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Campaign cash keeps coming: $21.8 million and counting pours into Vasquez-Cunningham race
By Kevin Hendricks, The New Mexico News — If you live anywhere between Albuquerque’s South Valley and El Paso and own a TV, you already know somebody really wants your vote in the 2nd Congressional District. Actually, several somebodies – and each has several million dollars. Campaign donors and outside political action committees have spent […]
A biocomputer that runs on bacteria
A McGill-led research team has developed a bacteria-based biocomputer that can solve large, complex problems using a small fraction of the memory and resources required by standard (“solid-state”) computers. Possible applications include encryption, molecular biology and artificial intelligence (AI), the researchers said.
The Live Effect: AEG Research Reveals How Live Entertainment Turns Attention into Action
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 3, 2026--
Just six climate actions could save 1.6 million lives a year, WHO says
The WHO is urging governments to scale up six measures to tackle the health impacts of climate change, saying they could save millions of lives while delivering major economic benefits.
Wells Fargo maintains PENN Entertainment at Equal-Weight, raises price target to $23 from $22
Wells Fargo maintained PENN Entertainment at Equal-Weight and raised its price target to $23 from $22, a 4.5% increase.The price target implies an upside of 32.6% from the Nov 5 close of $17.34.Recent analyst actions on PENN EntertainmentAcross the five most recent analyst notes published on PENN E…
Bulldog Business: Gonzaga Beats Purdue in Season Opener; Reactions and Takeaways
Bulldog Business Podcast: Episode 5
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Arcade announced for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC
Art of Play has announced side-scrolling arcade action adventure game Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Arcade for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC (Steam). A release date was …
How to follow the Champions League on the BBC
The Champions League returns this week and you will be able to listen to commentary and watch highlights of the best of the action on the BBC.
Vida Y Salud-Health Systems & Hampton Regional Medical Center Settle Data Breach Lawsuits
Settlements have been agreed to resolve class action data breach lawsuits against Vida Y Salud-Health Systems & Hampton Regional Medical Center. Vida Settlements have been agreed to resolve class action data breach lawsuits against Vida Y Salud-Health Systems & Hampton Regional Medical Center.
Trump-backed redistricting sought a midterm edge for Republicans. It didn't work
Republicans lost most of the Democratic-held seats they had targeted to flip, lost others they had banked on retaining and got swept out of power by a Democratic surge fueled by voter dissatisfaction with Trump, the economy and the war with Iran.
Preview
The Men's First Team are back in UEFA Europa League action on Thursday, this time facing AZ Alkmaar on Matchday 4 of the League Phase.The clash takes place at 21:00 CET on November 5, with Luciano Spa...
Dan Hurley gives brutal reaction to being given game ball
Say what you will about Connecticut Huskies basketball coach Dan Hurley, but he is never going to win anyone over with a charm offensive. Hurley has been incredibly successful at UConn, but he’s also drawn criticism for his antics and outbursts, especially his treatment of referees. But when it comes to his press conference escapades, Hurley can sometimes…
The social side of digital entertainment: What student media and social casino games reveal about online engagement
Digital entertainment has become an important setting for social interaction, cultural exchange and community participation, as people increasingly use online platforms to follow shared interests and connect with others. A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that 74% of U.S. teens felt social media made them more connected to their friends, highlighting the social...
Patriots Share Mixed Reactions to Tom Brady’s Return
The New England Patriots will have an all-time great return to Gillette Stadium, and head coach Mike Vrabel and quarterback Drake Maye have made their feelings known about the occasion.Patriots legend Tom Brady will return to Foxborough on Sunday, Nov. 8, to call New England’s matchup against the Green Bay Packers as FOX’s lead color […] The post Patriots Share Mixed Reactions to Tom Brady’s Return appeared first on HEAVY.
The Blue Tsunami Swept Doctors and Scientists Into Office
More than 80 percent of congressional candidates backed by the pro-science PAC 314 Action won, including Michigan senator-elect and epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed.
The Daily Mauling: 11/5/26
Kansas Jayhawks News The Topeka Capitol-Journal has Leroy Blyden and Tre White’s reactions to the Fordham win Andy Kotelnick talked to the press and gave his preview of this weekend’s UCF game ICYMI, the women’s hoops team won their season opener over Omaha this week Links! Jacoby Brissett is going to try and save Baltimore’s […]
Avanlee Care, platform for family caregivers, raises $3.5M, targeting Medicare Advantage plans
Avanlee Care, a platform to engage family caregivers, has clinched $3.5 million in seed funding, Fierce Healthcare has learned. | Avanlee Care helps MA plans and other organizations engage caregivers within their member populations, enabling them to take action and measure what happens as a result.
Colman Domingo recalls being ‘the nerd’ to Will Smith’s ‘cool kid’ in high school
“The last interaction I had with him was when I was working at El Torito restaurant,” the Emmy winner revealed.
Sports Business Daily: Executive Transactions
Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment named Joe Giordano Jr. SVP/Entertainment Booking.
When papers become currency: a Chinese debate about trust in science
Last Saturday, 31 October, I went to the University of Hong Kong’s Beijing Centre for its Talent Forum. It was the fourth stop in the series this year, following events in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang, Shenzhen’s Qianhai, and on HKU’s main campus. The programme covered a remarkable distance in one afternoon. HKU’s Xiao-Jing Wang discussed computational neuroscience, intelligence, and the prefrontal cortex—before even delivering his inaugural public lecture to students back in Hong Kong. His colleague Bing Zhang took us from the Big Bang to artificial intelligence. Tsinghua’s Xue Lan asked how AI might reshape the institutional infrastructure underpinning higher education. There were lively panels featuring industry leaders from JD.com, Xiaomi, Haier—and Kaiser Y Kuo on the closing panel discussing innovation and international connections. I cannot pretend to have followed every detail of the brain models or the astrophysics. The talk that stayed with me was closer to something we have covered before: Zhou Zhonghe 周忠和 on papers, evaluation, and scientific trust. Zhou is a palaeontologist, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also editor-in-chief of The Intellectual (知识分子), China’s leading science commentary platform. His subject was uncomfortable enough for a room full of successful academics: what happens when the system for recognising good science starts rewarding something else? Part of my interest came from our sister newsletter, The East is Read, which covered the controversy around “Geng Tongxue” in May. A PhD dropout from Beihang University, Geng has publicly challenged papers by prominent researchers through detailed online allegations of manipulated images and fabricated data. At Tongji University, an investigation into a challenged Nature paper found academic misconduct, and the dean of its life sciences school was removed. The affair brought doubts about academic integrity well beyond laboratories and university committees. How could someone outside the established hierarchy spot problems in papers that had passed through prestigious journals and institutions? And what, exactly, had all that prestige guaranteed? Zhou approached these questions through two essays published in July by The Intellectual: one by Wang Xiaodong, director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, and a response by Wang Liming, of Shanghai’s Shangsi Institute of Natural Sciences. Both began with the controversy over Geng. Their arguments deserve a wider audience, so I want to put parts of them alongside what Zhou said on Saturday. Wang Xiaodong’s starting point is evolution. A research system selects for the behaviour it rewards. Grants, jobs, journals, talent programmes, and prizes collectively determine which scientists prosper and which practices get passed down from advisors to students. “Whatever the system rewards is what it will evolve to produce,” he writes, citing the ancient Chinese saying: The King of Chu loved slender waists, and many in the palace starved to death. That is a more demanding diagnosis than saying there are dishonest people in science. Punishing a fraudster does not change the selective environment that made a particular kind of research profitable. His account also gives scientific success an awkward role in the story. As Zhou put it on Saturday, science became a victim of its own success. Once research became central to industry, national power, and economic growth, universities and laboratories expanded, and public money followed. That created an administrative need for rapid decisions: who should get the next grant, the next laboratory, the next appointment? The difficulty is that the true value of a discovery may take years or decades of testing and building to become clear. Resource allocation cannot wait that long. Publication counts, journal prestige, impact factors, and citations therefore become convenient ways to make an instant judgement. “The real problem is not that these indicators have no value,” Wang Xiaodong writes, “but that they are trying to answer a question that only time can answer.” Telling administrators simply to stop counting papers will never be enough. They still have budgets to distribute and appointments to make. Something has to replace the shortcut. Zhou described the consequences inside publishing. Papers acquire ever more requirements: a complete story, polished presentation, extensive datasets, and accessibility to readers beyond the immediate field. Individually, those demands sound reasonable. Together, he warned, they produce formulaic “eight-legged” papers 八股文 and rigid reviewing, while genuinely original or non-consensus work struggles to get past journal editors—some of whom wield immense gatekeeping power despite having limited laboratory experience themselves. Meanwhile, the demands for sprawling, “complete” narratives have fuelled a wider replication crisis. Wang Xiaodong uses a mahjong metaphor to describe the result: put the complex papers published by the exact same lab over several years side by side, and they often look like “Thirteen Orphans” (十三不靠)—every tile completely unrelated to the next, and none of them reproducible by outsiders. Zhou also spoke frankly as an editor who has trouble finding reviewers. Everyone wants someone else to review their work; qualified senior researchers have little time to return the favour. The labour is anonymous, unpaid, and brings almost no institutional recognition, so it increasingly gets passed down to postdocs and graduate students. And while anonymity protects reviewers from rank and personal favours, hyper-specialisation means an author’s most qualified reviewer is often a direct competitor, shielded from accountability. The protection and the problem coexist. Wang Liming takes the argument a step further. The decisive change, in his essay, is the instant conversion of academic honour into material resources. Once a paper can be cashed in for funding, a job, students, commercial investment, or even a company valuation, scientists are alienated from their work: they must keep minting this “research currency” to keep their teams alive. He is careful not to romanticise the past. The old world of gentleman scientists—financially independent figures like Boyle and Darwin who needed nothing from external funders—was also a closed club that excluded people without inherited wealth, women, and much of humanity outside the West. Professional science allowed ordinary people, himself included, to become researchers. Nobody should want to undo that. The problem, in his account, is an exchange system that becomes too uniform and too difficult to correct. His most pointed Chinese example is the “hat” (帽子): the prestigious talent designation that brings continuing access to money, laboratory space, students, and institutional influence. “If papers are the circulating currency of the research system, then a ‘hat’ is a bond that pays interest over the long term,” he writes. A paper at least requires another round of peer review. A title in the Chinese context can lock in a judgement made years ago and turn it into permanent status rent, regardless of whether its holder is still doing good science. Here, official institutions hire, organise, and evaluate scientists. Unlike honours awarded by autonomous academic communities in the West, a Chinese “hat” blends non-scientist administrative power with state authority. Once granted, it turns a past judgement into permanent status rent that is nearly impossible to revoke—because taking a hat off would imply that official authority erred in putting it on. Both Wangs see China as experiencing, at compressed speed, pressures present across global science. Research expansion, rising investment, publication growth, and elaborate evaluation metrics arrived in China within two or three decades rather than two or three centuries. Zhou agreed with that international framing—noting that recent US White House science policy documents and the new president of the US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow palaeontologist who recently visited Zhou’s institute in Beijing, have raised strikingly similar warnings about consensus-bound peer review, short-term project grants, and the replication crisis. Still, Zhou emphasised that China’s traditional hierarchy, personal networks (guanxi), and the ethos that “a good scholar becomes an official” (学而优则仕) amplify those pressures at home. So what would change things? Here Zhou’s tone differed from the call for a revolution in scientific trust in Wang Xiaodong’s essay. As an evolutionary biologist, Zhou favoured patchwork repair (修修补补). Living systems survive through accumulated adjustments; dramatic mutations are usually fatal. Science cannot return to a small, slow-moving pastoral era, especially after the successive accelerations of professionalisation after the Second World War, the internet, and now artificial intelligence. But it can alter the local environment in which researchers work. He pointed to domestic experiments designed to support unconventional research and diversify funding, including Tencent’s New Cornerstone Investigator Program, the Xplorer Prize, and the Future Science Prize. He also mentioned participating in reviews for “major non-consensus projects” under the National Natural Science Foundation of China. One guiding principle he recalled was wonderfully direct: “Failure is allowed; corruption is not” (允许失败，不允许腐败). That distinction would mean quite a lot if taken seriously. An honest attempt that fails should not have to disguise itself as a success to survive an assessment. Wang Liming’s essay adds a sharp caveat to the optimism about new domestic funders. Multiple organisations do not automatically produce multiple ways of judging science. If the same pool of senior domestic scientists makes the decisions through the same two-round review procedures, it is still “fake diversity.” He argues for three distinct kinds of money: broad baseline funding governed by fair procedures; patient funding for questions that take ten years; and non-consensus funding based on individual taste, deliberately empowering a few genuine experts to make biased, contrarian bets on eccentric ideas that would inevitably be averaged out by a committee. Replacing one monopoly with another achieves little; a healthy ecosystem needs variance. Zhou’s proposals for publishing were similarly concrete: strip papers of their resource-allocation burden and return them to recording discoveries and establishing priority; separate dissemination from evaluation, as eLife and Peer Community In do; adopt more modular “micro-publications” and real-name endorsements; recognize the labour of editors and reviewers; and give replication work proper credit rather than treating it as an unpublishable dead end. AI makes every part of this debate more urgent—and Zhou wove it throughout his talk. In his own preparation, he used AI to survey the declining influence of academic monographs, noting how tools are already changing how scholars gather information. More fundamentally, he placed AI as the latest great acceleration in scientific history: just as the internet sped up the pace of research and tightened external resource pressures, AI is compressing the cycle again. In the essays Zhou cited, AI cuts both ways. Wang Xiaodong expects large language models to erase much of the English-writing disadvantage long faced by Chinese scientists, further swelling the flood of papers coming out of Chinese labs. Wang Liming sees AI accelerating both ends of the trust crisis: it lowers the cost of paper mills and fabricated images just as quickly as it lowers the cost of automated image forensics, data auditing, and code reproduction. “Whoever builds the verification layer wins,” Wang Liming writes. His proposed alternative to the static, packaged “story paper” is a continuously versioned “unit of discovery” containing a falsifiable claim, raw data, analysis code, experimental parameters, and an ongoing log of independent checks—where negative results and failed replications are recorded rather than buried. Zhou ended his keynote by bringing AI back to the question of scientific honour and credit. Citing a recent Intellectual discussion on “What AI Means for Mathematics” featuring Fields Medalist Deng Yu 邓煜—at a moment when AI is already batch-solving mathematical conjectures, as HKU Vice-President Lin Chen noted in his opening remarks—Zhou agreed that human researchers must remain the principal agents: AI is a tool that frees scientists from tedious calculation to think about deeper, messier real-world problems. Yet that partnership creates a thorny new evaluation problem. When a breakthrough is made with AI, what is the human contribution and what is the machine’s? And since AI models distil centuries of accumulated human scholarship, is it right that the credit and value flow so heavily to the private AI companies building the tools? The old struggle over how to assign scientific honour is acquiring a whole new layer. What I took away was a serious discussion of how science can remain trustworthy as its scale, incentives, and tools change. These were scientists with real standing inside China’s system questioning how that standing is produced, and proposing changes that would affect their own institutions and peers. That made the afternoon at HKU’s Beijing Centre worthwhile. At the close, Wang Feng, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at HKU, said the value of the forum series—which heads to Hangzhou in December and cities like Chengdu early next year—would lie in the real cooperation it helped bring about. The university has plenty to celebrate: this week it topped the QS Asia rankings for a second consecutive year, alongside its 11th-place position in the QS World University Rankings 2027. For me, bringing this debate to an audience beyond the people who review papers and allocate grants was a useful contribution. Share [ The East is Read PhD dropout’s exposé forces an academic fraud reckoning in China A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China’s academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media… Read more 5 months ago · 43 likes · 8 comments · Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/phd-dropouts-expose-forces-an-academic?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=47580)
Atlético v Santa Cruz: Galo's young guns in action today!
Atlético vs Santa Cruz – November 4 (Wednesday) – 3 PMTournament: Copa do Brasil Venue: Arena MRVBroadcast: SporTvMatch Guide: Atlético vs Santa Cruz
Fate/EXTRA Record characters trailer
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Hensley is back at Carter Fold this Saturday night
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Macquarie maintains Flutter Entertainment at Outperform, lowers price target to $120 from $128
Macquarie maintained Flutter Entertainment at Outperform and lowered its price target to $120 from $128, a 6.2% decrease.The price target implies an upside of 46.7% from the Nov 4 close of $81.79.Recent analyst actions on Flutter EntertainmentAcross the five most recent analyst notes published on F…
1K views · 26 reactions | Many female politicians say open hostility...
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Sports media world reacts to polarizing first College Football Playoff ranking
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Hinge Health revenue jumps 52% in Q3 as it expands beyond MSK, eyes hardware acquisitions
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Where to watch AZ Alkmaar-Juventus in the Europa League
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Apple Rumored to Drop the iPhone's Action Button Next Year
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iOS 27.3 expands Siri AI to these new languages
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A tiny squeeze dramatically changes the magnetism of exotic materials
Scientists have discovered that a simple mechanical squeeze can dramatically alter the magnetic properties and electrical behavior of exotic materials called altermagnets. The surprising breakthrough could open the door to faster, more energy-efficient electronics and new technologies for quantum computing.
Taking action: One Health planning in Malawi and Ghana - WOAH - World Organisation for Animal Health
One Health planning in Malawi and Ghana is turning shared priorities into costed plans for human, animal and environmental health.
First iOS 27.3 and macOS Golden Gate 27.3 Public Betas Now Available
Apple today seeded the first betas of iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, macOS Golden Gate 27.3, tvOS 27.3, and watchOS 27.3. The new software comes two days after Apple released the betas for developers. iOS 27.3 is a major update that adds a Vertical Tabs layout option and Adaptive Dark Mode for Safari. Siri AI can do more in and across Apple's apps, and developers are now able to create actions for Siri to carry out.
AI boosts operational efficiency but not systemic climate action, global study finds
Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely promoted as a tool for sustainable development, but whether its operational gains translate into deeper ecological transformation remains uncertain. A new global assessment examines how AI diffusion relates to seven core United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), covering health, education, clean energy, industry and infrastructure, sustainable cities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action. It also explores the channels behind
Elon Musk's millions fail to deliver Texas for the Republicans
The billionaire's political action committee (Pac) contributed $47m (£35m) to Ken Paxton's campaign.
Here’s how to watch Ohio State women’s basketball vs Central Michigan for free
The Ohio State women are back in action tonight at The Schott. Here’s everything you need to know to stream the game vs. Central Michigan.
Bernstein maintains Flutter Entertainment at Market Perform, lowers price target to $100 from $110
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Commentary: Shift the wildfire spending to damage prevention, not just reaction
While a fire may be burning two states away, the smoke still arrives, settling over neighborhoods and dimming skylines. School administrators move recess indoors, and outdoor work slows or stops.
Lawsuits likely over Washington’s ban on trans girls in sports
At least one progressive advocacy group is exploring legal action over a ballot measure set to pass in Washington state that would ban transgender girls from girls’ school sports.
The best new Christmas movies to watch on Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and more
From festive rom-coms to action flicks, this year's holiday lineup has something for everyone — with the Hallmark Channel alone unveiling 34 new movies.
Triumphal Arch Set to Win Final Approval Despite Court Challenges
President Trump’s 250-foot arch project is expected to win approval on Thursday from a federal planning board. Court action and Democrats’ upcoming control of Congress could halt the plans.
Scorpions Biopic 'Wind of Change' Sets Release Via Roadside Attractions
The Fox Entertainment Global and ESX Entertainment movie 'Wind of Change' about the rise of hit rock band Scorpions is getting a spring 2027 release through Roadside Attractions.
Clover Health boosts outlook amid continued membership growth, financial momentum in Q3
Clover Health is continuing to see strong traction in its Medicare Advantage plan, with membership growing 49% year-over-year in the third quarter to approximately 157,000 members. | The company posted $130 million in profit, up 77% year-over-year, according to Q3 2026 financial results.
As local post-production dwindles, a Burbank studio makes cuts
Southern California's post-production industry has been reeling from an unprecedented industry contraction, partly due to the flight of filming to other states and countries.
Luka Doncic drops incredibly humble reaction to recent scoring blitz
LOS ANGELES – To say Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic is on a hot streak would be an understatement. The early MVP candidate has been averaging 39.6 points in his last five games. That includes games of 52, 45 and 41 points. The Lakers have gotten off to a 5-2 start to the season with Doncic leading the way, but if you ask him, the offensive […] The post Luka Doncic drops incredibly humble reaction to recent scoring blitz appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Jadarian Price does little in return from injured reserve
Jadarian Price was held to just 37 yards on 12 combined touches in what was his first game action since Week 3.
Real Deals: 4 car washes sell for $22.68 million
Four tunnel car washes totaling 16,995 square feet in Benton and Washington counties recently changed hands in separate transactions totaling $22.68 million. The purchase price equals $1,336 per square foot....
Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Could Be 35% Undervalued Following Brazil Impairment ಸುದ್ದಿ
Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT) put fresh numbers on the table with its third quarter 2026 update, pairing higher reported sales with a wider net loss and a sizeable impairment tied to its Brazil operations. The share price reaction has been sharp. Flutter Entertainment closed at US$81.79, with the 1 day share price return declining 2.33% after the earnings and impairment news, even though the 7 day and 30 day share price returns rose 4.15% and 8.00% respectively. That short burst of buying...
Saints vs. Browns Prediction: Back after the Bye
The Saints are back in action after the bye.
Ex-FanDuel executive to lead Empire State Building’s observatory business
Tourist attraction sees third-quarter attendance drop 26% as income falls 41%
Next year’s iPhone Pro redesign will drop an important button, per leak
Apple is rumored to have a big iPhone redesign coming next year, and per a new leak, it may come with the loss of the Action button.
Sylvester Stallone reveals why his 20-year feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger finally ended: ‘Enough of this’
The ‘80s action movie icons eventually joined forces for “The Expendables.”
El-Sayed Celebrates ‘an America Big Enough for All of Us’
In Michigan, Adbul El-Sayed outlasted former Representative Mike Rogers in a Senate campaign marred by ugly attacks.
LSU and Texas Southern meet for non-conference showdown
Texas Southern Tigers (0-1) at LSU Tigers (1-0)Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Friday, 8 p. ESTBOTTOM LINE: LSU and Texas Southern square off in non-conference action.
WHAT THE TECH? Politics and AI
How do we protect children using AI? Who’s responsible when an AI assistant takes an unauthorized action? And how do we protect essential services as hackers gain access to increasingly
DAZN Pulse: Miami wins college football's bizarre Midterm Elections
Miami Hurricanes take center stage in college football’s bizarre midterm elections, with the latest headlines, analysis and reaction. Read more at DAZN News.
Babson Students Get Down to Business · Babson Thought & Action
From succulents to custom chess pieces, Babson students launch real businesses while learning entrepreneurship and problem solving.
What CVS Health (CVS) Said on Its Q3 Earnings Call
CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) plans to separate its retail pharmacy operations from its insurance and pharmacy services businesses, creating two publicly traded companies in a transaction expected to close in the first half of 2028. The announcement came as the company reported third-quarter 2026 revenue o
Jailer 2 is a Rajini spectacle that guarantees complete entertainment
Nelson Dilipkumar’s Jailer 2 exceeds its predecessor with an array of situational comedies, explosive action sequences and a tribute to Superstar Rajinikanth.
Bears-Seahawks Monday Night Football: Overreaction Or Not?
The Monday Night Football game between the Seattle Seahawks and Chicago Bears produced some shocking results. Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams moved the ball at will on that vaunted Seahawks defense and scored 34 points. It was the most points Seattle had surrendered all season. I have three takeaways from the game, and I’ll decide […] The post Bears-Seahawks Monday Night Football: Overreaction Or Not? appeared first on Stadium Rant.
'Hopefully things get done': Americans react to historic political shift
The BBC spoke to voters from different states for their reaction to Democrats taking control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
‘It Changed Science Fiction’: Hunter Schafer on Her Fave Sci-Fi Film
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Assassin's Creed Valhalla adds two Xbox achievements with New Game+ update
If you thought you were done with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, think again. The New Game+ Update adds two more Xbox achievements to the action-RPG.
'Stranger Things' prequel 'Other Worlds' coming to Netflix in 2028
Netflix announced "Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure," a new, live-action prequel and spinoff series to "Stranger Things" coming in 2028.
Postgame Reaction: There’s No Excusing These Avalanche Performances
This is bad. The Colorado Avalanche’s 9-6-1 record isn’t the issue. It’s a fine place to be after 16 games […]
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, to Divest CDMO Business to Lonza
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Merck to Divest CDMO Business to Lonza
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Democratic doctors win big in 2026 midterm elections
A political action group says Congress now has a new mandate against Health Secretary RFK Jr.
The Live Effect: AEG Research Reveals How Live Entertainment Turns Attention into Action
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HONOR Magic9 Pro Max First Look – ARRI Color Science at a Fraction of the Price
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Hurricanes 5 (EN), Islanders 3: Decent comeback, indecent ending
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Wells Fargo maintains Live Nation Entertainment at Overweight, lowers price target to $221 from $222
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$2 Million Settlement Resolves Covenant Health Data Breach Lawsuit
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Past White House adviser Raj Panjabi has written a playbook for 'living room' crises
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How to watch Wisconsin’s home game on Friday evening
The Badgers are back in action on Friday evening.
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AFGHS co-signatory countries ask health care users to help fill the financing gap
Hundreds of thousands of Ugandans living with HIV on antiretrovirals could be targeted for user fees or community health insurance schemes requiring modest premium payments, according to the April 2026 version of the country’s America First Global Health Strategy implementation narrative.1 As part of the “sustainable financing for the private not for profit sector” strategy, 491 facilities will be targeted for a phased introduction of user fees and scale up of community health insurance programs.2 In the Ugandan context, PNFP facilities include faith-based hospitals and other health facilities, US missionary organizations and centers of excellence—services that are often co-located at government facilities but run with additional financial and technical resources. 402,000 people—or about 28 percent of the total Ugandan adult PLHIV population on treatment—get ART from the private not for profit sector. The selected facilities provide the majority of ART and prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) services. The plan doesn’t give the total number of clients served by the 491 facilities, so it is not possible to give a precise number. But the majority of 402,000 is a figure in the hundreds of thousands—hence the estimate I’m using.3 The April draft of the Ugandan implementation plan narrative is the only one I’ve been able to review. But the government of Uganda is not alone in turning to health care users to help fill the financing gaps caused by the abrupt withdrawal of US funds. In July 2025, the Government of Liberia introduced user fees for previously free services including “registration, accommodation, patient feeding, hospitalization, and a wide range of surgical and diagnostic procedures.”4 Earlier that year, Liberia rolled out a revolving drug fund designed to stabilize drug supplies by “allowing patients to pay a small fee for standardized, quality medications,” according to a Ministry of Health press release.5 (Both of these approaches had been proposed in the National Health Policy 2022-2031; media coverage explicitly connects the launch with the US foreign aid cuts.) The health financing strategies proposed by Uganda and established in Liberia are qualitatively different from user fees officially adopted by specific health facilities to cover funding shortfalls caused by the new US approach.6 The latter is a stopgap, adhoc change. The former is a national governmental adoption of policies that pass costs on to health care users, despite evidence that such approaches can exacerbate inequities and leave deficits unfilled. Two countries does not make a pattern, but they do point to urgent questions: Have other countries, including Liberia, included user fees or community health insurance schemes in their implementation plans? If so, do any of these narratives have what Uganda’s lacks: a fall-back plan in place in case these strategies for sustainable health systems fail to deliver—as they have before? I wonder if you think about it Subscribe Predictable pitfalls Both community-based health insurance and user fees are as old as the hills. And after decades of people climbing up these hills, duking it out, climbing back down—neither strategy has shown the results the Ugandan implementation plan is counting on. This is, in fact, a hill some folks are willing to die on. (You knew I’d get there, right?) In November 2025, an African-led team of health system experts published a paper directed at low- and middle income country governments trying to figure out how to create self-sustaining health systems. The money wasn’t coming back. It had been more than nine months since the season of freezing, waivering and wood-chippering; two months since AFGHS tumbled into the world touting co-financing requirements and reductions in future US government health aid. Governments were looking for strategies for sustainable, self-financed health systems, the authors wrote. For countries considering user fees and community health insurance to fill the financing gaps, they had a simple message: Don’t. On user fees, the paper states: “Reliance on user fees is ultimately a regressive and inequitable approach. It places a disproportionate burden on the poor and undermines health system goals of equity and financial protection. […] There is overwhelming evidence that user fees mobilise very limited resources for the public health sector, making it an inefficient mechanism for revenue mobilisation.” On community health insurance: “Attempting to shift the burden of funding previously donor-funded services, such as HIV care and management, and TB treatment, onto contributory schemes would exacerbate their fragility and fail to protect the population.”7 The WHO says that community-based health insurance “cannot be expected to provide a major source of funding or coverage,” and noted that most schemes offer only moderate benefit to individuals paying into them, and exclude the poorest segment of the population.8 And yet, the US-Ugandan implementation plan says that community health insurance is “the central pillar of this [PNFP] sustainability strategy” and that this approach that will generate “pre-paid pooled funding at facility and community level [that] improves financial risk protection for households, reduces catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure, and generates structured, transparent revenue streams that can progressively absorb recurrent costs including health worker salaries.” Unfortunately, Uganda’s own history suggests the pillar might not be able to bear this weight. Ugandans Have Been to this Rodeo Before—and Some Want Their Money Back Uganda introduced its first community health insurance scheme in 1996 with support from international donors.9 Thirty years later, somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 percent of the population is covered by CHI; just over 1 percent has any kind of health insurance.10 User fees were universally introduced in 1993 as a condition of a World Bank loan.11 They were abandoned in 2001, and in 2004—the year I moved to Uganda to watch the free HIV program get underway—a definitive study found that the fees did not improve health systems and outcomes.12 In 2004, most clinics and hospitals had ‘free’ and ‘fee for service’ options for getting care.13 The fee for service, or “cash and carry” programs had often been established in the years prior to PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. People who could afford to paid for the drugs, often at facilities in the private-not-for-profit (PNFP) sector. When free drugs arrived, some people who’d been paying kept on doing so, perhaps because of shorter wait times, greater confidentiality, convenience or other factors. But in the year that I spent visiting the same clinics around the country week after week—including a “center of excellence” that maintained separate days for cash and carry clients and those accessing free ARVs—lots of people who had been paying tried to switch to the free option. They’d paid because they had no other choice. They’d sold pieces of family land, begged family members for loans, bought pills by the week, and sometimes by the day. Or they were just cash-strapped, like most of us, and wanted the funds for other things. 14 Twenty-two years later, this hasn’t changed. Ugandans pay out of pocket for 30-40 percent of their health care costs, leading one paper to declare that “falling ill is more than a health crisis. It is a financial emergency.”15 One recent study found that up to 48.5 percent of households dealing with tuberculosis sold something, took out a loan or dug into savings to defray the costs of TB care—which is supposed to be universally free.16 The Ugandan implementation plan does anticipate challenges. It proposes a phased approach, with 187 facilities introducing user contribution systems in Year 1, 152 in Year 2, and 153 in Year 3. Willingness to pay and feasibility studies will precede roll out; fees will be tiered by region, and a waiver system is proposed to ensure that no one has to pay who is unable to. Moreover, the plan provides for quarterly reviews of epidemiological data to “ensure that user contributions do not compromise epidemic control gains, ART continuity for the client cohort, TB case management, or PMTCT services.” Alt text: A screenshot of a table included in the implementation plan narrative that is the subject of this stack. It’s got a fetching pink bar at the top. It uses the abbreviation “CHI” which is Community Health Insurance, and FBO which is Faith Based Organizations, and it details the number of facilities that will implement user fees with waivers and community health insurance schemes over the five years of the agreement. As I said in the footnote, this is a super interesting document with a lot of other rich material. Tell me what you see—and what you would have focused on. And if you’ve seen something like this, or anything else that strikes you, in another implementation plan, tell me that too. You can use the Substack message platform or try me on Signal at @endaplague_again.25 (because @mercoonfan was, weirdly, taken). But the plan doesn’t fully explain what will happen if this approach doesn’t work out. Yes, progress will be monitored, and corrective action triggered. However, there is no specified funding replacement if premium and fee revenue prove inadequate. Instead, the authors write, “Currently, COEs serve a total client cohort of over 180,000 across 28 facilities. In the initial years, the U.S. Government (USG) will provide financial support for clients; over time, user fees generated by COEs will become the primary source of funding for sustaining their services.” Failure does not really seem to be an option. Health insurance schemes are more acceptable to the Ugandan population than user fees. Members of Parliament and civil society traveled to Ethiopia to see how that country’s scheme worked. In a follow up report, a veteran civil society group recommended allowing the “health insurance ecosystem to grow organically and [to] keep reviewing the law and regulations as this growth takes root.”17 One study found that more than three-quarters of Ugandans were willing to join a health insurance program.18 However, coverage of community-based health insurance is minimal, as is coverage of any kind of insurance—including private plans.19 A national health insurance scheme bill has been stalled for several years and presently sits with President Yoweri Museveni.20 Community-based health insurance scheme that do exist are expanding in number, but losing enrollees. Between 2022 and 2026, the number of community-based health financing schemes across the country increased by 42 percent, while the number of people enrolled decreased by nearly 11 percent.21 None of this means that community-based health insurance should not happen in Uganda—or that people do not want insurance. It doesn’t even mean that user fees and waivers won’t ever work. But there is highly relevant evidence from Uganda and the surrounding region that it is quite optimistic to describe community health insurance and user fees as central supports for sustainable financing in any sector of the health system. And now for the best-case scenario In the best-case scenario22, the Ugandan approach does exactly what it sets out to do, and so does the Liberian fee structure and revolving pharmacy fund—though I’ve not confirmed that these are in the MoU. In one best-case scenario, Uganda is an outlier, and user fees and community health insurance are not recurrent pillars of self-sustaining financing in other countries’ implementation plans. In another best-case scenario, all countries that include these strategies enjoy success beyond anyone’s evidence-informed wildest dreams: reliable funding generated by health care users fees, great health care outcomes for everyone, no exacerbation of inequities, no crippling household debt. No sold land, repurposed school tuition or high-interest loans. In the best-case scenario, not one of the hundreds of thousands of Ugandans living with HIV receiving antiretrovirals from 491 PNFP facilities misses a refill or leaves care because of user fees or community health insurance premiums. This is the best-case scenario for these people for their own health, and for their families. It is also the best-case scenario if Uganda wants to stay on the path to eliminating HIV as a public health threat. According to the country’s most recent data, 96.5 percent of people living with HIV on antiretrovirals are virologically suppressed. Epidemic control depends ensuring that 95% of people living with HIV know their status, 95 percent of those individuals are on ART, and 95% of those individuals are virologically suppressed. Uganda is still struggling with the first “95"—a frankly abysmal 85.3 percent. If HIV epidemic control and the attendant prevention of new infections, avoidable suffering and premature death matter, the country cannot afford to lose any clients who are currently in care.23 As I write this a couple hours before the polls close for the US elections in the city I live in, I say with soul-deep sincerity: I am rooting for the best-case scenario. I think it’s safe to say that we all are.24 I think it’s also safe to say that if the US and co-signatory governments have inked plans that lead to successful expansion of community health insurance and strategic use of user fees, we all would like to know, now, so that we don’t miss the opportunity to celebrate when success happens. The implementation plan narratives have to enter the public domain. They are the fullest expression of a strategy co-created by two governments. There are assumptions and details that people living in the US and co-signatory countries need to understand that are not available in the MoUs or, to date, in the Congressional Notifications. Some of these details can help other countries that are, as I write this, still working on implementation plans. Others, like a solid count of how many other countries have plans for expanding user fees or health insurance, are important for regional and global health architecture reform initiatives. No matter how this election night turns out, there will be a slew of new Congressional member orientations, briefings and talking points papers in the next few months. Release of implementation narratives should be a bullet point in every context that AFGHS is discussed. These documents can be redacted so that procurement sensitive information isn’t disclosed. There is much more historical precedent for sharing such documents than there is for relying on user fees to fill health financing gaps. Let’s look at the information together so we can hope for the best and prepare for, you know, the other thing. Alt text: A substack first: a bicep selfie! It’s my arm - peachy-white skin, black shirt (flannel, notch neck, too hot for this appallingly balmy November weather, if you’re wondering) and a sticker that says I VOTED 2026. Beige letters on red for I voted. Beige on blue for 2026. You bet I did.25 In your wildest dreams. Subscribe 1 This is a really, really rich 95 page document. There are fascinating ideas and detailed plans in it. It is all worth reading AND I have, in this post, highlighted an instance of content that could pose challenges and certainly posits success of strategies that haven’t worked before. I would love to hear what readers’ see that’s interesting and should be lifted up as something to check for in other implementation plans. I will also shortly be adding a static page to the substack site where implementation plan documents will live. I will put the url into this footnote and it will also be there on emilybass.substack.com by the end of the week. Uganda Implementation Narrative Section 4 April 22 2026 Draft 1.51MB ∙ PDF file Download Download 2 User fees are costs charged for visits, labs, medicines or other health services, usually at the time they are provided. Community health insurance, or community-based health insurance, is what the World Health Organization calls “micro insurance,” which is health insurance targeted at low-income people. 3 As usual (by which I mean always), please prove me wrong. 4 https://smartnewsliberia.com/liberias-ministry-of-health-announces-2025-hospital-service-fees-for-public-facilities/?utm 5 https://moh.gov.lr/news/2025/grand-cape-mount-leaders-residents-embrace-new-community-pharmacy-program/?utm 6 https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/09/hiv-usaid-pepfar-africa-foreign-aid-cuts-mission-hospitals/?utm 7 https://gh.bmj.com/content/10/11/e021270 8 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/community-based-health-insurance-CBHI 9 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2827475/ 10 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10861328/#b3-jpmph-23-110 11 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC527704/ 12 Same citation as the footnote 2 - the article is called “Learning from failed health care reform in Uganda.” To which I say: If only. If. Only. 13 There is a whole taxonomy of user fees to be aware of, if not commit to memory. Out of pocket costs are everything that someone pays for themselves. In this Stack, user fees are planned and policy-supported out of pocket costs. There are also out of pocket costs that people pay to buy drugs or receive tests or health care assessments that would be free if the drugs were on the shelves, or the machines or kits were available, or the staff were on site. A user fee is usually designed to be modest, pegged to willingness to pay, and may be waiveable at the point of care for anyone who is unable to do so. The costs for things that would otherwise be free are whatever the market will bear and people either have to pay them or go without. Out of pocket costs for services and stuff that aren’t available in public facilities are different again from bribes or unofficial fees that some health workers may impose, even though most are indefatigable, tireless and tired, and devoted to their clients. 14 For the record—which really is these footnotes—I would give a whole stack of fridge magnets for a systematic analysis of the economic and social impact of the Mass Unemployment Event in AFGHS countries among the very people who used to be able to afford and cover user fees, both for themselves and vast family networks. Locally employed USAID technical staff, house cleaners, caregivers, drivers and technicians were financial anchors for cousins, friends, friends’ children, friends’ childrens’ cousins, teachers, pastors, neighbors and so many other kinds of kin. Aid recipients lost direct funding; many other people who had not been aid recipients, but parts of the elaborate care webs that function as safety nets for so many people, lost crucial support too. And that’s even before we get to the people who worked at the hotels and restaurants and bars where people employed by the US and its implementing partners used to spend disposable income. Those businesses have lost revenue; those folks have lost jobs. It will be some time coming—and someone will have to fund this work—but I do hope it happens. And I hope, as usual, to be proven wrong. 15 https://eprcug.org/blog/how-out-of-pocket-healthcare-costs-keep-driving-ugandans-into-poverty/ 16 Another straight-to-the-point journal article title. Households experiencing catastrophic costs due to tuberculosis in Uganda: magnitude and cost drivers. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32938411 17 https://www.cehurd.org/download/technical-policy-brief-on-community-health-insurance-scheme/?wpdmdl=13661&refresh=6ae9122f5d4ed1793659439 18 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10125197/ 19 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10861328/#b3-jpmph-23-110 20 https://ugandapost.news/uganda-to-make-health-insurance-mandatory-by-2026/ 21 https://shu.org.ug/download/235 22 With a nod, tip of the stack hat, and wag of the Mercoon tail to a deeply valued reader who told me that I have a tendency to speculate about the worst-case scenarios a little too much of the time. 23 https://news.mak.ac.ug/2026/10/uphia-2025-shows-ugandas-hiv-status-awareness-gap-despite-strong-treatment-outcomes/ As you’ll see in the next footnote, I’ve already written a subSubstack on another topic, so I will be brief with regard to the study referenced in this article. The Uganda Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment, or UPHIA, will never happen in this way again. For more than a decade, PHIAs have been supported by the US government as a way to generate accurate estimates of country progress on key HIV indicators. They are a holdover from the PEPFAR program that was laser focused on ensuring US taxpayer dollars subsidized progress in pandemic control. There may be other population-level surveys and the data may even be publicly released, as the entire set of FY2026 MER data have not. But PHIAs will never happen again. If you’re wondering whether the estimates of HIV progress at country level might get less reliable….you’re not alone. 24 Ooh baby, I hate “we” in almost all forms. But sometimes I go there, when I am looking for company, which I am. Because this Stack moves into the somewhat-uncharted territory of assessing what the implementation plan narratives may suggest about co-signatory countries’ roles and responsibilities to the people living within their borders. The MoUs, specimen and data sharing agreements were templates. Countries’ answers fit into pre-specified questions that did not include, “how are you going to fill financing gaps and stabilize your health system as this plan unfolds?” In contrast, the implementation narratives are open form—the product of co-creation between the two governments. Co-creation can mean lots of things, but nothing leads me to believe that implementation plans are ghost-written by the US government, or that contents were imposed by the US counterparts. Instead, I think the parts of the plans that read like country government initiatives are endorsed, if not initiated by, those governments. For instance, the Ugandan implementation plan narrative describes plans for revenue-generation through fees charged for equipment calibration, repair and maintenance provided through Uganda’s National Equipment Calibration Laboratory, and laboratory accreditation through the Uganda National Accreditation Service (UGANAS), targeting private sector, PNFP, research and academic clients. That’s super specific and also quite ambitious. It doesn’t read like an American idea. There’s also a provision for solar panels, and other stuff that feels country owned and driven. This is where it gets interesting. If co-creation is the case, then both the US and co-signatory governments are accountable for the contents and the outcomes. Most discourse about AFGHS to date has focused on the decisions that America has made, or demanded that other countries make. The AFGHS architects have monopolized the hot seat. As they should, in so many ways. America absolutely created the conditions under which countries needed to come up with health financing strategies to fill unanticipated, catastrophic funding gaps. And with not-too-long a lens, we can look back and see that America is also on the hook for its role in the Bretton Woods institutions that made user fees and health system fiscal austerity conditions of loans during the era of structural adjustment. But in the here and now, it is not at all clear to me that the US is requiring Uganda or any other country to implement specific approaches to sustainable financing. Instead, it is as the authors of that paper up in footnote 6 suggest: African governments have agency. As implementation plans roll out—whether or not the narratives are shared—it will be important to understand what this agency looks like and what it means for people, including the poorest of the poor. And it will be important to figure out how to talk about it safely, respectfully and critically in places other than the literal and metaphorical footnotes. 25 This week’s song is “Once upon a time” by the Moody Blues. (I know, this is gonna be a weird, largely banger-free end of 2026 playlist. HMU with requests.) AND please do watch the video and appreciate the truly amazing opening sequence—a drum kit wasteland, a coupla plastic bags, a bit of sand. Sort of like the hill where fiscal austerity policies that put costs on health care users might go to perish. But then there’s a lady with amazing hair. It’s worth it.
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