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What Netflix's 'The Altruists' gets wrong, according to former FTX exec

"The Altruists" is an eight-episode Netflix series dramatizing the rise and fall of the cryptocurrency exchange under former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Oct 10 • 12:38 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

12 reactions · 3 comments | A politician allegedly killed for...

A politician allegedly killed for promoting health measures in the fight against Ebola. Health workers attacked, medical facilities put on fire. What's behind people's anger in response to aid in the...

Oct 10 • 8:38 AM EDT • Health • facebook.com

Marvel TV series 'Zodiac' sets 2028 Disney+ release

The logo for 'Zodiac.' (Marvel)

Oct 9 • 4:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

In brief: 'Stick' season 2 trailer and more

Bill Murray stars in the official trailer for A Course Called Ireland. The six-part documentary series premieres on Paramount+ on Oct. 25. The show follows Murray and his friends as they travel across the island to explore Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland's best fairways ...The Die Hard films are getting a brand-new home media release. All five of the movies will be released on physical media in 4K Ultra HD on Dec. 1. Bruce Willis stars as John McClane in all of the Die Hard films. The original movie finds the New York City policeman taking on terrorists after he flies to Los Angeles to be with his estranged wife and two children on Christmas ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); The trailer for Stick season 2 is here. Owen Wilson stars as the talented golfer who strives for second chance in the sophomore season. Peter Dager, Timothy Olyphant, Rhea Seehorn, Marc Maron, John Higgins and Billy Zane also make up the cast of the new season. The Apple TV series premieres its first two episodes on Nov. 4. A new episode drops weekly every Wednesday that follows until the season finale airs on Dec. 30 ...Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Oct 9 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Minka Kelly and Imagine Dragons singer Dan Reynolds break up

Minka Kelly and Dan Reynolds have ended their four-year relationship. The two met in 2022 after meeting through a mutual friend, following Reynolds' separation from wife Aja Volkman.

Oct 8 • 6:43 PM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

Taylor Swift to perform at 2026 Academy Museum Gala

Taylor Swift arrives for the MTV Video Music Awards, Sept. 27, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Oct 8 • 2:10 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

'Bridgerton' spinoff series about young Lady Violet headed to Netflix

Ruth Gemmell as Lady Violet Bridgerton and Phoebe Dyvenor as Daphne Basset in episode 6 of 'Bridgerton' season 2. (Liam Daniel/Netflix)

Oct 8 • 12:10 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint dies at 102

Eva Marie Saint pictured seated on a sun lounger in a garden, USA, circa 1950. Saint is wearing a light green dress and a pearl necklace. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Oct 7 • 1:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Patterson team up on new book 'The Protector'

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks to students after he received an honorary degree from the Hertie School on Sept. 17, 2024, in Berlin, Germany. The award is in honor

Oct 7 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger closes, creates combined company Skydance

David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, speaks during CinemaCon 2026 on April 16, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (David Becker/Getty Images for CinemaCon)

Oct 6 • 2:35 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

'Love Story' actress Constance Zimmer reveals cancer diagnosis

Constance Zimmer attends FX's 'American Horror Story: 13' celebration event at Hotel Chelsea on Sept. 23, 2026, in New York City. (Cindy Ord/WireImage via Getty Images)

Oct 5 • 4:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Scientists may have seen dark matter. If they did, what exactly is it?

One theory points to a long-awaited supersymmetric particle called a ‘higgsino.’ But that idea has some issues.

Oct 5 • 1:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencenews.org

Yale School of Medicine On the Science of Childhood Anxiety, Say, Anxiety Disorders Are the Most Common Mental Health Challenges In Youth

Credit: Matt Bradbury October 5, 2026 - By Isabella Backman - Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health challenges in youth. Left untreated, they can disrupt the lives of both children and their families. The good news is that with intervention, most children will overcome these conditions. Across Yale School of Medicine, scientists are working to understand anxiety at every level, from common anxious behaviors to molecular biomarkers in the brain. They are using their findings to develop and disseminate new evidence-based treatments for childhood anxiety. Today, the go-to treatment for childhood anxiety disorders is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This is a form of psychotherapy that teaches children skills for confronting anxious thoughts and helps them practice managing situations that cause anxiety. While it is the gold-standard treatment backed by considerable scientific evidence, up to 50% of children will not see sufficient benefit from CBT alone. Wendy Silverman, PhD, Alfred A. Messer Professor in the Child Study Center, co-directs the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program alongside Eli Lebowitz, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center. One of their main interests is learning how to improve outcomes beyond CBT. “We’re developing cutting-edge, research-based knowledge that can reduce the suffering that anxiety causes children and their families,” says Silverman. Changing parent behavior YSM experts are investigating how to improve CBT outcomes for children by involving the parents. Silverman’s research has uncovered two main components of parent intervention that improve childhood anxiety: not enabling children to completely avoid the things that make them anxious and taking steps to enhance their autonomy. Parents may unintentionally reinforce their child’s anxiety by allowing them to avoid what makes them anxious. They also may unintentionally limit the children’s sense of autonomy by being overly intrusive. “One of the things that we take pride in is that we’ve focused on trying to understand what parents need to do, and to test our ideas and see if changing the parents’ behaviors is enhancing the effects of CBT,” Silverman says. “Our findings thus far suggest that they do." As much as CBT can be helpful, it can also be challenging to get one’s child to do the necessary steps for CBT to work. This is one important reason why Lebowitz created a novel intervention program for parents named Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). Existing intervention programs often teach parents to act as therapists for their child, such as training them on how to practice breathing exercises. “It makes sense, but this doesn’t work very well in practice,” says Lebowitz. “And part of the reason, I think, is that it’s not easy to get your kid to do things, especially if they’re not excited about doing it.” SPACE is unique because it focuses entirely on parent involvement and changing parental behavior—children are not involved in the sessions. For example, parents learn how to use supportive messages that convey confidence that their child can tolerate and manage distress. “It might sound like a parent saying to a child, ‘I get that this is really hard for you, but I know that you can handle it,’” Lebowitz says. The program also works with parents to identify the ways in which they are accommodating anxious behaviors. “We’ll pick one thing that parents are doing that is an accommodation and help them make a detailed plan for how they’re going to change that,” Lebowitz explains. Treating Anxiety in Children and Adolescents Much of the existing research on SPACE has focused on parents of children under age 14. Ongoing studies are now exploring its use with parents of older teens. “Both anxiety and accommodation can interfere with normative developmental shifts during the teen years, including increased autonomy and individuation from parents,” says Rebecca Etkin, PhD, associate research scientist in the Child Study Center. “In this sense, SPACE may be particularly well-suited for anxious teens and their parents. We want to see whether it is effective during this distinct developmental window.” Unfortunately, many families in need of CBT face barriers, including limited availability of services and geographic constraints. One way to improve access is digital interventions. Silverman and her team are developing an evidence-based digitized intervention program for parents that they can access directly from their computer or smart phone. “The work we’re doing will be one of the very few parent interventions that is digitized and importantly tested for effectiveness,” she says. Creating interventions for anxiety-related challenges Silverman and Lebowitz recently received a generous gift to develop and test other interventions that help parents reduce other child anxiety-related behavioral and emotional difficulties, such as restrictive eating and unexplained somatic symptoms. One of these projects in particular focuses on understanding the risks of social media and its potential benefits, including offering a sense of connection. “A lot of research has focused on the idea that social media is harmful and the less of it the better,” says Lebowitz. “But we actually see is that this is not quite right—there are negatives, but there are also positives. So, we’re trying to get a little bit more nuanced of a picture.” The team is working with teens with social anxiety and their parents over an extended period to better understand their social media habits and how their anxiety levels affect engagement with different platforms. The teens will answer questions sent to an app on their phones about mood and social media usage in an effort to capture emotional responses as they unfold. “We hope to develop interventions that can help make the best of social media while protecting against the more problematic effects,” Lebowitz says. The brain’s role in anxiety Researchers are also testing therapies to address anxiety at the neurological and molecular levels. In collaboration with Dylan Gee, PhD, professor of psychology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Hilary Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, Lebowitz and Silverman are using brain imaging to identify changes in a child’s brain before and after parents enroll in SPACE. In one study, children viewed anxiety-inducing images while undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); the researchers conducted scans with and without the children’s parents nearby. Before SPACE, children’s brains were better able to activate the regulatory circuitry needed to turn off an anxious response when their parents were nearby. But after SPACE, children could activate this circuitry even without the parent around. “As parents work on gradually reducing some of their accommodations, you can see a child get better at regulating their own fear system in the brain,” Lebowitz says. “It’s remarkable.” Research into the molecular underpinnings of anxiety can also inform new childhood anxiety treatments. In a recent study, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Flora Vaccarino, MD, Harris Professor in the Child Study Center, discovered that a protein known as fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) could be protective from the toxic effects of stress. FGF2 levels in children and their parents were linked to the children’s risk of developing anxiety and depression, the study showed. The findings could help explain why some children who are exposed to early life trauma such as poverty or abuse are more prone to developing mental health disorders. And FGF2 could be a target for treatment. “This is very novel because it starts to give a clue to what is the molecular chain that connects those lived experiences to the actual psychological outcomes,” Lebowitz says. New ways to study and treat childhood anxiety Michael Crowley, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center, collaborates with Silverman and Lebowitz to study the role that attention plays in development and maintenance of childhood anxiety. There is a large body of research that shows that anxious children, like anxious adults, are prone to focus on threatening stimuli such as angry faces compared with neutral faces. This has led to innovative interventions that involve attention retraining. The idea is that if experts train children to look away from threatening stimuli, it may reduce their anxiety—especially children with social anxiety who are most prone to attend to threats. The researchers have just completed a clinical trial for attention retraining with 10- to 14-year-olds with social anxiety disorders and are currently analyzing the findings. Besides this innovative attention retraining research, as Crowly notes, “I like to design tasks that are engaging to kids,” Crowley says. “My goal is to assess something without the kids knowing what we are assessing.” With this goal in mind, Crowley has created a virtual game, named Boom, to study threat processing in children with anxiety disorders. The game is similar to that of hot potato—the child and three digital players take turns virtually passing a ball to each other’s gloves. At some point, the ball turns into a bomb, and as the bomb lands in each player’s glove, the outline of the glove turns yellow. The goal is to avoid having the bomb go off in your glove. What isn’t obvious is that the game is designed to measure different types of threatening stimuli, both ambiguous and direct. In the game, the direct threat occurs as the bomb is traveling towards your glove. The ambiguous threat is the yellow outlined glove as it is unknown where the bomb will travel next. While children play the game, Crowley’s team measures their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). The researchers have discovered that in kids with anxiety, the brain reacts more strongly to ambiguous threats than it does in their peers, but less strongly to direct threats. They believe that the initial abnormally large brain response to not knowing where the bomb is going impairs the brain's ability to properly respond when the threat is actually traveling the child’s way. “The brains of children with anxiety are unable to differentiate between threats you need to do something about and those that are not your problem.” Michael Crowley, PhD, develops innovative games for studying anxiety in children and adolescents.Credit: Matt Bradbury Based on these insights, Crowley hopes to study whether interventions like attention training could restore appropriate threat processing. Crowley’s team is also working on a test called the Balloon Risk Avoidance Task, which evaluates risk-taking and avoidance behaviors. It features a digital balloon that is full of air and about to burst. Kids have six seconds to let air out of the balloon. The more air they let out, the less risk they face that the balloon will pop. But at the same time, the balloon becomes less valuable as it deflates. “The more air you keep in the balloon, the more points you get,” Crowley explains. So far, the researchers have found that when the balloons pop unexpectedly, teens with social anxiety show distinct brain responses. Studying these responses can help psychologists understand the underlying pathways driving the various manifestations of anxiety. The genetics of anxiety When Thomas Fernandez, MD, associate professor in the Child Study Center and of psychiatry, was still in training, there was a lot of excitement about understanding the genetics associated with autism spectrum disorder. Since then, scientists have identified around 250 genes associated with autism. The genetic contribution to anxiety disorders, on the other hand, has historically received less attention. Anxiety is less heritable than autism, but the genetic contribution for anxiety disorders that emerge in childhood may be higher than for anxiety disorders overall. While scientists estimate the heritability of anxiety disorders in general to be around 30% to 50%, some studies suggest higher heritability for certain childhood-onset anxiety presentations. “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism,” Fernandez says. “So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism. So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” Thomas Fernandez, MD Associate Professor In the Child Study Center and in Psychiatry Now, Fernandez and Emily Olfson, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Child Study Center, are studying children and their parents to identify genetic changes that are present in the child but not the parents, known as “de novo mutations.” “All of us have some de novo mutations—maybe about 50 to 100 sprinkled throughout the genome,” Olfson says. “But when they occur within the coding regions of genes, they can be really disruptive.” Previous research shows that people with autism have higher rates of damaging de novo mutations than the general population. In 2022, Olfson, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Fernandez published a study on 68 children and their families that found that children with anxiety had similarly high levels of these mutations. Studying de novo mutations can help point the researchers to where they should be looking for genes associated with anxiety. “The end game is using the genes to steer us toward the right part of biology that we can then target to come up with better treatments,” Fernandez says. Building on those findings, the team is now studying more families to better understand how these de novo mutations, along with other genetic and environmental factors, shape pediatric anxiety disorders. They recently received a National Institutes of Health grant to enroll 750 new families over the next five years. Olfson is the principal investigator, with co-investigators Lebowitz, Fernandez, Silverman, and Shuangge Steven Ma, PhD, department chair and professor of biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health. Neurodevelopment, Risk Genes, and Mental Health Conditions - The Olfson Lab Joel Gelernter, MD, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry, is interested in how different anxiety disorders differ genomically. “We are studying social phobia, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, working to understand why people differ in their risk to these specific anxiety disorders and evaluating various risk factors,” he says. Gelernter was recently involved in one of the largest studies to date of the genomics underlying anxiety disorder. The study included around 122,000 people with anxiety disorders and around 730,000 without. It found that some genetic differences associated with anxiety were linked to signaling that helps reduce overactivity in the nervous system. Many anxiety medications available today work by targeting this process. “It’s nice when the biology that you get out of a large genome-wide study ratifies things that we already know because that can help increase confidence in further findings from the study,” Gelernter says. Uncovering the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders John Krystal, MD, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry, is interested in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of which anxiety is a major symptom. In the late 1980s, Krystal’s team discovered that the drug yohimbine activated symptoms in patients with PTSD. “This was the first time we could link a specific biological mechanism to the symptoms of PTSD,” Krystal says. At the time, he adds, this finding was highly controversial. “A lot of people felt that PTSD was a purely psychological syndrome that didn’t have an underlying biology.” Since then, Krystal has dived deep into understanding the neurobiology of PTSD to learn how to better treat it. His team is evaluating the use of ketamine and psychedelics. These would be among the first treatments to be developed specifically for PTSD. They may also be applicable for other disorders including anxiety disorders, Krystal adds. An important gap in PTSD treatment is the absence of biological tests that inform how to best help patients manage their PTSD symptoms. A doctor doesn’t diagnose cancer based on how they feel. Rather, they use tests of the biology of the cancer to determine the best course of treatment. “And we can’t do that in any psychiatric disorder other than Alzheimer’s disease,” Krystal says. “But now we are building a foundation for this approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders for the first time.” Source: Yale School of Medicine

Oct 5 • 6:44 AM EDT • Science • goldrushcam.com

Florida appears set to tumble while Bama hopes to rise

A week after a huge promotion in the poll, Florida is bound to come down in the newest AP Top 25 after a lopsided loss. 25 Missouri on a Saturday while other ranked teams generally won in workmanlike fashion.

Oct 4 • 12:02 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Where's my Starbucks?

This is a condensed version of Business Insider Today, a newsletter that gives you a look at the week’s top stories. Sign up here to get the full Business Insider Today in your inbox every day for the top stories in markets, tech, and business.

Oct 4 • 8:15 AM EDT • Business • linkedin.com

'Back from outer space': How Karina Rykman escapes from Earth in her new album 'Late Checkout'

Space, touring and the daily grind collide on Rykman's latest record.

Oct 3 • 11:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • space.com

Alabama State vs Bethune-Cookman live updates, highlights, analysis

Alabama State football plays Bethune-Cookman in a pivotal SWAC showdown. Follow live updates and highlights from Alabama State's Week 5 game.

Oct 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance

David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, speaks during CinemaCon 2026 on April 16, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (David Becker/Getty Images for CinemaCon)

Oct 2 • 3:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed

Also: Spooky action at the LHC, Ice Age psychoactive use, yeast for building homes on Mars, and more.

Oct 2 • 2:17 PM EDT • Science • arstechnica.com

In brief: 'Reacher' spinoff gets a second season and more

We’ve got an official trailer for NBC’s Newlyweds, the new sitcom starring real-life married couple Tim Daly and Téa Leoni. The show, co-created by Jamie Lee Curtis, follows a later-in-life love story between a free-spirited woman and a professor who marry after a quick courtship. It premieres on Oct. 23 …The Reacher spinoff Neagley is getting a second season, just two weeks after the first season debuted on Prime Video. Maria Sten stars as the fan-favorite character Frances Neagley, a private investigator from Chicago and the former protégé of Jack Reacher, in the action series. The original Reacher series, starring Alan Ritchson, was picked up for a sixth season earlier this week … TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Bradley Cooper is gearing up to star in Paramount’s new G.I. Joe film. He’ll be playing Duke, the leader of the Joes. Danny McBride is on board to direct. Further details on the project have not yet been revealed …Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Oct 2 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Chase Infiniti to star in new horror film 'Portrait of God'

Chase Infiniti headshot (Courtesy of Backstage)

Oct 2 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

New ‘DWTS’ pro shocks fans by announcing relationship with fellow ‘DWTS: The Next Pro’ contestant

Babe, wake up: a new ‘DWTS’ super-couple just dropped. New pro Adele Zaikman and her ‘The Next Pro’ spinoff competitor, Allen Genkin, have confirmed all the rumors of their romance.

Sep 30 • 10:42 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Former illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer reflects on Nevada’s Black Book and sports betting’s future

Mathew Bowyer is the former illegal bookmaker for Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter. Now out of prison, he questions his recent inclusion in Nevada’s Black Book, which bans him from casinos in the state. Bowyer told The Mob Museum that he wishes that gaming regulators would make it possible for individual bookkeepers to do business.

Sep 30 • 5:46 PM EDT • Sports • themobmuseum.org

Jennifer Lawrence to star in 'The Flood' from director Zach Cregger

Jennifer Lawrence attends the Christian Dior Haute Couture Week Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on Jan. 26, 2026, in Paris, France. (Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images for Christian

Sep 30 • 5:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Billionaire Bill Ackman calls Anthropic 'perhaps the greatest business story I've ever seen'

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said his hedge fund likely won't invest in AI startup Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) but that it's still an impressive company.

Sep 30 • 2:37 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Italy business and consumer confidence falls in September

Italian business and consumer confidence fell ​in September, data showed on ‌Wednesday, in a negative sign for the prospects of ​the euro zone's third ​largest economy.

Sep 30 • 4:18 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

‘He Could Be a Cheaper Option’ — Sports Media Expert Theorizes ESPN May Be Planning to Replace Troy Aikman With 3-Time Pro Bowler

The longest-standing broadcast partnership in NFL history may be approaching a crossroads, and one media analyst has floated three-time Pro Bowler Greg Olsen as a possible option for ESPN if Troy Aikman departs. When Troy Aikman, the on-air partner of Joe Buck since 2002, revealed on the “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” podcast that he has not signed a contract extension with ESPN, rumors swirled.

Sep 30 • 1:35 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Joe Buck hopes Troy Aikman stays at ESPN

Sep 29 • 8:57 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Joe Buck ‘hopeful’ Troy Aikman stays at ESPN

After following Troy Aikman to ESPN, Joe Buck now hopes his longtime NFL broadcast partner follows him in staying at ESPN. Earlier this month, Buck signed a six-year contract extension with ESPN worth more than $100 million to continue as the network’s voice of Monday Night Football. Aikman, however, remains unsigned, with his current contract…

Sep 29 • 1:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

ABC News' Will Reeve reveals testicular cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy treatment

ABC News' Will Reeve is seen on the set of 'Good Morning America' on June 9, 2026, on ABC. (Paula Lobo/ABC via Getty Images)

Sep 29 • 12:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

'Reacher' scores early season 6 renewal at Prime Video

Alan Ritchson in season 3 of 'Jack Reacher.' (Jasper Savage/Prime Video)

Sep 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Naughty Dog Will 'Fully Reveal' Intergalactic in 2027, but No Release Window Yet

Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann concluded this year's "The Last of Us Day" by giving updates on the developer's current projects, teasing two new The Last of Us projects that "will expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part I and Part II" without confirming whether or not either one of them is a game, as well as saying that its next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Project, will be "fully reveal[ed]" next year.

Sep 28 • 8:37 PM EDT • Technology • ign.com

Two new The Last of Us projects in “very early stages” at Naughty Dog

Two new projects set in the world of The Last of Us are in the “very early stages” at Naughty Dog, studio head Neil Druckmann said in a note marking the end of The Last of Us Day 2026.

Sep 28 • 8:22 PM EDT • Technology • gematsu.com

In brief: '9 to 5' headed back to theaters and more

Pour yourself a cup of ambition and head out to your local movie theater. 9 to 5 is headed back to movie theaters for a special, weeklong run starting on Oct. 9. This will be a newly restored version of the classic satirical workplace comedy starring the late Dolly Parton. Additionally, Disney is set to donate net proceeds from each ticket purchased for the rerelease in the U.S. to the Dollywood Foundation in support of its flagship program, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Disney is the parent company of ABC News ...Off Campus star Ella Bright has found her next gig. The actress confirmed she will star opposite Mason Thames in the movie Narcs in a post shared to her Instagram Story. This marks Bright's first major studio feature role. The upcoming coming-of-age comedy will be made for Sony Pictures. While the movie's plot is being kept under wraps, it will serve as the directorial debut of John Phillips, the writer of No Hard Feelings, Good Boys and Dirty Grandpa ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Did you miss Evil Dead Burn in theaters? Not to worry. The film is set to make its global streaming debut on HBO Max on Oct. 2. Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Erroll Shand and Maude Davey star in the film that was directed by Sébastien Vaniček ...Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Sep 28 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Emeryville’s Folkmanis Puppets Celebrates 50 Years as a Family-Run Business

Folkmanis Puppets celebrates 50 years in Emeryville, tracing the family-run company from its Berkeley beginnings to its longtime Park Avenue home.

Sep 27 • 12:02 AM EDT • Business • evilleeye.com

Ilyas Sahin Shares New Science Study on Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastasis

Ilyas Sahin Shares New Science Study on Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastasis / Abdullah Burak Yildiz, Akhouri Kishore Raghawan, Albert Sickmann, Alpaslan

Sep 26 • 2:57 PM EDT • Science • oncodaily.com

Dan Dickman’s legacy takes center stage at 2026 Business Appreciation Luncheon

Dan Dickman's influence was unmistakeable at the 2026 Business Appreciation Luncheon. Many remembered Dickman as a mentor, advocate and community leader who helped people see a path forward when they could not see one themselves.

Sep 25 • 5:00 PM EDT • Business • richlandsource.com

Taylor Swift releases 4 new songs, including 'Patient Zero'

Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore' (Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott)

Sep 25 • 10:50 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

'The Beast in Me' will return for season 2 at Netflix

Claire Danes as Aggie Wiggs and Matthew Rhys as Nile Jarvis in episode 3 of season 1 of 'The Beast in Me.' (Netflix)

Sep 24 • 5:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Live cattle futures mixed ahead of direct business

At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, live cattle were mixed, feeders were lower waiting on widespread direct business. October live cattle closed $1.85 lower at $219.07 and December live cattle closed $1.25 lower at $221.10. October feeder cattle closed $1.57 lower at $331.75 and November feeder cattle closed $1.42 lower at $328.07. Direct cash cattle trade […]

Sep 24 • 4:25 PM EDT • Business • brownfieldagnews.com

Macklemore announces 'Free Palestine' tour after Ed Sheeran controversy

Macklemore performs at Rod Laver Arena on May 15, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia. (Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

Sep 24 • 3:35 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

D-Backs Take Care of Business in Denver

TL;DR: A big first inning made the difference in a workmanlike win they desperately need.

Sep 24 • 1:26 AM EDT • Business • azsnakepit.com

D-Backs Take Care of Business in Denver

TL;DR: A big first inning made the difference in a workmanlike win they desperately need.

Sep 24 • 1:26 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

D-Backs Take Care of Business in Denver

TL;DR: A big first inning made the difference in a workmanlike win they desperately need.

Sep 24 • 1:26 AM EDT • Business • sports.yahoo.com

Jamie Foxx talks preparing to welcome 3rd child at age 58

Jamie Foxx appears on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' on Sept. 22, 2026. (Randy Holmes/Disney)

Sep 23 • 1:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

A holiday circus show opens an Oklahoma amphitheater, which includes a club built in partnership with Troy Aikman.

The preview uses a nearly 5,000-seat theater setup; full 12,500-seat capacity is anticipated for summer 2027. Tickets go on sale in coming weeks.

Sep 23 • 12:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • stocktitan.net

ESPN’s Direction Could Influence Their Decision On Troy Aikman

"ESPN is changing, and so is the audience it is trying to reach. The network is investing in younger voices, creators and personalities who can live beyond the traditional broadcast window. Aikman represents a different era of sports media." The post ESPN’s Direction Could Influence Their Decision On Troy Aikman appeared first on Barrett Media.

Sep 23 • 12:09 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Would Troy Aikman actually walk away from ESPN?

This originally appeared in Tuesday morning’s edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter with the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis. Sign up here and be the first to know everything going on in the sports media world. Something is off when the analyst half of the longest-running broadcast marriage in NFL history…

Sep 22 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Stukenholtz: Huskers Answered Questions in Workmanlike Non-Con Slate

With Big Ten play on the horizon, we did actually learn some important details about this team in their blowout wins.

Sep 20 • 12:09 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Green Brick Partners CEO Jim Brickman explains what makes business model unique

Green Brick Partners CEO Jim Brickman explains what makes business model unique

Sep 18 • 5:21 PM EDT • Business • qz.com

Au revoir: 'Emily in Paris' wraps production on final season

Lily Collins as Emily behind the scenes of 'Emily in Paris.' (Cr. Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix © 2026)

Sep 18 • 2:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Millie Bobby Brown appears to welcome 2nd baby, shares new photo

Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi attend the Enola Holmes 3 NY Premiere on June 25, 2026, in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Netflix)

Sep 18 • 12:04 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

How to watch North Gwinnett vs Berkmar high school football

You can watch North Gwinnett football all season long with NFHS Network, including this week’s game against Berkmar.

Sep 18 • 7:04 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

'Spring Awakening' composer Duncan Sheik in 'critical but stable condition'

Duncan Sheik attends the premiere of 'Spring Awakening: Those You've Known' at Florence Gould Hall on April 25, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

Sep 17 • 12:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Burna Boy to headline NFL halftime show in Paris

Burna Boy for 'Global Citizen Live.' (ABC)

Sep 17 • 11:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Can researchers trust that AI models won’t leak their ideas?

Research funders are asking how they can stop confidential scientific ideas in grant proposals from leaking out through large language models (LLMs), for example if reviewers use AI to help them judge applications. Last week, a row erupted in mathematics after OpenAI announced it had solved a notoriously difficult problem, only for another mathematician to demand answers over whether the company had used ideas he had fed into its models. The spat, and the broader issue of idea leakage through AI models, was discussed by funders at an R&D policy conference held in Paris on September 14. At worst, it threatens to undermine the correct attribution of breakthroughs, one of the foundations of modern science. The mathematics dispute around OpenAI is “certainly something we're looking at” Jason Gallo, head of the newly established Office of Metascience at the US National Science Foundation (NSF), told the Blue Sky Forum, hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The controversy started on September 8, when OpenAI announced it had cracked a mathematical problem that had gone unsolved for 90 years. Using a swarm of AI agents, millions of dollars’ worth of computing power and a new internal model, the company said it had finally proved that a long-used formula for modelling fluid dynamics breaks down under certain conditions. However, Tristan Buckmaster, a New York University mathematician who had been independently working with collaborators on the same problem using OpenAI’s Codex tool, hit back with a statement questioning whether the company had snooped on his Codex sessions to gain an advantage. OpenAI has always denied it looked up the “specific user data” of Buckmaster and colleagues. However, the company initially admitted that “while unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models⁠,” although its proofs “differ significantly” from Buckmaster’s. The firm later said that, following an investigation, it concluded that Buckmaster’s Codex prompts “could not have influenced the [OpenAI] system in any way, including through training.”Funder concernYet OpenAI’s initial admission that its model might have ingested Buckmaster’s ideas, then spat them out to its own mathematicians, has scientistsworriedthat their work could leak out if shared with AI. Some AI tools give users an opt-out option to stop their sessions from training the model. If such guarantees can be trusted, this gives scientists some confidence they can use an LLM to develop an idea without the risk of it leaking out.But there’s a bigger potential vulnerability. To win money to investigate ideas, scientists have to share them with funding bodies. These grant proposals are normally kept strictly confidential, to prevent other scientists from scooping them, or to protect commercially valuable intellectual property. To preserve this confidentiality, when the NSF uses AI models, “we have to be sure that it's not making server calls out to an external party, leaking that data,” said Gallo to delegates in Paris. Leaks through reviewersHowever, funders normally use external academic reviewers to assess proposals. And there are growing worries that these reviewers are feeding grant ideas into AI models to help them make a judgement. Research funders have noticed that peer review reports and funding recommendations have “suddenly become much longer, more detailed and complex,” said Diogo Machado, head of the data science unit at Technopolis, a science and technology-focused consultancy. “The sense is that reviewers are increasingly using generative AI in their review work, even where guidelines sometimes forbid it,” he told Science|Business. “This is very difficult for funders to control or prove.” Happening at scaleThis sharing of confidential proposals with AI models is “happening at scale already,” said James Wilson, executive director of the Research on Research Institute, based at University College London, during the debate in Paris. In response, Gallo said the NSF had “strict guidance” around the uploading of proposals to AI models. But he added the NSF was mulling new types of assessment to make sure applicants were truly the originators of their ideas, such as following a short-form proposal with an oral presentation, which would allow the foundation to “really interrogate the investigator on their intellectual contribution.” Related articlesHow can Europe cope with a flood of AI-assisted research grant proposals?The risks and benefits of AI in screening research grant proposals Viewpoint: AI could make scientific overload worse“For us as funders, a lot of the ways to ensure that the application remains the applicant's own intellectual contribution, those ways are quite regressive,” Peter Clifford, head of strategy at Research Ireland, told delegates. “They're maybe ten or 15 or 20 years old, and they don't scale particularly well.” Disputes over the origin of ideas are as old as modern science. Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz spent more than a decade arguing over who invented calculus, for example. And long before LLMs emerged, academics would agonise over how much of their early work to reveal at conferences, in case their colleagues scooped them, Jack Leahy, a senior metascience advisor to the UK government, told delegates. But AI was “accelerating” the “problems of the system,” he said.

Sep 17 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Science council plots diplomacy push for fractured world

Peter Gluckman says the multilateral system needs new tools to survive an age of rivalry

Sep 17 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • researchprofessionalnews.com

Fans' loyalty rewarded by Europa League win

Former Sunderland striker Marco Gabbiadini reflected on a "special" Europa League victory as the club made a winning return to European football after 53 years away. The winning moment against AZ Alkmaar came in the 66th minute when Enzo le Fee slotted away his penalty after being brought down inside the area. "It was very special," Gabbiadini told BBC Radio 5 Live's Football Daily.

Sep 17 • 4:56 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Sunderland back in Europe

Regis le Bris' side take on AZ Alkmaar in their opening fixture and Sunderland legend Gary Bennett - the club's fifth all-time appearance maker - says the ride to get there has been "unbelievable". "It's been a journey, especially from where Sunderland have come from," Bennett told BBC Radio Newcastle.

Sep 16 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Protecting the People Who Care for Others

After 29 years with the Pennsylvania State Police, David Heckman… Read more

Sep 16 • 8:55 AM EDT • Health • inside.upmc.com

Sunderland v AZ Alkmaar: Our Europa League Predictions Are In

European football is finally back on Wearside, but how do the Roker Report team see Sunderland faring against AZ Alkmaar on this historic night?

Sep 16 • 4:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Sunderland vs AZ Alkmaar predictions: Europa League tips and odds

Sunderland play their first match in European competition since 1973 tonight, when they kick off their Europa League campaign against AZ Alkmaar at the Stadium of Light (kick-off, 8pm).

Sep 16 • 3:48 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Blackmagic Generation 6 Color Science

Blackmagic Design recently announced Blackmagic Camera 10.3, which added support for the new Generation 6 color science to the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF.

Sep 15 • 9:48 PM EDT • Science • newsshooter.com

Netflix's 'Pride and Prejudice' adaptation gets winter release date

Emma Corrin stars in 'Pride and Prejudice.' (Justin Downing/Netflix)

Sep 15 • 2:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

In brief: 'Yaga' gets AMC+ premiere date and more

We now know when the upcoming series Yaga will debut on AMC+. The new mystery-thriller series will premiere its first two episodes on Oct. 23. The streamer also released a sneak peek clip of the show that reimagines the myth of Baba Yaga. Noah Reid, Hudson Williams, Clark Backo and Carrie-Anne Moss star in the series ...Did you miss the film Tuner when it was in theaters earlier this year? Not to worry. The movie will mark its streaming premiere to Paramount+ on Sept. 21. Tuner follows a gifted young piano tuner who uses his heightened sense of hearing to open safes in the world of high-stakes theft. Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman and Havana Rose Liu star in the crime thriller ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Ben Platt and Russell Tovey are disrupting the industry. Well, the cast of Industry, that is. HBO has announced that Platt and Tovey have joined the cast of the upcoming fifth and final season of the drama series. The season is currently in production ...Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Sep 15 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Has dark matter been found? Bay Area scientists analyze signal deep underground

A single unexplained particle interaction has Bay Area scientists investigating a tantalizing possibility: a direct detection of dark matter, the mysterious substance thought to make up most of the universe’s matter.

Sep 15 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • mercurynews.com

Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise attend Travis Kelce's Chiefs home opener

Singer Taylor Swift and actor Tom Cruise attend the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos at Arrowhead Stadium on September 14, 2026 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Sep 15 • 7:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Greg Brockman says OpenAI slowed cutting-edge AI work over safety

As the debate over AI safety rages on, the OpenAI president said the company already put some projects on ice to focus on security practices.

Sep 15 • 12:11 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Get to know Beckman: Ngoc Nguyen, research engineer

Research engineer Ngoc Nguyen reflects on his career path, his new role at the Beckman Institute and the joys of life in central Illinois.

Sep 14 • 10:15 AM EDT • Science • beckman.illinois.edu

Huskers Handle Their Business in a Workmanlike Blowout

I understand it was not for everybody, but Nebraska's 56-7 victory over the Bowling Green Falcons was close to my definition of a perfect non-conference cupcake

Sep 14 • 10:03 AM EDT • Business • si.com

Hackman Loses Culver City Office Campus

Troubled studio owner Hackman Capital Partners has lost control of the former Sony Pictures Animation campus in Culver City. The 198,000-square-foot

Sep 14 • 3:01 AM EDT • Business • labusinessjournal.com

Bethune-Cookman, Stetson football game under weather delay

The first football meeting between Bethune-Cookman and Stetson has been delayed due to lightning in the area.

Sep 12 • 3:42 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Beckman announces 2026 graduate fellows

The Beckman Institute has announced this year’s Beckman Institute Graduate Fellows. Seven students have been recognized this year.

Sep 11 • 3:51 PM EDT • Science • beckman.illinois.edu

“Harry Potter” star reveals ‘most extraordinary’ act of kindness Alan Rickman did on set before his death

“He was such a darling like that,” said Sirius Black actor Gary Oldman at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Sep 11 • 11:09 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Christopher H. Palmer

Christopher H. Palmer is managing partner of Cullen and Dykman and chair of the firm’s banking and financial services department.

Sep 11 • 1:00 AM EDT • Business • libn.com

Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried appeals conviction to Supreme Court

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former crypto mogul who was convicted of defrauding investors by secretly diverting billions of dollars of their money, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday for a new trial and to throw out a court order requiring him to pay $11 billion as part of his sentence.

Sep 10 • 4:40 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

'Nobody Wants This' gets season 3 release date at Netflix

Adam Brody as Noah and Kristen Bell as Joanne in episode 1 of 'Nobody Wants This' season 3. (Netflix)

Sep 10 • 2:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

The Mathematician Crushed Between OpenAI and Anthropic Over a Math Problem

Tristan Buckmaster was on the path toward an important proof when one of the A.I. giants used its staggering resources to get there first.

Sep 10 • 10:05 AM EDT • Science • nytimes.com

Win, Lose, Love: 8 Sports Romances Worth Rooting For

Get your heart in the game.

Sep 10 • 9:00 AM EDT • Sports • netflix.com

'Tough watch' but 'workmanlike' Celtic get job done

Auston Trusty is just far too weak and that worries me against the teams coming up. Franny: I said it when he signed and I'll say it again, Haissem Hassan is going to be massive for us. Viljami Sinisalo could have a fight on his hands to remain No.1 as Sam Johnstone looks confident.

Sep 10 • 5:08 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Aroostook County couple launches ‘walking taco’ business after eclipse success

Angelina and Chuck Jackman, owners of Amity-based Jack’s Walkin’ Tacos, just won a $25,000 business grant.

Sep 9 • 4:00 PM EDT • Business • thecounty.me

Jalen Brunson to host 'Saturday Night Live' alongside musical guest Katseye

Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks celebrates in the fourth quarter against the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 03, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by

Sep 9 • 1:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Martin Herlihy departs 'Saturday Night Live'

Martin Herlihy attends the premiere of 'Roommates' at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on April 13, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Sep 9 • 12:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Lori Loughlin files for divorce from Mossimo Giannulli

Designer Mossimo Giannulli and actress Lori Loughlin attend LACMA's 50th Anniversary Gala on April 18, 2015, in Los Angeles, California. (Donato Sardella/Getty Images for LACMA)

Sep 9 • 11:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Pop music legend known as ‘The Singing Milkman’ dead at 85

A cause of death has not been reported.

Sep 8 • 5:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • pennlive.com

OpenAI's chief scientist calls for AI slowdown over rogue agent risks

OpenAI's chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, warned that increasingly autonomous AI agents could evade oversight, hack systems, and blackmail humans.

Sep 6 • 3:26 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Parrott strikes as Mbappé miss ends Madrid’s winning start

Real Madrid suffered their first defeat since José Mourinho’s return as coach, losing 1-0 away to Real Betis in La Liga on Friday. Troy Parrott, an Irish striker who joined Betis from AZ Alkmaar in...

Sep 6 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Biggest Three Takeaways From UCF's Offense in Dominant Victory

From a record-setting margin of victory to a multifaceted backfield, discover how the Knights utilized elite depth and efficient quarterback play to dismantle Bethune-Cookman in their opener.

Sep 4 • 1:09 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Miley Cyrus releases new single, 'Bass Persuades,' and music video

Miley Cyrus performs onstage during the 66th GRAMMY Awards on February 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (John Shearer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Sep 4 • 11:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

UCF Cruises To Lopsided Win Over Bethune-Cookman

The Knights dismantled the Wildcats in a record-breaking season opener, fueled by Duke Watson’s explosive runs and a relentless offense that matched a program-high 73 points.

Sep 4 • 7:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

'The Odyssey' continues IMAX run throughout September

Matt Damon stars as Odysseus in 'The Odyssey.' (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)

Sep 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

All Manchester United loanees for the 2026/27 season

4.4KManchester United as usual, have sent numerous players out on loan this year.This page will be updated throughout the season so you can keep up to date with all the latest action involving United�...

Sep 3 • 4:55 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Astra model launch marks AGI milestone for OpenAI, Greg Brockman says

OpenAI president Greg Brockman suggests its new model Astra could be AGI, pitching it as a research breakthrough and a shift in delegating work to AI.

Sep 3 • 4:47 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Kevin Zegers, Milla Jovovich added to 'Heated Rivalry' season 2

Kevin Zegers headshot (Courtesy of Kevin Zegers); Milla Jovovich headshot (Photo credit: An Le)

Sep 3 • 4:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Commanders 'love' rookie quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis

The Commanders hope they've found Jayden Daniels' future backup in rookie Athan Kaliakmanis.

Sep 2 • 7:25 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Nestle to divest mainstream supplements business for $1 billion

Nestle said ​on Tuesday ‌it has agreed ​to divest ​its mainstream vitamins, ⁠minerals ​and supplements ​business to U.S.-based Yellow ​Wood ​Partners for $1 billion.

Sep 1 • 1:01 PM EDT • Business • reuters.com

gamescom 2026’s Steam wishlist winners

gamescom wrapped up last weekend, and it was bloody fantastic. It really felt like the industry had a spring in its step again. The show itself was BUZZING, with 368K attendees (+3% over last year), maxed-out exhibit space, and Opening Night Live pulling over 78M online views (+7.5%). Let’s have a look at the games at the event that brought in the most new Steam wishlists between August 23 and 30. One quick thing before we start, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but wishlists are NOT a barometer for launch sales (they’re bookmarks, not baskets is what we always say over here at Alinea). With that aside, wishlists are a nice gauge of hype, so let’s dive in. Witche(r)s and Warlocks take the top two spots The biggest game of the event (by new wishlists, anyways) wasn’t a game at all. It was an expansion. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, nabbed 451K Steam wishlists by the end of the weekend. It’s a big example of something we bang on about constantly: proven IP with built-in fandom is the most powerful force in this market. But said IP can also ripple into other external success stories (more on that later!). Anyway, Songs of the Past debuted at Opening Night Live, and it’s the first Witcher 3 expansion in over a decade, landing next year after a full Witcher 3 remaster (free for existing owners!) arrives next month. The Witcher 3 has sold around 66M copies, and I’ll be one of those owners jumping back in to refresh myself on the core game (like there isn’t enough to play!), then play the expansion next year. This is all part of CDPR’s plan. The studio is clearly whetting everyone’s appetite for The Witcher 4 in 2028 via a classic bridge strategy. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Releasing a free 4K remaster next month – followed by a proper expansion in 2027 – keeps IP top-of-mind across a huge gap between content (games-wise, anyway). It kind of echoes Capcom’s evergreen catalogue strategy. And outsourcing co-development to Fool’s Theory (a studio led by trusted Witcher 3 veterans) keeps CDPR’s internal headcount focused on The Witcher 4. #2 by wishlists between Aug 23 and 30 went to another giant IP: Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, published by Wizards of the Coast and developed by Invoke Studios (a team of ex-Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell devs). It’s due to launch in 2027, and it looks brilliant so far. It’s a dark-fantasy open world with third-person spell-slinging. It’s a very Witcher-ish aesthetic. As you might expect, 48% of Warlock’s Steam wishlisters have played Baldur’s Gate 3, and 46% have played The Witcher 3. One to watch. For sure! Mash-ups: Anime GTA (!?) and a city-builder for kids (and adults) Ananta took #3 with 302K new wishlists. It’s an open-world game that looks like GTA and Persona had a baby. It was published by NetEase, developed by Naked Rain, and got a trailer at Opening Night Live. I got hands-on at the show, and it wears its influences openly; there’s literal web-slinging (very Spider-Man) and a LOAD of mini-games (Like a Dragon). It’s free-to-play and out in January. For Ananta, Naked Rain is taking the free-to-play, cosmetics-only route. That’s certainly a choice for a single-player open-world game. Without gacha mechanics driving high ARPU, Ananta is betting purely on top-of-funnel reach and long-term retention. This puts pressure on skin appeal when there’s no multiplayer lobby to flex in (although, co-op is reportedly coming later). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Then there’s Lego Skylines (273K wishlists between Aug 23 and 30), which does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a cosy Lego twist on the city-builder genre, as shallow or as deep as you fancy (five min quick sesh or ten-hour no-lifer session; latter for me). There’s some family-friendly stuff in there like couch co-op, which is only really viable on console. Iceflake Studios, which Paradox acquired back in 2020 is developing this one. So Paradox is probably looking for a family-friendly onramp to its rad Cities: Skylines games. The overlap there is plain, with 33% of Lego Skylines wishlisters having played Cities: Skylines and 16% Skylines II. There’s no doubt plenty of parents here (and uncles, ahem) planning to indoctrinate the next gen of city-builders. I’ll definitely be playing with my youngest nephew. This one could be big and educational. I’m very curious to see more. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Mature IP, new and old, rounds out the list As for the rest of the list of gamescom games by new wishlists between Aug 23 and 30: Heroes of Might & Magic III Remake got 189K new wishlists. It remakes the iconic 1999 turn-based-strategy classic in full 3D and 4K. It follows this year’s Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era (~1.8M copies sold, as per our estimates), and around a quarter of the III Remake wishlisters have played Olden Era, including 7% of them this month. Wardogs – a $40 PvP shooter – added another 146K to an already massive pile (nearly 1.6M total). It’s published by Team17 and made by Bulkhead. It plays somewhere between the tactical squad stuff of … Squad and the all-out-chaos battlefield of … Battlefield. It’s up to 100 players, and it’s out in about 10 days. It’s already pre-sold over 500K copies on Steam ($16.6M), boosted by a pre-order-only beta. It sold another 70K copies during gamescom, too. Afterworld managed 121K new wishlists. It’s a Paradox-made post-apocalyptic grand-strategy game, and it was announced at the show. It’s a departure from Paradox’s usual historical stuff, and the studio’s first new setting in over a decade. The Paradox purists are into it, with over half its wishlisters having played Hearts of Iron IV (19% this month) and 41% Crusader Kings III (17% this month). Metro 2039 got 110K during the show, tunnelling its total past 1.3M. Nearly 40% of wishlisters have played 2020’s Metro Exodus, the previous mainline title in the series. The Metro novels are Russian, dev 4A Games is Ukrainian, and it’s set in Moscow, so it’s unsurprising that – after the US (17.3% of wishlisters) – the next two countries are Russia (12.7%) and Ukraine (10.0%). The Blood of the Dawnwalker drew in (the blood of) 108K new wishlisters, now totalling an impressive 1.7M (at a $70 price point, though). It’s an open-world dark-fantasy action-RPG set in 14th-century Europe (with vampires!), made by some former Witcher devs at Rebel Wolves. Again, it shows. Over half of Blood of the Dawnwalker’s wishlisters have played The Witcher 3, and its #2 market is Poland, home of Rebel Wolves. That’s that hometown-hero effect we keep banging on about again! And Blood of the Dawnwalker plays very well, by the way. While it looks like a Witcher clone on the surface, it actually brings a lot to the table mechanics-wise. I love the whole time-as-a-currency spin on RPG gameplay. It gives the game a different, refreshing pace. Essentially, you start Blood of the Dawnwalker with a pool of 480 action points spread across 30 days and 30 nights. As for how the game performs, we’ll be posting some numbers next week, so hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready. Subscribe The Witcher’s legacy ripples Make no mistake: on a high level, this was The Witcher‘s gamescom. The #1 game by wishlisters was a Witcher 3 DLC. Warlock is clearly Witcher-inspired – as is Blood of the Dawnwalker, which was made by ex-Witcher devs. There was a lot of other cool stuff on the floor that we’ll no doubt be covering in subsequent newsletters, though! As always, wishlists went through the roof for sequels, remakes, DLC, and licensed IP. As always, though, these wishlists will likely convert to about 5% to 10% of launch-day buyers, with the probable exception of The Witcher DLC – the exception that proves the rule. Either way, we’ve got a nice, diverse list here – one that is very Witcher-y, Paradox-y, and – if you’re a fan of great games on Steam – a bloody good list. We even got a bunch of new IP to get excited for. Great gamescom! Even if we are still processing that unfathomable number of mini Kölsch beers! One more thing: GTA 6 broke the internet (again) Move aside, Spider-Man and The Odyssey (I love you both, really). But the decade’s defining entertainment zeitgeist is round the corner. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Rockstar dropped an extended look at GTA 6 last week. It was INSANE, the most impressed I’ve ever been by a showcase like this. You can see the budget seeping through every second of the extended look, and this level of game is unobtainable for any other publisher. Everyone’s going nuts, and rightly so. GTA 6 is out in holiday 2026, and it’ll be the biggest entertainment release ever, full stop. For those without a PS5 or Xbox Series console, a $500-$900 console is a big ask in this economy, but GTA will pull a lot of last-generation-console fence sitters over the current-gen fence either way: The autumn timing puts GTA 6 on (digital) shelves for the holidays, meaning a PS5 or Xbox (let’s be honest, mostly the former) will be on many a Christmas and Hanukkah list. Demand will outweigh the struggling supply, though, and PS5 Pros are already sold out and being sold at a markup via scalpers. Every console that isn’t on a shelf is a sale deferred or lost, and worse, it hands scalpers the margin. GTA has cultural clout that reaches everyone. It’s been a mainstream fixture since 2001’s GTA III and its clout has only grown exponentially since then. There’s a touchpoint for every generation alive. The FOMO-word-of-mouth double punch does the rest. Loading... It’ll reactivate the lockdown cohort, the millions who picked up gaming in 2020-21 and churned. GTA 6 will bring them back. Remember when College Football 25 brought a bunch of US gamers to current-gen consoles? GTA will do that globally. Once they’re back (or upgraded), and all GTA’d out, the fresh current-gen-console folks will check out the rest of the current-gen catalogue they missed. GTA Online, if not free to play, will also lead to a boost for PS+ and Xbox Game Pass, another boost for the ecosystem players. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Even some of the smug PCMR 60FPS crew won’t be able to resist their FOMO and will bite the bullet on a console to play this one early (then double dip). The consoles cost the same as a decent stick of RAM these days anyway lmao… Don’t get me wrong, though. GTA 6 is no silver bullet for the mature console market, but it does prime the current gen for a couple of strong swan-song years. And it’ll also give the consoles more users from which to maximise ARPU. ‘’We are in the latter half of the lifetime cycle of [the PS5],’’ said Sony President and CEO Hiroki Totoki in a Wall Street Journal interview. ‘’That means we do not need to aggressively sell the console today; rather than that, we are focusing on the current revenue from the current user base.’’ The biggest, best premium games always arrive late in a console cycle, so getting more players aboard now, ahead of that content storm (the new current-gen-only Call of Duty included), is a clear win for the platforms. On the Netflix thing, though: let’s all chill out a bit, like. Half my LinkedIn feed was going bonkers treating the reveal debuting on Netflix like it’s the future of entertainment. It wasn’t. It was a six-hour head start, and Netflix left that detail out of the “first-of-its-kind partnership” press release. The extended look hit Netflix at 3pm ET on 27 August, then went up on YouTube and Rockstar’s site for everyone six hours later. And it was all over social immediately, anyways. This reveal was going to reach an untold number of people whether it debuted on Netflix, YouTube, a Times Square screen, or a group chat. The last trailer did nearly half a billion views in a day with no gatekeeper at all. Netflix just stood next to that audience for six hours, borrowing it. It’s was a tidy deal for Netflix, sure. But every outlet on earth was breaking the thing down frame by frame by the evening anyway. Anyway. I’m hype. And we’ll be covering some GTA numbers on the newsletter soon. So hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready! Subscribe 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. [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!]

Sep 1 • 10:27 AM EDT • Technology • alineaanalytics.substack.com