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Somalia Looks To The Future As UN's Political Mission Ends
By Daniel Dickinson31 October 2026“The story of the UN's political engagement in Somalia has been one of persistence, partnership and adaptation,” Raisedon Zenenga, the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia has said, as three decades of UN political missions in the Horn of Africa country comes to an end on 31 October.The UN Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia, known as UNTMIS, wraps up its work on Saturday and according to Mr. Zenenga “while significant challeng
JD Vance Grapples With His Future After Republican Midterm Losses
Some people close to the vice president worry any Republican would struggle to win a presidential election in two years.
Savannah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce hosts their 10th annual awards Gala
A signature Savannah event is spotlighting Hispanic-owned businesses and the leaders building the region’s future.
This Year’s N7 Day Spent Fighting For Mass Effect's Future
While previous years brought hope of updates on BioWare's beloved Mass Effect saga, this November had incensed fans pushing EA towards a course correction
President of The Heritage Foundation looks ahead to the future of the GOP
Kevin Roberts, the president of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, talks about the organization's priorities and hopes for the future of the Republican Party and its policies.
CBS Sports pundit launches scathing Celtic boardroom attack despite European victory
CBS Sports pundit Ian Paul Joy believes several Celtic players are now fighting for their futures at the club despite Thursday night’s impressive 3-2 Europa League victory over Besiktas.The former d...
South Texas Health System (@stxhealthsystem)
Investing in Tomorrow’s Healthcare Workforce: With healthcare occupations projected to generate approximately 1.9 million job openings annually through 2035, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals has never been more important. Recognizing the critical role education plays in workforce development, South Texas Health System continues to invest in local colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations that help cultivate future healthcare professionals, including the Texas A&M University Higher Education Center at McAllen (@tamumcallen). As part of its longstanding partnership with Texas A&M University, STHS has once again contributed $5,000 to the university's McAllen campus. The donation will support the campus' Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, which launched in January 2026, while helping students pursue careers in healthcare. This marks the third consecutive year STHS has provided financial support to the Texas A&M University Higher Education Center at McAllen. The contribution will help offset educational expenses through scholarship opportunities while supporting efforts to expand allied health programs and enhance workforce training initiatives designed to meet the growing healthcare needs of the region - @stxhealthsystem on November 7, 2026
Jayson Tatum Makes Strong Brandon Miller Prediction After Celtics-Hornets
Jayson Tatum praised Brandon Miller’s growth and said the Hornets forward has “a really bright future” after Boston’s win in Charlotte.
NFL Draft prospects to watch: Week 10 college football preview
Looking ahead to potential future members of the Eagles.
The Maya used so much red paint that they poisoned their water with mercury, mud sediments reveal
Researchers found extreme levels of mercury in sediment cores in Mexico — and it’s all because the Maya loved red paint.
Tectonic forces near Japan helped fuel the formation of the Grand Canyon
A double subduction zone off the coast of Japan caused rifting halfway around the world to accelerate, fueling the formation of some of North America's most iconic features.
Women often get cold more easily than men — a mouse study offers hints why
A new study points to testosterone and proteins in the skin as reasons why males and females experience temperatures differently.
“Bewitched” Star Erin Murphy Reveals She Starred Alongside a Future U.S. President in Her First TV Commercial as a Baby
Murphy is known for playing Tabitha Stephens on ‘Bewitched’ for six seasons
Thunderstruck: what does the future hold for lightning?
Humans have always been awed by the power and beauty of lightning. How does the experience and understanding of it change in a warming world?
Pittsburgh Penguins Ville Koivunen’s NHL Performance is Beginning to Impress
An overtime goal against the Nashville Predators has made many realize that Ville Koivunen projection for his future NHL performance is clearly making him a fixture in the lineup. He is showing a well-round game, early on in his NHL career. Let's discuss the details. An Expected Contract with an Unexpected Price A 23-year-old restricted …
DAZN Pulse: Kristaps Porzingis stepping away from NBA for health reasons
Kristaps Porzingis is stepping away from the NBA for health reasons, raising questions about his future and the next chapter of his career. Read more at DAZN News.
I almost died from flu. My life didn't go back to normal after.
Madi Allen was 12 years old when she almost died from flu. Now 28, she shared her story with Live Science.
“Limping Into the Building”: Fans Notice Curious Detail About Brandon Aiyuk as He Arrived to Meet 49ers
Brandon Aiyuk and his new agent, Drew Rosenhaus, arrived at the San Francisco 49ers’ headquarters Friday for an important meeting about his NFL future. Aiyuk, who tore his ACL, MCL, and meniscus in his right knee against the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct.
Blizzard confirms: World of Warcraft Forever is the biggest launch in WoW history, beating Wrath of the Lich King
Blizzard confirmed that World of Warcraft Forever is absolutely huge, and potentially represents a headache for World of Warcraft's retail arm.
‘Alien-cortical’ mice: Can human brain cells grow inside animals?
Modified mice with human brain cells ignite debates over neurohybrids and the future of cross-species medical research.
‘My thought was always: he will be killed next’: Sonia Gandhi on marrying into an Indian political dynasty and her husband’s assassination
She came from humble Italian origins to join India’s ruling family. Then both her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, and her husband, Rajiv, were brutally murdered. In a rare interview, the politician talks about her reluctant rise to power, Narendra Modi’s repressive regime – and why youth protests give her hope for the future
CBA recognizes local business owners with 2026 awards
The Coloma Business Association (CBA) held its semi-annual meeting on Oct. 26 in the Coloma Community Center. This was a time for businesses to meet and greet, tell others of current and future …
Oklahoma vs Florida Prediction: Can a Strange Trend Continue?
It's just the third time Oklahoma and Florida have played, and it's a big deal for the future of both programs. Here's the CFN preview and prediction.
Former South Carolina governors of different political parties discuss bipartisan politics
David Beasley and Jim Hodges discuss the future of their political careers.
Future iPhones will have one less button, new rumor claims
Two will become one, apparently. Apple introduced the Action button with the iPhone 15 Pro, and the iPhone 18 Pro still has it. Now, a tipster on Weibo...
Shaping the Future of Maternal Mental Health Diagnosis Through Precision Technology - Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health
On October 29–30, 2026, the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health brought together patients with lived experience, clinicians, researchers, and…
'Life is too brief to leave this planet': Live Science readers share whether they'd go to Mars, despite health risks
Live Science readers respond to a recent poll about whether they'd visit the Red Planet even with potential health risks.
Nasdaq rebounds but posts fourth straight weekly decline
The Nasdaq Composite rebounded but recorded its fourth consecutive weekly decline as investors weigh the future of the AI trade amid market volatility.
Campbell hosts Harnett business leaders for economic update
Photo by Campbell University Harnett County has grown more than 27% over the last 15 years and is on the cusp of significant growth in the business sector as well. Campbell University recently hosted the 2026 Harnett County Economic Development Update; this was the university's third year in a row hosting the event. The annual event invites elected officials, business leaders and stakeholders from Harnett and its neighboring counties to share updates on new projects, economic trends and announcements from the previous year. Campbell’s continued involvement is part of its five-year Strategic Plan, launched earlier this year, which lists “community impact” as one of its four main objectives. “Every place I have ever worked, the university has been viewed by its surrounding community and region as an asset to economic development, as an inducement to business and industry and as a driver of innovation. It has been seen as the indispensable partner for growth,” Campbell President Dr. William M. Downs told the group of about 200 in attendance. “We ask that you save us a seat at your table when you are dreaming big about the future of this county and beyond. Campbell University is open for business, and we’d like to do business with you.”In addition to Campbell, Harnett is home to Harnett County Schools and its Career & Technical Education programs and a satellite campus of Central Carolina Community College, home of the Eugene Moore Manufacturing & Biotech Solutions Center (the largest training facility in the state). Stephen Barrington, Harnett County Economic Development director, shared the county’s latest initiatives, focus areas and opportunities in economic development. He lauded Campbell and the county’s strong educational and training infrastructure for training the area’s current and future workforce.“Workforce is at the top of the list when we talk about economic development,” Barrington said in a press release. “Work and skill-ready talent remains at the top of the list [of assets in Harnett County]. We’re extremely grateful for the education and training of our students for the next generation.”One big project landed in September when Harnett County was awarded a $500,000 Build Ready Sites grant from the North Carolina Railroad Company to advance a rail-served industrial site. The investment will help prepare the property for future development and strengthen Harnett County’s ability to compete for rail-served projects. The funding will support Byrd Industrial Site B, an 83-acre site with 58 developable acres within the Byrd Industrial Sites in Lillington.Harnett County is also actively working with Samet Corp. is actively working with Samet Corp. on the development of a 175,500-square-foot speculative industrial building to stimulate economic development.Featured speaker was Ted Abernathy, founding and managing partner of Economic Leadership, a small group of data, strategy and best-practice policy experts that work with companies, foundations and business organizations to analyze competitiveness, develop strategy, support leadership, tune communications and reimagine the future.Abernathy lauded Harnett County’s proximity to one of the fastest-growing and most business-friendly regions in the country — the Research Triangle and Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area — and said Harnett needs to attract more businesses that offer higher-paying jobs to compete. “The quality of the jobs you attract is one of the challenges for you as you go forward,” Abernathy said in a press release. “You need more high-paying jobs. A big chunk of the population here is making $25 to $50 an hour, which is good. But where you’re really weak is this high end. If you looked at Raleigh or Durham or Mecklenburg, that number would be a third of their jobs.”Learn more about Harnett County Economic Development and current projects happening at harnettedc.org.
Aspiring Hollywood filmmakers facing an uncertain future
For students like Gianna Jordano, the challenge extends beyond landing a first job
Whoa, I Missed It! Disney Starts Licensing the Household Silver, When IP Backfires, and More Big Content Moves
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Over these last few months, the entertainment business story landscape revolved around Skydance (and their merger) and Netflix (and their leadership shakeup). I don’t even want to scan my archives to see how many times I wrote about just those two companies over the last six months or so, let alone how many times they demanded their own article. Oh, how I long for June, when I could avoid them and write about other mergers and acquisitions (Comcast and NBCUniversal; Fox buying Roku). Well, not really, but you know what I mean. That focus on just two companies meant I ignored a lot of fun and, more importantly, important stories. So, it’s also time for another “Whoa, I Missed It” article. These are stories I wish I had written about, but aren’t exactly current events anymore. And there are a lot of them! Fifteen stories in all, including a very important merger that I didn’t write about, my word of warning about the IP deluge, how “genre” TV is making a big comeback, Netflix’s latest smart acquisition (and a licensing divorce), Disney and HBO’s recent TV show buys (and what they say about reboots on TV), a big cable merger, Amazon’s new bundle, social media censorship, and a lot more. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Buy, Sell or Hold the Latest Content Development and Licensing in 2026!!! Content is king. I’ve written that before, and I believe in it now more than ever. If I had to quantify it, and I have, I put it at about 50% of the fate of any given media company, be they streamer, network, bundler, studio or social platform. This is a hits-driven business, and, as I like to do about every so often, it’s time to check in on the latest content moves. These content shifts on their own aren’t usually enough to be the “most important story” of a week, but if you add them up, you can see the content landscape shifting. The stories also fell into two natural buckets: licensing deals and IP moves. Plus, I’ll offer my “buy, sell or hold” rating for whether I think the deal is smart for a given side. Let’s dive right in. Disney Starts Licensing the Household Silver Disney is starting to license their core brands to Netflix. Quietly, over the last couple of years, Disney had rented some 20th Century [Fox] shows and films to Netflix, but until now, the core brands had escaped that fate. Now? At least some Pixar films will make it to Disney (including Elio) and some Disney+ Originals (like Percy Jackson and the Olympians). Here’s my rating for each company: Disney: Sell. One is tempted to say Disney has started licensing the “crown jewels”, but I don’t think we see that yet. I’d call this the “family silver” instead, which isn’t quite as valuable. That said, Disney’s new CEO clearly is focused on shoring up the company’s profitability, and that means licensing deals, even at the expense of Disney+ exclusivity. This could also help bring eyeballs to Percy Jackson for the upcoming season, a similar benefit to “dual casting” this show, which I also think Disney should do. Still, in the long run, I’d protect the core brands more. Netflix: Buy. This is a smart move, assuming the price is right, and I’d bet it is. (Netflix’s content licensing teams are some of the best in the industry.) Of course, this is another data point that Netflix is moving away from making their own films and relying on licensing instead. That has downsides—they’ll always end up renting—but if you’re buying Disney content, that’s a good move. Prime Video Buys More Live Events Amazon’s Prime Video/MGM Studios keeps purchasing live events, including the Emmys (which I wrote about here) and some regional sporting rights. These bolster their NFL, NBA and Academy of Country Music Awards licensing deals. My theory here is that Prime Video knows that they can sell the advertising for more on live events than on their massive acquired/original inventory of shows and films. (As I’ve been showing with Reelgood’s data, they have a LOT more shows and films than other streamers.) Advertisers want live, engaged viewers, since they’re a lot more likely to be real. Prime Video: Hold. I like Amazon’s focus on live events, but it remains tough to evaluate this company, er, business unit, since we don’t know anything about their financials. Yes, Amazon’s CEO recently released a very carefully worded statement about Prime Video, claiming profitability, but we don’t know by how much by when. (It’s also not audited by third parties, so we have to take it with another grain of salt.) Plus, given that Amazon increased the price of the Emmys by about a third, they also likely overpaid. (Maybe that’s why they’re barely profitable, allegedly.) But also, I think they know they need to dominate live TV, and that’s a smart strategy! So I’m torn, but lean towards calling this a smart move. The Emmys: Definitely sell! I mentioned this in my “Streaming Bonus Content” article, but I really, really, really, really do NOT like this move for the Emmys. Chasing short term dollars over long term awareness is not a smart move. To reach the widest audience, the “dual-cast” format—meaning broadcast and streaming—just reaches more people. Skydance Takes Its Animation Back This is the story that made me want to write a “let’s catch up on content” column in the first place. Specifically, Skydance and Netflix have ended their animated film output deal. It’s not huge, since really, what film has Skydance Animation made that’s broken out? But strategically, it shows you how Skydance is positioning their company. Skydance Animation: Hold. Again, I still need to see Skydance Animation put out a hit or two before I can judge this as a smart move. The other worry for Skydance is they have a lot of overlapping animation houses now, and that’s going to end at some point. Still, if John Lasseter can regain his animation mojo—and his track record has been mixed at Skydance, ignoring his other issues—this could be a powerful point for Paramount. Netflix: Hold (put your films in theaters). Right now, with the Dan Lin upheaval and Peter Rice coming in, we don’t really know what Netflix’s plans for theaters versus straight-to-streaming films are. So I need to see what new films (if any) they buy/rent/produce to replace the Skydance flicks, but it will probably be a smarter investment of capital, since the straight-to-streaming films have just failed to break out, outside of one major example. Theaters: Buy! They do look like they’re gonna end up with more inventory based on the Skydance move, and now Netflix putting four to five films in theaters per year. For example, Netflix confirmed that KPop Demon Hunters 2 will come to theaters, and that’s going to be a smash. Disney+’s Reboot Future So those were the major licensing news stories, and now we get to the IP-related updates. Obviously, I’m generally pro-IP in content development. But that’s not some iron law; not all IP hits equally. Get ready for Entertainment Nuance Guy. And let’s start with a big worry. Scanning the news stories, Disney has three reboots on their lineup between ABC, Hulu and Disney+: Coach (on ABC), The X-Files and Glee. So are reboots as immune to failure as IP? We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out about… Why I’m skeptical about some upcoming genre and IP plays… How Skydance’s merger closing unlocked Paramount and HBO… The focus on “genre” across the streamers and studios… Some big creators leave Netflix… Netflix’s horror TV show licensing play (and what they should have done instead)… A huge merger that I didn’t write about... Whether or not we’ll see a major film tax credit… Amazon’s new megabundle of streamers… And (somehow) more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
Teachers of Quality Academy 9.0 graduates laying foundation for the future
A group of 35 ECU Health team members celebrated new skills and new pathways for quality improvement during the recent TQA 9.0 graduation.
Mental health crisis response reforms on table in Berkshires
In 2022 and again this January, young men of color were shot to death by police in Berkshire County while experiencing mental health crises. In both cases, law enforcement in Pittsfield and Hinsdale were legally exonerated. Since then, calls for reform have mounted. Massachusetts State Senator Paul Mark was part of a public conversation on the future of behavioral health support and collaborative crisis response. He spoke with WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes.
50% of long COVID patients show improvement in 3 years — but the condition tends to linger in those with this subtype
About half of people with long COVID see meaningful improvement in their symptoms after three years, a new study found.
Perfectly preserved owl fossil from 47 million years ago could help to solve a major evolutionary mystery
A stunning fossil owl from Germany that has its last meal preserved in its stomach helped researchers to narrow down the time when these birds mostly became active at night.
How plant biologist at MSU is engineering drought-resistant crops
MSU plant biologist Thelma Madzima researches epigenetics in maize to develop climate-resilient crops for future food security.
This gen’s top 10 PlayStation Studios games
As we near the six-year anniversary of the PS5, we thought we’d dive into our estimates for the top-grossing PlayStation Studios games since the start of the gen. Together, the 10 games we’re covering today have generated over $6.5 billion across PlayStation (84.7%), Steam (14.1%), and Xbox (1.2% via just Helldivers 2). Let’s have a look at the top 10. Spidey and Kratos sequels take the top two spots God of War Ragnarok takes the top spot with $1.4B in revenue via 21.6M copies – 20.1M on PlayStation (75.2% via PS5) and the rest on Steam. Around 27.5% of the copies sold on PlayStation were physical. It’s another PlayStation evergreen seller, too. This year, Ragnarok has already sold 1.1M copies, generating $60M (68% on PlayStation), outperforming new 2026 titles like Gears of War E-Day and Saros. Overall, our estimates show that Ragnarok has been accessed by 6.7M PlayStation Plus players (it was added to the Extra tier about two years ago). So it’s performed that well this year despite subscription cannibalisation. That’s the pull of God of War IP. And that Bautista series on Amazon is going to be massive - bigger than Fallout, I reckon. Next up is Spider-Man 2 with $1.3B across PS5 (over $1.2B) and Steam (nearly $70M). Spider-Man 2 has sold over 19.1M copies overall, so it should pass 20M early next year. Spider-Man 2 is an evergreen title that always spikes around the holidays (mostly concentrated around Christmas week): In December 2023, it sold 2.1M copies, up 20% from November 2023 (the month after release) In December 2024, Spider-Man 2 sold 460K copies (natural decay), up 60% from November 2024. Despite the Steam version launching in January 2025, it still sold more copies – and made more revenue – the month before. In December 2025, it sold 328K copies, up 30% from November 2025. This year’s December and Christmas will be somewhat limited by Spidey’s February 2026 addition to PS+ Extra, where 6.3M people accessed it for the first time. While subscription inclusions always cannibalise premium revenues to some extent, Spider-Man 2 did manage to sell 578K copies in August 2026 – the most its sold since Q1 2024, following hype from the Spider-Man Brand New Day movie. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe God of War Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2 continue to be huge evergreen tentpoles for Sony. Together, both titles have sold 3.4M this year (2.3M for Spidey and 1.1M for Ragnarok), generating a combined $172.9M ($115.8M for Spidey and $57.1M for Ragnarok). Again, some premium games would take a leaf out of Kratos’ book (not Spidey’s!) and would kill for these numbers in year 1. And we can see why Sony wants to take a leaf from Steam’s book, killing physical to get higher margins from catalogue sales, ensuring they get their cut, and having more control over supply and demand (and pricing for their first-party titles). Hot rods, hellpods, and horizons Gran Turismo 7 takes #3 this generation with $841.9M in revenue via 12.7M copies sold. For more info on GT7, you can check out our write-up from earlier this week. Around 1.1M people have already played GT7 this month, less than six days in. Next up – at #4 – is the first second-party game on this list. Helldivers 2 has generated $786.3M via 23M copies sold across Steam (66.1% of the copies), PS5 (25.7%), and the 1.5-year-later Xbox port (8.3%). And there are plenty of players very dedicated to the Super Earth cause, as over 4M folks have played Helldivers 2 for over 100 hours, while 462K played for over 500 hours. That dedication to democracy is pretty topical… Anyway, Helldivers 2 still attracts about 700K players per day (more if there’s a significant update), and its August addition to PlayStation Plus Extra has led to 1.6M new players overall. This year, Helldivers 2 has sold over 2.5M copies, generating $81.1M in revenue. It’s another evergreen hit for Sony, and draws in engagement numbers similar to Arc Raiders. The Helldivers 2 model, in my opinion, should be the way PlayStation approaches its live-service and second-party releases. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Horizon Forbidden West rounds off the first half of the top 10, generating $485.8M. That said, PlayStation completely stifled Horizon Forbidden West’s revenue by adding it to PlayStation Plus way too early (one year after launch). You can see the revenue drop-off clearly in our platform: As you can see: Forbidden West was still a healthy catalogue earner right before it was added to PS+ Extra, making about $1.23M a week on PlayStation across late 2022 and into January 2023. After it was added to Extra_, Forbidden West_’s weekly revenue halved to around $610K, basically overnight. Excluding launch month, Horizon Forbidden West generated about $67.2M on PlayStation in the period before the PS Plus addition. In the same period after it joined the service, that fell to $28.1M, a 58% drop. So, PlayStation didn’t trade a little bit of premium revenue for subscriber value here. It gave up well over half of it, and it cut momentum instantly for one of its premier franchises. Could you imagine the kind of cannibalisation if it launched day in date on Extra? Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe And the cannibalisation wasn’t a temporary blip that bounced back once the game left the service in September 2024. By then, 19 months on PS Plus had already hoovered up most of the install base that would have bought it, so there was barely a premium audience left to monetise. PlayStation even added it back to PS Plus on October 21 this year, and sure enough, weekly revenue dropped again (by around a third); though, the numbers are small now that Forbidden West is nearly four years old. Worth the trade-off. The usual suspects, platformers, and an Asia-driven second-party hit As for the rest of the list: Ghost of Yotei has now generated $410.1M via 5.5M copies on PS5. Yotei popped off a bit a few weeks ago due to a content update, which we covered here. The Last of Part Us I, a remake that we covered here, has generated $341.3M in revenue (67.2% via PlayStation) via 6.4M copies. It was also added to PS+ Extra about two years after launch, where 7.8M people accessed it for the first time. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart has made $334.9M (93.6% via PlayStation 5). It’s now passed 5M copies sold overall. It’s sold 250K copies this year, generating $13.5M in revenue. Time for another Ratchet? Stellar Blade has generated $316.9M via PS5 (59.7%) and Steam (40.3%). However, the share of Stellar Blade’s 5.4M copies sold is far closer (50.4% on PlayStation, 49.6% on Steam) – despite the Steam version releasing a year later. China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong account for 48% of Steam copies and 35% of PlayStation copies (about 41% overall). These markets are regionally priced lower than others, hence the difference. Astro Bot rounds out the top 10 with $292.6M in revenue via over 4.7M copies sold. We covered Astro’s recent performance here, covering how Astro Bot is another evergreen seller and has been a hit with families. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Even these bottom five games have generated a combined $281.7M this year in catalogue sales. PlayStation wants those numbers to be bigger in the coming years, which is one of the reasons it’s killing the disc (alongside the better margins it and publishers get through digital). No more used discs means more D2C revenue for PlayStation. On that note, we recently chatted to the New York Times again about PlayStation’s digital future, so keep your eyes peeled for that! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. Want to see why these companies (and many others) are subscribed to Alinea? Get a free platform trial! [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
Cardinals make major decision on future of franchise
A major front-office shakeup signals a new direction for St. Louis.
ARTE Europe Weekly: How Europe's Youth are Rejecting 'Politics-as-Usual'
From Portugal to Poland, young Europeans are taking to the streets with hopes for a better future - and disdain for contemporary political orthodoxies.
Oh boy, all girls again: FAU research tracks sea turtle sex ratios
Forty young sea turtles are back in the ocean, but their future raises a troubling question: Where are the males? After more than two decades of monitoring, FAU researchers are finding increasingly female-biased hatchling populations, with some years producing virtually no males. As warming beach temperatures alter the conditions that determine sea turtle sex, scientists warn that today’s imbalance could threaten the next generation decades from now.
Valve escaped Windows. Now Steam is breaking free from the PC itself
Steam Deck made Windows optional. Steam Frame takes aim at x86. Valve is building a future where your Steam library barely cares what kind of computer sits underneath it. Is that good for gamers?
Still searching for a Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2? Nintendo has good news
🥳 Nintendo confirmed Zelda 40th anniversary celebrations will continue into next year, suggesting ongoing Switch 2 restocks 🚨 Want the Zelda Switch 2? Follow our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker @mattswider on X and we’ll send out an alert when stock appears 🙏 Unlike other limited editions, the console is not expected to have a restricted production run 💰 The special edition costs $519.99 for its ornate design, but does not include the Ocarina of Time remake 🙌 Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa ruled out future console price increases due to secured memory supply Walmart: Zelda Switch 2 console Best Buy: Zelda Switch 2 console GameStop: Zelda Switch 2 console Nintendo: Zelda Switch 2 console 🚨 Restock Dashboard: Get our live, audible siren alerts The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 is hard to find right now, though we’re doing our best to help people get one using our exclusive restock tracker. However, there is some good news to share. 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 Subscribe Nintendo has provided an update that suggests the console will be easier to obtain in the future. Speaking during Nintendo’s financial results, president Shuntaro Furukawa said that The Legend of Zelda’s 40th anniversary celebrations will continue into next year (thanks, Stealth40k). That strongly suggests that the Zelda Switch 2 console will continue to be restocked, and that it won’t be constrained by a limited production run. Unlike the Xbox Series X25 limited edition – where only 25,000 units have been produced – the Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 should be more obtainable once the initial demand from buyers dies down. Of course, whether you can wait as long as next year to get hold of the Zelda Switch 2 is one thing, but knowing that the console will eventually become more widely available should please those who are worried about missing out. The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary special edition Switch 2 costs $519.99, but doesn’t include a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. You’re basically paying a $20 premium over the standard Switch 2 for the beautiful ornate design. Luckily, it sounds like the price of the Switch 2 will remain at $499.99 for the foreseeable. Furukawa ruled out any future price increases as Nintendo has managed to secure sufficient quantities of memory. That also means the price of the Zelda Switch 2 won’t be affected. Up next: Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 restock: here’s when Target should have stock Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
What many get wrong about Amish or Plain Anabaptist communities, measles, and health
The U.S. has reported three measles deaths this week in three different states. All the affected were unvaccinated, and some were too young to get vaccinated, relying on herd immunity. Many states haven’t seen a measles death in more than 30 years. Measles is highly contagious, but it mainly spreads among those without immunity. Social factors typically shape these unvaccinated pockets. Many states describe these deaths as occurring among “under-immunized, rural communities.” (In the future, it could be among other tight-knit groups.) Small signals in the news point to many outbreaks right now among the Plain Anabaptists (APA), which include communities like the Amish and Mennonite. Many know APA communities from a distance through their bakeries, furniture, and roadside buggies. But most of us don’t know enough about them, their traditions, or how those traditions actually interact with health and disease. Rumors, misconceptions, and frustration fill those voids. Tristan Sharratt, a family nurse practitioner and rural health researcher who grew up near and works with these communities in Central New York (and a YLE reader who reached out!), says misconceptions continue to create major problems. If the U.S. wants to stop a tsunami of measles coming down the pipeline, or even support health in those communities proactively beyond measles (which is ideal), we must understand how specific communities protect themselves, their values, and the role broader society plays. This starts with a conversation and some self-reflection. Here are the top five lessons I learned from my conversation with Tristan.
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“Gunnar Henderson Got in His Own Head” – MLB Insider Proposes Simple Solution to Orioles Superstar’s Recent Struggles
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The Not-So-Science-Fiction Future
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Abdul El-Sayed’s commencement speech in 2007 was so good it led Bill Clinton to tell him to go into politics at just 22 years old
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Winners, losers, and MAHA
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How women Veterans won the right to healthcare
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‘A common interest amongst everybody’: Yampa Valley Entertainment brings performances, community together across Northwest Colorado
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Mass Effect petition has enough signatures for the Canadian Government to potentially save BioWare
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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)
Imaging Science Thesis Defense: A Step Towards Developing Digital Twins of Forest Environments with Terrestrial Laser Scanning | Events
Imaging Science MS Thesis Defense A Step Towards Developing Digital Twins of Forest Environments with Terrestrial Laser Scanning Zoom Link here Aisha Co Imaging Science MS Candidate Rochester Institute of Technology Abstract: Digital twins have become an increasingly relevant topic as we pursue accurate representations of the real world for planning, research, and even design purposes. This study focuses on the steps for creating digital twins of forest environments using sparse points from terrestrial light detection and ranging (LiDAR). Specifically, we developed geometric models of structural digital twins (SDTs) from leaf-off terrestrial laser scanning of real-world forests. Three algorithms were used to develop an approach to handle individual tree reconstructions for sparse point clouds, and they were tested and validated with a two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic against an existing inventory of the RIT Nature Trail to evaluate the reconstruction’s fidelity. The key evaluation metrics included diameter at breast height (DBH) and height. The limited nature of available ground truth necessitated the use of an additional validation method using a PANGAEA open dataset, based on comparing DBH, height, and crown diameter against the dataset’s calculated measurements. Reconstructions were compared against per-tree reference values at two-point spacings for sixteen trees from the open BR07 dataset (PANGAEA); these specifications matched the collected RIT Nature Trail data and the scanner’s nominal spacing. On BR07, the proposed method had the lowest median DBH error among the methods that modeled every tree (1.28cm, 4.1%), and this error was nearly unchanged at the coarser spacing, while TreeQSM’s rose from 4.2% to 6.5% and AdTree overestimated DBH by 30% to 40%. Results show the proposed method understates the tree heights by 0.2m to 1.4m but contains the least error when estimating DBH. The proposed method was able to produce all 69 trees, while SimpleTree produced 49 and none at the 4.35 cm BR07 spacing. We concluded that the developed geometric model (digital) twins have significant potential to serve as both simulation and prediction tools. We recommend that future efforts focus on collecting per-tree ground truth measurements within the scanned plot and incorporating leaf-on scans. Leaf-on scans include representative foliage, which would add realism to the model and ecological function of the trees. Intended Audience: Beginners, undergraduates, graduates. Those with interest in the topic. To request an interpreter, please visit myaccess.rit.edu
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