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Weekly entertainment report: Live music and lively arts, Nov. 5-8 » Nashua Ink Link
Make it a musical weekend.
Moderate Democrats Increase Their Numbers, and Their Clout
Victories by moderates in competitive or Republican-leaning states and districts paved the way for large new Democratic majorities likely to be shaped by their priorities.
Apple's Latest Siri Announcement Could Mean the End of Apps on Your iPhone
The promise of Siri has always been that there are some things that your iPhone should just be able to do for you. For most of its existence, that’s been
'The De Los Podcast': Let's talk about Latino mental health
Why are Latinos less likely to seek mental health than other ethnic groups? What might be behind the worsening mental health in our youth? And where do you even start to get therapy? L.A. therapist Guadalupe Cesar-Nuñez answered these questions and more on the latest episode of the De Los Podcast.
'The De Los Podcast': Let's talk about Latino mental health
Why are Latinos less likely to seek mental health than other ethnic groups? What might be behind the worsening mental health in our youth? And where do you even start to get therapy? L.A. therapist Guadalupe Cesar-Nuñez answered these questions and more on the latest episode of the De Los Podcast.
Entrepreneurs who struggle to understand their emotions are less committed to their business goals, study finds
Entrepreneurs who struggle to recognize and make sense of their own emotions are less likely to feel attached to their businesses and less committed to achieving their goals, particularly in high-stress ...
Fireworks are an underestimated danger to public health, warn experts
Fireworks pose an underestimated danger to public health and require stronger regulations and sustained public education campaigns to help prevent devastating yet entirely avoidable injuries, warn U.S. ...
Illumina selected to help bring precision medicine into everyday healthcare in Singapore
Illumina, Inc. (Nasdaq: ILMN) announced it has been selected to provide whole-genome sequencing services for the SG-INSIGHT study, a cohort under Phase III of Singapore's National Precision Medicine (NPM) programme. Expected to include approximately one in 10 Singapore residents, or around 450,000 individuals, the study is designed to generate evidence from genomic and health data to help inform preventive approaches to healthcare.
Dianna Russini is planning a return to unknown sports media position 'next week' after scandal
Dianna Russini has been texting people around the NFL that she'll announce a new job next week, likely with a gambling or prediction provider.
Qualcomm's data center business barely offsetting losses in smartphones: Seaport's Jay Goldberg
Jay Goldberg, Seaport analyst, joins 'Closing Bell Overtime' to talk Qualcomm quarterly results, what is behind the stock slide, and more.
Traditional Korean paper becomes breathable patch for future wearable health care
Wearable health-monitoring devices are becoming increasingly important for personalized health care, but conventional patches often rely on substrates that restrict airflow, trap sweat and cause skin ...
Elon Musk will face scrutiny from Democrats in Washington and Texas after midterms
Democrats are likely to launch investigations into Musk's influence, including his leadership of DOGE and government contracts
How Mississippi became an unlikely Senate battleground
An unpopular president, a charismatic Democratic candidate and an incumbent who has underperformed other Republicans in recent elections have turned a US Senate race in Mississippi into the nail-biter of the midterms.
Now, the hard part: Jocelyn Benson has big plans. Michigan has big problems
From low reading scores and sagging wages and an aging population, Michigan faces a host of challenges identified by readers through Bridge Listens. What to expect from the governor-elect.
Women, science, and why The Love Hypothesis is the hit Rom-Com of the year
These are times of chaos, these are times of change, but they are definitely times for readers — and now it’s The Love Hypothesis’s turn. When I read this book by Ali Hazelwood a few years ago, it wasn’t that popular to adapt romantic comedies, but major streaming platforms are now treating us to a healthy
Benson vows cost relief as businesses brace for new era of Democratic ‘trifecta’ control
Jocelyn Benson’s decisive victory is an opportunity to pursue tax, labor and environmental policies that have long been opposed by business groups. How far she intends to go and which proposals she will embrace remain unclear.
PS5's Massive Black Friday 2026 Sale Is Loaded With Deals
Silent Hill 2, God of War Ragnarok, Astro Bot, Disco Elysium, Well Dweller, and many more PS5 games are currently on sale
The percentage of people without health insurance is growing
The percentage of working-age adults without health insurance has increased in the past two years, largely because many people can no longer afford Obamacare coverage after Congress allowed federal subsidies
Benson names business execs, community leaders to transition team
Business, union and community leaders will help shepherd Democratic Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson's transition over the next few months.
Traditional mulberry paper used to develop breathable health patch
Wearable health-monitoring devices are becoming increasingly important for personalized health care, but conventional patches often rely on substrates that restrict airflow, trap sweat, and cause skin discomfort during prolonged use.
Is SWISS Business Class Worth It? What You Really Get for the Extra Cash
My new favourite way to find a good business class fare on a long-distance flight is to add in another stop counterintuitively. I fly in and out of London, so I go into Skyscanner and put in London say Bangkok (as was the case for this flight) and tick the two stops box. The benefit […]
macOS 27.3 Brings Live Activities to Macs Without Dynamic Island
The new MacBook Pro models with touch-enabled OLED displays feature the Dynamic Island instead of a notch, and it includes support for Live Activities. Fortunately, other Apple silicon Macs will not entirely miss out, as the macOS 27.3 update enables Live Activities for apps like Apple Music, Clock, and Voice Memos in the macOS menu bar.
Trial to test plasma treatment for burn patients
Vanderbilt Health is conducting a research study that will look at whether plasma administered early in the course of treatment helps severely burned patients survive their injuries.
Lawsuit filed against 'Money out of Politics' proposal after Michigan voters pass initiative
Almost immediately after Prop 2 passed in Michigan, a lawsuit challenging its legality was filed in federal court.
Amy Acton, Annie Andrews and what Democrat wins mean for RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement
While Democrat wins − including several medical doctors − don't point to a complete dismantling of MAHA, experts say tides are definitely changing.
Heisman Watch: Will Julian Sayin's injury ultimately derail Jeremiah Smith's Heisman hopes?
GTA 6 Has Sold Almost 8 Million Copies So Far, And PS5 Is Dominating The Split (Of Course)
The PS5 edition of GTA 6 is massively outselling the Xbox version.
Wednesday Bantering: We’re Definitely Getting a Lockout
So I gather there was an election yesterday? Mark Texiera lost his run for Texas’ 21st district. We don’t talk politics on this site really, there’s enough to shout about just in terms of baseball, but I think we can all agree that the good people of Texas deserve better than a vile Yankee. Former […]
Apple May Phase Out Non-Touch High-End MacBook Pros
Apple will likely consolidate its high-end MacBook Pro lineup around touchscreen models, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman questioned whether Apple would keep updating its high-end MacBook Pro models without touchscreens. The company has retained the mini-LED M5 Pro and M5 Max models alongside the new touchscreen versions, which cost $400 more.
Democrats take full control of Legislature, Michigan government. What to expect
Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson can expect smooth sailing for her agenda, as Democrats win the state House, grow their Senate majority and maintain control of the Supreme Court, attorney general and secretary of state.
Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSGE) Q1 Earnings and Revenues Surpass Estimates
MSG Entertainment (MSGE) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of +1,050.00% and +5.03%, respectively, for the quarter ended September 2026. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?
Sanford Health Column: Keeping human connection at the heart of healthcare
When used appropriately, AI documentation can make a visit feel more personal, not less. Instead of dividing attention between a patient and a computer screen, a clinician may be able to focus more fully on the conversation.
MSGE: Revenue rose 37% as live entertainment demand and adjusted operating income strengthened
Q1 revenue rose 37% YoY to $217.1M, with adjusted operating income reaching $34.3M. Management expects healthy live-entertainment demand and robust FY 2027 growth; quarterly share repurchases were approximately $25M.Original document: Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. [MSGE] SEC 8-K Current…
God Of War Laufey Delayed To May
It was originally due out exclusively on PlayStation 5 on February 16. - Game Informer
Hidden planet emerges from the glare
Stars are so bright that their glare overwhelms faint nearby planets. Scientists combined detailed physics from telescope observations with modern computational techniques to precisely remove this glare. After applying the tool to existing JWST images, they found a previously hidden giant exoplanet. Technique could improve planet-detection sensitivity without requiring changes to telescope hardware.
Search committee formed to find new Vice President for Research
The committee begins its work immediately and invites members of the Northwestern community to share feedback
MIT scientists break a 20-year rule and unlock never-before-seen crystal structures
MIT scientists have challenged two decades of conventional thinking by discovering that flexible molecular connections, rather than rigid ones, can unlock entirely new ways to arrange nanoparticles. The breakthrough could lead to a new generation of designer materials with unusual properties and applications in electronics, medicine, and energy.
Permanent daylight saving time has a dark side, scientists warn
A new study warns that permanent daylight saving time could force American children to make at least 2 billion additional school commutes in darkness, potentially increasing safety risks and disrupting their biological clocks. Researchers found that fatal crashes involving school-aged pedestrians were roughly twice as likely during dark mornings as after sunrise.
CVS Health (CVS) Beats Q3 Earnings and Revenue Estimates
CVS Health (CVS) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of +29.01% and +3.20%, respectively, for the quarter ended September 2026. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?
Scientists find evidence of rarest particle decay after 42-years | Science and Technology Facilities Council
UK physicists have found the first evidence of an extremely rare particle decay at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), after a 42-year hunt.
Abnormal AI hires Don Jeter as CMO
Don Jeter plans to use unconventional marketing techniques to grab attention in the fiercely competitive and increasingly noisy AI market.
CVS Health Stock Leads Defensive U.S. Dividend Value Picks
Washington has just handed investors a plot twist. A Democratic sweep of Congress, fresh worries over debt ceiling fights and pressure on Treasury yields are shaking sentiment, yet pockets of dividend-paying value stocks may quietly benefit from the reset in expectations. This article walks through three U.S. dividend payers from our value-focused screener that appear closely tied to these political crosswinds and explains why each could deserve a second look now. The three stocks below are...
No catastrophic financial hit required to fight climate change, scientists say in landmark court case
Canada does not need to shut down its industries or take a catastrophic financial hit to effectively fight climate change, one of the country's leading climate scientists testified during a landmark trial in a Vancouver courtroom this week.
Texas Democrats pull off the breakthrough they’ve chased for decades
For decades, Texas Democrats have dreamt of turning the state blue, rallying around exciting candidates who drew big crowds and big money but could not ultimately overcome the state’s stubborn conservative majority.
AI boosts operational efficiency but not systemic climate action, global study finds
Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely promoted as a tool for sustainable development, but whether its operational gains translate into deeper ecological transformation remains uncertain. A new global assessment examines how AI diffusion relates to seven core United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), covering health, education, clean energy, industry and infrastructure, sustainable cities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action. It also explores the channels behind
Hinge Health (HNGE) Stock Looks Stretched On Its 156% YTD Run
Hinge Health has been one of the stronger movers in digital health this year, and the stock’s sharp climb now puts a spotlight on a simple question for investors: Is the current share price adequately supported by the company’s earnings power? The stock is up 156.5% year to date, which puts a lot of pressure on its earnings profile to justify the enthusiasm baked into today’s valuation. Recent earnings news highlighted stronger profitability and an expanded client base, which can support...
Ex-UK political aide Steve Hilton loses bid for California governor
Hilton, who was endorsed by President Trump, faced an uphill battle as a Republican in the widely liberal state.
Nebraska voters appear to say 'no' to legalizing online sports betting
Though margins were still slim late Tuesday night, Nebraska voters were on track to reject a pair of ballot measures looking to legalize and regulate online sports betting, according to unofficial results. Initiative Measures 440 and 441 would together amend the Nebraska Constitution and state law, respectively, to legalize and regulate online sports wagers. Initiative […]
“I Don’t Know If I’m Willing to Do It Just to Fight” – UFC Fans May Have Seen the Last of Beneil Dariush Inside the Octagon
Fans may have already seen the last of Beneil Dariush inside the Octagon. The veteran lightweight has endured a difficult stretch lately, losing four of his last five UFC fights, with all four defeats coming by knockout. Most recently, Dariush was stopped by Quillan Salkilld at UFC Perth in May 2026. Before that, he suffered …
How a Ms. Frizzle-esque librarian helped Flagship’s Louisa Helms find biotech
BioSpace 40 Under 40 honoree Louisa Helms is a lot of things—athlete, scientist, entrepreneur and likely future biotech executive. Just don’t ask her to pick up any pipettes.
Yankees news: Skubal linked to Yanks
Yankees among several teams in on top FA; Murphy walks back taunt; Chisholm likely to walk
AFGHS co-signatory countries ask health care users to help fill the financing gap
Hundreds of thousands of Ugandans living with HIV on antiretrovirals could be targeted for user fees or community health insurance schemes requiring modest premium payments, according to the April 2026 version of the country’s America First Global Health Strategy implementation narrative.1 As part of the “sustainable financing for the private not for profit sector” strategy, 491 facilities will be targeted for a phased introduction of user fees and scale up of community health insurance programs.2 In the Ugandan context, PNFP facilities include faith-based hospitals and other health facilities, US missionary organizations and centers of excellence—services that are often co-located at government facilities but run with additional financial and technical resources. 402,000 people—or about 28 percent of the total Ugandan adult PLHIV population on treatment—get ART from the private not for profit sector. The selected facilities provide the majority of ART and prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) services. The plan doesn’t give the total number of clients served by the 491 facilities, so it is not possible to give a precise number. But the majority of 402,000 is a figure in the hundreds of thousands—hence the estimate I’m using.3 The April draft of the Ugandan implementation plan narrative is the only one I’ve been able to review. But the government of Uganda is not alone in turning to health care users to help fill the financing gaps caused by the abrupt withdrawal of US funds. In July 2025, the Government of Liberia introduced user fees for previously free services including “registration, accommodation, patient feeding, hospitalization, and a wide range of surgical and diagnostic procedures.”4 Earlier that year, Liberia rolled out a revolving drug fund designed to stabilize drug supplies by “allowing patients to pay a small fee for standardized, quality medications,” according to a Ministry of Health press release.5 (Both of these approaches had been proposed in the National Health Policy 2022-2031; media coverage explicitly connects the launch with the US foreign aid cuts.) The health financing strategies proposed by Uganda and established in Liberia are qualitatively different from user fees officially adopted by specific health facilities to cover funding shortfalls caused by the new US approach.6 The latter is a stopgap, adhoc change. The former is a national governmental adoption of policies that pass costs on to health care users, despite evidence that such approaches can exacerbate inequities and leave deficits unfilled. Two countries does not make a pattern, but they do point to urgent questions: Have other countries, including Liberia, included user fees or community health insurance schemes in their implementation plans? If so, do any of these narratives have what Uganda’s lacks: a fall-back plan in place in case these strategies for sustainable health systems fail to deliver—as they have before? I wonder if you think about it Subscribe Predictable pitfalls Both community-based health insurance and user fees are as old as the hills. And after decades of people climbing up these hills, duking it out, climbing back down—neither strategy has shown the results the Ugandan implementation plan is counting on. This is, in fact, a hill some folks are willing to die on. (You knew I’d get there, right?) In November 2025, an African-led team of health system experts published a paper directed at low- and middle income country governments trying to figure out how to create self-sustaining health systems. The money wasn’t coming back. It had been more than nine months since the season of freezing, waivering and wood-chippering; two months since AFGHS tumbled into the world touting co-financing requirements and reductions in future US government health aid. Governments were looking for strategies for sustainable, self-financed health systems, the authors wrote. For countries considering user fees and community health insurance to fill the financing gaps, they had a simple message: Don’t. On user fees, the paper states: “Reliance on user fees is ultimately a regressive and inequitable approach. It places a disproportionate burden on the poor and undermines health system goals of equity and financial protection. […] There is overwhelming evidence that user fees mobilise very limited resources for the public health sector, making it an inefficient mechanism for revenue mobilisation.” On community health insurance: “Attempting to shift the burden of funding previously donor-funded services, such as HIV care and management, and TB treatment, onto contributory schemes would exacerbate their fragility and fail to protect the population.”7 The WHO says that community-based health insurance “cannot be expected to provide a major source of funding or coverage,” and noted that most schemes offer only moderate benefit to individuals paying into them, and exclude the poorest segment of the population.8 And yet, the US-Ugandan implementation plan says that community health insurance is “the central pillar of this [PNFP] sustainability strategy” and that this approach that will generate “pre-paid pooled funding at facility and community level [that] improves financial risk protection for households, reduces catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure, and generates structured, transparent revenue streams that can progressively absorb recurrent costs including health worker salaries.” Unfortunately, Uganda’s own history suggests the pillar might not be able to bear this weight. Ugandans Have Been to this Rodeo Before—and Some Want Their Money Back Uganda introduced its first community health insurance scheme in 1996 with support from international donors.9 Thirty years later, somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 percent of the population is covered by CHI; just over 1 percent has any kind of health insurance.10 User fees were universally introduced in 1993 as a condition of a World Bank loan.11 They were abandoned in 2001, and in 2004—the year I moved to Uganda to watch the free HIV program get underway—a definitive study found that the fees did not improve health systems and outcomes.12 In 2004, most clinics and hospitals had ‘free’ and ‘fee for service’ options for getting care.13 The fee for service, or “cash and carry” programs had often been established in the years prior to PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. People who could afford to paid for the drugs, often at facilities in the private-not-for-profit (PNFP) sector. When free drugs arrived, some people who’d been paying kept on doing so, perhaps because of shorter wait times, greater confidentiality, convenience or other factors. But in the year that I spent visiting the same clinics around the country week after week—including a “center of excellence” that maintained separate days for cash and carry clients and those accessing free ARVs—lots of people who had been paying tried to switch to the free option. They’d paid because they had no other choice. They’d sold pieces of family land, begged family members for loans, bought pills by the week, and sometimes by the day. Or they were just cash-strapped, like most of us, and wanted the funds for other things. 14 Twenty-two years later, this hasn’t changed. Ugandans pay out of pocket for 30-40 percent of their health care costs, leading one paper to declare that “falling ill is more than a health crisis. It is a financial emergency.”15 One recent study found that up to 48.5 percent of households dealing with tuberculosis sold something, took out a loan or dug into savings to defray the costs of TB care—which is supposed to be universally free.16 The Ugandan implementation plan does anticipate challenges. It proposes a phased approach, with 187 facilities introducing user contribution systems in Year 1, 152 in Year 2, and 153 in Year 3. Willingness to pay and feasibility studies will precede roll out; fees will be tiered by region, and a waiver system is proposed to ensure that no one has to pay who is unable to. Moreover, the plan provides for quarterly reviews of epidemiological data to “ensure that user contributions do not compromise epidemic control gains, ART continuity for the client cohort, TB case management, or PMTCT services.” Alt text: A screenshot of a table included in the implementation plan narrative that is the subject of this stack. It’s got a fetching pink bar at the top. It uses the abbreviation “CHI” which is Community Health Insurance, and FBO which is Faith Based Organizations, and it details the number of facilities that will implement user fees with waivers and community health insurance schemes over the five years of the agreement. As I said in the footnote, this is a super interesting document with a lot of other rich material. Tell me what you see—and what you would have focused on. And if you’ve seen something like this, or anything else that strikes you, in another implementation plan, tell me that too. You can use the Substack message platform or try me on Signal at @endaplague_again.25 (because @mercoonfan was, weirdly, taken). But the plan doesn’t fully explain what will happen if this approach doesn’t work out. Yes, progress will be monitored, and corrective action triggered. However, there is no specified funding replacement if premium and fee revenue prove inadequate. Instead, the authors write, “Currently, COEs serve a total client cohort of over 180,000 across 28 facilities. In the initial years, the U.S. Government (USG) will provide financial support for clients; over time, user fees generated by COEs will become the primary source of funding for sustaining their services.” Failure does not really seem to be an option. Health insurance schemes are more acceptable to the Ugandan population than user fees. Members of Parliament and civil society traveled to Ethiopia to see how that country’s scheme worked. In a follow up report, a veteran civil society group recommended allowing the “health insurance ecosystem to grow organically and [to] keep reviewing the law and regulations as this growth takes root.”17 One study found that more than three-quarters of Ugandans were willing to join a health insurance program.18 However, coverage of community-based health insurance is minimal, as is coverage of any kind of insurance—including private plans.19 A national health insurance scheme bill has been stalled for several years and presently sits with President Yoweri Museveni.20 Community-based health insurance scheme that do exist are expanding in number, but losing enrollees. Between 2022 and 2026, the number of community-based health financing schemes across the country increased by 42 percent, while the number of people enrolled decreased by nearly 11 percent.21 None of this means that community-based health insurance should not happen in Uganda—or that people do not want insurance. It doesn’t even mean that user fees and waivers won’t ever work. But there is highly relevant evidence from Uganda and the surrounding region that it is quite optimistic to describe community health insurance and user fees as central supports for sustainable financing in any sector of the health system. And now for the best-case scenario In the best-case scenario22, the Ugandan approach does exactly what it sets out to do, and so does the Liberian fee structure and revolving pharmacy fund—though I’ve not confirmed that these are in the MoU. In one best-case scenario, Uganda is an outlier, and user fees and community health insurance are not recurrent pillars of self-sustaining financing in other countries’ implementation plans. In another best-case scenario, all countries that include these strategies enjoy success beyond anyone’s evidence-informed wildest dreams: reliable funding generated by health care users fees, great health care outcomes for everyone, no exacerbation of inequities, no crippling household debt. No sold land, repurposed school tuition or high-interest loans. In the best-case scenario, not one of the hundreds of thousands of Ugandans living with HIV receiving antiretrovirals from 491 PNFP facilities misses a refill or leaves care because of user fees or community health insurance premiums. This is the best-case scenario for these people for their own health, and for their families. It is also the best-case scenario if Uganda wants to stay on the path to eliminating HIV as a public health threat. According to the country’s most recent data, 96.5 percent of people living with HIV on antiretrovirals are virologically suppressed. Epidemic control depends ensuring that 95% of people living with HIV know their status, 95 percent of those individuals are on ART, and 95% of those individuals are virologically suppressed. Uganda is still struggling with the first “95"—a frankly abysmal 85.3 percent. If HIV epidemic control and the attendant prevention of new infections, avoidable suffering and premature death matter, the country cannot afford to lose any clients who are currently in care.23 As I write this a couple hours before the polls close for the US elections in the city I live in, I say with soul-deep sincerity: I am rooting for the best-case scenario. I think it’s safe to say that we all are.24 I think it’s also safe to say that if the US and co-signatory governments have inked plans that lead to successful expansion of community health insurance and strategic use of user fees, we all would like to know, now, so that we don’t miss the opportunity to celebrate when success happens. The implementation plan narratives have to enter the public domain. They are the fullest expression of a strategy co-created by two governments. There are assumptions and details that people living in the US and co-signatory countries need to understand that are not available in the MoUs or, to date, in the Congressional Notifications. Some of these details can help other countries that are, as I write this, still working on implementation plans. Others, like a solid count of how many other countries have plans for expanding user fees or health insurance, are important for regional and global health architecture reform initiatives. No matter how this election night turns out, there will be a slew of new Congressional member orientations, briefings and talking points papers in the next few months. Release of implementation narratives should be a bullet point in every context that AFGHS is discussed. These documents can be redacted so that procurement sensitive information isn’t disclosed. There is much more historical precedent for sharing such documents than there is for relying on user fees to fill health financing gaps. Let’s look at the information together so we can hope for the best and prepare for, you know, the other thing. Alt text: A substack first: a bicep selfie! It’s my arm - peachy-white skin, black shirt (flannel, notch neck, too hot for this appallingly balmy November weather, if you’re wondering) and a sticker that says I VOTED 2026. Beige letters on red for I voted. Beige on blue for 2026. You bet I did.25 In your wildest dreams. Subscribe 1 This is a really, really rich 95 page document. There are fascinating ideas and detailed plans in it. It is all worth reading AND I have, in this post, highlighted an instance of content that could pose challenges and certainly posits success of strategies that haven’t worked before. I would love to hear what readers’ see that’s interesting and should be lifted up as something to check for in other implementation plans. I will also shortly be adding a static page to the substack site where implementation plan documents will live. I will put the url into this footnote and it will also be there on emilybass.substack.com by the end of the week. Uganda Implementation Narrative Section 4 April 22 2026 Draft 1.51MB ∙ PDF file Download Download 2 User fees are costs charged for visits, labs, medicines or other health services, usually at the time they are provided. Community health insurance, or community-based health insurance, is what the World Health Organization calls “micro insurance,” which is health insurance targeted at low-income people. 3 As usual (by which I mean always), please prove me wrong. 4 https://smartnewsliberia.com/liberias-ministry-of-health-announces-2025-hospital-service-fees-for-public-facilities/?utm 5 https://moh.gov.lr/news/2025/grand-cape-mount-leaders-residents-embrace-new-community-pharmacy-program/?utm 6 https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/09/hiv-usaid-pepfar-africa-foreign-aid-cuts-mission-hospitals/?utm 7 https://gh.bmj.com/content/10/11/e021270 8 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/community-based-health-insurance-CBHI 9 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2827475/ 10 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10861328/#b3-jpmph-23-110 11 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC527704/ 12 Same citation as the footnote 2 - the article is called “Learning from failed health care reform in Uganda.” To which I say: If only. If. Only. 13 There is a whole taxonomy of user fees to be aware of, if not commit to memory. Out of pocket costs are everything that someone pays for themselves. In this Stack, user fees are planned and policy-supported out of pocket costs. There are also out of pocket costs that people pay to buy drugs or receive tests or health care assessments that would be free if the drugs were on the shelves, or the machines or kits were available, or the staff were on site. A user fee is usually designed to be modest, pegged to willingness to pay, and may be waiveable at the point of care for anyone who is unable to do so. The costs for things that would otherwise be free are whatever the market will bear and people either have to pay them or go without. Out of pocket costs for services and stuff that aren’t available in public facilities are different again from bribes or unofficial fees that some health workers may impose, even though most are indefatigable, tireless and tired, and devoted to their clients. 14 For the record—which really is these footnotes—I would give a whole stack of fridge magnets for a systematic analysis of the economic and social impact of the Mass Unemployment Event in AFGHS countries among the very people who used to be able to afford and cover user fees, both for themselves and vast family networks. Locally employed USAID technical staff, house cleaners, caregivers, drivers and technicians were financial anchors for cousins, friends, friends’ children, friends’ childrens’ cousins, teachers, pastors, neighbors and so many other kinds of kin. Aid recipients lost direct funding; many other people who had not been aid recipients, but parts of the elaborate care webs that function as safety nets for so many people, lost crucial support too. And that’s even before we get to the people who worked at the hotels and restaurants and bars where people employed by the US and its implementing partners used to spend disposable income. Those businesses have lost revenue; those folks have lost jobs. It will be some time coming—and someone will have to fund this work—but I do hope it happens. And I hope, as usual, to be proven wrong. 15 https://eprcug.org/blog/how-out-of-pocket-healthcare-costs-keep-driving-ugandans-into-poverty/ 16 Another straight-to-the-point journal article title. Households experiencing catastrophic costs due to tuberculosis in Uganda: magnitude and cost drivers. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32938411 17 https://www.cehurd.org/download/technical-policy-brief-on-community-health-insurance-scheme/?wpdmdl=13661&refresh=6ae9122f5d4ed1793659439 18 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10125197/ 19 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10861328/#b3-jpmph-23-110 20 https://ugandapost.news/uganda-to-make-health-insurance-mandatory-by-2026/ 21 https://shu.org.ug/download/235 22 With a nod, tip of the stack hat, and wag of the Mercoon tail to a deeply valued reader who told me that I have a tendency to speculate about the worst-case scenarios a little too much of the time. 23 https://news.mak.ac.ug/2026/10/uphia-2025-shows-ugandas-hiv-status-awareness-gap-despite-strong-treatment-outcomes/ As you’ll see in the next footnote, I’ve already written a subSubstack on another topic, so I will be brief with regard to the study referenced in this article. The Uganda Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment, or UPHIA, will never happen in this way again. For more than a decade, PHIAs have been supported by the US government as a way to generate accurate estimates of country progress on key HIV indicators. They are a holdover from the PEPFAR program that was laser focused on ensuring US taxpayer dollars subsidized progress in pandemic control. There may be other population-level surveys and the data may even be publicly released, as the entire set of FY2026 MER data have not. But PHIAs will never happen again. If you’re wondering whether the estimates of HIV progress at country level might get less reliable….you’re not alone. 24 Ooh baby, I hate “we” in almost all forms. But sometimes I go there, when I am looking for company, which I am. Because this Stack moves into the somewhat-uncharted territory of assessing what the implementation plan narratives may suggest about co-signatory countries’ roles and responsibilities to the people living within their borders. The MoUs, specimen and data sharing agreements were templates. Countries’ answers fit into pre-specified questions that did not include, “how are you going to fill financing gaps and stabilize your health system as this plan unfolds?” In contrast, the implementation narratives are open form—the product of co-creation between the two governments. Co-creation can mean lots of things, but nothing leads me to believe that implementation plans are ghost-written by the US government, or that contents were imposed by the US counterparts. Instead, I think the parts of the plans that read like country government initiatives are endorsed, if not initiated by, those governments. For instance, the Ugandan implementation plan narrative describes plans for revenue-generation through fees charged for equipment calibration, repair and maintenance provided through Uganda’s National Equipment Calibration Laboratory, and laboratory accreditation through the Uganda National Accreditation Service (UGANAS), targeting private sector, PNFP, research and academic clients. That’s super specific and also quite ambitious. It doesn’t read like an American idea. There’s also a provision for solar panels, and other stuff that feels country owned and driven. This is where it gets interesting. If co-creation is the case, then both the US and co-signatory governments are accountable for the contents and the outcomes. Most discourse about AFGHS to date has focused on the decisions that America has made, or demanded that other countries make. The AFGHS architects have monopolized the hot seat. As they should, in so many ways. America absolutely created the conditions under which countries needed to come up with health financing strategies to fill unanticipated, catastrophic funding gaps. And with not-too-long a lens, we can look back and see that America is also on the hook for its role in the Bretton Woods institutions that made user fees and health system fiscal austerity conditions of loans during the era of structural adjustment. But in the here and now, it is not at all clear to me that the US is requiring Uganda or any other country to implement specific approaches to sustainable financing. Instead, it is as the authors of that paper up in footnote 6 suggest: African governments have agency. As implementation plans roll out—whether or not the narratives are shared—it will be important to understand what this agency looks like and what it means for people, including the poorest of the poor. And it will be important to figure out how to talk about it safely, respectfully and critically in places other than the literal and metaphorical footnotes. 25 This week’s song is “Once upon a time” by the Moody Blues. (I know, this is gonna be a weird, largely banger-free end of 2026 playlist. HMU with requests.) AND please do watch the video and appreciate the truly amazing opening sequence—a drum kit wasteland, a coupla plastic bags, a bit of sand. Sort of like the hill where fiscal austerity policies that put costs on health care users might go to perish. But then there’s a lady with amazing hair. It’s worth it.
Democrat Rob Sand wins election to be Iowa’s next governor
Democrat Rob Sand has won Tuesday’s election to be the next governor of Iowa. His win flips the seat held by a retiring Republican governor and likely sets up four years of divided government in the state.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s Political Career Has Been an Absolute Embarrassment. Good Riddance.
Amy Acton won, after her opponent ran an ad that was widely considered one of the grimmest in recent memory.
What Becerra's historic win says about Latino political power in California
Many voters were already shrugging about the significance of Xavier Becerra’s likely victory — especially Latinos. Only 45% of Latino voters felt “proud” about the prospect of a Latino governor, according to a recent poll.
Bruins Among Teams Talking To Red Wings About Blockbuster Trade
Reports say the Boston Bruins aren’t among the six to eight teams on Dylan Larkin’s list. That said, they want to be, and general manager Don Sweeney is kicking tires.Pierre LeBrun of TSN reports that the Bruins have called the Detroit Red Wings about a Larkin trade. Unfortunately, of the ten teams Larkin’s camp has […] The post Bruins Among Teams Talking To Red Wings About Blockbuster Trade appeared first on HEAVY.
Hakeem Jeffries is on track to make House speaker history. But major challenges lay ahead
Hakeem Jeffries is now on a clear path to be elected House speaker in January, a position that effectively hands him control of a newly resurgent Democratic party in President Donald Trump’s final two years in power.
AP Voter Poll: How key demographic groups voted in the 2026 midterms
The poll, an expansive survey of about 80,000 voters in all 50 states, suggests young voters were less likely to back House Republicans this year than they were to support Trump in 2024.
False accusations and unverified claims quickly spread about Election Day voting
Election Day was barely underway before misinformation about voting irregularities surfaced online. Election officials reported voting problems in parts of the United States but there were no verified examples of malfeasance in the hours before polls closed across the country.
Michigan passes limits on utility money in politics, setting up likely court fight
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Michigan voters approved Proposal 2 Tuesday, a citizen-led measure its backers say will get “money out of politics,” setting up a likely court fight in the coming months. Th…
Chinese scientists discover thickening ground ice in parts of warming Tibet
Research counters expectations but the region remains extremely vulnerable to climate change, study warns.
Caitlin Clark Makes Her Opinion Around Valkyries Winning WNBA Championship Against Dream Extremely Clear
The WNBA’s growth has been impossible to ignore over the past few seasons, with rising attendance, record viewership, and new franchises adding to the league’s momentum. The 2026 season took that progress another step forward, as the Golden State Valkyries delivered a historic championship run just two years after entering the league.
Las Vegas restaurants absorb higher import prices, adjusting business
Restaurant owners who rely on ingredients from overseas are adjusting how they do business as costs rise.
Pacers News: Indiana Finds Bright Spot Amidst Injury Woes
The Indiana Pacers' news cycle lately has consisted of injuries; however, following the contest against the Hawks, Indiana may have found a diamond in the rough. The Pacers' main story for the start of the season has been their injury-plagued roster, including Tyrese Haliburton, missing at least two weeks due to a hamstring strain. In …
The Last Disney+ Original?
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get going, I wanted to remind readers about how I plan to keep your trust while I add advertising to this newsletter. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I’m running ads now, but the danger is that it could impact my analysis and writing. I have a list of sponsors on my About Page, so if you think I’m biased, you can check out who’s sponsored this newsletter! This is something that I’m not sure anyone else in digital media does (if you’re a writer or media outlet and you do this, let me know and I’ll shout you out!) but it’s something I’d love to see embraced by the entire industry. Sunlight, i.e. transparency, is often the best disinfectant. Okay, on to this week’s issue. We (finally) have another major Disney+ TV show to talk about, so that’s my main focus for today. Plus, we had a lot of new shows come out, including the fourth seasons of The Diplomat and Tulsa King! And Love is Blind! The Lowdown! Also, four (four!) straight-to-streaming films came out this week, featuring a lot of big names and celebrities, so I’m going to look at those. All that, mixed news for the WNBA, Reacher ends its run on the charts, Skydance does well in September viewership, NYU’s Sundance dominance, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of October 12th to October 18th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Disney+’s Porridge Problem Listen, per my headline, VisionQuest isn’t the last Disney+ Original. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not. They have other MCU shows in development. Well, maybe one: But it sure feels like the end of an era. I’d call it their “porridge too hot” era, to quote myself from The Ringer. I told Ben Lindbergh that Disney+ seemingly couldn’t figure out the right amount of content. In the heights of the Streaming Bubble Era (circa 2019 to 2022), they started releasing an insane amount of TV shows. After their growth slowed, they’re down to two or three shows a year, and that might be down to 1 by 2027. Here’s my TV shows by year chart: Even at the time, I thought Disney was making too many shows (that cost too much). Today? They’re definitely making too few shows (though the budgets are more in check, at least according to the reporting). Porridge too hot, porridge too cold; too many shows, now not enough. Which makes evaluating VisionQuest so interesting. This show didn’t have a great lead-in, whether it be a Marvel Cinematic Universe film (the last non-Sony-produced-Spider-Man flick came out The Fantastic Four from July of 2025) or Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show (the two this year were Wonder Man back in January and _Daredevil: Born Again_in May, both of which underwhelmed). And so far, VisionQuest hasn’t quite recaptured the MCU Originals glory, but it has some signs of sparks. First, it made Samba TV, though at a lowly ninth place. At least it made it, a feat some other Marvel shows didn’t accomplish. (Ironheart landed on the Samba TV charts one week at tenth place, but Wonder Man and Daredevil: Born Again both missed.) VisionQuest also made Luminate, though with only 3.0 and 7.6 million hours. But it missed Nielsen in its first week. The best news might be its 7.8 on IMDb, on 12K reviews so far, great numbers, even for a superhero show. Looking at those numbers, this show will really need to pick up in future weeks—and it may since it’s coming out weekly—or Disney will have another disappointment on its hands. Disney+ binge-released their last few shows to try to boost numbers, but that meant shows like Iron Heart and Wonder Man didn’t last long on the charts. _Daredevil: Born Again’s_last season missed entirely (though it came out weekly). Here’s the Disney+ Originals by totals: And for a fun new look, here are those same shows, rearranged by the years they came out: That really shows that, in addition to Disney+ releasing fewer shows, those shows just don’t hit like they once did. If I had to offer one main explanation, it’s that Marvel Studios moved away from characters who starred in the Avengersmovies (The Scarlett Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Loki, Falcon, Winter Soldier) to characters who didn’t (Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Iron Heart, Wonder Man, Daredevil). It sounds trite, but more popular IP tends to do better than less popular IP. In Marvel’s case, beloved, decades-old characters trump newer ones. And yes, I think this is a problem for Disney. The failure of Marvel TV shows to linger for weeks on the charts, unlike in 2021 and 2022, explains why Disney’s share of the charts has plummeted: That’s a strategic issue. Yes, these shows are really expensive, but without them, Disney+ will struggle, especially if Disney+ keeps raising prices AND licenses out its shows non-exclusively. My recommendation? Return to the core value proposition, which is Disney+ as “genre HBO”. The goal is six shows a year, coming out weekly, spaced out throughout the year. When a show hits, keep it coming back. Make three to four of those shows Marvel or Star Wars, and fill out the rest with IP swings like Percy Jackson, Goosebumps or something like National Treasure. And make YA-skewing shows like Coven Academy to fill out the schedule. Disney, you can get this porridge just right, er, make the right number of shows. Quick Notes on TV Netflix’s sophomore, er, junior, er, senior season slump abated very, very slightly this week. I speak of The Diplomat, which returned for its fourth season on 15-Oct. Credit where credit is due, this show debuted in April of 2023, and has put out new seasons every year since. Has that helped the viewership? Not really. This season opened to 16.4 million hours, which is down significantly from the first season (21.7 million hours) and down somewhat from the second season (18.0 million hours), but it is up from last year’s 14.2 million hours opening. On Samba TV, it opened to third place; that’s also very good. On Luminate, it opened to 25.0 million hours, which is good, but over thirty million hours is a hit on that platform. Netflix wisely renewed it, since it’s steady and, frankly, Netflix needs hits.1 Paramount+ put out Tulsa King’s fourth season on a Friday. After putting out most of their big, usually-Taylor Sheridan-scripted shows out on Sundays last year, they’ve clearly moved to Fridays going forward. Was this a thought-out strategic change, Netflix mimicry, or a data-inspired move? Tough to say. Fridays are crowded with new movies, but so are Sundays with new shows. Anyways, this one is coming out weekly, and we haven’t seen it hit the Nielsen or Luminate charts yet. But it did make Samba TV at fifth place, which is a good opening. Still, if this doesn’t make Luminate or Nielsen next week, I’d call it a disappointment. Netflix had two unscripted shows hit the charts this week, one a docu-series and one a reality competition show. Tyson is a four-episode docu-series about one of boxing’s most popular fighters, and it made both the Samba TV and Luminate charts, but not Nielsen. That’s a solid run for only four episodes (assuming it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to produce). Netflix’s latest season of Love Is Blind also returned for its eleventh season, which opened to 10.0 million hours, down from previous seasons. It also had 11.0 million hours according to Luminate, roughly in line with the Nielsen numbers. Last issue, I analyzed the triple successes of Below, Carrie and Crystal Lake, noting that all three have done well. I mostly used Nielsen, but all three shows also made Samba TV (see above). Crystal Lake in particular did very well on Luminate, getting 35.0 million hours, top for Peacock among first seasons: The top “show” of the week would have been Thursday Night Football again, at 41.7 million hours. This is still above last year’s game, but it continues the season’s overall downward trend, which happens every year. (Though a big week is coming, based on the news stories I’ve seen.) As I said before, I’ll do a deeper dive on all the October games later this month, with comparisons to previous years. One company is quietly on a roll, when you consider the shows it makes and streams. I speak of Skydance—a point Variety made—noting that it produces Neagley and Reacher for Amazon, along with Paramount+’s Lioness, which means it produced three of the top four shows of September according to Nielsen. By the way, Neagley fell off the Nielsen charts after four weeks, which is a pinch short for how well it started, but it’s still a huge success. (Interestingly, it finished just 7.3 million hours ahead of the cancelled Ride or Die.) The point, though, which I’ve made before, is that Prime Video still has a problem with how many co-productions it buys, most notably _The Boys_from Sony and Reacher/Jack Ryan from Skydance. It’s not a critical flaw—everyone licenses shows—but Amazon still struggles to make its own hits. Reacher finally fell off the Nielsen charts, so here’s its final rank for season four: 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… ...An example of the algorithm NOT picking a film… …whether or not Netflix buys shows simply for the movie poster… ...if East of Eden is above the Obliterated Line... ...what four star-studded straight-to-streaming films didn’t chart... ...and a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue.
NASA is racing against time to save the Hubble Space Telescope
NASA is exploring a daring plan to save the legendary Hubble Space Telescope from its eventual fiery plunge into Earth's atmosphere. After more than 35 years of groundbreaking discoveries, Hubble is slowly losing altitude, and without intervention, it could fall back to Earth as early as 2033 or 2034. To keep the iconic observatory operating, NASA is asking private space companies to propose innovative ways to boost Hubble into a higher orbit, upgrade its capabilities, or safely dispose of it when its mission finally ends.
I look up as I walk, my healthcare costs look down
An Osaka Metropolitan University researcher analyzed 338,706 person-months of data linking objective smartphone step counts from Osaka Prefecture’s official health app with health-insurance claims for 20,950 adults aged 40 and over. Generalized additive models revealed that the non-linear association between daily steps and subsequent 6-month healthcare expenditures transforms with age. Predicted costs were largely insensitive to steps among middle-aged adults but fell steeply with increasing steps among older adults.
Monarch butterflies get tiny trackers to help scientists follow their mysterious migration
Every August, monarch butterflies east of the Rocky Mountains begin their migration from southern Canada and the northern United States to central Mexico to hibernate. In the spring, when temperatures warm, they awaken, mate and begin their migration north again to lay their eggs. In Texas, scientists with the National Wildlife Federation are now tracking monarchs during their migration to understand where they roost and protect the habitats they rely on.
Disney plans thousands of layoffs, targeting 20% cost savings
Some of Disney’s operations, which include theme parks, TV channels and the movie studio, will be affected disproportionately.
The internet is ‘dying’: AI is eating it and obliterating these business models
‘The internet as we’ve known it for the past 20-plus years is going away and it’s going to completely change,’ one CEO says.
In Michigan, Haley Stevens Did a Lot More Damage Than She Expected—to Herself
"I was like, ‘I can't even believe that I'm reading that.’ I was absolutely beyond stunned."
Study of janitors explores the safety and health impacts of working alone
To supervisors, finishing work on time is more important than finishing the job safely, many participants said.
ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon takes indefinite leave of absence to address health issues
The veteran sports commentator says people close to him noticed “worrisome signs” in recent years that he largely brushed aside.
IIPR: AFFO rose 7% sequentially as life science investment and portfolio leasing accelerated
Q3 AFFO per share rose 7% sequentially to $1.96, supported by rent recoveries and new leasing. Life science commitments expanded to approximately $545M, while 874,000 sq ft was leased since July.Based on Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. [IIPR] Q3 2026 Audio Transcript — Nov. 3 2026This is an…
iPad Mini 8 Reviewer Isn't Satisfied With Apple's Excuse for Lack of 120Hz Display
The new iPad mini has an OLED display, but the device does not support ProMotion, meaning the display's refresh rate is limited to 60Hz instead of 120Hz. Apple said OLED displays still have significantly faster pixel response times compared to LCDs, resulting in reduced motion blur, but The Verge's David Pierce is not entirely satisfied.
Community power-building is challenging health inequities in Fresno
Fresno Building Healthy Communities (Fresno BHC) began with a realization that the challenges residents brought to local advocates could not be addressed in isolation. What started as an informal coalition focused primarily on health care access grew as its members recognized how closely health is connected to housing, food, transportation, land use and other conditions … Continue reading Community power-building is challenging health inequities in Fresno
Phantom Blade Zero made $223M on Steam and PS5 in five days
Phantom Blade Zero was always going to be a hit. We’ve been banging on about it for months now. Well, the results are in, and Phantom Blade Zero has indeed been a hit. Yesterday, S-Game reported that Phantom Blade Zero has sold 4M copies. As of this morning, our estimates show that Phantom Blade Zero has generated $223M via 4.3M copies sold across Steam (3.1M) and PlayStation (1.2M). This instantly makes Phantom Blade Zero this year’s #10 new 2026 game by premium revenue across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation – and without an Xbox release to boot. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Combined, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong account for 55% of Phantom Blade Zero’s copies sold – 56% of copies on Steam and 50% on PlayStation. But revenue is slightly different. Phantom Blade Zero actually made more revenue outside of China However, due to regional pricing, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong account for a lower share of revenue, 45%. The three countries account for 40% of Phantom Blade Zero’s revenue on PlayStation, and 47% on Steam. This is due to regional pricing, which you can easily check in our platform: Using the $59.99 USD base price as a starting point, we can see that Phantom Blade Zero costs the equivalent of $40.31 in China (-32.8% of the US price) and $41.80 in Hong Kong (-30.3%). So while Chinese culture is at the heart of Phantom Blade Zero (in terms of theme and player base), it’s actually making more money in non-China markets. In fact, markets outside of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan account for $123M in Phantom Blade Zero revenues via 2M copies. Even when we remove revenues from these markets from the analysis, Phantom Blade Zero remains a top 20 new 2026 title by revenue across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe In other words, Phantom Blade Zero is a global hit. It’s not all China – or even majority China, when it comes to revenues. The China spring board helped, but a successful State of Play and – more importantly – positive reviews helped this one land in other markets. Quality sells. China was hyped from the start, but Western players needed more convincing As we wrote back in August, China was always going to show up early for Phantom Blade Zero. Our daily Steam revenue data shows just that, and we can see when S-Game’s banging RPG won over players outside of China: On the day Phantom Blade Zero’s Steam pre-order button went live in mid-August, China accounted for nearly 70% of Phantom Blade Zero’s Steam revenue. The shares hovered around 68% throughout August. This is the hometown-hero effect we’ve covered in the past, with the home market committing first – almost sight unseen – on national pride and a lush-looking trailer alone. Then things get even more interesting. Following the State of Play on August 18, US daily revenue more than doubled (from $72K to $146K), China’s daily take nearly quadrupled ($237K to $892K), and the rest of the world’s revenues also more than doubled. As China spiked so much harder than the others, its share of revenue hardly moved, holding at around 68%. So the by-all-counts-awesome State of Play got non-China markets and the West interested (you can see daily spend jump), but it didn’t move the needle for overall revenue shares. Positive reviews were the Western tipping point. US daily revenue went from $106K on October 25 to $230K when the embargo lifted on the 26th, to $463K on the 27th, to $899K on the 28th. So nearly 8.5x more revenue in four days, boosted by the positive reviews and subsequent word of mouth. When Phantom Blade Zero launched on the 29th, things hit critical mass. On launch day, the US and the rest of the world combined out-earned China for the first time in Phantom Blade Zero’s whole pre-order history. You can see this unfolding pretty nicely in the revenue shifting shares, too. China’s lifetime revenue share sat at 68% in August and was still 65% as late as October 25th, but it dropped to 45% by November 2. Over that same period, the US nearly doubled its share from 10% to 18%, and the rest of the world climbed from 25% to 38%. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe That’s not to say that China sold less – far from it. The West and non-China markets just showed up later, won over by the reviews and word of mouth. However you look at it, Phantom Blade Zero has become one of this year’s highest-grossing premium games. Daily volume seems to be decelerating a bit (which is natural), so subscribe below for more updates on performance. Speaking of performance and deceleration… Gran Turismo 7 is one of PlayStation’s biggest earners While games like Ghost of Yotei, Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, Wolverine (2.7M now, by the way), and even Marathon and Saros tend to get all the headlines (we hold our hand up there, too!), there’s one PlayStation game from the past five years that’s earned more than all of these games: and it’s one that’s rarely talked about in enthusiast circles. Gran Turismo 7, which launched in March 2022, has sold 12.7M copies. This amounts to $840M in revenue, second only to Spider-Man 2’s $1.3B – if we’re talking PlayStation first-party for this generation. Gran Turismo 7 still brings in around 3M players every month (and between 400K and 700K active players per day). It’s also an evergreen seller every year. For example, Gran Turismo 7 generated: $189.7M in 2023 via 2.9M copies $161.3M in 2024 via 2.7M copies $119.1M in 2025 via 1.7M copies This year, Gran Turismo 7 has already sold 1.3M copies, generating $74.7M And there’s more laps to come Every December is comfortably GT7’s biggest month of the year (except launch), and the gap is widening there. December generated 2.1x a normal month in 2023, and by 2025 that had grown to 2.8x. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe As the typical months cool off with age, Christmas always holds strong, so the holiday period is becoming a bigger slice of Gran Turismo 7 yearly revenue. For Gran Turismo 7, the week around Christmas does 3x to 5x a typical week – three years running: Christmas week 2023: $14.7M (4.6x the year’s median week) Christmas week 2024: $9.3M (3.3x) Christmas week 2025: $8.5M (4.6x) These Christmas peaks happened at the full $59.99 (Gran Turismo 7 wasn’t discounted at all in December 2023 or December 2025). And although there was a discount late in December 2024, GT7’s peak week that year still happened at full price. You can really see why PlayStation hasn’t added this one to PlayStation Plus, eh? Say it after me: Subscriptions cannibalise premium revenue! On that note… Let’s take a quick look at how Gran Turismo 7 is doing versus its nearest competitor, Xbox console exclusive and long-running sim racer Forza Motorsport (released in 2023 as a reboot for the franchise, about 19 months after GT7). Forza Motorsport has sold around 1.3M copies across Xbox (75.4% for Xbox console and PC) and Steam (24.6%), grossing $89.9M across those platforms. Launch aligned, and on just PlayStation, Gran Turismo 7 had sold 10.2M copies, generating $676.1M, by that point. In other words, Gran Turismo 7 has sold the same number of copies this year as Forza Motorsport has sold since launch. When all is said and done, Gran Turismo 7’s 2026 revenues will have lapped Motorsport’s lifetime, too. It’s worth noting that Forza Motorsport was not released on last-gen consoles, and under a quarter of Gran Turismo 7’s revenue has come from PS4 consoles. Critically, Forza Motorsport is also on Game Pass, where nearly 7M players have accessed it. Meanwhile, the Forza Horizon series has been performing incredibly in terms of revenue. This year’s Forza Horizon 6 has generated $583.7M across Xbox and Steam despite Game Pass cannibalisation, and last year’s Forza Horizon 5 PlayStation port has generated $383.5M on PS5 alone. So two questions, then: How well is Forza Horizon 6 going to do when it launches on PS5 in January? Hit subscribe to get that in your inbox in January (which is in two months somehow!?) Subscribe 2. Open-world arcade Gran Turismo when? Also, if you like arcade racers, go and play Star Wars Galactic Racer. It rules. Like GOTY material, seriously. The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
Trump faces prospect of impeachment if Democrats gain control
If Republicans lose control of Congress, the rest of his time in office is likely to be consumed by Democratic-led investigations into his administration and his business dealings, and possibly even another impeachment.
Gaming Phones Are Finally As Obnoxious as Gaming PCs
RedMagic is just the latest company to introduce an excessively bright and colorful handset.
iOS 27.2 adds two new features I’ve been really loving
iOS 27.2 arrived last week with a variety of new features and changes for iPhone. Here are two new iOS 27.2 features I’ve been loving lately.
Coal mining politics could sway Navajos this Election Day when voters pick next president
Sitting Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren was an Arizona delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention. But when it comes to coal, he closely aligns with President Donald Trump, who is reversing his Democratic predecessors’ efforts to phase out use of the fossil fuel.
OpenAI: ChatGPT Search Is About 20% of Google’s, 250 Million People Speak With ChatGPT, and Chat Is Merging With Work
OpenAI says ChatGPT growth is accelerating. The company added 200 million users over just the past two months, jumping from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly active users in 60 days. Its search volume, it says, is approximately 20% of Google’s. Its users create 1.5 billion images with it per week. And its voice mode, between dictation and speaking with ChatGPT, now has 250 million combined weekly active users. ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry told me this during a brief fireside chat at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York City on Monday night. “The growth is just going big,” he said. During our conversation, Fry also revealed plans to merge ChatGPT’s Chat and Work modes (so that confusing toggle up top will soon go away), agreed with feedback that ChatGPT-created restaurant signage looks too uniform, and addressed the cost to serve its personal assistant Dots. Here’s a look at our full conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length. We also cover image generation, interactive interfaces, advertising, education, and public unease about AI: Alex Kantrowitz: OpenAI has analyzed ChatGPT’s search volume and compared it with Google’s. What did you find? Adam Fry: ChatGPT has been growing quite quickly. ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google. It’s a pretty amazing statistic when you think about it, mainly because we started just about a year and a half ago. It’s hard to remember this, but ChatGPT at a time didn’t have any up-to-date information. You’d ask a question, it would say something like, “It’s past my training date,” and nobody had any idea what that meant. You’re saying ChatGPT’s search volume is one-fifth of Google’s. Bing’s share of the search market is around 5%. Does that make you multiple times larger than Bing? To say that more directly, ChatGPT has gone from one billion to 1.2 in just the last two months. That’s roughly 100 million users in 30 days, and another 100 million in another 30 days. The growth is just going big, and we’re staying very focused on how fast ChatGPT is growing. What counts as a search? I might have 20 prompts back and forth in a ChatGPT conversation. Does each one count as a query? Story continues below… A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR Move upmarket without a rebuild Moving upmarket means saying yes to what enterprise buyers ask for first: SSO, directory sync, and audit logs. WorkOS gives you all three, so your team keeps building the product instead of the checklist. Get enterprise-ready. Continued from above…. Adam Fry: What people came to ChatGPT for to start, if you go back about two years, is really writing help and coding help. Those wouldn’t be things that you really search for. What we’ve seen over the last year is people have grown into all these other topics. Things like you’re looking up a person or people or a place or a thing, and it requires up-to-date information. That’s a key element. Another big part is finance questions or health questions, where you really want to make sure it’s up-to-date information that’s quite factual, and we’ll do a web search for those questions. It’s basically anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for, but is now deciding to go to ChatGPT for. Does each conversation with a search embedded count as one search, or does every question that requires a web search count? Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that’s a search. You used to work at Google. How would you say the nature of search is changing? One of the things that people really love about ChatGPT is this personalization and this understanding of the broader journey. If you look in the past, people would go for a Q&A box, and you’d ask a one-off question, like how tall is the Eiffel Tower. But there’s so much context in our lives around, “Maybe I’m taking a trip to Paris.” It’s actually helpful for ChatGPT to respond, “Here’s how tall the Eiffel Tower is, but I know you’re going on a trip to Paris.” It’s that ability for people to actually maintain context over time that has led them to start using ChatGPT in this way. You’ve also announced 250 million weekly active users of voice input, including dictation and conversations with voice mode. We are at 250 million weekly active users. What’s amazing about this is, if you look at those 250 million, what we’re seeing is it’s actually also incremental to the product. It’s no longer just a novelty. People aren’t just trying out voice. We’re seeing them use voice input day to day in their daily life, and it’s grown so quickly. Those 250 million users are using voice input, and that could just be a quick question or a long conversation. We’re seeing both behaviors. We’re seeing people just not want to type. You just hold it and start talking to it, or it turns into a longer conversation where people just sit with it. The big reason for this is the frontier capabilities of our models that we’ve shipped. We shipped what we call GPT Live 1, and then we shipped GPT Live 1.1. The big change with this is that it’s much more natural to speak with. It’s something we call backchanneling and interruptibility. Mhhhm… What you just did there is what the model does, because it’s really good at having a bidirectional conversation. That push to the frontier—we were the first to really release this at scale—has made it so much more natural for people to chat. That’s still only about 20% of the user base. From the outside, that looks small. Why is it exciting from the inside? It’s very exciting for a few reasons. We see from the data that when people start using voice, they stay around using voice. One of the things, transparently, we can do a better job of is bringing more people into discovering it. We see that the number of people who discover it could be a lot higher. But once they do, it’s a really new way for people to interact with AI. We’ve made a lot of improvements to it too, where we’re just going to see the number go up. You have background mode, so now by default, if you close the app, it’ll show, “Hey, the conversation’s still going.” If you want to walk around the house or you’re putting away the groceries, you can still have a chat. That kind of continuity has also changed how much people use it. Dots launched on September 29 and is about a month old. How’s it doing? It’s doing great. We talk to people about their Dot, and the first thing that everyone says is, “I love my Dot.” One of the reasons we’re seeing this is the proactivity, its ability to reach out to you and figure out things. The biggest use case I see all the time is, “Did I forget something today that I was supposed to do?” You can just say to your Dot, “Remind me of things at the end of the day that I may have forgotten. Somebody emailed me or messaged me,” and it’ll do that. This Dot changes the paradigm of the relationship with AI, where it’s actually helping you and giving you time back. You’re more conservative with permissions than some competitors. I tried to give my Dot my credit card, and it wouldn’t take it. With the creator of OpenClaw in-house, why are Dots’ permissions more limited? This is a space where we want to be very thoughtful and conservative because it’s a new space where you’re entrusting your Dot to take care of things on behalf of you that matter and are meaningful. We’ve just talked about how you go to this 1.2 billion user growth and asking questions. Now we’re asking people, “Can you ask ChatGPT or your Dot to help get things done?” But when you ask it to help get things done, it’s a whole new level of trust. We’ve built up a tremendous amount of trust in giving the right answers to your questions, and we want to make sure that when we build this new product, it has a high degree of trust. It’s a long game. We think this is going to be a new market for a very long time, and we want to make sure that we’re being this trusted player in the market to start. I initially thought Dots would be available on my $20 plan, then realized I had to spend $100 a month to get it. I upgraded, but I’d like to downgrade at some point…. We hope to keep earning your business and make the value good enough. It’s a really good point. ChatGPT’s goal more broadly, which I think is unique for us in the market, is we are focused on bringing intelligence to everyone safely across the entire world. For Dots in particular, there’s no difference. We don’t have anything to share tonight about the date of when Dots will go to a broader set of users. But you can rest assured we’re working very hard, and there are a couple things we have to get right. Over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The first one is, right now we wanted to make sure that your Dot is actually really helpful. We started with some of our best models, but over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The second thing is around proactivity. We’re still dialing in: How much do I message you to help you get things done? We can always play around with that to understand how much usage should a user use to have a successful Dot. We’re going to work on both, and our goal and ambition is to bring it out to all users. How much background computing does a Dot require? I’ve read estimates that serving a $100 subscriber might cost OpenAI $3,000 in compute, and mine seems to read every email that arrives. How often is it checking connected data sources? Right now, Dots are on the compute-heavier side, and this is one of the things we want to make sure that we can dial back over time. But the goal is to give you the best product. This is our premium, always-on personal assistant. Once we nail that, we’ll figure out how to dial back the compute needs. The thing we’re seeing also from our models, as we train frontier models, is just how—I can’t even keep up with how quickly we have a new model, and each new model is more efficient. If you looked at 6.1 Sol when it came out relative to Astra, much more efficient. I’m very excited about the next set of models we have coming too that’ll be even more efficient that we can use. Elon Musk said the cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue. Is efficiency the key to winning against competitors, or is there more to it? There are a couple of factors that go into it. One is the cost side, but the other is the revenue side. On ChatGPT and on our consumer business, we’ve been extremely proud of our ability to diversify different revenue streams in a way that’s growing really fast. To give you another stat, we announced several months back that we had passed 50 million subscriptions, and the number has grown considerably since then. On ads, within 200 days, we reached more than a billion in ARR, and that business is growing extremely quickly. We also have credits. Rather than paying for subscriptions, users can buy more credits. Between credits, subscriptions, and ads, I’m confident that the value of a Dot is going to be able to pay for itself. Elon has subscriptions too. This is clearly an expensive product to serve. One thing we continue to bet on at OpenAI and ChatGPT more broadly is that the models will continue to get much better and much cheaper, way faster than any of us think. If you look back at the historicals on it, it continues to be true. From what I’ve seen, I see no slowing down of that. What is Meta doing right with Muse? It has spent a lot of time atop the App Store charts. There are a couple of things they’ve done well. The first is people have been craving simplicity in their products. One of the things we have stated publicly as well is, at times AI products can be too complex. We’ve announced we’re merging ChatGPT’s Chat and Work. We’re making it much more simple in the products. You don’t have as many toggles or sliders between efforts and different model pickers. One of the things they’ve done well is this simplicity. You just go in and you can ask a question. You don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing. That’s one thing that seems to have resonated with users, which we also believe in. Second, there’s something really nice about being able to access your agent across many different channels. We just announced and launched Dots on iMessage. Whether you talk to your Dot on email or iMessage or within the ChatGPT app, the ubiquity in getting your assistant out there is going to be key. Those are two things that, if I had to be nice to our competitors, I would say were two big ones. So Alexandr Wang’s meme-tweeting strategy isn’t something you’re going to emulate? I have a different tweeting style. ChatGPT still asks me to choose between Chat and Work, even though some people call this technology AGI. Will that distinction go away? Couldn’t agree more. We have to solve this. Asking users to choose — we’ve heard repeatedly from all of our users it’s too much to understand. When should you go to Chat? When should you go to Work? It’s solvable. There’s real research to solve to make sure the models can understand what your intent is. Are you asking for a fast, quick reply? Are you asking me to go do a long agentic task? We’re going to solve it, and the plan is to bring Chat and Work together. So one interface will work out whether I’m asking for a conversation or a task. When? Coming soon. You told me the majority of ChatGPT’s 1.2 billion users are using image functionality. What are they doing? Today, 1.5 billion images are created per week. It’s hard to even wrap my head around that number. They’re doing a wide range of things. One of the most interesting things they’ve started to do is really use it for productivity use cases. The first thing it started with—I don’t know if you saw the ’80s trend, but it was quite fun. You could take a photo of yourself and say, “Put me and my family in ’80s outfits.” I did this for my family, and it was a really fun poster. But what we’re also seeing is businesses for their menus, or posters for birthdays. People are using it almost in a productivity-like fashion to create visual diagrams of what they would like to see. We’ve actually brought the latency down on images as well, so it’s gotten a lot faster. It went from a very high number of seconds to getting much faster. As it comes down even further, the number of images people are creating and the number of use cases is going to grow a lot. My feature request: When a restaurant makes a menu or sign, prompt it for more specificity so it doesn’t look like every other AI-generated restaurant sign. Or offer a shuffle button for a different style. I agree with the feedback, and we’ll take it to the team. I’m seeing ChatGPT generate little interactive interfaces within its answers. What’s the direction for Intelligent UI, and how are people using it? I am extremely excited about Intelligent UI. If you go back a couple years, these chat apps were all text, and now that’s changing. They’re going to be visuals. Intelligent UI and our first attempt at this with GPT-6 Intelligent UI is really just the beginning. As you go to the extreme, what you can imagine is, let’s say you’re using voice mode, and you just say, “Show me how offside works.” Immediately it should show you a visual diagram, and you say, “No, I don’t quite understand it.” It should just repopulate. That’s where the future of this technology goes. It’s almost like you’re talking to a canvas that will update and change. People are finding it helpful for a lot of things. My favorite one is—it’s hard to admit that I had no idea how hearts work. The last biology course I took was in high school. I just asked it, “How does the heart work?” and it instantly gave me a beautiful interactive diagram of where blood flows and how it goes through. I’m really, really bullish on this for learning in particular. You’ve described useful applications in finance, health, and learning, and ChatGPT has 1.2 billion users. If people are getting so much value, why is public polling on AI so negative? The reality with AI is it is going to change the nature of how work gets done. For a lot of people, that is something that can feel scary at times, and we’ve all felt that. But I remain confident that when people actually use the product and they use AI, it very quickly changes how they perceive it. We’re at 1.2 billion, but there are still a lot of people who haven’t used it. The more people use it, get familiar with it, how it can actually help you in your life, it’s going to feel a lot less scary. Big Technology is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thanks!! Subscribe
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