SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " God " 570 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
God of War Laufey Star Deborah Ann Woll Breaks Silence on a Massive 10-Year Secret: “I Still Pinch Myself”
Renowned actress Deborah Ann Woll, best known as Jessica Hamby in True Blood and Karen Page in Daredevil, has spoken with CGMagazine about her lead role in God of War Laufey as the titular character. In an interview conducted during Game Con Canada, Woll confirmed what Game Director Ariel Lawrence had revealed earlier this month: Head of Creative Cory Barlog had this game in mind even before the launch of God of War 2018, and there was already a poster featuring Laufey and Phranque (the cosmic cube). Related Story Unlocking the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro’s Real Performance Will […]
Price of San Diego: Rising cost of youth sports leaving some kids on the sideline
A recent study by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play shows that family spending on youth sports has increased by 46% since 2019. Making it out of reach for many low-income families.
Isaiah Thomas facing pushback on Chris Paul-Spurs take
Isaiah Thomas sparked debates online with his big claim on Sunday. The two-time All-Star guard said that the San Antonio Spurs would’ve won the NBA championship if they still had Chris Paul. “The Point God” signed a one-year, $11 million…
François Englert, Nobelist Who Helped Predict the ‘God Particle,’ Dies at 93
His work paved the way for the discovery of the Higgs boson, which explained how particles acquire mass, solving one of the deepest mysteries in physics.
College World Series 2026: UNC vs. Oklahoma score, live updates, highlights, where to watch MCWS finals
While God of War Laufey Has Plenty of Promise, I Think It’s Sticking Too Close to the Now-Tired Formula of Kratos’ Norse Saga
While God of War Laufey is taking a fascinating leap by shifting the perspective to Faye, it still looks much too similar to Kratos' Norse saga to cement its own identity.
Headkrack has the latest in entertainment headlines
He talks Streamer Univeristy, Lebron James, and Russel Wilson & Ciara
How sports betting became Colorado’s ticket to funding $140 million in water conservation projects
Supporters say the gambling money is a godsend. Critics say legalized sports betting has come at a cost — fueling an addiction crisis that Colorado is unprepared for.
Whoopi Goldberg melts down, snaps on Ana Navarro during JD Vance's 'View' interview: 'Ana, God, please!'
Whoopi Goldberg snapped on 'The View' cohost Ana Navarro during a tense JD Vance interview. 'Ana, God, please!' Goldberg shouted, scolding Navarro in the process: 'Don't do that!'
Steve Harvey: God’s blessings come with a duty to give back
Steve Harvey believes his success as an entertainer and author is a blessing from God, tied to his philanthropy. He told The Associated Press that giving back is essential, as
Eddie Andelman, known as "godfather of sports radio," dead at 89
Eddie Andelman, a member of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame who is known as the "godfather of sports radio," has died.
El Niño Is Here And Scientists Say This One Could Become A “Godzilla” Event
The Pacific warning has become an active global climate event.
Sony 'Hopes' to Launch PS5's God of War Laufey in the First Half of 2027
But plans could change
Sunday Preview – Hedonites head into battle along with a new General’s Handbook
Next week’s pre-orders include Hedonites of Slaanesh, Skaven, and a new edition of False Gods.
Executive Turntable: Caroline Wright Named EVP, North American Venues At Legends Global
Other highlights this week include GoDigital launching Nashville-based country imprint Orinda
Mega-bull Dan Ives shares 5 stocks to buy ahead of a coming shift in AI
Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities predicts a coming shift in the AI market that will favor a handful of stocks including Palantir and MongoDB.
How Vancouver is winning over small businesses
New funding, partnerships and city support are making the once-sleepy suburb more attractive.
Jim Irons, Former Landsat Project Scientist, Wins Pecora Award
Landsat’s Jim Irons won the prestigious William T. Pecora Award. Irons, now an emeritus scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, played an integral role in shaping the Landsat program into what it is today.
God's Laboratory: On Science in the Service of Myth
Scientists have located the Garden of Eden. It is in Botswana. This was reported not in the theology section of any publication but as a science story,
Oh, Thank God: iOS 27 Fixes the Liquid Glass Optical Illusion That Broke My Brain
Sanity prevails.
'Sunday Ticket' Lawsuit Could Be Heading to U.S. Supreme Court
The NFL's "Sunday Ticket" package has long been a fan favorite. The package, previously on DirecTV and now on YouTube TV, allows NFL fans to watch every game, no matter what local market they are in. For fans of teams that play in a different city, it's a godsend. It's the best way to keep up with ...
'The Vampire Lestat' Easter eggs you might have missed
From glam rock gods to Banksy's punk rock prank, and more.
The Gods of Entertainment
When, exactly, did entertainment become a fundamental human right?
Godzilla vs GTA 6: Retro Remake Makes PlayStation Debut on PS5 This November
Someone has to
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered leaks for Nintendo Switch 2
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is coming to Nintendo Switch 2, a leak has revealed. The information comes from billbil-kun, who manages to get early information from retailers. It’s reported that the game is heading to Nintendo Switch 2 on November 3, 2026 courtesy of Atari and Pipeworks. Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee previously hit the GameCube in 2002...
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds announces Godzilla and Evangelion DLC
More DLC is on the way to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, with SEGA revealing new collaborations featuring Godzilla and Evangelion. Release timing will be given in the future. We also have an update on previously-announced DLC. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is coming in July, followed by Avatar Legends in October. Note that SEGA has even more DLC coming for Sonic Racing:...
God Of War Laufey's Director Talks Fan Skepticism, New Ideas, And Phranque The Cube
The showstopper at PlayStation’s State of Play was a new entry in the God of War franchise. However, instead of introducing Kratos’s newest adventure, Santa Monica Studio revealed God of War Laufey, which, as indicated by the title, shifts its focus to Faye, a hero and warrior in her own right, to tell a tale...
PS5 vs Pepperoni Pizza: New God of War Sparks Tense Exchange Between Sony and Domino's
A pizza the action
Kratos will return in future games, God of War developer assures fans following the Laufey reveal
Making a new God of War game that doesn't star Kratos has caused some surprise. But Sony Santa Monica reassures us that our favourite sad dad will return.
Domino's Pizza Wades Into God of War Laufey No Kratos Discourse, Sparks Spicy Replies
The reveal of God of War Laufey has sparked a vociferous debate coming out of State of Play, and while the internet has plenty of opinions about this first game in the franchise to star Faye as the main character, criticism has also come from an unexpected sauce: Domino's Pizza.
Why Does Roast Chicken Taste So Good? Inside the Science Behind the Flavors We Love
When we cook our favorite meals, what happens to the carbo-hydrates, proteins and fats? I confess I am a less-than-average cook, but God loves a trier. I remember being about 23 years old and tryin…
God Of War Laufey Creates One Of The Fandom’s Funniest Memes
Kratos and Atreus’ journey is downright serene compared to what Faye is going through
The Knicks Represent the Best of New York Sports
An ode from a long-suffering fan
God Of War: Laufey Dev Responds To Pizza Company's Dumb Tweet About New Game
God of War developer Santa Monica Studio has responded to a social media post from Domino’s Pizza after the pizza chain’s UK account joked about the newly announced God of War: Laufey for being a God of War game without Kratos. The post from Domino’s Pizza UK said, “God of War game with no Kratos...
What’s The Deal With The Jello Cube In ‘God Of War Laufey’?
God of War Laufey features a bizarre companion, a bouncy cube that does not seem to fit in with the world at all. What's its deal?
'That Looks Like Sh*t': God of War Creator Predictably Tears New PS5 Game to Shreds
"This game is not going to do well"
The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science
With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!
A Psychedelics Revival Is Overdue
R. Gordon Wasson was a Manhattan banker who fancied himself a mycologist. In 1955, after decades studying the mushrooms of ancient cultures, he traveled to the remote mountains of southern Mexico to partake of what locals called the “flesh of the gods.” Wasson chronicled the experience in Life magazine — the first widely published account of psychedelic mushrooms since Spanish friars condemned their use in the early 17th century.
Cory Barlog Now Head of Creative at God of War Dev, Guiding the Long-Term Vision of the Series
Ariel Lawrence is directing Laufey
The leaks were real: God of War Laufey is all about Faye, and it's coming to PlayStation 5 'soon'
Sony Santa Monica's next God of War game is known as NAME, and is set for release in YEAR.
Kratos is Out, Faye is In: God of War Laufey Creators Explain Why Kratos' Wife is the New Star
The biggest news to come out of PlayStation's State of Play wasn't just that there was a new God of War game, but that Kratos was sitting this one out and his wife, Faye, was taking the starring role.
God Of War Prequel Starring Faye Announced At State Of Play
The prequel game follows Kratos’ wife, whose death spurred on the events of the 2018 reboot
‘Enough is enough’: Shaq does not hold back his opinion on Angel Reese
Over the years, Atlanta Dream superstar Angel Reese has become one of the most polarizing players in sports, thanks in large part to her high-profile rivalry with the face of the league, Caitlin Clark. Given her role as a sort of villain to Clark, Reese has received a disproportionate amount of criticism and negative attention…
Gail Godwin writes through political anxiety
After a near-fatal fall, author Gail Godwin explores mortality and the turbulent political landscape in her memoir.
Theos: Cities of Myth Is a Promising Ancient Greek City-Builder
Theos: Cities of Myth is a charming indie city builder that had me laying out roads, providing housing, taking advantage of godly boons, and managing resources as concrete as food and as abstract as philosophy. I wasn't able to build a polis to rival the height of Athens just yet due to demo restrictions and some odd pathing bugs, however.
With a new number and lessons from ‘Route God,’ Roman Wilson is ‘trying to take off’ in Year 3
Roman Wilson knows his third NFL season will be big for multiple reasons. After two unproductive years with the Steelers, he’s now in a receiver...
Happy Harry's RibFest brings heat to summer entertainment lineup
“It’s probably our strongest four nights of entertainment," said Fargodome Director of Marketing & Sales Sarah Dykema.
The groupthink boom: what three top VCs really think about the AI frenzy
"If you're 22 years old in San Francisco and building something in AI, there may be a seed term sheet in your inbox — but if you're 19, oh my God, this means you're really good; you might already have a Series A ," said one, half-kiddingly.
MongoDB CEO CJ Desai on earnings beat: We feel 'very good' about the business
MongoDB CEO CJ Desai joins ‘Squawk on the Street’ to discuss the company’s latest earnings report, its growth strategy, and more.
Help, An Immortal Snail Is Chasing My Mouse Cursor While I Work
I will not let it catch me—oh god wait no there it is
James Talarico Said God Is Nonbinary. What Does the Bible Say?
Republicans have pounced on an old statement as they seek to make gender politics the focus of the Senate campaign.
Report: Eagles, Patriots 'Not Particularly Close' on A.J. Brown Trade
All signs point toward a trade happening in June.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will be the first to ship day-and-date on Switch 2 - alongside PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC
And the campaign is single-player only, thank God.
Caesars Entertainment to be acquired for $17.6B
Caesars Entertainment has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Fertitta Entertainment in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $17.6 billion, including the assumption of | Fertitta Entertainment will acquire Caesars Entertainment in an all-cash transaction.
'The Vampire Lestat': All the gory details about 'Interview With the Vampire's third season
Sam Reid's Lestat de Lioncourt is a rock god in the third season of 'Interview With the Vampire,' now titled 'The Vampire Lestat.' Get all the gory details (and watch its latest trailer) ahead of the season's debut next month.
Semiconductor decoupling. Powell's politics. Industrializing Ogaden. Free trade and the Magna Carta.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Feliks Topolski, 1907-1989 8th Army’s Front, Italy 1944 Semiconductor decoupling Source: FT One thing that Jerome Powell deeply understood is that chairing the Fed under current conditions is a deeply political job. “Powell has successes and mistakes to his name. But he stands out as having thought more carefully about the Fed’s democratic legitimacy than any chair since Paul Volcker,” said Paul Tucker, a former deputy governor at the Bank of England, referring to the Fed chair who successfully fought the great inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. … While Powell was at the Treasury in the early 1990s, he watched Alan Greenspan build relationships within the government. That convinced Powell he needed to follow the former Fed chair’s lead and spend more time in Congress than his predecessors Yellen and Bernanke. “The accountability for the Fed runs through Congress,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed official who is now chief economist at New Century Advisors. “That’s not just about having people on speed dial — it’s answering questions, explaining policy and getting feedback.” Source: FT Ethiopia’s PM Abiy and Nigerian business tycoon, with Chinese engineering, are driving industrialization in Ogaden/Somali region of Ethiopia. - Michael Masri’s reporting for Africa Report if fascinating. Ethiopia has launched a cluster of large industrial schemes in the Somali region, laying foundation stones for a urea plant and an oil refinery in Gode while opening the first two phases of the Ogaden LNG project. Abiy Ahmed framed the push as part of a broader strategy to link energy, agriculture and industry. “These projects embody more than industrial growth,” he said. “They represent our shared responsibility to harness opportunities, strengthen co-operation and promote peace.” The Gode urea plant, backed by Dangote Group and Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH), is designed for 3m tonnes a year. Dangote owns 60%, while EIH holds 40%. Officials say Dangote’s equity totals about $2.5bn, while the state provides land and implementation oversight. Gas from the Calub fields will be piped 108km to the site. Construction is slated for 40 months, with operations targeted for 2028. Ethiopia imports most of its fertiliser, spending more than $1.2bn a year for 1.5m–2m tonnes. Usage was roughly 1.7m tonnes in 2023, almost half of it urea, and demand for 2024–25 is put above 2.4m tonnes. If delivered on time, the Gode plant could cover domestic needs and allow exports to neighbours. Brook Taye, chief executive of EIH, called the venture “a significant milestone in the journey toward industrial self-sufficiency”. Dangote told the groundbreaking crowd that the complex would be integrated with gas supply and a polypropylene unit to support local inputs. He pointed to Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), with a capacity of more than 5,000MW, and noted his group’s cement operations and expansion plans. The Gode refinery is being developed by Golden Concord Group of China. It is designed to process 3.5m tonnes a year of crude and condensate from the Hilala field, with associated storage. Backers say it will ease foreign-exchange pressure from fuel imports and anchor further industrial activity, including a proposed steel smelting site in Dire Dawa. GCL’s chair, Zhu Gongshan, cast the project as “a key step in Ethiopia’s path to energy sovereignty”, underscoring the Beijing–Addis ties. Financing details are still being finalised, but the refinery is central to the government’s energy-security narrative. Source: The Africa Report Dangote’s Ethiopian vision: Dangote began with cement. His crown jewel, Dangote Cement, dominates Nigeria’s market and has 10 operations in other nations in Africa. The formula has been consistent: identify sectors with chronic shortages – cement, fertiliser, sugar – commit massive local investments, and scale up to serve regional demand. Ethiopia was a natural extension of that model. In 2015, Dangote launched the Mugher Cement Plant outside Addis Ababa at a cost of $600m, with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes. The investment gave him a firm foothold in one of Africa’s fastest-growing construction markets. But success came with risks. In May 2018, violent unrest led to the killing of Dangote’s country manager and temporary shutdowns at Mugher. While other investors might have retreated, Dangote doubled down. Today, he is preparing to spend $400m to expand Mugher’s capacity to 5 million tonnes, alongside a new grinding unit near Addis Ababa. Cement is just one market Dangote is targeting. Ethiopia’s enormous state-controlled sugar industry, long plagued by inefficiency and debt, has struggled for years to reform. Its Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, touted as one of the continent’s largest initiatives, continues to face delays and mismanagement. … The most ambitious venture of all is the planned fertiliser production complex in Gode, Somali region. Publicised on 28 August 2025, the Dangote Group and Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) deal plans one of the world’s largest single-site urea manufacturing plants. The project costs an estimated $2.5bn and has an estimated capacity of 3 million metric tonnes annually, a rate that would not only render Ethiopia independent, but even a net exporter of fertiliser. EIH, the state wealth fund of Ethiopia, will hold 40%, while 60% is held by Dangote Group. … For Dangote, Ethiopia is a trifecta: Cement demand is projected to grow by 10% annually, its sugar consumption is growing with rapid urbanisation, and fertiliser demand is all but insatiable, given that farming supports the livelihood of 70% of Ethiopians. Source: The Africa Report The stakes for Abiy are high: For Addis Ababa, the $4bn fertiliser project in Ethiopia’s Somali region is no longer simply a manufacturing investment. It is increasingly being framed as a strategic state project tied to food sovereignty, import substitution and the government’s broader attempt to build economic resilience under mounting fiscal pressure. “Becoming self-sufficient in food is our main agenda,” Abiy says during the visit. “Land is needed; we have it. Water is needed; we have it. Human resources are needed; we have it.” The scale is enormous even by African industrial standards. Once operational, the plant is expected to produce three million metric tonnes of urea annually, potentially making it one of the continent’s largest fertiliser complexes. Ethiopian officials say the project now includes a 110km gas pipeline, a 120MW power plant, a polypropylene packaging facility and a two-million-tonne NPK blending plant. For a government grappling with chronic foreign exchange shortages, ballooning import bills and pressure on agricultural productivity, the numbers matter politically as much as they do economically. The decision to anchor the project in Gode is deliberate. Long viewed as peripheral to Ethiopia’s industrial economy, the Somali region is now being repositioned by the federal government as a future irrigation and agro-industrial corridor. Officials argue that the area’s vast land reserves and access to water could eventually support large-scale commercial farming capable of reshaping Ethiopia’s food economy. The government is simultaneously building housing infrastructure for about 5,000 residents near the plant, while officials project broader industrial expansion along the corridor. Abiy goes further, comparing the long-term revenue potential of the Gode development zone with Ethiopia’s flagship state enterprise. “The investments we are making in this Gode area, combined, will generate high revenue for Ethiopia, at par with Ethiopian Airlines,” he says. Source: The Africa Report Feliks Topolski 1907-1982 Topolski’s Chronicle, ‘Nazi Revival’, Vol. 8, Is. 1-2, 1960 HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. Photo by Jakub Dziubak on Unsplash If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $50. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Grim vision of drone warfare by Sylvie Kaufmann For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe The state of the art in Colbert-studies. Jean-Baptiste Colbert was Louis XIV chief minister from 1661 to 1683 and traditionally seen as an architect of absolutism and mercantilism. Alexander Hamilton later cited him as an inspiration in 1782. Now his legacy is disputed. Daniel Dessert, the chief critic, sees Colbert as the orchestrator not so much of an absolutist state as of an elite cabal. Would be great to have a good English-language review of this important debate. Source: lhistoire Didn’t know that the Magna Carta included free trade provisions Fighting for the right to the beach in Oregon in 1967: Source: Research Gate RAF Station – British and Polish Flags, c. 1940-45, The Ingram Collection Feliks Topolski, 1907-1989 ink and wash If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
Gasperini before Verona kick-off: “We need one last step.”
The match between Hellas Verona and Roma, the thirty-eighth and final matchday of Serie A, kicks off at 8:45 PM at the Bentegodi Stadium. Shortly before kickoff, Gian Piero Gasperini spoke to reporter...
Black Women, Beauty Politics and the Power of Rage in 'Is God Is'
In one of the film’s most surreal scenes, the twins at the center of *Is God Is*—Racine, “the Rough One,” and Anaia, “the Quiet One”—pretend to be strippers for a room full of men. But while Racine is welcomed, Anaia is rejected because her scarred face disrupts the men’s fantasies. That moment crystallizes one of the film’s central questions: What happens when Black women refuse to shrink themselves for the comfort of others? In Aleshea Harris’ Gothic revenge thriller, ugliness becomes both a burden and a source of power, as the film transforms into a stereotype-busting meditation on misogynoir, beauty politics and righteous rage. As the twins travel cross-country seeking vengeance against the father who burned their mother alive, Harris layers the conventions of the revenge genre with distinctly Black feminist aesthetics. The film moves between absurd comedy, trap music, intimate sisterhood and brutal violence while interrogating the ways Black women are expected to manage their pain, suppress their anger and perform acceptability. Anaia’s scarred face and Racine’s consuming rage become mirrors of the same misogynoir that shapes Black women’s lives—whether through beauty standards, domestic violence or the demand to remain silent. What makes *Is God Is* so striking is its refusal to look away from the “ugly.” Harris insists that Black women marked by violence, scars and fury still deserve visibility, complexity and even divinity. The film embraces the “angry Black woman” and the “ugly” Black woman as figures worthy of space, power and humanity. In doing so, it expands the tradition of Black feminist filmmaking by asking viewers to confront the realities dominant culture would rather ignore—and to recognize the beauty, dignity and selfhood that exist beyond respectability.
Lions sign Jack Campbell to 4-year extension through 2030 season after declining LB's fifth-year option
The Middle East Oil Crisis Has Already Cost Global Businesses $25 Billion
Global companies are raising prices, cutting production and preserving cash as the Iran war drives oil and gas costs sharply higher.
God, The Science, The Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution
In effect, therefore, this book is a call for a return to the medieval vision of a rational God who created rational creatures equipped to discover the verities of nature. In other words…
Fear of God Essentials hoodies are status symbols for tweens and teens
Fear of God Essentials hoodies might be expensive, but parents are still buying them for teens and tweens. Now, they're status symbols at school.
Groups rally to defend Black political representation in civil rights birthplace
The rally will begin in Selma, where a violent clash between law enforcement and voting rights activists in 1965 galvanized support for passage of the Voting Rights Act.
'Is God Is': Two sisters seek out revenge
“Is God Is” opens in theaters May 15.
'Is God Is': Two sisters seek out revenge
“Is God Is” opens in theaters May 15.
Exclusive-US Halting Medicare Enrollments for New Home Healthcare and Hospice Providers
By Jody Godoy May 13 (Reuters) - The Trump administration will temporarily block new home health and hospice providers on Wednesday from enrolling in Medicare, a senior administration official said, citing concerns about widespread fraud. The nationwide moratorium is the latest move by Vice ...
Teamfight Tactics patch 17.3
God balancing, new Blessings and trait Augments join a patch full of balance changes certain to shake up the meta!
Pope to Vatican Observatory: Church Embraces Science To Find God in Creation
As he met with the Vatican Observatory Foundation, Pope Leo XIV upheld the Catholic Church's desire to seek God in His Creation through rigorous, honest science.
The Crossword, May 11: She's A Rainbow
Set the tone for your week and solve our Monday crossword. This week’s puzzle was constructed by Kelsey Dixon, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Kelsey is a southerner by birth, a Mariah Carey fan by choice, and a Chicagoan by the grace of god. When she’s not busy working as the crossword editor for the Atlantic, she can…
From Goddard to the stars: Roman telescope readies to widen science’s view
NASA is preparing to launch their newest telescope into space, The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope.(7News)
Godfrey plant lover grows native nursery business from home
‘Plant nerd’ dad turns Godfrey home into hub for native Illinois species
Pope to Vatican Observatory: Church embraces science to find God in Creation
As he meets with the Vatican Observatory Foundation, Pope Leo XIV upholds the Catholic Church’s desire to seek God in His Creation through rigorous, ...
Men Across the Country Are Artificially Inflating Their Penises. They’re Doing It for a Reason You’d Never Expect.
“It isn’t going to look like your God-given penis, only larger. It’s going to look like you’ve had work done.”
Vivica A. Fox and Erika Alexander star in 'Is God Is'
“Is God Is” opens in theaters May 15.
Katalyst Wraps Testing at NASA Goddard for Swift Boost Mission
A daring mission to lift NASA’s sinking Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is now one step closer to launch this June.
Warhammer 40,000 Faction Focus: Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons
All hail the Dark Gods – the forces of Chaos get new detachments.
German Business Leader Criticizes Merz for Poor Reform Record
The head of Germany’s Chambers of Commerce and Industry sharply criticized Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his poor reform record, calling the conservative leader’s ruling coalition dysfunctional and unreliable.
Diablo 4's Secret Cow Level Has Finally Been Found; Now To Find The Cow God
Milking this for all it's worth
Hidden galaxy within our galaxy discovered — billions of years after Milky Way ate it
This particular star system, dubbed Loki after the Norse god of trickery, was consumed by our own solar system billions of years ago when our celestial neighborhood was expanding in size.
Caring for mental health together
In a church that proclaims God’s care for people’s bodies, minds and spirits, tending to mental health is not separate from faith.
How Perimenopause Became America's New Health Scare
If you’re a woman who speaks English, it sometimes feels like you can’t spend time on the internet without being bombarded with all the ways in which your body or your mind could be just a little broken. A few years ago, Instagram was full of women talking about attention deficit disorder, and lo and behold: From 2020 to 2022, the percentage of women (between the ages of 23 and 49) newly diagnosed with it nearly doubled. Not long ago, premenstrual syndrome was all the rage, with the algorithm pushing videos that explained why it’s okay to fly off the handle once a month. These days, the word perimenopause is everywhere. Perhaps you’ve seen the headlines. “Perimenopause is having a millennial moment. Here are 7 ways to cope,” says The Washington Post. Or perhaps you’ve seen Apple TV’s glossy drama Your Friends & Neighbors, which is back for its second season; the female protagonist Mel is explicitly perimenopausal, and in the first season, she keyed a car for no apparent reason. She’s played by Amanda Peet, who talks about being perimenopausal in real life (“God knows I’ve wanted to key a lot of cars in the last three years,” she’s said.) In fact, it sometimes feels like every celebrity interview with a forty- or fiftysomething woman requires her to open up about what’s going on with her hormones. Drew Barrymore joked on CBS Mornings that when she found out how long perimenopause can last, she thought she’d “never make it 10 years like this.” Katherine Heigl told Business Insider that “whoever designed it so that women would be going through perimenopause while raising teenagers should be sent a strongly worded letter.” At the same time, influencers who talk about perimenopause seem to have cropped up out of nowhere with something to sell you, causing people online to wonder where this all came from. It’s trickled down from Instagram to tchotchke shops, which sell fridge magnets that say “Perimenopause Is Hot.” You can buy a T-shirt that proclaims “Perimenopause Made Me Do It!” My mom, who is 48, started uncontrollably shaking her leg at night a few years ago. “It’s perimenopause,” she told me when I complained about how annoying it was. But what exactly is perimenopause—and why are we all talking about it all of a sudden?
The least respected hitter comes through for the John Curtis-Mount Carmel semifinal winner
Brynn Godfrey, whose father, Jerry, is the John Curtis softball coach, came to bat with the bases loaded in the 10th inning of a semifinal against Mount Carmel.
Higgins misses out on final after thriller with Murphy
John Higgins says Shaun Murphy "hits it like God" after the Scot misses out on a ninth World Snooker Championship final following a tense 17-15 defeat at the Crucible.
Palmetto Sports Shorts: The Cat Guy
WATCH: Palmetto Sports Director Carmine Gemei speaks with Clemson Coach Brad Brownell, senior forward RJ Godfrey about embracing the role of being a cat guy.
"He Is Proof Of God On Earth": Mojtaba Khamenei's Aide Amid Health Concerns
Ayatollah Mohsen Qomi said that despite his injuries, Iranian officials were now focused on preserving the Supreme Leader's life.
What Trump’s post as a Jesus-like figure tells us about political messianism
Democracy cannot thrive, or even survive, when its leaders see themselves as godlike and divide citizens into believers and heretics, a scholar writes.
Teamfight Tactics patch 17.2
Opening Encounters & new God Blessings make 17.2 a celestial encounter you won’t want to miss.
John Henry and the Red Sox just settled all family business
Well, there is really only way to describe this: Red Sox owner John Henry, like Michael Corleone in the final moments of “The Godfather,” just settled all family business in…
Byron Donalds shows spiritual side in Southeastern University commencement speech
'This is what happens in the journey of life when you put God at the center.'
Birdbrained Science: My God, it’s full of stars
I’ve been a casual stargazer ever since high school when I first watched a meteor shower with some of my friends. The stars often (and rightfully, in my opinion) get romanticized; countless people …
Best of the Best: Duke’s Legacy in the Collegiate Women Sports Awards
DURHAM, N.C.-- Women's sports have never had a bigger stage. Audiences are growing, athletes are becoming household names and the conversation around female ...
Knicks lose, Mets blow 4-run lead and Jets make much-criticized NFL Draft selection in wild 4 minutes for New York sports
Peter Molyneux's Latest Game Is A Broken Sandwich-Making Sim
Masters of Albion is out in Early Access, and it sure is a new game from the makers of Godus and Legacy
Toronto 'Godspell' Doc 'You Had To Be There' Acquired By Greenwich Ent.
The 1972 'Godspell' doc 'You Had To Be There,' about the show that launched Gilda Radner, Martin Short and more has been acquired by Greenwich Ent.
Masters of Albion does what Peter Molyneux promised, "it brings joy"
Masters of Albion is Fable creator Peter Molyneux's last game, and while it's launching in Steam early access, it's got serious sparkle.