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Brendan Sorsby granted injunction vs. NCAA, eligible to play in 2026
Texas Tech star quarterback Brendan Sorsby has been granted a temporary injunction against the NCAA and will be eligible to play for the Red Raiders in 2026.
Lawsuit over Amazon ‘Subscribe & Save’ alleges ‘deceptive’ business practices: 4 things to know
If the suit is granted class-action status, millions of Amazon customers from across the nation could be pulled into the litigation.
Seattle granted NFL Franchise on this day 52 years ago
Seattle was awarded an NFL franchise 52 years ago today. Look back at the origins of the Seahawks and their 1976 start.
Caleb Williams Named EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 27 Cover Athlete
Williams Is the First Chicago Bears Player To Appear On A Madden NFL Cover Fans Can Expect Full Game Reveal on Thursday, June 4, and Worldwide Launch on Aug. 13 EA SPORTS™ announced today that Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams will grace the cover of EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 27, making him the first player in Chicago Bears history to do so. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams lands on the cover of EA SPORTS Madden NFL 27. Williams’ record-setting season, playoff victory and NFL Moment of the Year — his walk-off, game-winning 46-yard touchdown pass in overtime against the Green Bay Packers — make him one of the most compelling quarterbacks to watch in 2026. Off the field, he’s known as one of the sport’s most distinctive cultural presences, styling his own gameday looks with unique nail art throughout the season. Williams appears on the Standard Edition cover showcasing his signature jump pass, while the Deluxe Edition cover features his iconic celebration that granted him the
Commodore Bar is granted license for live entertainment
Conditions are attached to address neighbors' concerns.
'Top class' Liverpool star contacted by Euro giants
Liverpool's squad is going to undergo another revamp this summer. hardly any of their transfers have worked out.Granted, a lot of their poor performances are due to the number of injuries that they've...
Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta Strikes Major Deal to Acquire Caesar's Entertainment
Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has grown his business portfolio quite significantly, of late. This month, Fertitta was granted team ownership of the WNBA
French Open: Jannik Sinner upset by Juan Manuel Cerundolo after being granted controversial cramping timeout
French Open: Jannik Sinner granted controversial timeout for cramping: 'This is absolute baloney'
Jannik Sinner lost 15 straight points before taking a medical timeout.
Jason Voorhees Is Coming to ‘Dead by Daylight’! [Trailer]
The wish for the addition of Jason Voorhees to Behaviour Interactive’s asymmetrical horror hit Dead by Daylight is finally being granted. With Dead by Daylight celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year, what better way to celebrate than to finally land the big guy himself?! Jason’s impending arrival in The Fog was revealed as part of […]
Advocacy group sues Trump administration over access to abortion for veterans
The rule removed limited abortion access under VA benefits that had been granted in 2022 by then-President Joe Biden's administration
Advocacy group sues Trump administration over access to abortion for veterans
The rule removed limited abortion access under VA benefits that had been granted in 2022 by then-President Joe Biden's administration
Trump’s flavored vape push sparks backlash from MAHA influencers, health officials
The FDA this month opened a pathway for tobacco companies to sell flavored e-cigarettes and granted its first authorization for fruit-flavored vapes.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis grants clemency to Tina Peters, makes her eligible for release from prison
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday granted clemency to Tina Peters and made the former Republican county clerk eligible for release from state prison as soon as next month, capping months of speculation that the Democratic governor would shorten a nine-year sentence related to her role in a scheme to breach secure voting equipment. Polis, […]
Thunder not taking Lakers for granted ahead of Game 1
The Oklahoma City Thunder blew out the Los Angeles Lakers twice in the final two weeks of the regular season.
Supreme Court leans in favor of Trump's bid to end protections for Syrian, Haitian migrants
Trump's lawyers say Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security, not judges, the power to end Temporary Protective Status granted earlier.
DEA Will Start Accepting Applications From Medical Marijuana Businesses That Want Federal Rescheduling Protections This Week
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has announced that it will begin accepting applications this week for medical marijuana businesses to apply for federal protections being granted under the Trump administration’s cannabis rescheduling process. The agency’s “Medical Marijuana Dispensary Registration Portal” is set to go live on Wednesday at 9 AM ET. The move follows last […]
“I won’t take this one for granted. Because I …
“I won’t take this one for granted. Because I …
Ohio Judge Temporarily Pauses Hemp Product Ban For Two Businesses
“The judge here is concerned about retailers that have made big investments in inventory, and they can’t move it, they can’t transport it, they can’t sell it.” By Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal A Franklin County judge granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to allow two smoke shops to sell off their products less than […]
Lakers’ Luka Doncic Will be Eligible for Awards After All
Lakers superstar Luka Doncic will be eligible for awards like MVP and All-NBA despite not meeting the minimum games played threshold. Doncic and Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons were both granted their extraordinary circumstances challenges, as reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania. Doncic’s exemption was related to the birth of his daughter in Slovenia in […] The post Lakers’ Luka Doncic Will be Eligible for Awards After All appeared first on LA Sports Report.
Dundee can take nothing for granted in bottom-six battle
For all I have been praising Dundee in recent times, the stark truth is they find themselves in their current predicament because their points return has not been good enough having won just two of their past 12 Premiership games. Head coach Steven Pressley praised the "character", "personality" and "resilience" his side showed as they twice came from behind to draw 2-2 at Killie last Saturday. In the 15 league games the Dark Blues have played against the other teams in the bottom half this season – Dundee United, Aberdeen, St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Livingston - Pressley's side have won five, drawn six and lost four.
Access granted: CMS greenlights more than 150 participants for chronic care experiment
CMS greenlights more than 150 digital health companies for its ACCESS experiment, a new program for tech-backed chronic care with outcome-aligned payments.
Federal judge releases man after 2 immigration judges disobey order
A federal judge released a man from immigration detention on Thursday after two different immigration judges disobeyed his order in the same case. “At this point, the Court has granted Respondents two bites at the apple to prove detention of Petitioner was warranted,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Gordon P. Gallagher. “It will not allow […]
Does Eric Adams Now Have Albanian Citizenship?
Several Albanian outlets have reported that the former mayor has been granted Albanian citizenship and a passport by the nation’s president.
Blaise Ingoglia distributes $1.4M in grants to Gulf Coast emergency workers
The latest round of check distribution for first responders amounts to more than $28M combined granted in the past year.
Looking for sports to watch for free? Here's a FAST way to do it
FAST stands for free ad-supported streaming television. Granted, FAST channels don’t carry the biggest games, but in a world where watching sports only gets more expensive, I refer you back to the word FREE.
Alarm in health service over Palantir staff being given NHS email accounts
Exclusive: Sources believe AI tech company’s engineers have been granted access to directory of up to 1.5m staff
Xtreme One Entertainment Secures Temporary Restraining Order Against Lender Williamsburg Venture Holdings, Halting Alleged Fraudulent Transfer and Sale of $XONI Stock
Emergency Court Order Requires Immediate Return of Shares by Williamsburg and Securities Intermediaries Based on Alleged Breach of Contract and Fraudulent TransferGRAND RAPIDS, Mich., April 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xtreme One Entertainment, Inc. (OTCQB: XONI), a diversified media and live-event sports company, and parent company of Xtreme Fighting Championships (XFC), today announced it was granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) based on the Company’s lawsuit that alleges fraud, breach
Lil Nas X granted mental health diversion that could lead to dropped charges in police assault case
A judge said the charges could be dismissed if the Grammy-winning artist completes a mental health diversion program and doesn't break the law for the next two years.
Lil Nas X Granted Mental Health Diversion in LAPD Battery Case
Lil Nas X had will see his felony police battery charges dismissed if he completes a two-year mental health diversion program, a judge said Monday.
UCSD part of team granted $15.8M to study Latino brain health
UC San Diego and UC Davis have received a $15.85 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund an extensive study on how the brain ages among Hispanic and Latino communities, it was announced Wednesday.
Skidding Heat taking nothing for granted vs. Pacers
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra has been known to get the best from his teams come playoff time.
BMX club granted new community licence by council
The council owns the track that has been used by the club for more than 40 years.
Jair Bolsonaro granted temporary house arrest in Brazil for poor health
Former President Jair Bolsonaro was moved from his cell to hospital earlier this month with pneumonia.
Minecraft World Opening 2027, First Look at $70 Million Project
Theme park lovers who yearn for the mines will have their wish granted in 2027 with the debut of Minecraft World, based on the popular building video game.
Who has the power to declare war?
Our constitutional framers boldly and ambitiously granted Congress the power to declare war yet granted the executive the responsibility, after war is declared, to supervise war as the commander-in-chief. That worked well until the Cold War began. The U.S. has been involved in dozens of wars, antiterrorist operations and other military interventions over the past 80 […]
ASU DE Clayton Smith to return for 2026
ASU DE Clayton Smith has reportedly been granted a sixth year of eligibility and will play for the Sun Devils in 2026 after he's evaluated for an offensive role in spring camp.
LDS activist excommunicated from the church speaks out on women’s rights across Colorado
Forty-Five Years Ago This Week: “Women must demand — now and if necessary at the peril of our lives — that we be granted civil rights in the same way rich white men in this country were granted them: constitutional decree,” said Sonia Johnson, co-founder of Mormons for the Equal Rights Amendment. Johnson spoke in […]
Mental health evaluation ordered for man arrested in Tacoma dealership vandalism
A judge has granted a request for a mental health evaluation for a Tacoma man accused of causing thousands of dollars in damage at two local car dealerships.
Friday briefing: Can the politics of cruelty around asylum help Labour in the polls?
In today’s newsletter: Labour’s new asylum framework marks a decisive shift in how the UK treats people granted protection and exposes tensions between electoral strategy, public service pressures and the party’s historic commitments to human rights
NCAA appeals Trinidad Chambliss' injunction, challenges his eligibility to play in 2026 season
Chambliss was granted a temporary injunction last February, restoring his eligibility for 2026
Scripps Oceanography at UCSD granted $15M for deep sea, glacier science
The Fund for Science and Technology, a new private foundation, granted Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego $15 million for ocean science Tuesday.
European health agency recommends approving Moderna’s combined flu, COVID vaccine
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced Friday it has recommended Moderna’s combined mRNA COVID-19 and flu vaccine be granted market authorization in the European Union, marking the fir…
Venezuela receives more than 1,500 amnesty requests under new law
More than 370 political prisoners have already been granted amnesty under the US-backed legislation.
California AG’s Office files petition challenging Scrivner’s mental health diversion
The state Attorney General’s Office is challenging a judge’s ruling that granted mental health diversion to former Kern County supervisor Zack Scrivner.
Trump Sought Vast Budget Cuts. Congress Granted Few.
In a series of deals over the past three months, lawmakers rejected some of the president’s most aggressive attempts to whittle down the government.
Do I need glasses? Common signs to watch out for
Clear vision is something most of us take for granted – until it quietly begins to slip.
Foxborough says that if FIFA doesn’t come through with $7 million-plus for World Cup security, license won’t be granted
FIFA needs the Town of Foxborough to grant an entertainment license in order for it to stage seven World Cup games at Gillette Stadium. Foxborough want its needs met first.
Girls Lead the Way at Assumption Catholic School Science Fair
Eighth grade students finished off the year by showcasing their creativity and scientific aptitude during Assumption Catholic School’s annual Science Fair. Held on Dec. 11, the fair granted...
Sony patent describes a touchscreen PlayStation controller with movable buttons
Patent shows controls that can be removed or enlarged per game Sony Interactive Entertainment has been granted a US patent for a game controller concept
Jordan Chiles appeal granted, CAS must re-hear case of bronze medal
Swiss Federal Tribunal grants Jordan Chiles appeal for bronze medal, sends case back to Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Investment and Statecraft: The International Politics of Sovereign Wealth Funds - Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
In 1953, Kuwait established the world’s first sovereign wealth fund to invest the country’s oil revenues and generate returns that would reduce its reliance on a single resource. Since then, over 100 separate funds have been created to preserve national wealth and ensure long-term fiscal sustainability. Today, they manage over $10 trillion in global assets. In this discussion with GJIA, political economist Kathryn Lavelle explains the increasingly novel dynamics that surround fund behavior and what the world can come to expect from their growing presence in international financial markets. GJIA: When it comes to the roles sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) play in global markets and politics, what would you say makes them unique? Kathryn Lavelle: Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) operate on behalf of governments as investors. That in itself is a strange relationship. Within them, a core contest takes place between the state’s interests (or sovereign) part of the dynamic, and the money interests (or wealth) part of it, and these two aspects are frequently in contradiction, serving fundamentally different goals. SWFs are also quite fascinating because when you talk to the people who manage these funds, they have an interest in convincing you that the decisions are made almost exclusively on a financial basis—they really will go to great lengths to differentiate their government owners and those who make the management decisions. At the same time, these people ultimately answer to someone in power. Therefore, for most SWFs, it remains deeply unclear who is actually making the investment decisions and for what purposes. Of course, it is not always clear how other vehicles, such as hedge funds and private equity make the decisions they do, but I think what a lot of people find particularly disconcerting about SWFs is that they seem to act on behalf of people who have a different identity from their own. People who could be trying to manipulate politics and markets in a way that would have a long-term effect on their own populations. Regular investors come and go at will, and they only share an interest in profit as far as most of us understand. However, SWFs have that extra “sovereign” part right behind them that obscures their true interest. GJIA: These funds can be found in countries all across the globe, in both authoritarian states and democracies. Would you say SWFs differ in their goals and structures between regime-type? KL: It is not necessarily regime type that makes the goals and structures of SWFs different. It has to do with their economies. Let’s look at a country like China. There’s going to be a debate about exactly how to characterize the regime, but it is a country with many different kinds of sovereign wealth funds, and a particularly opaque state connection to each. At one time, some of the state-owned Chinese oil companies created specialized investment vehicles listed outside Chinese markets that excluded parts of the firms that were more associated with human rights violations. At the same time, the China Investment Corporation (CIC)—China’s largest SWF—draws a lot of concern, not necessarily because of its investment activities, but because of the dynamics of global politics. So, I wouldn’t really tie differences to regime types themselves in a wholesale way, but rather to how such funds are perceived and how they are structured. Saudi Arabia’s SWF is getting all kinds of attention for its involvement in Hollywood, and this takes me right back to when I was a student in the 1980s, when people were concerned about Japanese investment entities buying assets in Hollywood. They aren’t quite the same in financial terms, but it’s the same kind of concern about foreign investment that drives people to be suspicious, and the whole idea that “foreigners are influencing Hollywood.” This holds true across industries, and it reflects where politics are in places like the United States right now. One metric we can try to look at is transparency, where all the funds will tell you, “we are transparent.” The problem you’ll keep running into with this approach is how you value things. When trying to do comparative studies of equity markets, you’ll find that every country doesn’t use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles like we do in the United States. A fund may appear opaque politically and not want people to show what they’re invested in or what their intent with that investment is, but they could also just not be able to report it because of the way it was purchased, or the kinds of shares they purchased. There are some assets out there that really are difficult to put a monetary value on. GJIA: To what extent do domestic politics shape SWF behavior in both the investing “home” country and the recipient “host” country? KL: This depends on the type of fund present and also on the extent to which voters’ political views are able to influence the fund. For example, in a democratic home state like Norway, the SWF doesn’t invest in nuclear weapons or tobacco because of social concerns, but there is a continuing debate over whether it should invest in oil, even though that’s where most of the money comes from. The degree to which Norway will continue to make those investments, and whether they contradict the government’s overall climate goals, is an open question in Norwegian politics. Because of the way the fund’s governance is structured, it may not be easy to resolve. On the other hand, some people consider pension funds, like the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) in Ohio, to be quasi-SWF. They have a very strict separation between the people who make up the management division and the fund owners. No teacher or professor would want to invest in things that may harm the future of their students. At the same time, a fund manager might see an opportunity in a diversified multinational corporation that offers a good return, despite it deriving part of its revenue from e-cigarettes. These contests are very apparent. Domestic politics can work in host countries too. A good example is Singapore’s SWF, Temasek, investing in Thailand’s telecommunications sector. If you study political economy, you already know that countries everywhere are uncomfortable with foreign ownership of their telecom sectors because a foreign entity could monitor or manipulate our communications with each other. In the case of Temasek, there was significant pushback from Thai citizens surrounding the deal, which went on to influence national political sentiment toward Singapore as a whole, underscoring the risks some SWFs may face with their investment choices. In this case, fund behavior led to the dissolution of the entire Thai government in 2006 and a subsequent coup d’état. GJIA: To address some of this unease, the Santiago Principles were established in 2009 to ostensibly promote trust and transparency. From your perspective, have these mechanisms actually changed fund behavior? KL: In international relations theory, we always like to have a clear set of norms and best practices—the orientation we want the proverbial ship to be going in. In that regard, the Santiago Principles at least got the discussion going about which direction SWFs should take at a time when people were very skittish about the growing size of these funds. Nobody wanted them to be out there and potentially destabilizing economies, so talks about disclosure, conditions for withdrawal, and the independence of managers were helpful when initiated. The biggest stumbling block was that there wasn’t exactly a good way to measure compliance with the Principles, let alone how to hold funds to them. If you read the Principles, they’re overall quite vague. In general, a fund doesn’t want to reveal how and why they make certain investment decisions because that information is proprietary—a fund makes money off of how and why it makes decisions—so how do you reconcile that with loosely-defined ideas of openness? Some decisions might have a political purpose. The bottom line is that trying to figure out and assign a score to compliance is not easy, and it is therefore the reason why the Santiago Principles never really got off the ground to the point where they could truly direct fund behavior. GJIA: Many emerging markets are looking to build their own SWFs from mineral and oil revenues. Historically, have funds shaped development trajectories in these countries? KL: I think the big story in international emerging markets investment is that the investment is increasingly no longer unidirectional. In the past multinational corporations of primarily Western background were the main form of foreign direct investment in a country. That has changed dramatically, to the point where you have companies from so-called “developing countries” taking over companies in the United States. Therefore, the landscape of international investment has changed, and I think SWFs are certainly a possibility to be the next step in the game. Historically, you didn’t need an entire financial vehicle to reinvest commodity revenues in your country, but as emerging markets get more financially sophisticated, their capacity to operate such funds has increased. SWFs would allow treasuries to move from relying on holding foreign exchange assets like cash or government bonds to having broader financial markets and targeted growth areas, while easing pressure on welfare expenditures. GJIA: With their increasing financial weight, do you see the presence of SWFs being a factor in the political choices leaders will have to make with regard to domestic and foreign policy? KL: It will depend on just how big the funds get. One of the reasons people are already apprehensive is because of their scale, and if certain SWFs in certain countries achieve a large-enough size, the presence will absolutely be cause for concern. The other factor political leaders will have to consider are their objectives. It’s not always clear how to define a SWF, or even where its activity is concentrated, but it is certainly a worry from the perspective of national security of opaque external investment. More than that, I think one of the most interesting questions going forward is whether the United States, the home to the world’s largest financial markets, will develop its own fund, for which the Trump administration announced a plan. There have also been several proposals in Congress. Were it to come into being, it would have tremendous weight. At the same time, one of the hallmarks of U.S. capitalism is a lack of government ownership of shares, so it would not be clear how such a fund would be received in domestic politics, or which direction it would take. Given how politically fragmented the country is, a Democratic administration would likely be concerned about different sectors of the economy, such as healthcare, and want investment there, rather than a Republican administration, which might prefer defense industries. No investment vehicle could thrive under conditions of such instability. Moreover, it remains unclear where the money to fund a theoretical U.S. SWF would come from. It would be a fundamentally different entity depending on whether it is financed with debt, economic surplus, commodities, or the sale of state companies, as in the case of Singapore. If it is debt, or government borrowing of some form, then the fund would have to outperform whatever the cost of that debt is, which is not an easy thing to do. I think our political leaders have enough on their plate. Our system has worked well keeping political and investment functions generally separate. We have seen different forms of business rise and fall, and even the perception of different countries, all of which funds are tied to. Unless a major SWF either starts—like in the case of the United States—or collapses—an issue that concerns the Saudis, I don’t see any political tsunamis on the horizon. . . . Kathryn Lavelle is the Ellen and Dixon Long Professor of World Affairs at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Her research explores the exchange between domestic and international and political institutions with a particular emphasis on political economy and multilateralism. Dr. Lavelle’s first book, The Politics of Equity Finance in Emerging Markets, explored the political circumstances that surround large issues of stock in the developing world. After being granted tenure at Case Western, she was awarded an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship and named the William A. Steiger fellow, a designation given to the most promising political scientist in her class of fellows. While in Washington during 2006-2007, she worked on the staff of the House Committee on Financial Services on issues related to domestic and international monetary policy. Dr. Lavelle holds a PhD in political science from Northwestern University; an M.A. in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia; and a bachelor’s degree in international economics from Georgetown University. She is a permanent member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Interview conducted by Sid Mehrotra. Image Credit: Jason Leung, Unsplash Content Licenses, via Unsplash
Westfield’s third cannabis business granted provisional licenses by CCC
With a host community agreement from the city in hand, Canna Ultra Premium Westfield, which is planning to open in the former Heka facility, was granted three provisional licenses by the Cannabis Control Commission during its meeting in Worcester Thursday.
GOP request to stop Whitmer admin from spending blocked funds granted
A Court of Claims judge stopped the spending of funding previously disapproved by House Republicans as a legal battle over that move plays out.
UMass Amherst granted millions to expand life science research and manufacturing
UMass Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences has received two grants that total over $3.5 million from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
'We took our business community for granted,' San Francisco's new mayor admits to city's failings, but vows not to move fast and break things
"We said 'We can just keep punishing you... and you're going to stay.' Well that didn't happen. People fled."
Seasonal Fall River bar, entertainment, event space, expected to open in May
A new Fall River spot is taking the next step to open for business later this year. In June, Kara O’Connell, with Atty Jeffrey Medeiros, was granted a Special Permit by the Zoning Board of Appeals to operate a seasonal bar, entertainment, and event space serving alcohol and providing food via foo
Nativism and the disintegration of the UK
Letter: With the weakening of pro-integration parties, Ben Wellings warns that the continuation of the UK in its current form cannot be taken for granted
The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump's power in 2025, with key exceptions
The justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump's orders from taking effect. But the court also put two important checks on his power.
Ronald Araújo returns to Barcelona training after mental health break
Barcelona's Ronald Araújo returned to training on Monday one month after being granted time off to deal with mental health issues.
I've traveled to 16 countries with my guide dog. He gives me freedom, but sometimes strangers make me want to stay home.
My guide dog helps me travel the world as a fully blind person. I don't take it for granted, but the hardest part is dealing with people's ignorance.
‘I feel great’ - Kenneth Walker talks to Field Gulls about his health, Seahawks’ season, and more
The Seahawks’ star running back isn’t taking anything for granted, and he’s doing what he can to stay 100% for the team.
Zack Scrivner granted mental health diversion amid felony abuse and weapon charges
KBAK CBS 29 and KBFX Fox58 are the news leaders for Bakersfield, California and serves surrounding communities including Oildale, Lamont, Shafter, Wasco, Buttonwillow, Maricopa, Tehachapi, Arvin, California City, Delano, McFarland, Ridgecrest and Taft.
Manor College Receives Commonwealth Grant for Dental Health Center Expansion
The grant will go towards increasing the size and modernizing the Dental Health Center on Manor College’s campus. The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development has granted Local Share Account funds that will benefit the expansion and renovation of Manor College’s Dental Health Center. “We are thrilled to move this project forward in such Read more >
Nashville Council makes new Midtown business district official
Following a brief public hearing Dec. 16, the Nashville Council granted final approval for the city's newest business improvement district in Midtown.
ECU Health Medical Center earns breast cancer care reaccreditation
The National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers has again granted accredited status to ECU Health Medical Center.
Senator Demands Federal Agencies Halt Small Business Contracts, Citing Investigation of Native Hawaiian Firm
Joni Ernst, chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, sent letters to 22 federal agencies saying the no-bid contracts granted through a Small Business Administration program are a “fraud magnet.”
Past Ulster disappointments driving Kilcoo
With 13 Down titles over the past 14 years, one may get the impression that success can be taken for granted in Kilcoo, but current manager Martin Corey insists there is a sense they "have left a lot behind them" beyond their county boundary.
Three Business Licenses Granted During Morris Committee Meeting
Three new businesses are coming to Morris. The Morris City Council on Monday heard from Judiciary and License Committee Chairman Dean Tambling.
Barcelona’s Ronald Araujo granted leave of absence after talks with club
The 26-year-old was not part of the Barca matchday squad for Saturday's 3-1 league home win over Alaves on Saturday.
Science must move from materialism to mystery
Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have told us about it are right, or maybe whether there are other alternatives. That's why I've been a fierce critic of materialism. As a scientist, I realized that they had sold us this idea that to be a good scientist you also had to subscribe to many other -isms, like materialism, reductionism, and even secularism. And so first I think one needs to unmount these -isms, and then, as is happening today in consciousness studies, we have a huge landscape where there isn't only one game in town, the idea that matter is the only thing that really exists. But because we are studying the hard problem of consciousness, it may be the case that other views of reality, like idealism, or even dualism, or other theories like dual aspect monism... these are philosophical ideas that now, I think, have room in science to be taken seriously. How does something like materialism relate to dualism or idealism? What is materialism in the first place?Well, materialism is the philosophical position that matter is the only really ‘real’ thing in the universe. And I think that worked kind of well because science started 400 years ago and Galileo made that split, I call it the foundational wound. It was a great business move.He said, let's start doing science on that portion of reality that lends itself more easily to mathematization and measurement. So, for some reason, the solidity of this table or the movement of planets lend themselves very well to this foundational idea of science. But as time went on, 400 years later, we realized that we had forgotten the other side, which is what really matters.What really matters is pain, is love, is feelings, sensation, consciousness, which is very hard to define, but very intimate. We all know what it is. It's that thing that disappears when we go into deep sleep and comes back in the morning. SUGGESTED VIEWING On the edges of knowledge With Michael Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Güneş Taylor It's what it is like to be, as Nagel said. It's the feeling of being alive. So, materialism is good to study certain things, but then when it ossifies into this ideology and then is dressed like science, now it's preventing us from understanding these key questions that are really that everybody wants to know.Why are we here? Why do we feel reality? Where do we go when we die? And so we need other ways. We need pluralism. I'm only asking for having more options on the table and taking them seriously. Why does materialism fail to explain consciousness? For example, if you were to lobotomize me, I would not be a functional human being. What do you say to someone who might think that materialism adequately explains the mind?Well, here we could speak about different things. We could talk about physics or about neuroscience. I happen to have training with both.For instance, for neuroscientists, 99% of them, I'm not included in that portion, believe that the brain can only be a productive organ. It's an organ that somehow, somewhere, consciousness emerges. It's like a lamp. And then something happens, magic happens, and then consciousness emerges.That's the position you need to be if you're a materialist because if the only really ‘real’ thing is matter, then you need to say, just give us some more time and money and we'll figure out how mind emerges or is produced from matter. There are many philosophically sophisticated ways of criticizing this.Now there's another option, which is the brain as a permissive organ. This was said by William James more than 100 years ago.Now then the brain wouldn't be like this machine, like for instance, a heat engine whose smoke is consciousness, which is what we would have in the first big model, the productive model. But in the permissive model, the brain would be a kind of a filter. And so the brain would still have a very important role in consciousness, but it wouldn't be a productive role.It would be permissive, much like a filter or much like a prism which would receive light. And - I'm speaking metaphorically - it would receive the light of the mind and then it could reflect it and refract it.Now, with these two big options on the table, I think we can make progress into what I call the edges of consciousness, which are all these experiences, weird experiences that many people have, but we don't talk about enough, like near-death experiences, precognitive dreams, synchronicities. These experiences are very important for humans and they have a place in the permissive hypothesis and they are literally impossible in the productive hypothesis. So that's yet one more reason to explore alternatives to materialism. There may be anecdotal evidence for near-death experiences, but is there robust evidence that would be accepted by the majority of scientists who subscribe to the scientific method?Sure. And the plural of anecdotes, someone said, is data.And there's a lot of data. Actually, this year is the 50th anniversary, half a century, since Dr. Raymond Moody realized that we have two ears and one mouth and started listening to what his patients had to say about their experiences while they were clinically dead.The heart had stopped, breathing had stopped in these patients. These patients would come back and tell him these amazing stories that some people may say are hallucinations, but for the patients were hyper-real, like seeing light at the end of the tunnels, seeing deceased family members waiting for them, feeling bliss.___I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain.___And so he and others started taking them seriously and writing their accounts down. And then you can do a science based on that material of experience that people have. Now, on the more objective side, more recently people have started to measure what's going on in the brain when people are clinically dead and brought back. This has opened a proper field of study, which is near-death studies.Evidence is a difficult word, because sometimes people think that when you say evidence, this is just the final proof. Evidence is like in a jury. You bring testimony, you bring pieces of data that point in one direction or another.I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain. When brains are broken or shut off, there can still be mind going on. And that's revolutionary.That would entail that when we die, it's not game over, which, by the way, is the thesis of materialism. If consciousness survives, materialism dies. It's game over for materialism if something of us continues after we die. Do you think that there is mental continuity after death?Well, I think so, and I believe so, and I could also say I may have experienced it myself, because four years ago I had a near-death experience. I was in the hospital, I lost a lot of blood, and I saw those beings at the end of the tunnel, three beings, and there was yellow light. I was in a well, I was looking upwards, and I hadn't read about NDEs by then, but when I came back from this experience, I decided I would try to integrate this also in my professional life. Not just my personal life, of course, but my professional life as a physicist and as a neuroscientist. So I may have had the experience of glimpses of what an afterlife would be, and I'm not ashamed to say it in this way, and then one can do science of it, and then one can do philosophy of it.One can think about what -isms we were discussing, what views on reality would allow those experiences to be really ‘real,’ as opposed to, well, poor guy, the brain was kind of broken, it must have been a hallucination. Do you have a view about whether individuality or “the ego” persists after death, or whether we sort of merge into some sort of cosmic consciousness instead?I don't know, but my view would be along those lines you're suggesting. I think we could speak about a kind of universal mind, and then the problem is not how we emerge from matter, but how we fragment from a more holistic consciousness into these individual eddies and then when we die, this kind of dissipates.But I'm not sure. For instance, idealism would promote that view, but then what would survive of us after these eddies just vanish and become again the big Consciousness, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't know for sure, but I would tell you I believe something of us survives.And there are other lines of research, not just near-death experience, that can address this really hard question of survival. For instance, there are children who remember previous lives. This was studied by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia for more than 50 years.___Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.___It's amazing research. He went all over the world, especially in the East, and collected all these case studies, all these stories. In plural, these were data of kids, very young age, who would describe up to 40 items that then he could go and verify.There was no internet. There was really no way the kid could know. Why would the kid say that when I was living in this other body and I was a woman and that's how my house would look like or that's how I would die, right? Again, there is evidence, not proof, but there's evidence not only that something weird and interesting is happening as we cross the threshold, but also when we come back to this life.Scientists should not be afraid of studying this, but they are because there's stigma. There's usually stigma upon the enigma, and this is so unfortunate. And one of the reasons is because of the ideology of materialism, because those things cannot be possible. What is wrong with the politics of science such that they have generated this stigma?So many things. Science is a human activity to begin with.So it falls prey to all our passions and ego and greed. That's one thing. Science is a job for the good and for the bad.You need to get a salary. You need to get grants. Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.And then, we didn't have time to unpack this, but science for many years become entangled, as I was suggesting before, to other -isms, materialism, secularism. So anything that smells like the afterlife, people may think has to do with God, and then they freak out.Anything that suggests that there's something about the mind that may not need a physical material substrate to exist, it smells like non-materialism. So, all these -isms are ideologically blocking that kind of research, and then there are all these sociopolitical constraints as to what should be studied and what shouldn't be studied.I call it the backstage of science. Sometimes we scientists or science communicators seem to speak as if the data is the only thing that matters. We say, well, data and theory.But then there's a third leg of this stool, which is all the politics that goes behind the scenes. And we often don't speak about this, and it's quite vicious and petty, and it's very real. Why is materialism so attractive to most scientists?Well, an easy answer is because we've grown up with it.It's what the educational system promotes, and that's what you hear when you go to university. So it's like growing in a culture. It feels like the air in which you breathe.So it's very hard to begin with to detect, well, maybe there's another alternative. Maybe there are other ways of doing science, other environments in which one could do science. That's one reason.And other reasons maybe are more profound, and I'm not qualified to explain them, but I could say, looking at this 400-year history of science, since it started around 1623 with Galileo's book The Assayer, that science went and coupled with all what's going on in the West.And so the fall of religion, you could say, and science presented us this new alternative that then could be coupled very well with other -isms, and this idea of growth, and then science losing its good twin brother, which was philosophy. There's a whole natural history of science starting as philosophy, kind of emancipating or breaking out from philosophy, and then marrying technology, and then marrying other social systems.From that point of view, materialism is a very convenient idea to propose. There were attempts, like the German idealists tried to do a more romantic science. But no, the idea prevailed, like Francis Bacon said: You should pursue nature through all her corners, he said, and make her spill her secrets.Our attitude towards nature in the science that dominates is very much reflecting how we treat nature in our society, in our culture, like a resource to extract secrets by force and then dominate it. How is materialism related to the notions of growth and progress? What's wrong with having a productive citizenry?This is another very interesting and very difficult question to answer.But there's this recent book coming out by Paul Kingsnorth. In it, he explains this idea of the machine and this idea of progress. And this, again, this conflation of more is better, of we need to go forward always, and convincing us that the way to do that is to continually extract more from nature. But because we don't have the religious context anymore, because God is dead, then what do we have? We have what we can do as humans with our own gadgets.It's kind of the story of the Promethean fire. We will just build anything to make ourselves God.A good example today is transhumanism. Transhumanism is this pseudo-religion dressed in technoscientific language whose goal is very religious. They promise immortality, they promise redemption, they promise transformation of the entire natural world, but it's done by human means through technology. Are you suggesting that we can't have ethics without religion?Well, we should have ethics with or without religion. That's another pruning that has happened in science. We say, forget about aesthetics, although some physicists still think that beautiful means probably true, and forget about politics. We pretend there's no backstage of science, and even let's forget about ethics.___Science needs to be in the service of mankind.___Scientists, when they become more like engineers, they're just thinking how to make things work so that they can go to the moon, go to Mars, make machines that think, but they don't think whether that's a good idea.And also consider metaphysics. Many scientists for a long time pretended, and maybe that comes from the stream of positivisms, that really one doesn't need metaphysics at all, except that materialism is always the metaphysics running the system.You see, it's not just ethics. It's the pruning of all of these, you could say, five main legs of philosophy that just makes a kind of unconscious science, a science that doesn't really know what it's doing. It's doing it very well locally, but it just doesn't know what it's doing globally. Do you think science has to have an ultimate vision and purpose behind it for it to be effective or for it to be meaningful and transformative?Yes, a way I would say that is that science needs to be in the service of mankind. And it hasn't been that. And we can see it through, you know, when we discovered the secrets of the atom, and all of a sudden, the Manhattan Project, and then we create nuclear weapons.And now we're trying to crack how machines may think, and now we're creating this mess, right? So science needs to be in service of mankind, not in service of a few ideas that maybe want to make more money or just dominate upon nature. What about planes, trains, automobiles, and modern medicine? Hasn't science served mankind by helping us develop those technologies?Yes and no. I see where you're going, and it's fair.I came here by plane, and it's a blessing. When I almost died, the surgeons did their job, and they saved my life. But these two forced choices between Luddites and Silicon Valley types, I think, of course, it's a false dichotomy.Progress, in a way, it's good, but we often don't speak about the dark side of the moon. We say the great things that progress has brought, and we don't speak about the disasters, the side effects that it has come with, and the same when we promise new technologies. We tend to think that any technology is great, that email is going to save us so much time because we don't need to write letters and send them anymore.Is that true? I spend so many hours a week writing emails. Let's just say there are great things about it and bad things about it. People like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for example, argue that we've made moral progress over time because of the Enlightenment. Do you think that's totally wrong-headed?I think he's emphasizing a side of the moon, and he does that very well, and you can find tons of plots where there's a slope going up and say it's great. But I think he should also tell the not-so-friendly story.But if your ideology is just to resist and continue to explain that the Enlightenment is the best thing ever and reason is the best thing ever… this feels to me like you're worshipping these abstractions.I'm very critical of it and also of these, again, science communicators and scientists that say, Oh, science says, in the name of science, experts say. It's like, come on, let's be careful because we can shoot ourselves in the foot by putting forth to the people an image of science that we know is not really true. Recently there's been a resurgence of spirituality and of people who say that they're spiritual but not religious, especially in the United States. If materialism is going away, what is going to fill that gap? Are we going to return to traditional religion? Do you see that being connected with the rise of the political right?I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, we could say we're in this post-materialist age and even post-secular age. One cannot come back to the past, but maybe just to contact with the roots is a good idea.What do I mean by that? I think we need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method. We need to do so in a culture where we realize humans cannot thrive in a vacuum where there's this idea that the sacred has to be removed.Now, how do we do that without bringing in back all the vices of religion? I don't know. I'm from a Catholic country.Here we are in England, so there are differences and interreligious dialogue has always been a challenge. But I think maybe a way of putting it is: after all these conflicts and branchings I was quickly alluding to, science from philosophy and then also from religion, now there's a time of reconciliation perhaps and maybe debates in the proper sense, like exchange of ideas in service of learning and getting into something higher than both poles. We need science to talk to religious people and it's interesting when people say they're spiritual and not religious.I think this is just a way of saying, no, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. But at the end of the day, religions have offered us practices and grounding that we now desperately need. Everybody can and should just meditate or pray or do whatever they want, but we're in a crisis and it's time for reconciliation. What do you say to critics that say you are merely projecting our need for meaning onto a fundamentally indifferent universe?Yeah, I know that the typical science communicator says something like this. But we're not projecting. Human beings feed on meaning.It's the other way around. If you're a materialist, because the only thing that there is is matter, all that comes next, free will, consciousness, meaning, this is a kind of illusion that we need to explain.They're just craving for meaning, but there isn't really for them. I would also like to remind my materialist friends that for decades, if not centuries, they've said in the name of science, we know that this and this and this doesn't really exist. I think now they sense they're forced to say, well, actually, we don't know. We've been saying, for instance, that there's nothing after you die, and now probably they need to admit that they don't know the answer.___We need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method.___So it's a moment to open up possibilities and also to gently but fiercely critique these claims that I think harm society. If you say in the name of science, get on with it, when your father dies, you'll never see him again. Well, what the F do you know about it? You haven't studied the literature, you haven't had any of those experiences, and basically what you're doing is you're just doing marketing on ideology. This needs to stop. Do you think that it's scarier for some people to entertain the thought that there might be life after death, compared to a materialist worldview where you just die, given that there might be consequences for unsavory behaviour?Well, death and dying is scary. It's maybe the ultimate ending. It's a limit on life, and when we're in this conquest mode, we don't like limits.And it also has, there's a shockwave backwards, so I think if you change your notion of what death is or may be, you live differently. It also has consequences, as you're saying, for the future because this is not our only goal here and we come back in whatever form. And again, different religions would say different things. I the East, they are more happy with the idea of reincarnation, and here in the West, there are other preferences. But in any case, it changes how we live, and that's really what matters.It's not about just projecting or imagining what we'll be after, but how we live now and also how we treat those who are dying. So it goes from the individual to the families, to the hospitals.Now in the near-death research I do, this has ramifications at all these levels, all the way to society.But our society is thanatophobic. It has a phobia of death. We don't want to hear about death, and this is another thing we need to put on the table and be willing to talk about it. Do you think that we might get closer to answering ultimate questions like why is there anything at all if we jettison materialism?That’s an excellent question, Simon. Two things: we should stop treating reality, I believe, as a great sudoku, as an enigma, as something that with intelligence, money, and time that we will crack and instead treat reality more like a mystery. And what you do for in front of a mystery is not to be the clever guy in a class and say “I’ll solve you” but more like “I will bow and you will transform me.”I know this sounds a bit like a scientist speaking like a mystic. But I think this reorientation is needed. In the end, we won’t crack the big questions, but they will transform us. If we free ourselves from this prison of materialism, the way we will explore these questions will be freer, more creative, and in service of mankind. Do you think exploring mystery is the reason why we are here?I think we are here because, and this pseudo-theological argument I’m making off the cuff, But the One, the Absolute, if there is such a thing, had everything except limitation. We are that absolute experiencing that contingency. It’s like an act of divine proprioception. It’s a wonderful adventure, it’s just incredible to be alive. Perhaps we have forgotten why we are here and the whole point is to experience the flesh.Let me end by saying this. I criticize materialism harshly. I bang on this dead horse, because I think it’s dead. But matter is a great mystery. So maybe my invitation is as follows: hey materialist friends, come here, let’s work on materialism 2.0! Consciousness is a mystery, but matter is also a mystery. The fact that we can have an intersubjective experience consensus, the fact that we can apply mathematics, that we can measure things... the physical world we take for granted, but it is a great mystery too.Maybe that’s related to your last question: why are we here? Why did spirit decide to incarnate? Being in the flesh may be a great thing if spirit decided to do so.Àlex Gómez-Marín, thank you very much.My pleasure.