SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " Latin " 100 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Military & Veterans Campus has new way to build teamwork
On a recent Friday at the Easterseals NH Military & Veterans Campus in Franklin, I found myself about 30 feet in the air. I was holding onto a pole and contemplating what suddenly seemed like a rather narrow log stretching out over a great deal of empty space toward another pole, which also seemed remarkably distant.
Maine Ethics Commission takes no action in confidentiality case
The Maine Ethics Commission voted unanimously Wednesday not to take action against a Republican state lawmaker accused of violating legislative confidentiality restrictions.
NYC Health + Hospitals' NYC Care Program Celebrates Growing Partnerships With Latin American Consulates
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, NYC Health + Hospitals’ NYC Care program today announced that it has reached 16,874 people through tabling
Yemen health system at 'breaking point': WHO
The escalating fighting in Yemen is pushing the country's health system to "breaking point", the World Health Organization said Tuesday, warning that diseases like cholera were already circulating widely.
Political newcomers vying for 51st District state House seat
The 51st District includes all or part of Barrington, Kildeer, Deer Park, Long Grove, Vernon Hills, Lake Zurich, Hawthorn Woods, Inverness, Palatine, Hoffman Estates, and Rolling Meadows.
Tigers Led MLB in Extreme Scoring Games
Detroit’s feast-or-famine offense defined a frustrating season, oscillating between shut-down scoring droughts and explosive outbursts that left no middle ground for a team desperate for consistency.
Trump acknowledges bind he faces on immigration policies
The president spoke at a Hispanic Heritage Month event as Latino voters abandon him.
Latino nonprofits start their own shops to make helping small businesses their business
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — From the pink neon sign on the sunshine yellow wall to the multicolored Mexican paper garlands, Mission Lotería's storefront emits cultural pride everywhere you look.
LAUP connects Latino families with mental health support in Holland
LAUP in Holland connects Latino families with mental health care through therapy and monthly workshops, addressing stigma, language barriers and cost while helping participants rebuild confidence.
Downtown business owners gather to ‘change the narrative” of Youngstown
In a roundtable discussion, various business owners in downtown Youngstown expressed their frustrations over negative views about the city circulating on social media.
“Off Campus ”stars Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli address feud rumors
Fans began speculating about a rift between the costars after photos of Bright disappeared from Cameli’s Instagram grid.
Switching on brain cells: The Nobel-winning science of optogenetics
In optogenetics, scientists control neurons by stimulating them with light—potentially unlocking breakthroughs for conditions such as dementia, depression and blindness.
The Math Singularity Is Here, and Science May Be Next
OpenAI has released an extraordinary body of mathematical work produced by an unreleased frontier model: 722 manuscripts spanning 372 research families across fields including number theory, complexity theory, and mathematical physics. Each result required, on average, the equivalent of roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro reasoning. A New Era of Discovery We may be witnessing the beginnings of a “math singularity”: a point at which machine-generated discovery accelerates beyond humanity’s ability to independently reproduce, verify, or fully absorb it. If frontier models can generate hundreds of meaningful results in the time it takes a human researcher to investigate one, the constraint will no longer be producing new mathematics. It will be our capacity to validate, interpret, and integrate it. This does not make mathematicians obsolete. It changes their role. They may increasingly serve as guides, critics, and meaning-makers. Increasingly, they will decide which questions matter, determining which results can be trusted, and explaining why they are important. Mathematical insight may become abundant, while human judgment becomes more valuable than ever. Mathematics May Be Only the Beginning Every scientific discipline could eventually experience a similar acceleration. AI systems could generate and test hypotheses, connect findings across specialized fields, and explore possibilities at a scale no human research community could match. In medicine, imagine models identifying overlooked disease mechanisms, designing drugs and clinical trials, personalizing treatments, or discovering cures in months rather than decades. In materials science, AI could help create better batteries and cleaner industrial processes. In climate science, it could accelerate advances in energy, forecasting, and carbon removal. In biology, it could uncover relationships hidden across enormous genomic and molecular datasets. The result would not simply be faster research. It could expand the frontier of what is scientifically possible. The New Bottleneck Scientific discovery, however, is not the same as scientific progress. A medical breakthrough must still survive laboratory testing, clinical trials, regulatory scrutiny, manufacturing constraints, and real-world deployment. As machine-generated ideas multiply, the bottleneck may shift from producing breakthroughs to validating them safely and translating them into practice. We may soon have more hypotheses than laboratories can test, more drugs than clinical trials can evaluate, and more mathematical results than experts can review. That imbalance will require better systems for automated verification, reproducible research, prioritization, peer review, and collaboration between AI and domain experts. The importance of OpenAI’s work is not merely the number of manuscripts produced. It offers a glimpse of a world in which intelligence can explore thousands of intellectual paths in parallel. If ideas cease to be scarce, humanity’s defining challenge will be deciding which are true, which matter, and how to turn them into progress. The math singularity is not the end of human inquiry. It is the beginning of a new kind—one in which machines expand the frontier of knowledge and humans decide where it should lead. Subscribe Share Leave a comment
Who Won August and September: Original Films or Franchises?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) I just heard someone say that if you’re reading a pundit or data analyst, and they don’t tell you that they got anything wrong, they’re not a pundit but an “influencer”. I agree with that. You have to tell your audience when you get things wrong, or they won’t (or shouldn’t) trust you as much. Today, we’ve got another edition of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. In general, I’m patting myself on the back (and patting very hard) about a few things like IP at the box office, LIV golf, horror films, crowdfunding movies, superheroes, and old people going to the theaters. That said, I also made a couple of data mistakes on the streaming bubble popping and HBO’s datecdotes, so I’m not perfect. But first, I need your feedback... Subscribe Follow-Ups: What Should We Call Mid-Budget Movies Which Aren’t Cinematic Enough for Theaters But Are Too Expensive to Make Money on Streaming? After I asked for feedback on what we should call straight-to-streaming films that are too big to pencil out on streaming but not really big enough to resonate in theaters, I got some great suggestions from you all, including... “Moldilocks” from John Aboud “Little Big Indie” from Travis Frick1 “Midflicks” from Jonathan Funke. “Extra-Medium” from Jona Nwuke. (Read the explanation in the footnote.) Between these and Brandon Katz—who suggested “Bermuda Budget Triangle”, “The Platform Gap” and “The Distribution Deadzone”—we’ve got some excellent suggestions. And they’re better than my suggestion, the “Streaming Budget Dead Zone”, so let’s take a poll! The winning entry becomes the new term. Loading... RIGHT: LIV Golf is Fully Bankrupt…Is Anyone Else Next? A few years ago, I was always a bit perplexed at all the articles I’d read praising LIV Golf and their strategy to disrupt the PGA. LIV Golf, a brand new professional golf league, offered PGA stars ten times what they made on the PGA Tour to join their new league. And folks praised this strategy for its initial “success” in that a lot of big names did indeed leave the PGA. Yeah, of course the players came over. LIV Golf paid them so, so, so much more! But LIV Golf hadn’t discovered a way to increase potential revenue. So think about this in basic business terms… They paid much more in costs… …but had no real way to increase revenue. That’s not a strategy! That’s deficit financing. It won’t work unless you bankrupt the competition (and then turn around and pay those same golfers much, much less). It’s not a sustainable strategy and only lasts as long as the company/person/nation backing it decides they’re cool with losing money. For LIV Golf, that meant Middle East oil wealth, in particular Saudi Arabian money. Clearly, the current Iran War has hurt Middle East finances, so they need to trim their more exorbitant spending. And LIV Golf was part of that trimming. This should be a major warning for others. TGL’s parent company, TMRW Sports, just got a $1 billion valuation, despite TGL’s (the indoor golf league) horrible TV viewership of less than half a million viewers per match. Unrivaled, the women’s basketball league, just secured a $650 valuation, despite its horrible TV viewership and a new rival (Project B) entering the scene next year. To relate this to streaming, Hollywood should ask which streamers may have wealthy patrons funding their losses. (Let’s be clear: Google, Amazon and Apple.) Could those patrons lose their appetite? For Amazon, probably not. But Apple has a new boss, so maybe! WRONG: My Analysis of the Streaming Bubble Was Missing a Week I’m going to be congratulating myself a lot today, but I make mistakes too, like this data goof. When I last compiled the data on the decline in TV shows, I was missing one week at the end of June. If you look at the first image, you can see that one week was mislabelled as “July”. Mainly, this image got updated to show a 27% decline, not 29%: This change doesn’t really impact the overall analysis, but it is two percent better. By the way, through the third quarter, the decline increased and it’s now a 30% decrease since 2022. (I’ll write/visualize this in an upcoming article.) But I want you to trust me and my data. Especially these days, when many people are using LLMs that I know are inserting faulty data into their charts, I want to keep earning my audience’s faith. So that’s the accurate data. RIGHT: IP Remains Very, Very Popular In July, I wrote a giant (and I mean giant) article on Backrooms, Obsession, and the box office, going over what we know, what we don’t know about what works in theaters, looking at YouTubers, IP, the horror genre, comic book movies, and a whole lot more. The month of August really tested a lot of my theses and, being honest, mostly supported my arguments. Let’s start with IP. Looking at 8-Aug (the weekend after Spider-Man: Brand New Day came out) to 18-Sep (the weekend that Resident Evil came out, which I think provides a nice bookend to this time period), there were seven films based on pre-existing IP: Resident Evil (2026) ($126 million) Practical Magic 2 ($65 million) _Insidious: Out of the Furthe_r ($65 million) Coyote Vs. Acme ($59 million) Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie ($53 million) Tony ($15 million) Super Troopers 3 ($7 million) Compare those to the notable original films from the past month—I actually could have included more movies, but here are just thirteen, bringing us to an even twenty films—including.... The End of Oak Street ($54 million) Buddy ($26 million) Mutiny ($15 million) By Any Means ($15 million) The Dog Stars ($14 million) Runner ($14 million) One Night Only ($11 million) Hope ($8 million) Spa Weekend ($7 million) The Uprising ($6 million) Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma ($6 million) Onslaught ($3 million) Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man ($2.8 million) Here’s that in chart form: Five of the top six films in this time period were all based on IP. I made a big chart of films that grossed over $200 million at the box office before Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey hit theaters. Let’s update that chart! By the way, if you want to see how I categorized each film—so another bar chart—here it is: I know that many of my fellow critics/pundits/analysts dislike films based on IP and how Hollywood is making so many of them. And I’m sympathetic to this point of view. As I’ve written many, many times before, you need a balance between existing franchises, new IP, and original films. And Hollywood clearly needs to make more films like Resident Evil (a well-made film from a visionary director) and fewer Practical Magic 2’s (which didn’t get critical or customer buzz). But at some point, critics and pundits need to contend with what audiences are telling them: Movie-goers aren’t showing up to original films. Audiences are speaking with their dollars, telling you they want more IP and franchises. You can try to convince studio heads to make fewer IP-based films and franchises, but the data and numbers aren’t there. Instead, critics need to work harder to convince audiences to show up for original films. Aim your ire/concern at the average person, not studio heads.2 Because they’re just making the films that audiences are telling them to make. WRONG: Original Horror Films Didn’t Break Out I’ll be honest, even though I wrote an article casting some skepticism on the horror genre in July, if you asked me to make a prediction, I would have predicted that, in August, a new, original horror film would have blown up. No, seriously, I just assumed that Obsession and Backrooms presaged a change in audience behavior. But none of the buzzy new original horror films from August—Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Onslaught (not an action film in spite of the ads), The End of Oak Street, Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man, or _Buddy—_broke out. To be clear, exactly one of those films (Buddy) had good “ROI”, but again—I try to be specific in my language—none were “popular” in any broad sense of the word. None of them will be “saving” movies theaters like Backrooms or _Obsession_helped save the summer. The new Insidious film and Resident Evil, both based on IP, were far and away the biggest horror films since July. (We’ll see if this changes in October/Halloween season.) RIGHT: Stay Skeptical about Crowdfunding... I’ve long been skeptical about crowd-investing platforms as one of Hollywood’s saviors, mainly because there’s so much hype/buzz. People need to stay more skeptical about more things, explaining both the potential upside but also the downsides. In particular, the media often hypes crowdfunding at the start and never checks in on the actual results after they’ve come in later. And August gave us our first update! _Ice Cream Man—_directed by Eli Roth—grossed $6 million off of a $5.5 million budget. This is a production of The Horror Section, which was one of the first “crowd investing” studios with 2,400 investors, which means that 2,400 investors probably lost money. They certainly aren’t getting as great of returns as if they had just invested their dollars in the stock market. Hopefully Stiletto (Tagline: “Someone’s Going to Make it Rain Blood!”) does better next month. WRONG: Another Data Goof Here’s another data error. When the first episode of House of the Dragon came out, HBO put out that it had 21.5 million viewers in the first three days, and I read that to mean in the US…but no, it was global. So my US-only datecdotes charts shouldn’t have included it. We never got US-only numbers for the first episode, but for the final episode, HBO put out that it had 11 million US viewers. (And that global dropped to 21 million viewers.) Here’s the updated chart (which I’ve since used in the Streaming Ratings Report): Still, this show is absolutely huge. RIGHT: Superhero Films Remain Very, Very Popular After Supergirl flopped, I read a few takes that “comic book movies are going the way of the Western”. Post-Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that take didn’t age well. To be fair, I have a very nuanced take on the superhero genre right now; it’s down right now, for a lot of reasons. But it’s not “dead”. Maybe _Spider-_Man is just a really popular character? I saw that take, and it’s a fair counter-argument. (But pundits arguing that superhero movies were dead should have mentioned this $1.5 billion counter-argument…) But is it just Spider-Man? The next Avengers film already has $50 million in pre-sales (and I was skeptical that that film would do well) and the Avengers: End Game re-release topped the box office two weekends ago (over three original films). And I wouldn’t bet against Batman or Superman. So maybe it’s just Spider-Man, Batman, Superman and the Avengers. Oh, and Deadpool, of course. And Black Panther. And Wolverine. And probably the X-Men. Plus a well-made Wonder Woman or the Hulk film could break out. But that’s it! It’s just those ten characters/teams. Oh, what’s that? Lanterns is also doing well on HBO? (See previous section…) To be fair, I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the argument that more popular characters—like Spider-Man and Batman—anchor more popular films. In fact, I made that exact argument three years ago when I first wrote about the “Marvel-cession”. In many ways, you can blame The Guardians of the Galaxy for fooling Marvel Studios (and the rest of us) into believing that any character could pop. It turns out, the list of iconic characters is probably smaller than most people think. But it’s probably too early to say that superhero films and comic book movies are dead unless “death” means a slight decline over a longtime. RIGHT: Who Killed Theaters? Old People I get frustrated whenever I see headlines or analysis about how young people are “returning” to theaters. As I’ve detailed(for years), young people have always powered the US box office, despite narratives about “kids these days” and their “phones”. Really, what’s changed post-2020/pandemic is that old people aren’t going to the movies nearly as much. This summer, I saw a movie (from an older director) in a theater near a retirement community, and multiple older people at the theater were talking about how this was their first time seeing a movie in years. I dislike personal anecdotes, so YouGov can fill in the data, best summarized by this headline: “Who killed movie theaters? Not the youths”. According to them, 64% of people aged 18-29 have seen a movie in the last year, but only 30% of 65-and-older. 20% of 18-29 have seen a movie in theaters in the last week and 42% in the last month. Here’s the polling data: Most concerning? Many Americans (17%) think theaters are a worse or much worse experience than watching films at home. Slight WRONG: Hadestown Opens Big A live theater capture of the Broadway musical, Hadestown, made $20 million at the US box office, which begs the question: was I wrong to be skeptical about musicals a few years ago? Yes and no. On the one hand, $20 million is a far cry from being “popular”, so yeah, the genre isn’t that popular overall and Hadestown is one of the more popular musicals from recent years (i.e. the “Taylor Swift Data Fallacy” in action). On the other, I doubt filming this cost all that much, and I don’t think that they spent much on marketing, so this is a good source of ancillary revenue. Smaller Updates WRONG: As I mentioned in a Streaming Ratings Report, I underestimated the budget for Enola Holmes 3. It probably cost more like $50 million, if not more. But... I’m not sure that it really matters? At sub-10 million hours, prices have to come down to make this work. WRONG: Netflix is giving Ink a 27-day in theaters! To quote the kids/YouTubers these days, let’s go! Now I might actually have a chance to see Danny Boyle’s latest in theaters. I’d complained about this in a “Coming Soon” section, but I was heartened to read that Netflix is giving multiple films longer theatrical windows this year. RIGHT: Netflix is sending 4-5 films per year to theaters. Netflix is slowly but surely sending more and more films to theaters, as I cautiously predicted earlier this year. For now, it’s just three big films and a number of awards contenders, but still, this is great news. And they’ll be releasing box office grosses! Just this week, Ted Sarandos confirmed that KPop Demon Hunters 2 will come to theaters (and my guess is it performs in the box office top ten at a minimum). WRONG: Angel has 3 million subscribers! How do I know this? Well, they told Deadline, who reported it. I marked this as “wrong”, since they’ve doubled their subscribers in one year but, you know, they don’t really have a hit film to speak of and they’re still losing money. WRONG: Furious was only renewed for one more season. I accidentally wrote “two more seasons” in my latest “Renewals, Cancellations, Un-Orders and Removals Update”. RIGHT: House of David is ending with its third season. In July, Prime Video renewed House of David for a third season, as I just wrote in my latest “Renewals and Cancellations” report. Well, now it’s ending after that third season. Why? As I’ve been writing, its viewership wasn’t great. I got feedback that this show didn’t cost very much, but it cost enough that its limited viewership didn’t save it. WRONG: Adults was a Hulu original! So I missed Adults when it first came out last year; I saw that it aired on FX and just assumed that it was a linear-first program. Turns out, it aired three episodes on FX, but binge-released the rest of its episodes the next day on Hulu. Huh. So I should have covered it last year! But I just wrote about it. 1 “When I was a kid in the 90s, if you wore a t-shirt to school that wasn’t too big and also wasn’t too small, but somehow didn’t quite fit, we’d say you were wearing an “extra-medium” shirt.” 2 As always, a huge exception is Disney, which barely makes anything original anymore.
Looking at the Ugly Side of the Paramount-Skydance Merger...And How I’d Fix It
A Message from Our Sponsor Certified Fresh with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, FX’s Adults is an ensemble comedy series about a group of twenty-somethings in New York leaning on each other to navigate love, work, friendship and family. Don’t sleep on “The Sitcom of the Moment” - Awards Buzz All Episodes now streaming on Hulu on Disney+. Watch The Teaser Trailer... (Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industr(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.) Before we dive in, I wanted to congratulate Broadcast Now for being the first to report that Netflix’s How to Get to Heaven from Belfast has been cancelled. (I saw this in a write-up by Kasey Moore of Whats-On-Netflix.) More importantly, I wanted to note that, as of yesterday, none of the other trades had reported the news yet. I have half a guess that eventually one of them will report this. Anyways, it’s time to take a break from my deluge of streaming ratings reports to continue my analysis of the Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery (PSWbD) saga. As I noted last week, a lot of times when folks use the (sometimes cliched) “the good, the bad and the ugly” framing for an article, “the ugly” section is just more bad. Or very, very bad. In this case, yeah, I do think it’s ugly. In more than one way. Unfortunately, we’re only going to have time to tackle one of those ways today: the ugly pile of debt to finance this deal. (In a future article, I may cover the entire process for how it went down, which was very, very ugly.) Last issue, I explained why I liked this deal in a vacuum. Unfortunately, “vacuums” don’t exist outside of space. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - The Ugliness of the Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger More than one person sent me a note speculating that the big problem with Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros. Discovery is the “Warner Bros.” portion of the deal. In fact, that’s a take I read a lot about Warner Bros., ever since they caught Netflix’s, and then Paramount-Skydance’s, eye. In short, multiple companies (Time, AOL, AT&T, Discovery) have bought and then regretted buying Warner Bros. Since it’s nearing Halloween, you could almost say it’s like the folks think WB is cursed! It’s a haunted studio—like the town of Derry in movie studio form—and whoever takes possession of it will fall into misery! Yet...I just don’t like that story, because it doesn’t explain the “why” behind why those deals fell through. Especially when Warner Bros. has continued to succeed as a TV and film studio in the intervening two decades. Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? Game of Thrones? Everything HBO? Considering it never fully owned a broadcast TV channel, this media company has done pretty well. So what went wrong? Well, in recent years, companies bought Warner Bros. instead of the other, smarter option. Explaining POCD (And Applying It to Mergers & Acquisitions) As I explained last issue, one of my favorite frameworks is the POCD tool for evaluating venture capital investments: People Opportunity Context Deal The bar to invest as a VC is high. (Or I might say “was” since cheap interest rates made life easier last decade.) You review a thousand prospectuses, get pitched by a hundred, and invest in the ten best, with the hopes that one of those ten would pay for the rest. That means every element of a deal needed to pay off: you needed the right people running the companies, who could capitalize on the right opportunity, in the context of an industry that was ripe for disruption. If you could then not overpay, you could make some money in a smart deal. The analogy isn’t perfect here, but close enough. For a merger or acquisition to work, you need the combined company (which is the opportunity) to make more than the price you need to pay (which is the deal). Note: the people and context still matter, but with M&A, it’s a little more straightforward: does the opportunity exceed the cost? And usually with Warner Bros., it hasn’t. If you want to find out the single biggest mistake made by the Warner Bros. suitors over the last few years (and my simple fix) become a paid subscriber. I’ll also touch on who I think Paramount-Skydance could (shockingly) consider buying next, TBD, and more. Sign up here.
Xbox officially announces Mythic Achievements, rolling out to Insiders today
It's official! Xbox has now unveiled Mythic Achievements and has begun rolling out the new Platinum trophy rival to Xbox Insiders.
Hilary Duff to Receive Outstanding Pop Tour of the Year Award at 2026 Billboard Live Music Summit
The multiplatinum star will sit down for a conversation at the Nov. 10 event.
Report: Jaylen Waddle Has Reassuring Health Update After Online Speculation
Denver Broncos wide receiver is "fine" according to the Denver Post's Sam Jane, despite injury rumors circulating recently. The post Report: Jaylen Waddle Has Reassuring Health Update After Online Speculation appeared first on HEAVY.
Gears of War: E-Day ditches faux platinum achievement in favor of Xbox Mythic
With Mythic achievements out in the wild, The Coalition has announced it is removing a faux platinum achievement from the shooter's Xbox achievement list.
German firm Metro loses control of Russian business after Putin decree
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that the assets of German retailer Metro AG be placed under temporary administration. The move comes amid escalating tensions between Germany and Russia over the Ukraine war.
Senate tees up college sports bill aimed at regulating NIL deals
The Senate is due to vote Monday on the bill, which would create a national framework for name, image and likeness deals in college athletics.
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood Unveils 'Zona de Fuego' Florida's First Fully Integrated Latin Gaming & Entertainment Experience
/PRNewswire/ -- Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood today unveiled Zona de Fuego, Florida's first fully integrated Latin gaming and entertainment...
Jobs in health care. Jobs for women. The US labour market is segmenting. Chernobyl’s radiation and Lenin’s love of literature.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Elmer Bischoff, Two Figures at the Seashore, 1957 The only really dynamic job-creator in the US economy is health care: The largest crunch has come in Federal government, which has shed 2.7 m jobs. Source: tchouvkov on Twitter Tech is struggling. [ Joey Politano 🏳️🌈@JosephPolitano The US tech sector continues bleeding jobs in official data released today—overall, employment decreased by 17k last month and is down 69k over the last year That's nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech-cession, and much worse than the 2022 boom or even pre-2020 norms 12:42 PM · Oct 2, 2026 · 15.2K Views 15 Replies · 47 Reposts · 390 Likes ](https://x.com/JosephPolitano/status/2106001807847940232?s=20) The new jobs are all for women. [ Justin Wolfers@JustinWolfers I'm not sure who saw this coming, but so far nearly all the jobs created during the second Trump administration have gone to women. 1:09 PM · Oct 2, 2026 · 33K Views 70 Replies · 146 Reposts · 644 Likes ](https://x.com/JustinWolfers/status/2106008723533533601?s=20) Meanwhile, real wages are being eaten up by modest over-target inflation. [ Heather Long@byHeatherLong The financial pain is real: Wage growth fell to 3% (y/y) in September. That's the lowest in 5 years. Wage growth: 3% Inflation: ~3.4% Inflation has eaten up all wage gains for the average worker since April. Many people are having to make hard choices about what to buy and what … 1:24 PM · Oct 2, 2026 · 37K Views 24 Replies · 275 Reposts · 533 Likes ](https://x.com/byHeatherLong/status/2106012367712620728?s=20) HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $60. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Elmer Bischoff, Bathers, 1960 Americans are disillusioned with higher ed. For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Where the Chernobyl radiation went. h/t Simon Kuestenmacher aka simongerman600 How Lenin’s love of literature shaped the Russian Revolution - Tariq Ali This, then, was the intellectual atmosphere in which Lenin came of age. His father, a highly cultured conservative, was the chief inspector of schools in his region and much respected as an educationalist. At home, Shakespeare, Goethe and Pushkin, among others, were read aloud on Sunday afternoons. It was impossible for the Ulyanov family – “Lenin” was a pseudonym adopted to outwit the tsarist secret police – to escape high culture. At high school, Lenin fell in love with Latin. His headteacher had high hopes that he might become a philologist and Latin scholar. History willed otherwise, but Lenin’s passion for Latin, and taste for the classics, never left him. He read Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Juvenal in the original, as well as Roman senatorial orations. He devoured Goethe during his two decades in exile, reading and rereading Faust many times. Lenin put his knowledge of the classics to good use in the time leading up to the October revolution of 1917. In April of that year, he broke with Russian social-democratic orthodoxy and, in a set of radical theses, called for a socialist revolution in Russia. A number of his own close comrades denounced him. In a sharp riposte, Lenin quoted Mephistopheles from Goethe’s masterwork: “Theory, my friend, is grey, but green is the eternal tree of life.” Source: The Guardian Elmer Bischoff, The River, 1953 If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
How the shooting death of a Houston father is igniting Latino politics in Texas
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed on his way to work by ICE agents, who said he used his vehicle as a weapon. An outraged community is demanding justice — and change.
NIH Awards Boston University Clinical And Translational Science Institute $41 Million
The National Institutes of Health awarded $41 million to the Boston University Clinical & Translational Science Institute to support its work translating scientific research into new treatments and healthcare technologies.
Meet the Houston university professor who's also a club DJ
Alex La Rotta teaches history at the University of Houston and Houston City College while also spinning at area events and flying the flag for Latino and Chicano popular music.
Trump won this district by 10 points. This Democrat thinks he can win it by winning back Latinos
'Sabores of South Philly' offers personal look inside Latino-owned businesses of AEM
'Sabores of South Philly' is a marketing campaign launched this year by the Association of Mexican Business Owners, or AEM. The networking organization has over 70 members who are all entrepreneurs of Latino descent who own businesses throughout the city.
Latinx Voces Expands Grassroots Health Equity Across the Valley
A podcast with Dr. Paulina Sosa Quintanilla, founder and CEO of Latinx Voces.
DiLorenzo attack ad brands rival as 'Silver Spoon Shaheen'
Republican Anthony DiLorenzo’s first attack ad calls Democratic rival Stefany Shaheen “Silver Spoon Shaheen,” escalating the race to succeed Rep. Chris Pappas.
Banijay Entertainment’s Scripted Secret: Find the Talent, Then Back the Ideas
With 170 labels across 25 territories, Banijay Entertainment has plenty of scale. But at Iberseries & Platino Industria, Steve Matthews, head of scripted, creative, made clear that the company’s globa...
Critical funding gap threatens health response in Yemen
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that significantly more resources are required to scale up its response in Yemen amid escalating conflict and rising needs.
Solo Reload Victory Cup in NA West: Event 1 Event 1 Round 1
Battle your way to Platinum in Reload Ranked to be eligible for the first and second Events of the Season, Diamond for the third, and Champion for the final Event of the Season! Compete for the opportunity to win a cash prize! Reach Round 2 (top 1600 in EU; top 800 in NAC; top 320 in OCE, ASIA, ME, BR, and NAW), where every player who earns a Victory Royale will earn $100 USD. Good luck and have fun!
Scientists Tested Whether Leftovers Really Taste Better The Next Day. One Dish Stood Out.
"Few culinary beliefs are as persistent..."
No Estás Solo: A resource guide for Latinos seeking mental health support
Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day. Though culturally competent care may be hard to find for Latinos, De Los compiled some mental health resources available in Los Angeles and beyond.
3 takeaways from our new poll of Latino voters: From the Politics Desk
Plus, Democrats’ lingering division over their messaging on transgender issues.
Scientists changed how zoo lions eat. Their wild side came out
Giving zoo lions whole carcasses on a feast-and-fast schedule appears to bring out more natural behavior. The lions spent nearly three times longer feeding, engaged in more tearing and manipulating of food, and rested more heavily after meals. Their activity then increased gradually during the fasting period, closely resembling the rhythm seen in wild lions.
Valadao-Villegas Debate and the Fight for Latino Voters in the Central Valley
A Central Valley debate with control of Congress at stake, and a look at whether progressive or moderate Democrats make the stronger pitch to Latino voters.
Can death be reversed? New science is testing where life really ends
Death sounds absolute. Once the heart stops, blood stops circulating and oxygen no longer reaches the brain, most people assume there is a clear point beyond which nothing can be recovered. Modern res...
Micron's Taoyuan union in Taiwan secures authorisation to strike
A Taiwanese union representing workers at Micron Technology said on Wednesday it had secured authorisation from its members to strike work over a dispute concerning the company's bonus scheme, escalating a labour conflict at the chipmaker's largest manufacturing hub.
Poll: How many Mythic achievements have you unlocked on Xbox?
Now that we're tracking Xbox's new platinum rival, for this week's poll, we want to know: how many Mythic achievements have you unlocked on Xbox?
Editorial: The Trump administration’s strange affection for prediction markets
There is something genuinely strange happening at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating derivatives markets. Under Chairman Michael Selig, the CFTC has challenged states seeking
We studied American Jews’ mental health after Oct. 7. They’re not OK.
Research showed invalidation in ways that were painful, isolating and sometimes startling, writes a co-founder of The Jewish Community Mental Health Initiative.
Endemol Shine Brasil and Globo Join Forces to Co-Create Major Global Entertainment IP
Endemol Shine Brasil, part of Banijay Latin America, a leading force in Brazilian entertainment, and Globo, Latin America’s largest media company, have entered into a partnership to co-create new formats with the ambition to become the next generation of internationally successful franchises. The collaboration brings together the creative and strategic strength of Endemol Shine Brasil, […]
Gears of War: E-Day sells 230K copies
Gears of War: E-Day has sold 230K copies since its advance-access launch on October 1 and full release on October 6. Steam accounts for 168K of those, with Xbox (console and PC) selling 62K. But there’s more to this story, as Xbox makes up the bulk of revenue. E-Day is the best-reviewed Gears game in nearly two decades (and the best one ever made, in my opinion). The Coalition has made a banger here (it’s currently in my top 10 of the year). Despite E-Day’s undeniable quality, this is a soft result. And it’s down to the business model, really. E-Day has made $37M so far, thanks to the Premium upgrade On Xbox, Game Pass is cannibalising much of the premium revenue. Our estimates show that 1.7M folks accessed E-Day via their subscription rather than a copy. But Xbox is having it both ways – or having it halfway, at least – via its Premium Edition Game Pass upgrade. Game Pass subscribers could pay $30 (or their local equivalent) for up to five days of early access starting October 1. Our estimates show that of the 1.7M who accessed E-Day through Game Pass, 722K paid for the upgrade. Between the review embargo lifting on October 1 and the full release, E-Day managed to shift another 250K early-access upgrades – no doubt helped by the campaign’s rave reviews. So despite selling far fewer copies on Steam, Xbox accounts for almost three-quarters of the revenue (roughly $26M of the $37M, versus about $11M on Steam). So “230K copies” undersells the paying audience. Including the 722K upgrades, nearly 950K people actually paid something for E-Day. The $30 upgrade is a halfstep from cannibalisation, but will Xbox go all the way? While E-Day is a sublime game, these are soft numbers for a flagship when Xbox badly needs revenue wins. E-Day sold 62K copies on Xbox against 722K Premium upgrades, so for every one copy sold on Xbox, nearly 12 Game Pass upgrades were sold. The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox. Normally you can’t see what a Game Pass player would have paid, because the game’s just there in the subscription. But the $30 early-access upgrade estimate shows that 722K people demonstrated they’ll spend real money on this game. In a world without day-one Game Pass, many of these folks would have bought E-Day at $70. They paid $30 for five days early access to something they don’t own. Xbox is, in effect, charging its most valuable customers the least, based on a hangover from a tried-and-exhausted strategy from a previous administration. Those 722K willing-to-pay players generated about $21.7M via the upgrade. If three quarters of this group – mostly US and European audiences – bought E-Day outright, that’s nearly $40M. Of course, Game Pass does bring in meaningful recurring revenue, and E-Day is adding value for hundreds of thousands of subscribers. However, Game Pass is no longer growing, so Xbox is at a crossroads. Xbox is reportedly looking to do a Netflix and bolt on an ad-supported tier to pad it further. But that will just set a new floor, and leadership keeps telling us the priority now is revenue growth, which is subscriber-speak for ARPU. Xbox has already pulled Call of Duty from day-one Game Pass after day-one inclusion hammered its sales, with new CoD titles now arriving on the service around a year late. We know that some Microsoft executives believe the service devalues games outright, and rumours (which Microsoft has dismissed so far, to be fair) suggest that day-one releases could be taken off Game Pass. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe When a game this well-reviewed does this softly on its home platform, the model – not the game – gets brought into question. What else E-Day’s early adopters have played (including this month so far) Looking at E-Day‘s players on Xbox, most have played the franchise before (86% have played Gears 5, 76% Gears 4), and every game on the crossover list is either a shooter or a title from an Xbox-owned studio (though Game Pass is inflating those numbers, of course, more on that later): As for what else Xbox’s E-Day players have played this month, the top three are Fortnite (16%), Roblox (7%), and Call of Duty (6%). Another 5% played Minecraft Dungeons II, which is also on Game Pass and launched a couple of days before Gears‘ advance-access date. Many Game Pass players are happy to check out most big new additions. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Over on Steam, the top crossover games are also mostly shooters (slightly more PC-coded ones), including Space Marine 2, which was itself heavily inspired by Gears: Looking at what E-Day‘s Steam players are into this month shows who they are – as subscriptions don’t skew the data. The top three are Wardogs (13%), Deadlock (12%), and CS2 (10%), so you’ve got the restless shooter crowd checking out the new hotness. A little further down are Helldivers 2 and Space Marine 2, your co-op PVE shooter players who’ll feel right at home in Horde mode. Game Pass is skewing the playtime distribution on Xbox Looking at the playtime distribution in our platform, E-Day players on Steam are – relatively speaking – playing for longer: 54% of E-Day players on Xbox have played for five hours or less (versus 32% on Steam) 19% of Xbox players played for over 15 hours (versus 33% on Steam) 14% of Xbox players played for over 20 hours (22% on Steam) The absolute number of people playing for over 15, 20, and 50 hours is, of course, bigger on Xbox, thanks to the sheer volume of folks who came in through Game Pass (upgraders included). None of that is cause for alarm. Game Pass is the reason Xbox playtime skews lower, as when a game is free to try, people try it and bounce without putting in even an hour (17% under an hour on Xbox versus 6% on Steam). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe The subscription brings in tourists alongside the committed, dragging down the average even when the game is excellent (but also perhaps winning over the uninitiated). It’s standard across every subscription-included title, on PS Plus too. Forza Horizon 6, for instance, had 11% of its Xbox players bounce under an hour, versus just 2% on Steam. So, Xbox’s crossroads So there we have it. Gears of War: E-Day is an incredible game whose revenues have been stifled by subscription inclusion and exclusivity. It’s the best-reviewed entry in the series in fifteen-odd years, but it still turned into one of the year’s softer flagship launches, not because players didn’t want it, but because Xbox’s own storefront gave its most willing buyers a reason not to pay. Which leaves Xbox at a crossroads. Will it keep making Gears games when the financial returns are this thin and the margins this low? And if it does, does the next one arrive off Game Pass at day one – the way CoD now does, or even on PlayStation? I think it should. Alright, back to E-Day for me! 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!]
Republicans and Democrats find a unifying target: Pharmacy benefit managers
Republicans and Democrats, both patients and politicians, seem united in their disdain for the healthcare companies known as pharmacy benefit managers. Tennessee and Arkansas are regulating them now.
Iran’s Economy in Deep Recession as Businesses Face Empty Malls and Soaring Costs
A new wave of citizen and business-owner videos circulating on social media highlights severe market stagnation across Iran. Merchan ...
Latino Dems urge Democratic Governors Association to put money behind Gina Hinojosa as Texas governor's race tightens
Bobby Kotick’s lawyers sent me a bad email (and later apologized)
The message I had received was unsettling—for a moment. Then it was just really confusing. Back on January 20 of this year, at 5:15pm ET, I received an email with the subject line “Legal Correspondence re Bobby Kotick.” It was from the law firm Clare Locke, a firm I’d heard had been emailing reporters in recent years about their coverage of Kotick, the former, longtime CEO of Activision Blizzard. The letter was threatening. A lawyer from the firm introduced themselves as “defamation counsel to Bobby Kotick.” They issued a “demand” that I “correct” a Game File article I’d published a week prior. The article that had irked them had been a scoop of sorts. I’d written about a a 2022 lawsuit brought by a Swedish pension fund, AP7, over Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. The suit wasn’t news, but I was first to review and report about Kotick’s extensive pushback to the fund’s claims. The pension fund’s core contention was that the sale had been rushed by Kotick to avoid the consequences of sexual misconduct scandals swirling around the company in 2021. (He’d not been accused of misconduct himself in those suits, to be clear.) As I wrote at the time, Kotick had denied the allegations of the rushed sale. Beyond that, Kotick used a December 2025 reply to the Swedish fund’s lawsuit to assign blame for those workplace scandals, the bad press and even for the AP7 lawsuit. I’d found Kotick’s arguments novel and newsworthy. Across nearly 3,000 words, I explained Kotick’s take: that a Swedish gaming company was behind the Swedish fund’s lawsuit (the Embracer group; they denied it); that the Microsoft-Activision deal was not rushed and was secured at what Kotick felt history had proven to be an optimal price for shareholders; that he believed a conspiracy of people at unions government agencies, PR firms and the media had spun up claims of widespread workplace misconduct at Activision Blizzard in 2021. The article gave context for all of this, letting readers assess the claims and weigh their credibility. As I’d later write to Kotick’s lawyers: I would be surprised if you could point to any news article about Bobby Kotick in the last five years that has spent more of its wordcount articulating his point of view. He is welcome to do an interview with Game File any time. Nonetheless, there they were in my inbox that Tuesday evening: Clare Locke, the law firm that secured a $787.5 million settlement from Fox News over false statements about voting machines. They were emailing me, threatening that failure to comply with their demand could support a claim of “actual malice,” a legal standard for libel. Unless… Unless, they said, I added a key paragraph to my article. This was a paragraph that I already knew Kotick’s lawyers had been emailing reporters about for at least a year, and it was a paragraph that was already in my article. The paragraph they wanted is from a 2023 settlement that California’s Civil Rights Department struck with Activision Blizzard. The settlement had closed a two-year-old lawsuit over alleged sexual discrimination at the game maker. The paragraph basically said that claims of systemic or widespread sexual harassment—or of execs like Kotick tolerating such behavior—had never been proven. I’d already seen proof that Kotick’s lawyers had pushed for the settlement’s language to be added to reports about 2021 sexual discrimination and misconduct lawsuits brought against Activision Blizzard by California and, separately, by the U.S. federal government (both suits were since settled). I knew that Kotick and his lawyers felt that the California settlement language should be mentioned in the same breath as references to an article he hated and denied, a November 2021 Wall Street Journal article claiming Kotick knew “for years” of sexual misconduct at Activision Blizzard. So, in the Game File article that Clare Locke emailed me about, in the interest of ensuring I was being fair and balanced regarding the person I was covering, I had already included the following excerpt from the California settlement [emphasis added in bold]: (Kotick has repeatedly pushed back against that November article in the Wall Street Journal, citing among other things, language from a court-approved consent decree as part of Activision’s 2023 $54 million settlement over the California suit. It states: “no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations that: there has been systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard [or] that Activision Blizzard senior executives ignored, condoned, or tolerated a culture of systemic harassment, retaliation, or discrimination.”) On the evening of January 20, I was incredulous. How do you write a four page legal threat about a week-old article and miss this? While scrambling to also make my kids dinner, I wrote a lengthy reply to Clare Locke’s lawyers, basically asking them to cool it with the threats and to start making sense. In part, I wrote: I hope you can understand why I am having trouble understanding what you’re asking for, when the statement you’re demanding to see in Game File’s article already appears in Game File’s article. Actual malice, as you know, refers to a reckless disregard for the truth. I’m not sure what your argument is when my article already states your client’s position. Here is where I should remind you, the reader, that I am an independent journalist. I publish on Substack, and have availed myself of the Substack Defender program that provides writers on the platform with legal support. But I’m no Wall Street Journal or New York Times, nor even IGN or GameSpot when it comes to such things as, well, having a legal department. There are more fun things for me to do as an independent journalist than writing back to a powerful law firm representing a very rich person. On the evening of January 20th, I was just trying to cook some pasta, broccoli and chicken nuggets for hungry twins. Nevertheless, I wrote back to them. Two hours later, I got a reply. Summarizing: A lawyer for Clare Locke said they’d “reviewed an incomplete version” of my article and they “apologize for the confusion.” (My guess: Someone didn’t read past the piece’s paywall, even though they’d had a full week to scrounge up the funds to do so. What I’d published above the paywall was balanced, as was what came after.)1 That was almost that, but something about the situation bothered me. The letter had been marked “confidential.” I hadn’t agreed to that, and I disliked the idea that powerful people on the beat that I cover would act like they could unilaterally control what I might tell my readers about. On the morning of the 21st, having already gotten the powerful law firm to back off, I oh-so-wisely re-approached them with just one more thing. I thanked them for clearing things up the night before but noted that I’d never agreed to keep their letter confidential. I’m all for agreeing with a source to keep things off the record, but that’s the thing. We have to agree. You can’t just declare it. I’m not bound by that. I wrote to Clare Locke’s lawyer and said, in part: I trust the matter is resolved. It was disappointing to have to spend less time with my kids last night in order to address your legal letter. Family time’s precious. I will add, for clarity’s sake, that, while your letter stipulated that it was confidential, I did not agree to those terms. In the future, should you wish to communicate with me confidentially, I am happy to agree to classifying our communication as “off the record” prior to the actual communication—as is standard with any professional journalist. The firm’s lawyer replied, not directly addressing the confidentiality issue but asserting that the matter was resolved. Why I didn’t write about this until now In May, I told this story on an episode of Simon Parkin’s podcast My Perfect Console, but I held off on sharing it directly with Game File readers. I held off to avoid stepping on the toes of another reporter, the journalist Mikhail Klimentov. He’d interviewed me in the spring of 2025 about an investigation he was working on regarding Bobby Kotick lawyers pressing the media to add the California settlement language to stories referencing the 2021 lawsuits. And about how some outlets had changed their stories and how some simply deleted them. Initially, I was a third-party source for Klimentov’s reporting, providing on-the-record context about the state of the games media. I’d heard about the letters but hadn’t put the time into pursuing the story. I thought it was interesting, and I was glad he was covering it. When the outlet that Klimentov was going to run his reporting in dropped the story, I began talking to him about potentially publishing his reporting on Game File. This was tentative. Then, in January, when I got my own Clare Locke letter, I told Klimentov that I didn’t think it would make sense for me to publish him, not with me now being part of the story. I had my own version of this situation to tell. But I wished him well and said I’d refrain from telling my tale until he could get his reporting out there. Last Friday, Klimentov finally ran his investigation, in a nearly 48-minute video report for People Make Games. It covers various Clare Locke letters, how media outlets reacted to them and what to make of all this. His video weighs the merits of Kotick’s request and looks at some of the articles that were changed (one of which had a glaring error). I highly recommend watching it: (Note, I did some editorial consulting for a People Make Games video last year but nothing to do with this report.) While many outlets haven’t left any public evidence that they updated their Kotick coverage at Kotick’s counsel’s request, at least one has. Back in October 2025, the mainstream outlet Reuters applied the most transparent article update I’ve seen. On the 3rd of the month, they published an article about the state of the Swedish pension fund’s lawsuit. Days later, they added this: In an October 7 letter sent after publication of this article, Kotick’s defamation counsel disputed claims of widespread harassment at Activision. “Not a single investigation, court finding, verdict, or ruling ever concluded that there was any merit” to the allegations of widespread harassment at Activision, Tom Clare and Nick Brechbill of Clare Locke wrote. I’ve never added a statement to my article on Game File, because none was needed. Not for fairness’ sake, nor to meet any demands of Kotick’s lawyers. I’ve nevertheless wanted to be transparent with Game File readers. If someone powerful is questioning my reporting, is threatening a lawsuit over it… if that threat is part of a pattern involving other games media outlets and if, in my case, the whole thing ran into a ridiculous ditch, I want you to know about it. I also share this as a real example of how I handle threats to Game File. I stand up for my own reporting, even when it’s not comfortable to do so. (In that same category of standing up for the work I do, I’ll point to an incident in late August. Asocial media post I published to X/Twitter regarding reporting I did about Take Two and GTA VI was hit by bogus copyright claim by a firm working for the publisher. I pushed back and got it reversed; even while a bigger games media outlet let themselves be censored. This is the other reason I’m sharing this story: To emphasize that dealing with threats from powerful people is one of the costs of covering the video game industry independently and as fearlessly as possible. This is where you come in. Your support, through free and paid subscriptions (sign up here!), can help me keep doing that. It can ensure that I’ve got the back-up I need. And it can help make fiascoes like this even less of a worry, so I can spend my evenings dealing with more important things, such as making sure I steam the kids’ broccoli just right. 1 That pension fund lawsuit I wrote about in January has all but gone away. In May, the fund and Activision Blizzard owner Microsoft agreed to settle. Lawyers for the fund brokered a $250 million settlement for former Activision Blizzard shareholders. In the settlement, the fund’s lawyers changed their rhetoric. Where once they’d questioned the meaning of the California settlement language, they adopted a version of it for themselves. Several weeks ago, while seeking to get a court to sign off on the terms of the settlement, they proposed their fee for their work in the case: $60 million.
Would-be Pelosi successors debate who’s more progressive in San Francisco congressional race
In the race to succeed Nancy Pelosi, the candidates clashed over who will be most aggressive in regulating AI and who is closest to organized labor
‘You can speak the language, but can you speak the culture?’: Latine businesses offer welcoming spaces in Alamance County
From coffee, flowers and legal representation, Alamance County’s Hispanic and Latine-owned businesses provide safe spaces for Latines to feel understood and respected. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic and Latine people make up almost 17% of the Alamance County population. However, Hispanics own just over 9% of small businesses in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Small Business Association.
Fareed Zakaria on his takeaways from top tech meeting and what’s difficult about regulating AI
Poll: Latino voters swing away from Trump and Republicans
Democrats have a significant lead among Latino voters in 2026 amid economic concerns, according to the NBC News/Telemundo poll, though the GOP has made some long-term gains.
Boston Red Sox’ Sonny Gray Makes Decision on 2027 Season
After contemplating retirement, the 36-year-old veteran has made a decision on his future.
Latino nonprofits start their own shops to make helping small businesses their business
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — From the pink neon sign on the sunshine yellow wall to the multicolored Mexican paper garlands, Mission Lotería's storefront emits cultural pride everywhere you look. After seven ...
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
Connecting Medical Training to the Future of Care
Physician training doesn’t stop at the bedside. Residents also grow by teaching, leading and mentoring others. Sutter Health brought that approach to this year’s Latino Medical Student Association National Conference, where it served as a diamond-level sponsor. The event brought together medical students, pre-med students, residents and health care leaders from across the country. Now […]
Real submit 'substantial' dossier in Barca payments case
Real Madrid have sent Uefa "evidence of extraordinary gravity" relating to payments made by Barcelona to a former vice-president of Spain's referees' committee.
HOMETOWN ENTERTAINMENT: Weekend lineup includes Halloween fun, Latin dance party and flea market
Over 200 vendors set for Berglund Center Saturday
In New York, a growing Latino population seeks greater political clout
Outside of lieutenant governor, no Latino or Latina has otherwise held statewide office, nor been elected mayor of New York City.
Focus, calm and flow: The science behind relaxation
The vagus nerve connects the brain to the organs. Stimulating it can be beneficial - but some social media hacks lack science to back them up. Plus: Forest or city walk — which is more relaxing?
Venezuelan and Latin-fusion food truck celebrates 2 years of business in Toledo
Casero Kitchen has been serving up Venezuelan and Latin-fusion flavors in Toledo for nearly two years. The local food truck, owned by Ramiz Parra, ...
Minneapolis shops invite customers for Latino business week as many recover from ICE surge
Minneapolis celebrates its third annual Latino Business Week this week, as many Latino-owned shops around the city continue recovering from losses during the federal immigration enforcement surge.
Israel’s Strategy to Break Its Isolation in Latin America
As part of Israel’s “Year of Latin America” strategy announced for 2026, Tel Aviv has increased its contacts with the Uruguayan government.
PepsiCo, Monster challenge India 'energy drink' label ban citing business impact
PepsiCo and Monster Beverage have sued India's food regulator for banning their use of the "energy drink" label, non-public court filings show, escalating a regulatory fight that has jolted a sector expected to be worth $1.6 billion by 2028.
Xbox says your Mythic achievement total may change as it refines the feature
Xbox says that players may see their Mythic achievement totals rise or fall while the company continues testing out the new feature.
Latino voters, souring on Trump, swing toward Democrats, new poll finds
The growing electorate played a critical role in Trump’s 2024 victory. Now, sentiment is dipping, particularly on economic issues, a new NBC/Telemundo poll finds.
Who will be Brazil’s next president?
The election could also serve as a bellwether of Donald Trump's influence in Latin America
Xbox denies reports it's acquired exclusive GTA 6 game-streaming rights, deflating hopes of playing it on PC
Xbox Cloud will not, in fact, be the only way to stream GTA 6 come November.
Sporting KC Weekly Schedule: Oct. 7-10, 2026
Sporting Kansas City returns home to host the Portland Timbers at 7:30 p.m. CT on Saturday at Sporting Park as the club celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month. Tickets are available on SeatGeek, including a special Latino Heritage Night ticket pack featuring an exclusive luchador mask/hat and a Corona or Coca-Cola
Lesbian Bar Project Co-Founder: Purity Politics Could Destroy Our Remaining Spaces
Subscribe As a professional lesbian and Massachusetts native, I’ve recently been asked by a lot of folks what I think about the saga unfolding at Last Ditch. The now-viral story, first reported by The Boston Globe, centers on a Western Massachusetts lesbian bar that lifted its mask requirement for one night a week to help drum up business. The decision ignited an intra-queer controversy that has been feasted on by media outlets across the political spectrum—from the New York Post to LGBTQ Nation—and is even reportedly being eyed for a Hollywood adaptation. Apparently nothing is more entertaining than a bunch of lesbians and queers fighting with each other over KN-95s. What has been lost in all of the chatter and media coverage is the very real possibility that Last Ditch, which just opened in April 2025, will have to close its doors. The venue’s one remaining founder, Jackie Matellian, revealed in a community Zoom meeting that she’s working four jobs, is now solely responsible for the bar’s $50,000 business loan and is struggling to keep up with the bills. So as we laugh about the controversy’s similarity to a “Portlandia” skit and how one of the bar’s founders left to enroll in clown school, we forget that yet another lesbian bar is facing an existential crisis—and this time the call is coming from inside the house. In 2020, my friend Elina Street and I created The Lesbian Bar Project, an Emmy-, Webby- and GLAAD Media Award-winning docuseries and initiative that tells the stories of lesbian queer bars around the world. We were moved to act because at the time there were only an estimated 16 lesbian bars in the United States, and the pandemic threatened to bring that number down even further. There are now more sapphic bars than there were just before the pandemic—about 36 of them in total—but this is down from approximately 200 in 1980. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but for the millions of sapphics living in the U.S., this number is calamitous. As the world laughs at lesbians and sapphics, I want to take a second and tell you what I feel when I walk into one of these bars, which are all unique and irreplaceable in their own way: I feel seen. Sometimes I think Cubbyhole in New York City’s West Village neighborhood knew I was gay before I did. When I walked in there for the first time, before I was even out, I was transfixed by the colorful array of tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling and how the women standing next to me were completely unafraid to express their desire for one another. I knew the minute I was ready to come out, I had a home. I also felt the joy of a new couple falling in love at Seattle’s Wildrose, the quiet confidence of a short king lining up her shot at the pool table at Ginger’s in Brooklyn and the kick of cayenne pepper in Julie Mabry’s crawfish at Houston’s Pearl Bar. Subscribe Lesbian bars don’t just serve lesbians; they serve queer folks across the spectrum, including bisexual, pansexual and trans people. As Elina and I traveled across the U.S. and Europe and to parts of Latin America to document the bar owners, staff and patrons that make up the ecosystems of these spaces, we also became uniquely acquainted with the factors that threaten their existence: gentrification, wage gaps, sexism, environmental disasters, gun violence, rising insurance premiums and political administrations working to annihilate queer people and their families. Lesbian bar owners, like all leaders and entrepreneurs, are imperfect. There have been significant issues over the years at lesbian bars: employee harassment, racism, lack of accessibility, sexual assault and transphobia. All bar owners should be held accountable and should listen to their communities to evolve into safer and more equitable spaces. I also acknowledge my privilege: I am able-bodied, white, cis and from a family system that loves me for who I am. Not everyone has that. Queer people, especially trans and bisexual people, are suffering from disproportionately high levels of depression, and our mental health system isn’t equipped to support them. Immunocompromised people and long COVID are real, and many of my friends are suffering to this day. The people with the least safety net are often the ones for whom a bar closing costs the most. And yet, as we’re seeing with Last Ditch, the queer community often lashes out at each other. It’s also the mainstream media taking the internal conflict and making a mockery out of it, distracting from the real possibility that this bar could close due to financial pressures. A bar that many people loved and needed is facing extinction. Perhaps it’s safer to dissent with one another than with the larger forces trying to eradicate us, but in doing so, we risk destroying the few spaces we have left. Due to the constraints of purity politics—some in good faith, some not so much—lesbian bar owners, almost all of whom are queer women themselves, are forced to be everything for everyone, similarly to how women are forced to be everything for everyone. By asking these bars to uphold impossible standards—standards very few other third spaces are asked to consider—we all end up losing. I want to move as a community toward dialogue, compassionate dissent and collaboration to make our spaces better with the goal of keeping them OPEN and thriving, rather than destroying them from the inside with expectations that are arguably unattainable. Subscribe While I have your attention—for this fleeting second of the news cycle—may I urge us to spearhead a way to keep these small businesses afloat without attacking our own community along the way? Bar owners are left with an impasse: They want to be community-centered, but they also have to make money to keep their doors open. Sometimes they might make business decisions that don’t work for everyone—and that’s partly because different patrons have different priorities and want different things—but these owners deserve the opportunity for productive dialogue**.** We have to work with them and with each other to keep our spaces open, to keep them growing. Lesbian bars raised me into the queer woman I am today. One thing I think about as I reflect on the six years of work we’ve done to document these spaces is that shared, unspoken language I have with a stranger the moment we both walk into one of these bars: the nod, the ease, the not having to explain ourselves. I don’t want to lose that, and neither should you. If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button: Donate
Latino nonprofits start their own shops to make helping small businesses their business
Despite both a rise in costs and fears around immigration crackdowns, some Latinos are committing to championing other Latino entrepreneurs by offering access to a storefront.
Hispanic Heritage Festival returns with more food and entertainment
A couple dances in the street during last year’s Hispanic Heritage Festival in downtown Delphi. Comet file photo As evening settles over the courthouse square Saturday, Oct. 3, downtown Delphi will take on the sounds and colors of a celebration that has quickly become an annual tradition. Latin music will fill the square as colorful
‘A Latino problem’: National Democrats clash with Andy Beshear over Texas governor’s race
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear hoped being chair of the Democratic Governors Association this midterms year would raise his profile and connections ahead of his expected 2028 run for president. But it’s also created an opening to ramp up pressure on him, with frustrations spilling into the open this week as multiple Texas Democratic members of Congress and national group leaders accused him of putting his book tour and potential 2028 activity ahead of helping Democratic nominee Gina Hinojosa win the Texas governor’s race.
Business Buzz: Platinum Fitness Performance & Wellness Center
Business: Platinum Fitness Performance & Wellness Center Address: 8 Pecks Lane Owner: Randy Lockwood What is your business background? “I’ve had [a place] in Milford … and then D...
Abbott ramps up attacks on Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa, as Texas governor’s race tightens
Gov. Greg Abbott is escalating attacks on Gina Hinojosa as some polls show a closer race and Republicans confront voter concerns about the economy.
PlatinumGames boss hints he wants to expand Bayonetta as Stellar Blade director calls the series "indispensable"
PlatinumGames president Atsushi Inaba says he "strongly wants" to expand Bayonetta, three years after series creator Hideki Kamiya left the studio.
Orland Park Latina business owner expands eyebrow boutique with niche fragrance brands
For Diana Roth, beauty is about more than what people see in the mirror. It has become a passion and a business the Chicago-area Latina business owner has built from the ground up.
US revokes visas from Latin American officials, including Bolivia’s top prosecutor
The Trump administration is revoking the visas of 27 Latin American officials and their families, including Bolivia’s attorney general, over accusations of corruption. The officials and their families come from
Media attorneys ask court to block White House ban while legal case continues
The hearing was the latest development in the escalating drama between the Trump administration and the news media
Preview: Sporting KC hosts Portland Timbers on Saturday at Sporting Park as club celebrates Latino Heritage
Sporting Kansas City vs. Portland Timbers 2026 MLS Regular Season | Game 28 Saturday, Oct. 10 | 7:30 p.m. CT (7:40 kickoff) Sporting Park | Kansas City, Kansas Watch: Apple TV | Pub Partners Listen: 810 AM | 1340 AM | SKC App More: Know Before You Go | 5
How the bad science of AI doomerism is good for big business
There is no clear path showing that today’s AI systems will lead to superintelligence, much less a basis for calculating the probability of doom.
UN Decade of Healthy Ageing midpoint report finds progress, calls for greater investment
New evidence in the Secretary-General's report to the 81st UN General Assembly, prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in coordination with the UN system, finds more countries acting on healthy ageing than ever before – but longer lives will not become healthy, dignified ones without faster, more sustained investment at country level.(NEW YORK, 28 September 2026) The Secretary-General transmitted to the 81st session of the UN General Assembly the mid-term progress report on the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030), marking the midpoint of the ten-year global effort to improve the lives of older people. The report was prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in coordination with the UN Inter-Agency Group on Ageing and with inputs from thirteen UN entities, the World Bank Group and civil society partners. It finds real progress in countries – and persistent gaps that must close before 2030.The number of people aged 60 and over passed 1 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach 2.1 billion by 2050, with the fastest growth in low- and middle-income countries. Longer lives are not automatically healthy ones: globally, the gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at age 60 widened between 2000 and 2023, and an estimated 71% of excess deaths from COVID-19 between 2020 and 2023 were among people aged 60 and over. “Longer lives are one of humanity’s great achievements, but we cannot congratulate ourselves while leaving millions without health and support,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, Director, Department of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO. “The first half of the Decade has shown what is possible. The second half must be about scaling and financing the progress to meet the needs and rights of older persons.”Real progress, unevenly sharedThe report finds that more countries than ever now have legislation against age-based discrimination – up from 44.5% in 2018 to 57.7% today – and over half now have national long-term care policies, up from 49% in 2023 to 56.7%, dedicated programmes to build age-friendly environments (54.6%), and comprehensive health and social assessments of older people (54.6%). New WHO guidance on services for long-term care and for Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) delivered in communities is enabling systemic change as an increasing number of countries incorporate these services within national universal health care benefit packages. A host of UN agencies and other partners support training, increasing health workforce competencies and use of digital health tools.“This report shows the Decade of Healthy Ageing is working,” said Dr Ritu Sadana, Head of the WHO Secretariat for the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. “More countries are legislating against ageism, providing integrated care, strengthening long-term care systems, and creating age-friendly environments than ever before, in all regions and income levels. But progress is uneven and in one area, regressive: fewer countries report active multi-stakeholder forums on ageing, down from 53.1% in 2020 to 43.3% today. The second half of this Decade must turn commitments into results, in every country.”The financing gap: this Decade's binding constraintFinancing remains the binding constraint: more than a third of reporting countries (33.8%) have very little or no dedicated resources to develop long-term care, with similar shortfalls across the Decade’s other priority areas. Less than half of countries (45.4%) have legislation providing access to assistive devices (including hearing aids, spectacles or rollators), which are key to enabling older people to maintain productive, independent and dignified lives. Only 22.7% of countries can track older people’s health over time – the largest gap across the Decade’s core progress indicators. Nationally representative information is needed in each country, as policies and interventions cannot be designed as if all older adults of a given age share similar needs and capacities. The report calls for sustained investment through national budgets, country-owned plans, development cooperation and innovative financing mechanisms to fully close these gaps by 2030.“The Decade was designed as a whole-of-UN effort, and this report shows it in action,” said Amal Abou Rafeh, Chief of the Programme on Ageing Section at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), and Permanent Co-Chair of the UN Inter-Agency Group on Ageing. “Thirteen UN entities, the World Bank group and civil society organizations contributed to this report, with WHO as the lead technical and implementing agency. That is the model of coordination the second half of the Decade will need to scale, with countries leading legislation, funding and implementation, engaging older people.”“Investing in healthy ageing is not simply a cost; it is one of the highest-return investments a government can make,” said Fiona Stewart, Global Lead for Ageing and Pensions at the World Bank Group. “Countries that invest early in integrated and long-term care see savings that outweigh the upfront cost many times over. The evidence in this report makes the economic case; what is now needed is predictable financing at country level to act on it, along with efforts to support older entrepreneurs and the silver economy.”Older people's own voicesThe report also draws on the direct experience of older people themselves, including a multilingual global survey conducted by the International Federation on Ageing that reached more than 1000 older people across 58 countries. WHO and UN partners called on Member States to use the second half of the Decade to accelerate implementation, strengthen data systems, and secure the financing needed so that the gains of longer lives reach older people everywhere. About the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030)Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 2020, the Decade is a global collaboration bringing together governments, UN agencies, civil society, the private sector, academia and older people themselves to improve the lives of older people, their families and communities. It is coordinated by the World Health Organization together with the UN Inter-Agency Group on Ageing. The Decade's mid-term progress report was transmitted to the General Assembly by the Secretary-General, prepared by WHO, and is available in 6 languages.Full Report available: A/81/366 Implementation of the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030): Note by Secretary-General [ العربية | 中文 | English | Français | Pусский | Español
The shifting politics of Latino voters
A legislative battle in McAllen could signal if moderate Latino voters are shifting further left or continuing to lean towards the Republican party.
Weslaco Proclaims Hispanic Heritage Month and Recognizes Mexican Consulate
The City of Weslaco held a Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation ceremony on October 6, 2026, recognizing the history, culture, traditions, and contributions of the Hispanic and Latino community while also acknowledging the Mexican Consulate’s work.
Latino Expo Resource Fair returns this weekend, in a new location
The Latino Expo cancelled its resource fair last year because of the political climate.
Examining Latino youth mental health in the age of ICE raids
After the recent deaths of two young Latino men by suicide, youth mental health care professionals reflect on the ongoing mental health crisis happening among Latino children and adolescents.
Former UCF EDGE Lawrence Continues Productive Start to Rookie Season
Though he hasn't recorded a sack, Dallas's first-round pick leads all rookies in pass rush win rate by translating his versatile UCF skill set to the professional stage.
Hasbro Expands Location-Based Entertainment
Hasbro unveils immersive attractions, themed dining and live experiences across North America, Latin America, Middle East and Asia.
Xbox’s Mythic Achievements are here and they’re just like PlayStation Platinum trophies
Xbox testers can try out the new Mythic Achievements today.
PlatinumGames talks Nintendo Switch 2, offers brief comment on Bayonetta's future
PlatinumGames has offered a few words about Nintendo Switch 2 as well as the future of Bayonetta. PlatinumGames CEO Atsushi Inaba was recently taking part in a joint discussion with Shift Up’s Kim Hyung Tae. For those who missed the news, the companies recently announced a collaboration which will bring special Bayonetta costumes to Stellar Blade in time for the...
Bolsonaro and Lula head to a runoff in Brazil's presidential election
Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of President Donald Trump, and Brazil’s incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will face off in a runoff Oct. 25 for the top job of Latin America’s powerhouse economy after neither won a majority in Sunday's vote.
Brian Miller: The Blur at the Edges, Versus the Blur Everywhere
Evidence for intelligent design in nature may be clear to you, while other matters relating to faith remain far more perplexing.
Lina Khan says AI companies shouldn't follow Big Tech's playbook
Former FTC chair Lina Khan cautioned against AI companies regulating themselves during an interview on ABC's "This Week."
Brazil is regulating AI use in elections. Here’s why it’s been a challenge.
Brazil’s polarized political landscape is rife with disinformation – a challenge that can be turbocharged by artificial intelligence.
How the bad science of AI doomerism is good for big business
There is no clear path showing that today’s AI systems will lead to superintelligence, much less a basis for calculating the probability of doom.
Sea Monkeys Show Scientists How To Rewrite a Rule of Turbulence
Scientists assumed that energy flows in only one direction in a turbulent system. What they didn’t know, until they looked closely at brine shrimp, was that a simple factor can reverse the flow.
Mission Lotería bets on brick-and-mortar as Latino makers face high costs
Despite both a rise in costs and fears around immigration crackdowns, some Latinos are committing to championing other Latino entrepreneurs by offering access to a storefront.