SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " 5 million " 1,207 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Exclusive: Onos Health raises $17M Series A for clinical intelligence
The company expects to raise $25 million to $40 million in a Series B round in the next 18 months.
Johnson finds $85 million budget fix — and unloads on City Council
The mayor plans to refinance debt and tap remaining federal relief dollars to close the city’s projected 2026 shortfall, while blaming the City Council for creating the mess.
Penguins Legend’s Production Question Mark Surfaced by NHL
The Pittsburgh Penguins watched their longtime star Evgeni Malkin turn back the clock last season.Now comes the challenge of doing it again at 40.NHL.com identified Malkin’s ability to sustain his production as one of the three major questions facing Pittsburgh heading into the 2026-27 campaign.Malkin signed a one-year, $5.5 million contract in May, giving him […] The post Penguins Legend’s Production Question Mark Surfaced by NHL appeared first on HEAVY.
Titans Predicted to Cut $7.5 Million 2023 Draft Selection
The Tennessee Titans are predicted to cut a former second round draft pick of the 2023 NFL Draft ahead of the season The post Titans Predicted to Cut $7.5 Million 2023 Draft Selection appeared first on HEAVY.
Las Vegas Raiders announce $25 million game-changing gift to Intermountain Health to help build Nevada's first stand-alone children's hospital
Led by Raiders owners Mark Davis, Egon Durban, and Michael Meldman, this marks the largest philanthropic commitment in franchise history.
Republic Business Credit Supports Textile Wholesaler with $2.75MM Factoring Facility
Republic Business Credit provided a national textile wholesaler with a $2.75 million factoring facility to fuel the company’s West Coast expansion and market
Record $4.95 million raised for heart health in Alberta as Miyu Yamashita wins CPKC Women's Open
The 2026 CPKC Women's Open raised a record $4.95 million to support heart healthcare in Alberta, while on the golf course, Miyu Yamashita concluded a historic performance on Sunday to capture the 2026 CPKC Women's Open and her fourth LPGA Tour victory.
Missouri doctors group jumps into state politics with $1.5M PAC investment
The Missouri State Medical Association donated $1.5 million to Asclepius PAC and Patients First PAC, one of the largest political contributions this year.
Bipartisan bill would fund firefighter, EMS mental health programs
The proposal would provide $7.5 million annually for suicide prevention, peer support, counseling and other mental health resources
Bipartisan bill would fund firefighter, EMS mental health programs
The proposal would provide $7.5 million annually for suicide prevention, peer support, counseling and other mental health resources
Maple Leafs Captain Auston Matthews Ripped As Overpaid
The Toronto Maple Leafs and former general manager Brad Treliving managed to get captain Auston Matthews to agree to a four-year, $53 million contract to remain with the club through the end of the 2027-28 NHL season.Right now, Matthews counts $13.25 million against the salary cap as one of the highest-paid players in the NHL. […] The post Maple Leafs Captain Auston Matthews Ripped As Overpaid appeared first on HEAVY.
Missouri doctors group jumps into state politics with $1.5M PAC investment
Missouri’s oldest business association is the state’s newest big political donor.On Aug. 14, the Missouri State Medical Association split $1.5 million between t
Prince Harry, Elton John, others ordered to pay $13M after losing privacy case
Prince Harry and six others have been ordered to pay an initial 9.5 million pounds ($13 million) to the publisher of Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper following their failed invasion of privacy case.
What to know about the new Museum of Science wing opening in October
The 10,000-square-foot, $155 million venue will have state-of-the-art technology.
'Got to play the game': Missouri doctors group jumps into state politics with $1.5M PAC investment
The Missouri State Medical Association is the state’s newest big political donor after contributing $1.5 million to fund two new PACs.
Indiana business leaders seek economic development pole at Freedom 250 race
INDIANAPOLIS — Roger Penske is investing $35 million to bring the thunder of IndyCar to the streets of the Nation’s Capitol during the Freedom 250 this weekend. Indiana business leaders hope …
Kelly applauds Trump administration's announcement of $35 million in new rural health care funding for Pennsylvania
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), a member of the Ways & Means Subcommittee on Health, applauded the Trump administration that $35 million, made possible through the federal Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), is being put to work to improve health outcomes among rural Pennsylvanians by updating to new, more modern screening technology, buying equipment to bring additional operating rooms online, and expanding transportation options.
Is PENN Entertainment (PENN) A Bargain Following Its $195 Million New Orleans Casino Move?
PENN Entertainment (PENN) has announced plans to invest about US$195 million to shift its Boomtown Casino & Hotel New Orleans operations to a new landside site and rebrand the venue as Hollywood Casino New Orleans. See our latest analysis for PENN Entertainment. The New Orleans project comes after a busy period for PENN Entertainment, with the stock showing an 11.14% 90 day share price return and a 24.98% year to date share price return, although the 1 year total shareholder return is...
AI Live Entertainment Financial Platform Quantizr Raises $5M
Quantizr, an AI-powered 'financial command center' built with live music in mind, has announced a $5 million seed round.
$15 million project underway to boost business in New Orleans East
A privately funded $15 million development at Chef Menteur Highway and Crowder Boulevard in New Orleans East is set to bring national brands, local businesses, and retail opportunities to the area.
Applyrs addresses Albany mid-year report laying out deficits
Albany’s mid-year report puts the city’s financial challenge at $55 million over the next 16 months.
A speakeasy inside a gas station is the hottest cocktail bar in a Minnesota town—the business brought in almost $5 million in a year
Tony Donatell turned an empty storefront next to a gas station into a sophisticated speakeasy, The Farmer's Cellar. Inside, it's still the "roaring twenties."
I hid a speakeasy in a gas station and now the business brings in about $5 million a year
Tony Donatell, 46, took over an failing gas station and convenience store in 2024. Since Donatell opened a hidden bar in the space in May 2025 called The Farmer's Cellar, the business — which includes the speakeasy, the convenience store and the gas station itself — has brought in almost $5 million in revenue in one year and is profitable.
Pennsylvania’s Sports Betting Handle, Revenue Increase Significantly in July
The Keystone State’s sportsbooks generated $64.8 million in profits on a $509.5 million handle.
Webinar: Medicaid Connections: Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs: Health & Justice
Download the Audio Transcript One in five children under age 18 have special health care needs, representing 15 million children from birth to 21. Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) include those who have chronic physical, developmental, or behavioral health needs that require services of a type or amount beyond that required by children […]
Ballmers Give $125 Million To University Of Oregon For Child Behavioral Health
Ballmer Group, co-founded by Connie and Steve Ballmer, is donating $125 million to the University of Oregon’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health.
North Carolina invests in fast-track training to combat child care worker shortages, center closures
The General Assembly is spending $1.5 million to expand free, two-week child care worker training academies statewide.
Florida’s leading coral experts unite in historic effort to restore Florida’s Coral Reef
Backed by a NOAA-funded initiative, 12 organizations joined forces during the annual coral spawning event to produce more than 1.5 million embryos and help preserve genetic diversity for the future of Florida’s Coral Reef.
Trump proposal would end ‘roadless rule’
DECK: The administration’s move would end ‘roadless rule,’ affect nearly 45 million acres, though not in Colorado The Trump administration has proposed ending decades-old rule that bars road building and logging millions of acres of national forest land, arguing it has hindered the country’s wildfire fighting efforts. The proposal, if put into effect, would affect […]
Happy Health secures $75M to expand AI-powered care in the home starting with sleep apnea
Digital health company Happy Health secured a $75 million series A funding round to continue building its artificial intelligence-powered platform for continuous home-based care. | The startup’s smart ring—dubbed Happy Ring—was first cleared by the FDA in 2024.
Former OHSU Health CEO sues for $15.5 million, says he was fired for speaking up
Tarek Salaway says federal regulators later flagged some of the safety problems he raised before OHSU fired him.
Supreme Court rebuffs Trump’s bid to overturn $5 million verdict in Carroll case
The president was found liable of sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll in the high-profile civil case.
PENN Entertainment invests $195 million in New Orleans casino relocation
PENN Entertainment announced plans Monday to invest approximately $195 million to relocate its Boomtown Casino and Hotel New Orleans riverboat operations to a n
Supreme Court again denies Trump's push to toss out $5 million verdict in E. Jean Carroll case
Trump and the Justice Department are also asking the high court to toss out a second Carroll verdict totaling $83 million.
Macau’s Paradise Entertainment warns of likely US$10.5 million loss in 1H26 on satellite casino closure, lower gaming machine sales
Macau’s Paradise Entertainment has warned that it expects to record a HK$82.6 million (US$10.5 million) loss in the six months
WEBTOON Entertainment (WBTN) Could Be 27% Undervalued After Earnings And Guidance
WEBTOON Entertainment (WBTN) recently reported its second quarter 2026 results, with sales of US$338.47 million and a net loss of US$15.25 million, and also issued third quarter revenue guidance. See our latest analysis for WEBTOON Entertainment. Since those results and the new third quarter guidance, WEBTOON Entertainment's share price has eased to US$8.29, with the 30 day share price return down 20.6% and the 1 year total shareholder return down 44.7%. This points to fading momentum as...
Maker of ice cream sold at grocery stores nationwide files for bankruptcy as it appeals $23.8M judgment
Rebel Creamery reported $13.78 million in assets and $23.85 million in liabilities as it appeals a $23.785 million Van Leeuwen judgment.
Romero ends Tottenham spell to join Simeone’s Atletico Madrid
Cristian Romero has completed his transfer from Tottenham Hotspur to Atletico Madrid, with both clubs confirming the deal. Sources told ESPN that Spurs will receive €35 million plus €5m in variabl...
Scientists Discover a 245-Million-Year-Old Reptile With Its Organs Still Preserved
An international research team examined a unique fossil from China that, for the first time, preserves the digestive system of a marine reptile with a long neck that lived in the oceans 245 million years ago. Inside an almost complete fossil from China, researchers identified the stomach, liver, and intestines of a marine reptile that
Armenian Genocide survivors' grandson says 'political motives' block recognition
In 1915, the Ottoman Empire began the systematic deportation and massacre of its Armenian population. As many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed – widely regarded by historians as the twentieth century's…
Wyoming directs rural health funds to critical access hospitals, EMS and more
Wyoming is receiving $205 million for the first year of the federal Rural Health Transformation Program to expand the capacity of the state's healthcare system.
Jefferson Health reported a $181.5 million operating loss in fiscal 2026
The health system had a relatively strong finish to the fiscal year, logging its first quarterly operating profit excluding investment income in at least four years.
SJC delays ruling on Boston’s White Stadium lawsuit, putting $325M plan at risk: ‘Political disaster’
Boston’s $325 million rebuild of White Stadium for a pro soccer team was dealt another blow this week, when the Supreme Judicial Court opted to take more time to consider an appeal from a community group seeking to kill the project.
FBI arrest Lawrence mayor for allegedly misusing COVID-19 small-business loans
The FBI has arrested the Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Brian Depena, for allegedly misusing $1.5 million in COVID-19 small-business loans.
Nigel Farage beats Count Binface to win back seat in Parliament in widely mocked election
Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party who some see as a possible next prime minister, abruptly quit his seat in July amid an investigation into whether he failed to report a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) gift from a crypto billionaire overseas.
The Deals: Influence Media Invests in MENA-Focused Catalog Buyer; Live Nation Makes Moves in Prague
Also: Singapore live entertainment company Triangle Group raises $15 million, Ticketmaster acquires a Uruguayan ticketing platform and more.
Triangle Group Raises $15 Million To Scale Asia-Pacific Live Entertainment Platform
Triangle Group has raised $15 million in equity and venture debt to expand its live touring and festival infrastructure across Asia-Pacific. The financing consists of a $10 million equity seed round led by DSG Consumer Partners, with participation from Golden Gate Ventures, the Oberoi Family Office, and angel investors, along with a $5 million venture debt facility from Genesis Alternative Ventures.
Schmieding Foundation Commits $1.5 Million to UAMS Health Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Hospital
LITTLE ROCK — The Schmieding Foundation, Inc., pledged $1.5 million to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to support construction and activities of the UAMS Health Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Hospital in Springdale, Arkansas.
Schmieding Foundation Commits $1.5 Million to UAMS Health Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Hospital
LITTLE ROCK — The Schmieding Foundation, Inc., pledged $1.5 million to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to support construction and activities of the UAMS Health Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Hospital in Springdale, Arkansas.
VHC Health gets record-breaking $17.5M donation, supporting new cancer center
A $17.5 million donation to VHC Health, the largest philanthropic gift in the organization's history, is supporting a new cancer center expected to open in 2028. VHC Health is renaming its outpatient pavilion the "Arlene Evans and Barry Dewberry Outpatient Pavilion" in honor of the donors, who previously contributed $3 million to the hospital that
Northwestern football receives $35 Million from the Uihlein family
The Wildcats get a major contribution from a family who believes in NU’s next chapter.
ICYMI: NJEDA to Auction Up to $25M in Business Tax Credits
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) will auction up to $25 million in corporation business tax and insurance premiums tax credits in the
New fellowships link research, communities, youth purpose
The Purpose Science and Innovation Exchange has received a three-year, $3.5 million grant from the Bezos Family Foundation to launch two new fellowships aimed to help youth develop a sense of purpose.
Seattle longevity startups unite: Viome acquires plasma exchange pioneer Circulate Health
Two Seattle-area health and longevity startups are joining forces through Viome Life Science's acquisition of Circulate Health. The two parties would not share specifics but said the deal was valued between $15 million and $50 million.
Northwestern lands $35 million donation as new stadium, Chip Kelly hire fuel program growth
The Wildcats begin 2026 looking to build on fourth-year head coach David Braun's recent success
Luxury second-home tax survives temporary court block, for now
The tax applies to second homes worth more than $5 million.
AGO Q2 Deep Dive: New Business Growth and Investment Volatility Shape Results
Financial guaranty insurer Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) fell short of the market’s revenue expectations in Q2 CY2026, with sales falling 30.6% year on year to $195 million. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.23 per share was 23.2% below analysts’ consensus estimates.
Republic Business Credit Partners with Family Office on $2.5MM Credit Facility
Republic Business Credit partnered with a family office to provide a $2.5 million receivables financing facility for its precision metal coating company. The
Cowboys Give 4-Time Pro Bowler Historic Contract Extension
It was highly expected, but the Dallas Cowboys have finally taken care of one of their top defenders. NFL insider Ian Rapoport reported that the Cowboys and defensive lineman Quinnen Williams have agreed on a three-year, $105.9 million contract extension. Williams will get $101 million total guaranteed and $63.35 million fully guaranteed at signing, which […] The post Cowboys Give 4-Time Pro Bowler Historic Contract Extension appeared first on HEAVY.
Tennessee athletics sets fundraising record
University secures more than $175 million in donations in fiscal year 2026, breaking 2025 mark of $169.5 million
Quinnen Williams, Cowboys agree to massive $105.9M extension, making star DT one of NFL's highest-paid
Williams' new three-year deal includes $101 million guaranteed and $63.35 million fully guaranteed at signing
Saber's newest game trailer takes a shot at Gearbox's CEO, if you look closely
The first hint that something might be up with the recent debut trailer for Saber Interactive’s Rideshare Stimulator is an unusual choice of words—aside from that second one in the game’s title. “Don’t take your passengers too seriously,” the trailer’s narrator says, as he describes this upcoming game. It a car game about the gig work of driving eccentric people to their destinations, a riff on Crazy Taxi. And then, he says: “When I think I’ve met the randiest of passengers, someone even stranger gets in.” “Randiest”? That suggests “randy,” which usually means having strong sexual desire. Yet none of the oddball backseat occupants featured in the trailer seem particularly lustful. One is an old man who considers his grandson a failure, another shares the theory that birds might control traffic lights, another says he’s banned from an aquarium. A little later, there’s a license plate, shown 63 seconds into the trailer, on the front of an SUV: USB DRV It’s a Texas plate. The symbol between those letters is a cog wheel. If you know, you know. That’s a reference to Texas-based Borderlands game development studio Gearbox Software (their logo features a cog wheel). More specifically, it’s a reference to Gearbox’s CEO Randy Pitchford, who in 2018 found himself explaining the nature of video he’d saved on a USB drive that was found at a Medieval Times restaurant before being returned to the studio: “It was ‘barely legal’ porn. This girl’s handle was ‘Only 18.’” The “girl” in the video had committed a solo sex act that Pitchford, an avid practitioner of magic, found remarkable. “I realized, this is not a sex worker…This is a fucking magician.” Back then, the USB drive was central to competing lawsuits against Gearbox by the studio’s former lawyer and by Gearbox against him. A settlement in late 2019 “exonerated” Pitchford, per the Hollywood Reporter. The USB story has resurfaced at times, now in a trailer from a company that not long ago was corporate brethren with Gearbox. Saber vs. Gearbox The head of Saber told Game File that the reference is payback. “The dig is because Randy took shots at Embracer in Borderlands 4,” Saber CEO Matt Karch told me when I asked him about the license plate. “Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties for a living.” Having interviewed Karch during a cross-country flight in late 2024, I can confirm that Karch was unimpressed with Pitchford during their time both working in the Embracer group. I’d approached him not out of surprise that there was animosity but that it was manifesting publicly now. Gearbox was founded in 1999, worked on a port of Halo early on, and developed hit series such as the loot-based sci-fi shooter Borderlands before it was purchased by The Embracer Group in early 2021 for $363 million (with a possible earn-out of over $1 billion, if certain targets were hit by 2027). Saber was founded in 2001, worked on a remaster of Halo early on, had a big hit with zombie shooter World War Z and was purchased by Embracer in early 2020 for $150 million, with a potential earn-out of up to $375 million. For a few years, the Embracer group was a voracious acquirer of game studios. Then, as investment dried up, it choked. In March 2024, Embracer sold Saber to an investment company controlled by Saber CEO Matt Karch, and it sold Gearbox in an all-stock deal to long-time Borderlands publisher Take Two Interactive. Other studios were shut down. Hundreds of developers were laid off. Gearbox didn’t say much about their Embracer experience, nothing too direct, at least. In the summer 2024, Pitchford told reporter and occasional Game File contributor Nicole Carpenter that Borderlands 4’s story was in some way thematically connected to Gearbox’s experience at Embracer: “There’s this cultural and emotional shift in me, personally, and at the studio. What does it mean to trade some autonomy for organization?” When Borderlands 4 came out, there was something stranger: the matter of “Embracer’s Bluff,” a location in the game featuring an AI-powered toilet and a large trash dump, according to a detailed Kotaku account of the place. Gearbox never commented on it; Take Two never got back to me about it when I asked them last year. By contrast, since Saber exited Embracer, Karch has been one of Embracer’s biggest defenders, casting their management as well-meaning and supportive despite the layoffs and studio closures that resulted from their excessive expansion. Like others, Saber’s Karch saw Embracer’s as a shot. With Rideshare Stimulator’s trailer, he’s returned fire. “It’s amazing to me how fast people forget those who went above and beyond for them,” Karch told Game File. A rep for Gearbox did not comment by press time. Game File is a reader-supported publication. Your backing makes my reporting—including any coverage of trailer-based beefs—possible. Good news! I’m currently running Game File’s first big sale of 2026. You can get a one-year subscription for 23% off. Click here to take advantage of the limited-time offer. And thank you for your support! Item 2: In brief… 🚫 Wal-Mart has laid off the staff of Restart, a games media outlet launched in 2024, Aftermath reports. 🟥 A GTA VI preview is on the way, at last, via an “extended look” that will premiere, unusually, on Netflix at 3pm ET on August 27, then officially go live elsewhere six hours later. Last week, Game File noted that Take Two label Rockstar Games is overdue for showing off GTA VI, based on the timing of the initial hands-off previews of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. During a call with investors, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said pre-orders for GTA VI were “unprecedented and astonishing,” but added the company can’t predict how many of those pre-orders represent bonus sales vs. sales that otherwise would have been made at launch. During the same call, Zelnick was noticeably bullish on the future of playing games over streaming cloud connections (predicting wider adoption in three or so years). He sounded unbothered by Sony’s plans to stop making discs for new games (he said the business is 90% digital already and predicted that there could still be limited edition physical editions of games “in the same way there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business.”) 👀 Take Two wrote off $43 million in their spring quarter after deciding “not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title in its pipeline from a third-party developer.” 🤔 Some rare age-demographics from a big publisher: Capcom recently told investors that “users in their 20s account for approximately half of the users of both Pragamata and Resident Evil Requiem.” Item 3: The week ahead Tuesday, August 11 Game releases: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Switch 2; already out for PC, PS5, Xbox) continues the Bethesda strategy of putting Elder Scrolls games on everything; Royalty Free-For-All is a Smash Bros.-style fighting game featuring public domain characters such as Mother Goose brawling with Oliver Twist in a stage based on the original Little Shop of Horrors movie. Wednesday, August 12 Game release: Pro Jank Footy (PC, console) is an arcade-style Australian Rules Football game with increasingly ridiculous rules, the more you play (I enjoyed the Steam demo) Thursday, August 13 Game release: Super Mario Sunshine (Switch 2, originally released in 2002 on the GameCube) is released for Switch 2’s Nintendo Switch Online service. This game is the black sheep of 3D Mario games. It’s the successor to the breakthrough Super Mario 64 and the rare Mario game built around a single (vacation resort) theme. Mario’s got a water-spraying backpack, a Yoshi pal and a lot of blue coins to collect.
iRhythm to acquire rival cardiac monitoring company for $288M
iRhythm has agreed to acquire VitalConnect for approximately $237.5 million in cash and another $50 million in common stock.
GameStop Raises $325 Million In IPO As Barnes & Noble Bets Big On Video Games
The unit of Barnes & Noble is the single biggest game seller in the U.S.
Trump’s foreign licensing business booms to $59.5 million as Gulf developers pay
Nearly two-thirds of Trump’s foreign licensing fees came from two Gulf developers, in the UAE and Qatar, including one pursuing a $20 billion U.S. expansion.
USF College of Marine Science receives $1.5 million to improve coastal hazard forecasting research
The funding is part of a spending package enacted back in February, aiming to support seven different projects on all three USF campuses.
Treasury Wine announces $395 million charge tied to US supply chain revamp
Australia's Treasury Wine Estates said on Monday it expects to take an additional A$558.4 million ($394.5 million) post-tax charge in 2026 related to the write-down of U.S.-based assets and brands.
'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' keeps record pace, ‘The Odyssey’ sets new high for Nolan
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” continued its blistering pace in theaters, collecting $144.5 million domestically over its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. And Christopher...
Delaware opens Fall EDGE Grant Competition
Delaware's fall EDGE Grant Competition opens Aug. 11. According to the Division of Small Business, $1.15 million in funding is available for eligible startups and small businesses.
In 2018, scientists found just 39 surviving clams in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon; they bred them and have since outplanted 65 million
After decades of environmental decline, Florida's Indian River Lagoon is beginning to show signs of recovery. With funding from NOAA Fisheries' Office of Habitat Conservation, the Indian River Lagoon Council is leading a system-wide effort to restore the habitats that once sustained the lagoon's fish and wildlife.
Alaska officials award less than 2% of rural healthcare funding, postponing decision on remainder
The state Department of Health awarded $4.5 million out of $272 million in federal funds available.
Inside the Zay Flowers deal
Earlier this week, the Ravens and receiver Zay Flowers agreed to terms on a new deal that, by way of new money, put him in the Justin Jefferson tax bracket at $35 million annually.
Meta Ordered To Pay $567M To Address Kids’ Mental Health Online
The new penalty is in addition to the $375 million in civil penalties that jurors ordered in March against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
Wilson Sonsini Advises Cylinder Health on $105 Million Acquisition by Hinge Health
On August 4, 2026, Hinge Health, a digital healthcare company, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cylinder Health, a leader in virtual-first digestive healthcare, for $105…
Costa Welcomes House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar to Central Valley Health Care Roundtable
FRESNO, Calif. - This week, during Affordable Healthcare for Every American Week of Action, Congressman Jim Costa (CA-21) welcomed Congressman Pete Aguilar (CA-33), Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, to the Central Valley for a roundtable hosted by Community Health System to hear directly from local hospitals and health care leaders focused on the federal funding reductions under H.R.1, including changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, as well as the Administration's decision to withhold approximately $867.5 million in federal Medicaid funding from Califor
AHF • ‘We the People’ Coalition Merges Faith & Politics to Engage Black Voters -- L.A. Gospel Concert & Panel, Sat., Aug. 8th
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world's largest HIV/AIDS healthcare organization, currently provides medical care and services to more than 1.75 million clients in 45 countries. With more than 7,000 employees worldwide, AHF now has treatment clinics and other operations in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region, and Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth, and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare.
Insmed Reports Second-Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Provides Business Update
—Total Company Revenues of $425.5 Million for the Second Quarter of 2026— —BRINSUPRI® (brensocatib) Revenues of $309.2 Million for the Second Quarter of 2026,...
Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left
One moderate group says the progressive wins are “deeply troubling” and is planning a $15 million effort against democratic socialism.
Insmed Reports Second-Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Provides Business Update
—Total Company Revenues of $425.5 Million for the Second Quarter of 2026— —BRINSUPRI® (brensocatib) Revenues of $309.2 Million for the Second Quarter of 2026, Reflecting 49% Growth Over the...
Penn State Smeal College of Business sets new fundraising record for fiscal year 2026
The Smeal College of Business set a new fundraising record by raising $45 million in fiscal year 2026 to support scholarships, faculty research, programs and facilities.
Trump administration offers $25M for U.S. citizen said to lead Mexican cartel
The reward was bumped up from $5 million
YouTube star Simone Giertz has some life and science lessons to share with you
The Swedish engineer influencer has spent over a decade on YouTube growing a loyal audience of over 2.5 million followers, but for her, the journey was all about living a less typical life in science.
College football leaders seek an act of Congress to bring parity
The Texas Longhorns reportedly invested nearly $48 million in their roster as the Wisconsin Badgers spent $25 million.
Manipal Health Enterprises Stock Prices Surge 11% After $975 Million India IPO
The hospital chain raised almost $1 billion in India’s second-largest initial public offering so far this year.
Singapore's UOB to shed asset management arm for $433.5 million to focus on wealth management
Singapore lender United Overseas Bank said on Wednesday that it had agreed to sell its asset management business to a unit of European insurer Allianz for S$555 million ($433.49 million).
Dolphins Encouraged by Malik Willis' Training Camp Turnaround
Despite signing a three-year, $67.5 million contract in the spring, there are still questions surrounding Miami Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis. One week into training camp, coaches have been pleased with Willis' play. “Just his work ethic every day,” Dolphins offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik said of Willis.
Accel Entertainment (ACEL) Releases Q2 2026 Earnings: Revenue Beats Estimates and EPS Jumps
Accel Entertainment, Inc. $ACEL reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $368.1 million, up 9.6% from a year earlier and slightly ahead of Wall Street’s $363.6 million estimate. Gross profit rose 9.5% to $115.2 million, while operating profit climbed 19.3% to $32.1 million.The company also posted stronger bottom-line results, with net income attributable to common shareholders increasing 70.8% to $12.5 million. Diluted earnings per share came in a
$5 million Putt Chip Chill entertainment venue announces North Little Rock opening date
Putt Chip Chill, a new $5 million entertainment venue in North Little Rock, is scheduled to open to the public on Aug. 28.
Emory biophysicist Shashank Shekhar’s research into tiny cellular force generators nets two major federal awards
Emory assistant professor Shashank Shekhar has been awarded $3.5 million in funding for his innovative research focused on how biochemical interactions influence actin, the vital protein responsible for cell structure and movement.
Where Zay Flowers ranks among NFL’s highest-paid wide receivers
Zay Flowers’ $35 million annual salary places the Ravens star in a tie for fourth among the NFL’s highest-paid wide receivers
MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.
Emory biophysicist Shashank Shekar’s research into tiny cellular force generators nets two major federal awards
Emory assistant professor Shashank Shekhar has been awarded $3.5 million in funding for his innovative research focused on how biochemical interactions influence actin, the vital protein responsible for cell structure and movement.
Ocular Therapeutix Reports Second Quarter Revenue, Provides Business Highlights
BEDFORD, Mass.—Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCUL), an integrated biopharmaceutical company in the retina space, has reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026, and provided recent business highlights. Total net revenue was $13.5 million for the second quarter of 2026, flat as compared with the same period in 2025. The company also reported a net loss of $78.8 million for the quarter, compared with a net loss of $67.8 million for the comparable quarter of 2025.
Apartment complex on 606 trail sold for $42M
A new firm led by former LG Development Group executives bought an apartment complex on the 606 trail in Bucktown from their former employer for $41.5 million.
If Not AOC, Then Who?
What do we do if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decides not to run for president in 2028? It makes sense that many leftists are currently focused on calling on her to take the plunge. But the absence of a Plan B, or even much discussion about one, is worrisome. The US Left can’t afford to sit out the 2028 Democratic primary. Doing so in 2024 was a disaster: our abstention self-marginalized anti-billionaire politics from the national conversation and thereby gave space for Harris to pivot to the “center” (i.e. the policy preferences of corporate donors, establishment hacks, and AIPAC). Abstaining again in 2028 would be especially counterproductive since democratic socialists now have so much wind in our sails after our big electoral wins in NYC and across the country. It’s time to deepen our momentum, organization, and profile — not to retreat to the margins during America’s single most important political battle. Even more urgently, keeping Trump’s heir out of the White House may depend on whether leftists and the party’s unprecedentedly disenchanted base can force the Democrats in 2028 to take meaningful steps towards a very angry electorate and away from the corporate-consultant blob that has helped get us into this mess. If AOC (or Abdul El-Sayed) decides to run, we should enthusiastically go all in — DSA, fighting unions, progressive organizations, anybody who wants to see a better country and world. But, as far as I can tell from the outside, there’s a real chance that she doesn’t run. And we can’t just wait and see where she lands before discussing alternatives, since AOC’s decision might not come for quite a while, giving us little time to scramble at the last minute for an alternative. So we should start working now on getting a Plan B into motion, and recruiting a good candidate for the role. Here’s one idea. A Worker Candidate — Healthcare Not Warfare 2028 Run a union worker Leftists don’t need to always run experienced, well-known socialist politicians for high-profile contests. Lula, the current president of Brazil, began his political career as a metalworker militant who ran for governor of São Paulo in 1982. Especially in an era of institutional distrust, it’s possible to lean hard into making a virtue out of a working-class comrade’s distance from traditional politics. Experience abroad shows this clearly. Rachel Kéké — an immigrant hotel housekeeper — ran as the candidate of the leftist La France Insoumise for the National Assembly in 2022, defeating a former minister in the Macron government. The Belgian Workers’ Party in 2024 won its first Flemish seat in the European Parliament by running Rudi Kennes, a three-decade veteran of the Opel Antwerp auto factory. And the South Korean left in 2024 elected auto factory militant Yoon Jong-oh to the National Assembly. If a tiny French Trotskyist organization could make such a big splash in 2002 and 2007 by running a well-spoken postal worker cadre for office — the LCR’s Olivier Besancenot received about 1.5 million first-round votes — it’s not far-fetched to expect that a much larger organization like DSA, together with a broader coalition of the willing, could run this playbook to much greater effect. This is especially the case now that almost everything DSA does immediately becomes a national news story. We don’t need someone famous. We just need a charismatic, well-vetted comrade who works in a relatable working-class occupation — e.g. a nurse, or a worker in auto or construction, or at Amazon. Ideally, they have a compelling personal story or have been part of a significant strike or organizing campaign, but even those criteria don’t necessarily have to be deal-breakers. The main lesson of the Graham Platner fiasco isn’t that we should never run outsiders for office (the momentum he generated proves the exact opposite), but that they need proper vetting and roots in democratic membership organizations like DSA or a union. In any case, there are plenty of ways to signal working-class authenticity without resorting to Platner’s or Fetterman’s performative macho white dude affect. Better to have someone of any gender or race who is actually working class, with firm socialist politics, who can speak from experience about the day-to-day realities of trying to make it in America. There are surely at least a dozen such worker leaders in our movement nationwide; we just need to sit down and convince one that their personal sacrifice for the greater good (i.e. running for president) will be worth it. If we don’t have a frontrunner with a clear path to victory like AOC (or El-Sayed, were he to win Michigan), it’s better to embrace someone whose decision to run in itself tells an important story about US politics: workers have been iced out of our political system and are now fighting hard to break back in. The novelty factor, in itself, would generate press. And it would help democratic socialists signal to the American public that our movement’s defining characteristic is that we represent workers vs. bosses, not that we’re “the furthest left” force in American politics — a framework that suggests we’re extremists and that helps our opponents isolate us from non-college-educated voters by highlighting extremely minoritarian (and misguided) stances included in DSA’s platform like prison abolition. We don’t get many opportunities to speak to tens of millions of Americans; we need to use these opportunities to broaden our appeal beyond those already in our orbit. Run to polarize the 2028 primary and general election around “Medicare for All” and “End All Aid to Israel” Why should democratic socialists use our scarce time and volunteer energy to run in a race we’re unlikely to win? Running in the 2028 primary will not only recruit us scores of members (imagine having a DSA member intervening in eleven nationally televised primary debates!), but — more importantly — it has the potential to be a decisive leap forward towards an America that finally starts meeting the needs of working people instead of HMO and AIPAC billionaire donors. Polarizing litmus tests are good, actually — as long as they’re fought for around popular demands in a thoughtful and strategic way. Democratic socialists have an opportunity and responsibility to make the 2028 primary about two of the most widely and deeply felt issues of our moment: domestically, America’s unaffordable, family-breaking private healthcare system; internationally, America’s bankrolling of the genocidal Israeli government. A candidacy relentlessly demanding Medicare for All and No Aid to Israel would pose a sharp question to the American public, the Democratic Party, and other 2028 contenders: Why can’t working-class Americans afford their healthcare bills at the same time that our government is spending at least $3.8 billion yearly to fund an Israeli regime eager to keep dragging us and the world into more forever wars? Our candidate can agitate around a clear message: I’m running to give voice to all those working-class Americans who are struggling to get by. No matter what state you live in, who you voted for in 2024, or your background, it’s just plain common sense that we should make healthcare more affordable instead of spending billions to enable the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity. Every American who agrees with me when I say ‘Medicare for All — Not a Dime for Israel’ should make their voice heard through our campaign. Racking up a high number of votes for this agenda is a crucial way to show the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that we can’t keep supporting a life-destroying status quo in our healthcare system and in the Middle East. If we want to defeat Trump’s handpicked crony this coming November, we need to speak to ordinary people’s frustrations with the status quo — we can’t keep running the same tired establishment playbook and expecting a different result. For those highly engaged voters (or skeptical media pundits) who raise concerns about wasting votes, the candidate can take the time to explain why this isn’t the case: It's true I'm a long shot. But Zohran showed anything can happen — and voting for me is a pragmatic decision, not a wasted vote. In a heavily divided primary with a large number of candidates and a very discredited establishment, my campaign and the democratic socialist movement I’m part of are positioned to be the balance of power if we can get a large enough number of voters to loudly demand Healthcare Not Warfare. Since there’s a high chance no candidate will get to 50% in the 2028 primaries, the Democrats could very well be heading towards a brokered convention, where a disciplined, principled current committed to breaking from corporate donors can play an outsized role in making sure whoever ends up with the nomination raises the banner of single-payer healthcare and cutting aid to Israel. How exactly could running this sort of primary campaign be translated into actual leverage? The candidate replies: I’m aiming to win the nomination, but if I don’t achieve that goal, my delegates and I will pledge our support in the primary only for a candidate who agrees in the general election to call for ending US aid to Israel and establishing Medicare for All at home. These are both winning planks for November against the Republicans, and the only reason I can see that other candidates haven’t yet raised these is that they’re still more scared of the donor class than they are of the people. That needs to change. If Democratic leaders want young people, workers, and those sick of the status quo to show up in big numbers this November, they need to meet us halfway. In this way, whether or not we win the nomination, democratic socialists could still play a decisive role in 2028. The approach outlined here is similar to what radical left parties periodically do in parliamentary democracies like Denmark or Sweden when they find themselves as a junior partner electorally: they dictate to center-left allies what their terms would be for enabling, from the outside, the formation of a new government. Running a Healthcare Not Warfare candidate will make it significantly more likely that the 2028 Democratic candidate stands with ordinary people instead of donors on these two pivotal planks — a shift that will, in turn, make it easier to achieve the existentially important task of defeating MAGA’s heir in November. Look at how much popular traction the Uncommitted movement got with a similar strategy in 2024 with so little on-the-ground organization — surely we can go much further with a working-class candidate, a much bigger DSA, and a Democratic Party base that has turned against Israel, billionaires, and the hacks in the party who prop them up. Objections and Responses There are quite a few objections to this proposal, many of which are very reasonable. Let me briefly address each here. Socialists shouldn’t waste their scarce time and resources on a candidate unlikely to win. This is a good rule in general, but there are important exceptions, and presidential elections are the main one. There’s no other political contest that gets anything like this level of attention and engagement in the US, so if you want to be a serious force in nationwide politics, you basically can’t afford not to have a candidate. Far from being an overall drain on our resources, running a dynamic 2028 campaign would likely result in a major net increase in members and capacity. In that spirit, the very pragmatic Milwaukee sewer socialists — who mostly ran to win at home in Wisconsin — supported Eugene Debs’s propagandistic presidential campaigns, which they correctly saw as a crucial means of recruiting to the Socialist Party. And now that the (post-1972) Democratic Party gives more weight to voters than party operatives in determining its presidential nomination, it’s become feasible to run as a socialist in primaries without risking a split in the vote against the Republicans in November. We should just support Ro Khanna, who also supports M4A and ending aid to Israel. I like Ro Khanna and would enthusiastically vote and canvass for him for president were he to get the nomination. But there’s a real chance that Khanna’s bid for office doesn’t catch on; he lacks the grassroots organizational apparatus of DSA, and, because he’s not really of the Left or labor (despite his current very good positions), he’s unlikely to generate the type of buy-in and enthusiasm that a DSA candidate would. Moreover, Khanna would be running as an individual, not as someone emerging from and building an organized movement — his campaign would not likely focus on building sustained power from below, nor would it likely polarize the 2028 primary around M4A and Israel aid. Also, and not inconsequentially, the poor electoral results for Tom Steyer and Saikat Chakrabarti this spring suggest that there’s perhaps not much of a popular appetite in the Democrats’ base to support multi-millionaire class traitors. Much better, then, to run a democratic socialist worker. If by Super Tuesday it’s clear that our campaign has captured the main left lane in the primary, Khanna should drop out and endorse us; conversely, if he’s managed to capture this lane, DSA could at that point transform its Healthcare Not Warfare campaign into an independent campaign to elect Ro Khanna focused on winning (and holding him accountable to) those two critical planks. An openness to consolidating an anti-corporate candidate by Super Tuesday is a necessary component of the strategy I’m proposing, because otherwise we risk splitting the primary votes (per DNC rules, you need at least 15% to get any delegates to convention). We should convince Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson to run for president instead. I agree it’d be great if either ran for president, but my impression is that there’s basically no chance that will happen in 2028, because both are firmly focused on their union leadership duties (and, in the case of Fain, beating back a federal witch-hunt). This plan could have DSA end up endorsing a non-socialist, non-DSAer for president. That’s against our principles. It’s a myth, and bad politics, that socialists can’t ever support candidates who aren’t members of their organization and/or who don’t call themselves socialists. Bernie, after all, was not a DSAer. And socialists abroad regularly make tactical decisions about if and when supporting a non-socialist candidate makes sense from the standpoint of promoting working-class interests, defending democracy, and building a socialist current in the process. If your “principles” prevent you and DSA from helping achieve the momentous stride forward of having a Democratic candidate in 2028 run on Medicare for All and ending aid to Israel, those “principles” are not very good. In fact, they actively undermine the causes they’re aiming to support. We shouldn’t confuse principles (working-class independence) with tactics (the best way to advance this in a given context). In my recent article in Catalyst on Milwaukee sewer socialism (I’ve uploaded the full text here), I have a section showing how similarly rigid rules about endorsements had to be eventually discarded in the old Socialist Party nationwide after WWI because they tended to lead socialists towards a sectarian abstention from broader anti-corporate electoral insurgencies beyond their party’s control. For what it’s worth, Lenin’s current under Tsarism frequently backed bourgeois candidates in the second round of elections and Lenin himself advocated that British Communists support Labour Party candidates; for his part, Kautsky in 1912 defended the German Social Democracy’s electoral pact with the Progressives in the runoffs. If our predecessors could be that tactically flexible in an era before the limits of their underlying strategic assumptions about intransigent class politics in capitalist democracies were made clear, then there’s no need to insist on being more tactically rigid today, after a century’s worth of accumulated experience. As long as you maintain your own political profile and organization while engaging in broader coalitional efforts, there’s zero inherent contradiction with the principle of political independence. More specifically: DSA and allied organizations should enthusiastically back Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed if AOC declines to run and he throws his hat in the presidential ring. (I have no idea whether he’s even considering this path, but there’ll surely be chatter about it if he wins his Senate race this November.) Though he doesn’t call himself a socialist, El-Sayed is a principled Berniecrat, a consistent fighter for Palestine, and would have a clear path to victory. Using the “s” word is far less important than whether a campaign fights for the interests of working people at home and abroad — and whether actively participating in it can grow the organized working class and the Left. And the same holds true if a less anti-corporate candidate were, under pressure, to adopt our two Healthcare Not Warfare planks. Why focus only on M4A and ending US aid to Israel? There are so many other important issues to fight for! Obviously there are many pivotal issues beyond healthcare and Israel, and our candidate — and especially our organizations involved in the campaign — should be prepared to speak on all of these. But one of the crucial lessons of the Zohran campaign is that you have to relentlessly stay on message if you want to cut through the noise. CNN and Fox News will want to talk about DSA’s views on Venezuela and abolishing the police; we need to polarize the debate on the widely and deeply felt issues that are most favorable for growing the Left, isolating our opponents, and winning urgently needed changes. One recent poll found 63% of Americans support M4A, even after respondents were told it would raise taxes and eliminate most private insurance. Another found that 74% of Democrats opposed “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” And focusing on two demands sets the campaign up to be able to leverage its mandate to make clear demands upon other candidates (which we can’t do if we run with a laundry list of demands). Talking about a Plan B is a distraction from the more urgent work of building a groundswell of calls on AOC to run. It’s good for DSAers, fightback unionists, and progressive organizations to try to convince AOC to run. This proposal is meant as an addendum to pushes to get AOC to run and to line DSA up for that eventuality, not as a substitute for those efforts. But I’m worried that, like in 2024, we might eventually find ourselves with no time to find a viable alternative unless we start now. DSA, with its abundant deliberative processes, moves slowly. The approach you’re suggesting seems risky. If a DSA candidate runs but doesn’t receive a lot of votes, it’ll undercut our current national momentum. This is a reasonable worry. All big initiatives always carry risks, and the path I’m advocating is certainly not free of these. That said, if a Healthcare Not Warfare campaign doesn’t catch on like we envisioned, it’s a pretty simple pivot in March 2028 to explain that in the future we really need our standard-bearers like AOC, or our growing bench of national electeds, to step up in presidential primaries. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the risk of my Plan B proposal is on the whole significantly less than the risk entailed by an AOC run. We should all back her if she runs, since she’d fire up the base, provide huge openings for organizing, have a real shot at defeating a Republican (especially given MAGA’s unpopularity), be a great standard-bearer for our issues, particularly M4A and ending aid to Israel, and be less willing than mainstream candidates to capitulate to any anti-democratic machinations from Trump and co. But it’s also true that AOC could lose, which would be a devastating setback to the country and the Left. Or she could win and find herself unable to pass much, if any, of her (and our) program, a demoralizing prospect. So if we’re willing to take these risks with AOC (and we should), it follows that we should be able to take lower-level risks if she doesn’t throw her hat in the ring. What’s Your Plan B? The US Left is facing its biggest opening for growth and influence since the 1930s. Initiatives that would have been impossible a few months ago are now potentially feasible. A President AOC is now easier to imagine, but if she ultimately assesses that the risks aren’t worth the potential reward in 2028, we can’t be left flat-footed. So even if you’re not convinced by the specifics of my Plan B, I hope you can at least agree that it’d be a disaster for us not to have one — and not to start getting a Plan B into motion. Hopefully other organizers and political currents will put forward their responses and alternative ideas ASAP. The stakes are too high to just wait and see. More As always, please share this article widely. This newsletter depends on all you lovely people to get the word out. Thank you! I uploaded the full text of my Catalyst article on Milwaukee sewer socialism here (it’s updated and 3x as long as the version published earlier on this substack). If you haven’t yet, please make sure to subscribe to Catalyst here; I read every issue front to back, highly recommend. 🌹🎵 Ivan Lins (arranged by Arthur Verocai) — “General da Banda” 🌹🎵
3.14 Action raises $25 million to elect candidates with STEM backgrounds in 2026
The Democratic National Committee ended June with $18.5 million in debt and just $16.3 million cash on hand
3.14 Action raises $25 million to elect candidates with STEM backgrounds in 2026
The Democratic National Committee ended June with $18.5 million in debt and just $16.3 million cash on hand
'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' scores second-largest global opening ever
"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" swung into the top spot at the box office and scored one of the highest-grossing opening weekends with an estimated haul of $355 million in the
‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ nets second best North American opening ever with $355 million
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has made box office history in its first weekend, becoming the second biggest North American opening ever with $355 million in ticket sales. It was just
‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ nets second best North American opening ever with $355 million
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has made box office history in its first weekend, becoming the second biggest North American opening ever with $355 million in ticket sales.