studio behind Subnautica 2, are crying foul over news that the game will be released into early access in May. The release announcement earlier this week was made improperly, potentially “damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community,” the lawyers said in a letter sent on Tuesday to Vice Chancellor Lori Will of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. In their letter, the lawyers also floated the idea of asking Will to find Krafton in contempt of the court’s ruling. The letter was sent just one day after Will’s bombshell ruling that publisher Krafton had breached its contract with Unknown Worlds’ executive team, when it fired them last June. The new issue isn’t necessarily the May early access timeframe, but how the news was announced. The letter and Krafton’s response have not been previously reported. A quick recap of prior events: Subnautica 2 is an unreleased, underwater survival adventure and the most-wishlisted game on Steam. Last year, longtime Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, along with studio co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, were fired by Krafton. They swiftly sued, saying the publisher had terminated them to avoid paying out up to $250 million in potential performance-based bonuses. The studio leaders had hoped to earn that with an early access release of the game, which Krafton had blocked. The publisher argued in court that Subnautica 2 wasn’t ready, which the ousted execs disputed. On Monday, Will ruled that Krafton had violated its contract, firing the execs to avoid the performance payouts, and that it had to reinstate Gill and give him full authority over any early access release for Subnautica 2. On Tuesday, IGN reported on a new memo issued that day to Unknown Worlds staff by Steve Papoutsis, the executive Krafton had put in charge of Unknown Worlds after the 2025 firings. In the note, Papoutsis said that Subnautica 2 had passed a key development milestone “last week” and that he and Krafton had determined the game “is ready for Early Access release in May.” This news appeared to catch the lawyers for Gill, Cleveland and McGuire by surprise. On Tuesday night, they sent a letter to Will expressing “serious concerns” about whether it would be possible to forge an agreement with Krafton consistent with the judge’s order. Papoutsis’ memo was a problem, they wrote. He didn’t have the authority to declare anything about Subnautica 2’s release. As of 9am ET on Monday, March 16, the effective date of Will’s order, Papoutsis wasn’t CEO of Unknown Worlds. Gill was. And, per Will’s order, only Gill could make Subnautica 2 release decisions. They continued: Krafton self-servingly announced the launch without any regard to its impact on the game, the team, or the community—let alone this Court’s Opinion. Announcing the release of a game is momentous, and it is typically accompanied by significant marketing activity, fanfare, and community coordination. And most importantly, the announcement is carefully designed to maximize excitement for the game. That entire process was supposed to be driven by Mr. Gill. However, in defiance of the Court’s Opinion, Krafton has now taken that away, further damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community. The lawyers speculated that Krafton had “intentionally leaked” Papoutsis’ memo and then issued an official statement to confirm the leak. Game File is a reader-supported publication. My reporting is only possible through support from readers like you. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe On Wednesday, lawyers for Krafton defended their client in their own letter to vice chancellor Will, saying nothing they did violated her order nor showed contempt: Papoutsis’s message was simply celebrating the UW employees’ efforts toward a past event: Krafton’s pre-Opinion determination that Subnautica 2 was ready for Early Access release. There was nothing improper about conveying the results of the milestone review or thanking the development team for their dedication and talent. They added that Gill could still make his own call about Subnautica 2’s release: In his role as CEO, Gill will be able to assess independently his views on the state of Subnautica 2 and the appropriate release schedule; nothing in Papoutsis’s message alters Gill’s authority or discretion. Vice chancellor Will has not responded to the letters and doesn’t necessarily have to. Both parties were previously ordered by Will to confer this week and submit a proposed judgment consistent with her ruling. The letter from Gill’s attorney’s this week doesn’t indicate whether he would or would not support a May release for Subnautica 2. But it could limit his options. And, if Gill’s lawyers are right, the lack of marketing fanfare around the leak of the May date could dull the launch of the game. Any harm to Subnautica 2’s launch is an extra sensitive issue given the context of the legal dispute: millions of dollars of payouts are on the line, tethered to the scale of the game’s initial performance. In her ruling on Monday, Will noted that there was obvious “bad blood” between Gill’s side and Krafton but that the two would need to work together: “They can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship.” Item 2: A new kind of couch co-op game A highlight of GDC each year is the Alt.Ctrl showcase that features games played with extremely experimental controllers. Perusing this year’s offerings last Friday, I found a game controlled with giant scissors, another with big toothbrushes and one that amounted to dumpster diving. My favorite was Pivot, a co-op game about collectively maneuvering a couch. It was developed by students at the University of Utah’s masters of arts and engineering games program. Players lift and tilt the physical couch in order to control the position of a virtual one. That virtual one is moving through an obstacle course on-screen, while being pursued by a giant skull. Developer Nishant Verma told me at GDC that the couch is made of styrofoam (this became more evident as I watched!) and that the name was a riff on an episode of the sitcom Friends. Item 3: In brief… 🚫 Ubisoft is laying off more than 100 workers at its Red Storm studio, as the North Carolina location known for decades for its Tom Clancy games, ceases in-house game development, VGC reports. 👀 On Monday, Nvidia’s revealed its DLSS 5 AI-driven graphics technology that purports to improve game graphics… and it has been roasted about it by the media and the online gaming public for the remainder of the week. The tech changed the faces of characters in footage from Resident Evil Requiem, Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC, drawing accusations of giving carefully art-directed games the generic look of AI “slop.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had said on Monday that “DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics—blending handcrafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression.” By mid-week, Huang was telling Tom’s Hardware that the new tech’s critics were “completely wrong” because game-makers could still “fine-tune the generative AI” to suit their game’s aesthetics.
Trump administration launches investigation of states, including Mass., that mandate health insurance covers abortion
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Be counted among the Capital Region’s top private companies
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Only 4 Louisiana parishes fall below the U.S. average for adults with COPD. See the data.
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UofL to permanently close Rauch Planetarium and Gheens Science Hall, citing cost to reopen
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Coast mother pursuing nursing receives scholarship from Mississippi Business Women
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An estimated 500,000 people are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States each year, but the causes and mechanisms of the condition remain a neurological mystery. A rece...
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Each year, the world's leading climate scientists evaluate the most critical evidence on how our planet is changing. Their assessments draw heavily on data from Earth-observing satellites—and the latest ...
DAV announces new partnership with Solace Health supporting veterans’ care
ERLANGER, Ky. – DAV (Disabled American Veterans) is proud to announce a new partnership with Solace Health as its first new partner in 2026. The partnership is supported by a donation from Solace Health to advance DAV’s mission of empowering veterans to lead high-quality lives. The collaboration brings together two organizations focused on helping veterans receive timely, coordinated, high-quality care, regardless of where they receive it. While many veterans receive care through the VA, which offers an integrated and coordinated whole-health model, others receive some or all of their care through private health systems using Medicare or other insurance benefits. These veterans often need help to understand health insurance rules, manage their treatment, and navigate between multiple health care systems. “Disabled veterans often have complex health challenges, and DAV’s advocacy work strives to minimize barriers to timely, high-quality care, primarily within VA., but increasingly between VA and private providers,” said DAV CEO and National Adjutant Barry Jesinoski. “Our partnership with Solace Health can offer support for veterans who are eligible for VA care and Medicare, particularly those who split their care between the VA and private health systems. Veterans who don’t use VA at all can also benefit from the care coordination services that Solace Health provides, usually with little or no out-of-pocket cost to them.” Solace Health provides professional health care advocacy services, connecting patients with experienced advocates who help schedule appointments, explain benefits, coordinate care among providers, and manage administrative burdens with private health care systems, thereby allowing veterans and their families to focus on health and recovery. “For many veterans, the fight doesn’t end when service does,” said Jeremy Gurewitz, CEO and co-founder of Solace Health. “Veterans living with serious medical conditions often encounter a private health care system outside of the VA that is fragmented and difficult to navigate. Through this partnership with DAV, Solace Health advocates can help cut through red tape, improve care coordination, and simplify scheduling of medical appointments. We’re proud to support DAV in helping veterans to successfully navigate health care systems so that veterans, particularly disabled veterans, receive the care they have earned.” DAV provides a lifetime of support for veterans of all generations, their families, caregivers, and survivors. Each year, DAV’s no-cost programs and services help more than 1 million veterans access the benefits and health care they have earned, connect with meaningful employment, and ensure their voices are heard on Capitol Hill. About DAV DAV is dedicated to ensuring our promise is kept to America’s veterans. DAV does this by helping veterans and their families access the full range of benefits available to them, fighting for the interests of America’s injured heroes on Capitol Hill, providing employment resources to veterans and their families, offering programs and services to empower them, and educating the public about the great sacrifices and needs of veterans transitioning back to civilian life. A nonprofit organization with nearly 1 million members, DAV was founded in 1920 and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1932. About Solace Health Veterans face complex health challenges, and the path to care is far harder than it should be. They deal with fragmented services and providers, each with unique requirements and paperwork. Solace Health advocates—healthcare experts with 16 years’ experience on average—help veterans navigate this landscape when they need it most. Advocates schedule appointments, explain benefits and keep doctors aligned. They take the lead on calls and documentation, and their no-homework ethos eases burdens on veterans and their families. Solace Health is covered by Medicare and Medicare Advantage, and most veterans pay little or nothing out of pocket. We’re honored to support DAV members.
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Vote for UT Health San Antonio in the 2026 YourSA SAEN Readers’ Choice Awards - UT Health San Antonio
Voting for the 2026 YourSA San Antonio Express-News’ Readers’ Choice Awards begins Monday, Feb. 9. Voters can submit their votes once a day, every day through 11:59 p.m. CST Sunday, Feb. 22, to help UT Health San Antonio practices retain their top spots as the best in San Antonio. Each year, the YourSA San Antonio Express-News’ Readers’ […]
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