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Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
Saturday Sports: North Country softball, baseball, and flag football
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Saturday.
Girls high school flag football: Students push to have growing sport sanctioned in Minnesota
Students are pushing to have high school girls flag football sanctioned by the Minnesota State High School League as the sport grows in popularity across the state and the nation.
Hen Hud Sports Roundup
Covering May 8-14, 2026 > Flag Football, Softball, Baseball, Girls Lacrosse, Boys Lacrosse, Track and Field, Other News
USA TODAY Sports Super 25 girls flag football rankings entering mid-May
After another week of play, who are the best flag football teams in the country?
"I cannot condone piracy, but I get why people do" - Subnautica 2 lead designer airs frustration at 'flagrant' pirates
This comes as Subnautica 2 makes a massive splash on Steam and Xbox, boasting over two million copies sold.
How a little-known virus on a cruise ship put the world’s health security framework to the test
When the United Kingdom notified WHO on 2 May 2026 of a cluster of severe respiratory illness cases aboard a Netherlands-flagged cruise ship in the Atlantic, passengers from 23 countries were on board. Within days, cases of hantavirus (Andes strain) had been confirmed in the Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland. The ship was still at sea.
Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.
Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe
Xperia 1 VIII AI photos outrage: Nothing CEO calls out Sony for "engagement farming"
Sony's Xperia 1 VIII launch is facing backlash over its AI Camera Assistant, with critics roasting the flagship phone for its questionable AI image processing. Amid "engagement farming" accusations from Nothing CEO Carl Pei, the key to the controversy might be a marketing misunderstanding.
iPhone 18 Pro: Three new features could make you want to upgrade
iPhone 18 Pro is coming this fall, and three new features could be among the top upgrade motivators for Apple’s latest flagship model.
Howard Community College Featured in 'State of Business' Address
In his Business Outlook Luncheon remarks at Turf Valley Resort last week, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball outlined how Howard County “stands on business” through five pillars: managing crises, investing in people, backing businesses, making strategic investments, and preparing for the future. Howard Community College appears by name in the pillar that anchors the others: investing in people. Dr. Ball highlighted the $11 million county investment in HCC’s Cathy and Danny Bell Workforce and Trades Center, which will open this fall. He described the facility as a world-class center with state-of-the-art training in key industries, championed by HCC President Dr. Daria J. Willis, and positioned to help Howard County compete with institutions worldwide. He also recognized HCC’s Complete4Success program, supported by a $3.5 million county investment in 2022, as a continuing driver of certifications and degrees that prepare students to enter Howard County’s workforce ready to contribute on day one. Dr. Ball connected HCC’s work to the broader economic moment in the county, including more than 1,580 apprentices now training across Howard County businesses, up from roughly 1,100 in 2018, and the SPARK program that bridges classroom learning to high-demand industries. Each of these efforts depends on the kind of workforce pipeline HCC is built to deliver. Educational Services is one of the top three employment sectors for county residents, alongside Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services and Health Care & Social Assistance. HCC will award 1,263 degrees next week at its annual commencement ceremony, and every year, that output feeds directly into the industries the County Executive named as drivers of Howard County’s growth. The full picture also includes the families who are not yet there. The 2024 ALICE update from United Way of Central Maryland found that 35,346 households in Howard County, 29% of the total, fell below the ALICE Threshold in 2022, meaning they earned more than the Federal Poverty Level but less than the basic cost of living in the county. The Household Survival Budget for a Howard County family of two adults, an infant, and a preschooler reached $118,608 annually, requiring an hourly wage of $59.30 to cover housing, child care, food, transportation, and other essentials. Affluence and economic strain coexist within the same county lines. That gap is the reason higher education and economic development are inseparable. Every certification, associate degree, and apprenticeship credential issued at HCC represents a household closer to crossing the ALICE Threshold and into long-term financial stability. The Bell Center, Complete4Success, Howard P.R.I.D.E., Parent Scholars, and the institution’s transfer-rate gains are significant components of Howard County’s economic mobility infrastructure. HCC is grateful to Dr. Ball for his sustained partnership over nearly eight years of service and for recognizing that this college plays a central role in the economic story Howard County is telling. Standing on business in Howard County means standing alongside the flagship institution that prepares its workforce.
As Jamaica loosened its politics-and-gangs ties, Haiti tightened them
COMMENTARY To observe Haitian Flag Day on May 18, the members of Haiti's political and business elite who've sponsored violent gangs could reflect on the possibly irreparable damage they've done.
Women’s flag football in the ACC? Jim Phillips says conversations are happening
At ACC Spring Meetings, commissioner Jim Phillips says the league is having conversations about women's flag football ahead of its Olympic debut.
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remake Gets Absurd Treasure Hunt
Edward Kenway and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Sony Xperia 1 VIII packs a redesign, flagship specs, microSD, 3.5mm jack from €1,500
Sony’s latest flagship is here, with the new Xperia 1 VIII offering some powerful specs for the usual lofty price...
Operator of hantavirus-hit ship will say by week's end when the vessel will resume cruises
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Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Has a Real-Life $500,000 Treasure Hunt You Can Pay $41 to Try and Solve
Ubisoft has announced a real-life Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced treasure hunt with a $500,000 prize, which will be buried somewhere in the Caribbean.
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Has a Real-Life $500,000 Treasure Hunt You Can Pay $41 to Try and Solve
Somewhere, deep in the Caribbean...
Area15 announces Palace Entertainment, Six Flags exec as new president
Area15 in Las Vegas appoints Bonnie Weber
Calendar Pick: Weaver D’s Food & Entertainment Festival
Athens’ beloved soul food restaurant Weaver D’s Fine Foods closed its doors at the end of February, but the community will still come together in its name for Weaver D’s Food & Entertainment Festival. The festival theme is “Automatic For The People,” the restaurant’s famous slogan that put it on the map when R.E.M. used it as an album title in 1992. Attendees can enjoy a variety of food options, including but not limited to Londynn’s Lemonade, Taylor’s Treats and Ron & Sandra’s Fish Shack. Dexter Weaver, Weaver D’s owner, will also be serving the restaurant’s full menu. Entertainment will include the New Faith Tabernacle Male Chorus, Lavender House, Mr. Mister, The PRESHA Steppas, Old Gold Sport Peppers, Smackedass, Tonya […]
Xiaomi officially announces new flagship phone with Leica cameras and large display
The Xiaomi 17 Max has been confirmed for a May launch in China, with pre-orders already open. The company has teased the device in a light blue colorway, revealing its design language and a few key highlights. Separately, a leak has shown the device in multiple additional colorways.
Waymo recalls massive autonomous fleet after incident flags major safety issue
Federal regulators say a software defect may prevent Waymo vehicles from fully stopping in flooded road conditions, increasing the risk of a crash or injury
Peekskill Sports Roundup
Covering May 5-11, 2026 > Flag Football, Softball, Baseball, Track and Field, College Watch
Official Xperia 1 VIII images show global colours and key features before launch day
The Xperia 1 VIII is launching on May 13. In the meantime, a reliable leaker has published a series of photos detailing Sony's new flagship. Features like a camera shutter button, a capacitive fingerprint scanner and Zeiss T* lens will return for the smartphones' eighth-generation release.
Hollywood Reporter Names Mikey O'Connell Senior Entertainment Editor
O'Connell will continue to write feature profiles, news and columns — also hosting his recently launched podcast and overseeing many of the magazine's flagship editorial initiatives.
Scientists Press Congress on Dismissal of National Science Foundation Board and Research Funding
The slowed pace of grants by the National Science Foundation, under attack from the White House, could put the United States at a disadvantage with China, the scientists warned.
Victor Wembanyama’s immediate reaction after getting ejected
San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama’s initial reaction moments before his ejection was pure confusion. The 22-year-old was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul in Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Semifinals against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday. At the…
Will Victor Wembanyama be suspended after Flagrant Foul 2?
Victor Wembanyama received a Flagrant Foul 2 penalty and was ejected in the Spurs' Eastern Conference semifinal against the Timberwolves.
Chiefs' campaign leads to Kansas sanctioning girls' flag football
Kansas City Chiefs' campaign leads to Kansas sanctioning girls' flag football | @EdEastonJr
Stardom and scholarships? Year 1 of WPIAL girls flag football showcased growing opportunities
Lilly Trgovic caught a swing pass out of the backfield, turned her eyes upfield and juked to her left. She snaked through a couple defenders and darted...
School's flag footballers to compete for US trip
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Hen Hud Sports Roundup
Covering May 1-7, 2026 > Flag Football, Softball, Baseball, Girls Lacrosse, Boys Lacrosse, Track and Field, Other Results, College Watch
Seminole Ridge takes top spot in USA TODAY Sports Super 25 girls flag football rankings
As spring flag football ramps up in May, which teams are vying to be crowned as best in the nation?
Big Bets Report: Fan Waves White Flag on Lakers, Pockets $13k
Patrick Everson breaks down how one bettor cashed in their chips on a potential $500k payout. That and more in this week's big bets.
How One Bad Business Partner Cost Me Years of Business Growth — and How You Can Avoid the Same Fate
If it's clear that the partner fails to add value, they cannot hold the decision-vote. It's a dangerous red flag as a partner. Here's what you need to do.
Nintendo Plans Switch 2 Price Increase as Outlook Disappoints
Nintendo Co. said it will increase the price of its Switch 2 console to $500 from $450, acknowledging pressure on profitability of its flagship device heading into its second year on the market.
High school sports results, playoff schedule for Thursday, May 7, 2026
THURSDAY’S RESULTS Baseball CITY LEAGUE Brashear 19, Carrick 10 Obama 7, Westinghouse 0 (forfeit) NON-SECTION Apollo-Ridge 6, Leechburg 3 Aquinas...
NAU Athletics Celebrates 65 Student-Athlete Graduates as Part of Spring 2026 Class
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (May 8, 2026) – As part of Northern Arizona University's spring commencement ceremonies to be held in the Walkup Skydome on Friday and Saturday, 65 current and former NAU student-athletes will earn their degrees.
Is It Time To Reassess Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) After Its Recent Share Price Rebound?
If you are wondering whether Six Flags Entertainment is attractively priced today or a potential value trap in disguise, this article breaks down what the current share price is really offering you. The stock last closed at US$19.69, with returns of 9.3% over the past week, 10.1% over the past month, 27.1% year to date, and a 45.5% decline over the past year as well as 52.2% and 54.1% declines over the last 3 and 5 years. Recent headlines around Six Flags Entertainment have focused on its...
How Disneyland Remade American Politics
America is turning 250, and The Free Press is marking the occasion with a yearlong series of events, conversations, and stories celebrating our country’s history. Today, we’re taking a journey with historian Beverly Gage to Southern California. Beverly traded the archives for the open road for her new book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History. We’re proud to publish an excerpt, on the theme park that shaped American politics—and the presidents who loved it. —The Editors On July 17, 1955, Ronald Reagan stood near a mocked-up wood-plank town in Anaheim, California, where a 13-star flag flew incongruously over an “Old West” landscape, and introduced the world to Disneyland. He had been invited by Walt Disney himself to co-host the park’s live ABC broadcast, alongside Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings—three Hollywood actors who seemed to embody a wholesome, all-American ethos. From the imagined past of Frontierland, the show leaped ahead to Tomorrowland, set in the far-off year of 1986, emphasizing the technical marvels yet to come: nuclear energy harnessed for civilian purposes, human beings riding rocket ships into space. Disney foretold great things for a 1980s in which the United States would serve as “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” But even he could not predict the most important political fact of the age: that his genial co-host would become president. Southern California was a strange place to build a park about the past, because the region at the time was all about newness and abundance and growth. For a lot of its history, Orange County had been Southern California’s version of flyover country: a vast agricultural expanse between two desirable places, Los Angeles and San Diego. But Disneyland was changing that. Before long, 50 miles south of deep-blue Hollywood, Orange County would become a region famed for its right-wing politics—but also for its mythmaking skills. Those two things, it turned out, went naturally together. ADVERTISEMENT The two presidents Southern California gave America both understood this instinctively. Richard Nixon and Reagan each built a national career on invoking a version of the American past in which the specificities of historical context mattered less than the big picture. For Nixon, progress meant proclaiming a “New American Revolution” on the eve of America’s bicentennial while dismantling the federal programs that had built the postwar middle class. For Reagan, it meant recapturing a lost optimism and an old-fashioned faith in America as an exceptional nation. Both men were less interested in history as it actually happened than in history as it felt—and Orange County, a place that had built itself almost entirely from scratch, turned out to be exactly where the myth of America’s future was getting made. I’m a historian—and historians tend to be myth-busters. With the country’s 250th birthday on the horizon, I figured it was a good time to step out of the ivory tower and check in with the past as it exists here and now, at the museums and monuments and roadside attractions where Americans go to learn about their history. After all my travels—to Davy Crockett’s Tennessee and Texas, to the real Erie Canal, to the birthplace of the American automobile and the actual Old West—I couldn’t miss out on Disneyland, the single most influential historic attraction in U.S. history.
Live Sports Streaming Ad Market Rife With Fraud, Experts Say
Front Office Sports spoke with various industry insiders who raised red flags about ad sales issues in streaming.
Six Flags Entertainment Jumps 17% on Q1 Revenue, Attendance - Orange County Business Journal
Knott’s Berry Farm owner, Six Flags Entertainment Corp., jumped 17% to $23.04 per share on Thursday following its first quarter report.
Cboe builds its corporate brand and enters the prediction market
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ASUS ExpertBook Ultra Now Available for Purchase in the United States
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‘Dream becomes real’: FAMU business school gets $300K for scholarships
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IOC urges sports to let Belarus athletes compete under flag
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Rare Pink Katydid Slowly Transforms Green and Upends Camouflage Science
Camouflage is a widely studied antipredator technique that we thought we understood. A rainforest insect, however, is rewriting the textbooks on the subject as it reveals previously unseen behavior. O...
Google Chrome Just Silently Installed A 4GB AI Model On Your Device - Here's How To Remove It
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Six Flags Entertainment Corporation Reports 2026 First Quarter Results
Six Flags Entertainment Corporation (NYSE: FUN), the largest regional amusement park operator in North America, today announced its results for the first qua...
OnePlus 16 leak reveals 200MP zoom camera, new chipset and large battery
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Deepfakes or criminalizing free speech?: ‘It’s politics’ Bozeman attorney says of mailers in complaint
Lewistown resident Dan Bartel's 1,872 mailers with doctored images of Republican state House District 68 candidate Jennifer Carlson of Churchill holding LGBTQ+ pride flags and wearing gender-pronoun buttons is free
NCHSAA adds girls flag football, boys volleyball as championship sports
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced brings back the original's best gameplay quirks
Ubisoft has detailed Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced gameplay, highlight just how many classic mechanics from ACIV Black Flag will return in the remake.
RWJBarnabas Health Hospitals Earn Top Hospital Safety Grades from The Leapfrog Group
RWJBarnabas Health announced that all 12 of its acute care hospitals received high marks for patient safety in the latest Leapfrog Group’s Spring 2026 Hospital Safety Grades.
Science Will Win season finale explores AI in cancer care with Pfizer Chief Oncology Officer Jeff Legos
In February, Pfizer launched the sixth season of Science Will Win, our flagship podcast which recently reached 3 million downloads. The season finale focuses on the future of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) —and what they could mean for cancer research and care.
A Titan of American Hi-Fi Just Took Its Biggest Swing at Sonos in Years
The American audio great just introduced a new smart speaker, and with a flagship Dolby Atmos soundbar and wireless subwoofer.
Sony Xperia 1 VIII: European model leak showcases Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 performance but only 12 GB RAM
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Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Has Plenty of Blood After All — and a Gameplay Mechanic Borrowed From Assassin's Creed Shadows
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Xperia 1 VIII listed on Amazon: Release date, specs, colors, sky-high price revealed; WH1000XM6 headphones with pre-orders
A massive leak on Amazon UK and Germany has revealed the Sony Xperia 1 VIII ahead of schedule. The listings detail a June 26 release date, new colors, 6.5-inch 120Hz OLED display, a new telephoto lens, and a launch bundle. With prices starting at £1,728, Sony's next flagship faces scrutiny over a significant price hike compared to the Xperia 1 VII.
Classroom flags, CEO ousted and other top Tri-City politics stories
There’s never a shortage of local political news in the Tri-Cities.
New Jersey adds flag football as sanctioned sport for high school girls
WNBA Slightly Raises Technical, Flagrant Foul Fines for 2026 Season
The league will also fine players for flopping.
Flag football approved as sanctioned sport for high school girls in New Jersey
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New Jersey sanctions girls flag football as a high school sport
After four years in pilot program status, girls flag football became New Jersey's newest high school sport on Monday.
NJSIAA Approves Girls Flag Football as Varsity Sport
The NJSIAA approves girls flag football as a varsity sport beginning in 2027, passing the measure by a 311–18 vote.
Jets Celebrate as Girls Flag Football Becomes a Sanctioned Sport in New Jersey
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Built on grit: FOX Business crowns three ‘Made in America’ small business winners
A veteran-staffed construction firm, a souvenir shop owner and bourbon makers are crowned winners of the first FOX Business "Made in America" small business contest.
Leveraging PHIG to Advance Policy Infrastructure at Austin Public Health
Learn how Austin's health department used PHIG funding and assistance from ASTHO to improve their processes in this blog.
Trump: US to Escort Ships Through Strait of Hormuz
Trump described “Project Freedom”, as a humanitarian effort aimed at ensuring safe passage for ships trapped in restricted waters.
Max Strus randomly headbutts Scottie Barnes in Cavaliers-Raptors Game 7, lucky to avoid flagrant 2 ejection
What was Max Strus thinking here?
Microsoft Defender wrongly flags DigiCert certs as Trojan:Win32/Cerdigent.A!dha
Microsoft Defender is detecting legitimate DigiCert root certificates as Trojan:Win32/Cerdigent.A!dha, resulting in widespread false-positive alerts, and in some cases, removing certificates from Windows.
AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 495 “Gorgon Halo” Leak Smokes Strix Halo by 10%, Packs 192GB Memory and Radeon 8065S
AMD's next-generation Halo flagship, the Ryzen AI MAX+ 495, has leaked out, featuring a 10% bump in performance & a new Radeon 8065 iGPU.
Microsoft Defender Mistakenly Flags DigiCert Root Certificates as Malware
Microsoft Defender triggered widespread false positive alerts after a faulty security update caused it to flag two legitimate DigiCert root certificates as malicious, potentially disrupting SSL/TLS validation and code-signing operations across enterprise environments worldwide.
Microsoft Defender flagging "Cerdigent" trojan malware on Windows 11, Server PCs worldwide
Microsoft Defender is flagging “Cerdigent” trojan malware alerts on Windows 11 and Windows Server PCs across multiple regions worldwide.
Ultimate camera flagship to launch globally: Xiaomi Mix 5 expected to sport major upgrades
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Beyond the Politics:The Human Cost Behind the Israel–Iran Conflict
TEL AVIV — The conflict between Iran, the U.S., and Israel remains volatile as Iran submits a new 14‑point peace proposal through Pakistan while warning that fighting may soon resume, with Iranian military officials saying the U.S. is not committed to agreements. President Donald Trump has expressed...
LG Japan Drops Pre-Order Pricing For Its 5K2K UltraGear OLED, Slashing 21% Off The $2,099 Flagship Before Launch
LG Japan opens pre-orders for the 45GX950B-B 5K OLED at $1,653 and 32GX870B-B 4K at $1,081, featuring advanced specs and discounts.
Students get a thrill studying science at Six Flags
A ninth-grade engineering class brought notes and questions to Six Flags Over Texas to study roller coasters and see the science up close.
Coty's perfume business takes another knock with David Beckham fragrance lawsuit
Beauty brand Coty is facing a lawsuit from DB Ventures, the company behind former football star David Beckham’s eponymous fragrance, for what the lawsuit describes as flagrant material breaches of the license agreement, court documents show.
LA28 Olympics: What are the new sports and events at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles?
Lacrosse and cricket return after more than a century, flag football and squash make their Olympic debuts, and new events arrive in swimming, track, gymnastics and more.
Pro-Iran crew turns DDoS into shakedown as Ubuntu.com stays down
: 313 Team tells Canonical: pay up or the packets keep coming
ECAC Women’s Flag Football Coaches Exude Enthusiasm as Championship Weekend Arrives
Danbury, Conn. - ECAC Women’s Flag Football Coaches Exude Enthusiasm as Championship Weekend Arrives
🗞️ The district dazzling Europe, on Friday’s front pages
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AI could help human scientists pick promising research topics
Large language models flag up novel combinations of concepts in materials science
An Age of Political Violence?
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Baystate Health reaches agreement to take over Mercy Medical Center in Springfield
Baystate Health, which operates its flagship hospital in Springfield, is acquiring the city's other hospital, Mercy Medical Center.
History at Hand: ECAC to Host Women's Flag Playoffs at Jets Training Facility
The inaugural season of the ECAC/Jets Women's Flag Football League is set for a furious finish to regular season play over the next two weeks. Then the league's best eight teams will arrive at the Atlantic Jets Training Facility on May 2-3 to compete for a championship and ownership of "The Betty" trophy which honors Betty Wold Johnson's enduring spirit of compassion, service and meaningful impact. The two-day championship weekend, supported by Johnson & Johnson, marks the end of a 3-month season where the Jets and the ECAC have established a foundation for the future of Women's College Flag Football.
State Treasurer John Fleming proudly waves the MAGA flag as he campaigns for Senate
John Fleming plays up his White House role in President Donald Trump’s first term and the fact that he is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus. Can he unseat Sen. Bill Cassidy?
Africa CDC Launches African High-Level Ministerial Committee to Shape Global Health Architecture Reform
Nairobi, Kenya | 27 April 2026 — Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) today launched the African High-Level Ministerial Committee on Global Health Architecture Reform (AHLMC) on the margins of the World Health Summit Regional Meeting 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. The Committee brings together Ministers of Health and Finance from across the continent to […]
Montana leaders seek public comment on future of shooting sports
Montana leaders are asking for public input as they shape the future of shooting sports facilities across the state.A new task force created under House Bill 89
New One UI 8.5 Beta adds little value to your old Galaxy flagship
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Mavericks star Cooper Flagg named NBA Rookie of the Year over Kon Knueppel in historic race
UAE Employment and Social Reforms 2026: Modernization or Business as Usual?
A flurry of employment law reforms in the United Arab Emirates—a business-friendly area that remains firmly rooted in traditional values and national identity—in recent years has caught the attention of multinational employers and expatriates alike, but do these changes represent a genuine shift toward Western-style liberalization, or are they pragmatic adjustments designed to maintain competitiveness while preserving the status quo? Below are some of the key developments and what they mean for employers operating in the region.
Women's Flag Football Added as 26th Varsity Sport at John Carroll
The tradition of football at John Carroll University has just deepened. Since 1920, John Carroll Football has been a prestigious powerhouse at JCU. Beyond plenty of success on the field, JCU Football has consistently graduated excellent men who have set the world on fire. Beginning with the 2026-27 academic year, women will have the opportunity to add to the rich history of football in University Heights.
Missouri could add girls flag football as an official high school sport in 2027
Girls flag football is labeled as an emerging sport in Missouri high schools. By the 2027-28 school year, the sport could be fully accredited.
Deandre Ayton on his ejection in Game 4
After playing an excellent first half in Game 4, Lakers center Deandre Ayton was ejected after being called for a flagrant 2 foul.
Assassin's Creed 1 Remake To Follow Black Flag Resynced
With Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced now officially confirmed and virtually around the corner, a new leak from @xjØnathan on X, Ubisoft is also working on a remake of Assassin's Creed 1. The leak allegedly stems from someone within Ubisoft, although not much else is known about the AC1 remake....
Assessing Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) Valuation After Quantum Accelerator Coaster And Park Upgrades Debut
Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) is back in focus after Six Flags New England previewed its new Quantum Accelerator coaster, along with refreshed dining and guest experience upgrades across the park. See our latest analysis for Six Flags Entertainment. At a share price of $18.28, Six Flags Entertainment has a 30 day share price return of 10.12% and an 18.01% share price return year to date. However, the 1 year total shareholder return of 49.36% and 3 year total shareholder return of 56.66%...