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Instagram will let users endlessly swap the audio on old posts
Recent features make sense for creators — not so much average users
Order of the Sinking Star adds PS5 version
Narrative puzzle adventure game Order of the Sinking Star will launch for PlayStation 5 alongside its previously announced Switch 2 and PC (Steam) versions in 2026, publisher Arc Games and develope…
Motorola tablet with 9 JBL speakers confirmed to feature 12.1-inch display
The Moto Pad 70 Groove is set to launch in India. Previously, the company revealed its design and confirmed that it will feature a nine-speaker JBL audio system. Now, the latest teaser reveals details about the tablet’s display and battery.
UFC Freedom 250 Fails to Knock Out The Ratings
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) If UFC fans wanted one image to say, “Hey, Paramount+ is crushing it with their UFC rights deal,” I could provide that image. Here it is: (Reminder: this is my creation of the Nielsen Top 30, since Nielsen doesn’t combine the lists or include sports. I take all three lists and combine them. Some streaming TV shows probably have higher ratings than many of the films on this list.) Look at that! UFC Freedom 250 is number one! It topped the Nielsen “Top 30” list for shows and films that made the top ten the week of 15-June. So if you’re a UFC fan or supporter of Paramount+, that’s the good news for you this week. This program topped the ratings charts for one week. Everything else is bad news, or at least a huge caveat to that story, which I’ll explain today in the first part of this week’s Streaming Ratings Report—for the weeks of 8-June and 15-June—which is a double issue since I’ve been writing on a bunch of topics recently. UFC Freedom 250 is one of the biggest streaming events of the year, and super relevant to Paramount+’s strategy, so it merited its own article. Let’s dive in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of June 8th to June 21st 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Check Out My Interview on UFC 250 at MMA Draw After you read this article, if you want even more thoughts on UFC and Paramount-Skydance/Paramount+, I did a written interview with MMA Draw. They asked me to answer some questions about UFC Freedom 250, and I was happy to chat with them. Find it here: [ The MMA Draw Newsletter Did Paramount really overpay for the UFC? What the data tells us so far If you know the history of American television, you also know that combat sports is often a leading indicator of the future… Read more a day ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Nate Wilcox and Zach Arnold ](https://www.themmadraw.com/p/did-paramount-really-overpay-for?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) I never thought I’d need a combat sports newsletter in my life, but the good folks at MMA Draw publish an excellent one on UFC, MMA, pro wrestling, boxing and more, analyzing both the sports themselves and the politics, economics and antitrust issues that impact them. Check the article and their newsletter out! Paramount+ Has Its Best Sporting Event of All Time…But Was It Worth It? Before we look at the UFC Freedom 250 data in particular, let’s talk about what we can’t say. Namely, let’s start with the lack of comparisons. First off, I’d love to put a chart out comparing this fight to past UFC fights on Paramount+…but we don’t have the data. This is the first time we’ve gotten Nielsen data about a Paramount+ UFC fight. As far as I can tell, Paramount provided data for the first fight, but it was a proprietary datecdote (saying it had “an average minute audience” of 5 million “views”) and then, for two fights, we got the linear viewership numbers when they aired on CBS, but no streaming data. Everything else was crickets. We also can’t compare this fight to other fights/combat sports on streaming, in particular the MMA and boxing, because Netflix also didn’t use Nielsen to track those events, opting for TVision and VideoAmp, respectively. (This isn’t Paramount’s fault, but does still suck.) We also can’t compare to UFC’s fights that used to be on ESPN+, since we don’t have any data for that, plus Disney+ didn’t have marquee fights. The comparisons would not be apples-to-apples. Can we compare to past Pay-Per-View fights? Absolutely not. The comparisons would absolutely NOT be apples-to-apples. That didn’t stop Paramount+, though, who bragged that their UFC events have reached drastically more people than past PPV fights. Duh. Sorry, but I gotta make this point again. A basic tenet of economics is that the cheaper something becomes, the more people consume or buy it. That’s Econ 101. (Sometimes pundits call things “Econ 101” that are actually like Econ 210 or even PhD-level economics, but no, this is really like first or second class basic economics.) Yet I still see one analytics firm consistently say that more people watch films on streaming than PVOD proves streaming which means that the streaming window is more valuable than the PVOD window. No, it’s not! Same thing here. Pay-Per-View events back in the day could be really, really, really expensive! So whole groups of people pitched in to buy them. That increased the perceived value of, say, the Mike Tyson fight. Or a UFC numbered event. So yes, the fact that Paramount+ makes numbered UFC fights essentially “free” if you’re already a Paramount+ member means consumption will go up. Obviously. Same for Netflix and their boxing matches. They’re talking about fights that used to cost consumers, in some cases, $50 in 1996…which is over $100 in today’s dollars. Over 1.6 million people paid that to watch the Tyson-Holyfield fight! Again, streaming is essentially “free”. Or $10 to $20, depending on what streamer we’re talking about and what tier you’re on. No wonder more people are “watching”. (Plus, Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing also helps these numbers.) UFC Freedom 250 Did Well…But I Have A Lot of Worries So what can we compare the fights to? Well, the good news is Nielsen put out that the fight averaged 7.0 million viewers for UFC Freedom 250, which is a solid number for a fight. We also know the length, at roughly 4 and a half hours. (I saw different run times, but this seems to be the consensus considering it started at 8 pm, had a delay and then finished after midnight on the East Coast. If you assume a shorter run time, then yes, the total hours viewed would go down.) That means I have the two numbers needed to add this to my Nielsen database. And then…I can compare this viewership to the NFL: And, uh, not great. But also within striking distance, mainly because the runtime for this event was so long. I’d also add that this event had viewership equal to a regular season NFL game on streaming, but if anything, it was more comparable to an NFL playoff or Super Bowl-esque event. And you can compare viewership to the top football games on broadcast, cable and streaming, and it’s not impressive at all: We can also compare it to other sports that week, including the NBA Finals and start of the World Cup: Again, not great. The NBA generated roughly four times as many average viewers each game for its NBA Finals. The World Cup has similarly big numbers. Also, that’s just a tiny fraction of the 25 most watched sporting events each week. The NBA, NHL and FIFA World Cup had many, many more games racking up hours. We could also compare this to other streaming programs to get an idea of “is this a good investment?” and here is how it ranks compared to other top Paramount+ programs: The worry here? Well, unlike scripted programming, which has rewatchability, older fights/sporting events have very little library value. Very, very few people are rewatching these fights, especially years from now. Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers. Then, in their quarterly earnings report, they only ended up with 700K subs. Not great! They claimed they dropped lower-value international subscribers, but that’s why I tend to discount subscriber additions when they’re leaked to the press.1 I expect we may see a bump again for UFC Freedom 250, but I’d caution using subscriber growth so soon after these events to judge the success, since new subs with high churn (see Peacock) aren’t great either. Also, analysts often want to attribute all subscriber growth to their favorite/pet show, and that just doesn’t make sense. The biggest caveat for UFC Freedom 250 and Paramount’s very first UFC marquee event is that these could be high watermarks for the sport. UFC Freedom 250 had an incredible amount of earned media coverage compared to most UFC fights. I mean, it had wall-to-wall national news coverage in the lead up to the event. (The first fight also had a lot of promotion from Paramount since it was first.) Other fights could reach this bar—say the Conor McGregor return to the Octagon—but they’ll be fewer and far between. Was This Deal Worth It? All to ask: is this Paramount deal worth it? In this case, I think the UFC Freedom 250 numbers are more distracting than helpful. This fight did well and compares well to other top sporting events. But we know that the first marquee event was at least a third smaller, if Paramount’s own data is to be believed. And it’s likely the other fights are much, much, much smaller. And then you get to the paycheck that Paramount-Skydance paid. FIFA’s World Cup cost about the same for Fox, but clearly generated multiples more total viewership. (Though it’s only every four years.) The NBA is much more expensive, but until the playoffs, they likely didn’t pay for itself. Even still, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video likely overpaid. So, in that context, the NBA may be an overpay that makes the UFC look not so bad. But two overpays don’t make an underpay, to paraphrase the old cliché about wrongs and rights. And looking at UFC Freedom 250 as the likely ceiling of MMA on Paramount+, Paramount-Skydance likely paid too much. Share 1 I would love regular reports on subscriber additions by programs, but as is, it’s mostly leaked or rumored in haphazard ways.
Two deer cause thousands in damages at Peachtree City businesses
A wild morning unfolded in Peachtree City on Monday when two deer crashed through the windows of two separate businesses simultaneously.
Nancy Mace passes on Senate bid, cites ‘unfinished business’
The Lowcountry congresswoman had previously run in the GOP gubernatorial race before conceding and endorsing Alan Wilson.
Penguins Interested in Using Connections to Land 44-Point Center
The Pittsburgh Penguins are interested in landing one of the top trade candidates in the market. It was recently revealed that the Seattle Kraken are moving on from Shane Wright this summer. Seattle previously drafted the center with the fourth-overall pick in the 2024 NHL draft. Despite lofty expectations, he regressed during the most recent […] The post Penguins Interested in Using Connections to Land 44-Point Center appeared first on HEAVY.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
Former Jack Daniel’s Cooperage closes in Alabama
Alabama Cooperage, previously known as Jack Daniel's Cooperage, will close in September, resulting in 71 job losses.
Have Scientists Built a Cell from Scratch?
According to recent news headlines, the curiously named SpudCell can feed, grow, reproduce, and undergo selection.
Victor Marx reflects the unsettling nature of today politics
Victor Marx barely won, but his victory delivers a strong statement about the nature of today's politics. It shows what happens when a party stops seriously competing and instead indulges its fever dreams.
What everyone is saying about smaller teams in the age of AI
Jeff Bezos famously lived by a two-pizza rule. Thanks to AI, the days of such larger teams may be over.
How the ‘famously’ phoneless Christopher Nolan gets in touch with actors
Matt Damon is revealing how the ‘famously’ phoneless Christopher Nolan reached out to him about starring in ‘The Odyssey.’
Frozen for years, this tiny animal miraculously springs back to life - Futura-Sciences
Siberia’s Secret Super-Survivor In a remote corner of the world, where only the boldest humans venture and always with layers of insulation, a small amphibian takes coexistence with extreme cold to a whole new level. Deep within the boreal forests of Siberia—imagine endless spruces and a carpet of snow that...
Perspective: Extreme heat is a fact of summer. Its health harms don’t have to be
As yet another heat dome settles over part of the U.S., a depressingly predictable news cycle is unfolding. This week, the headlines will warn of dangerously high temperatures; next week, they'll chronicle the human toll.
German politician resigns over surrogacy child controversy
Jens Spahn faced calls to resign over his use of a surrogate, a ban on which he previously backed.
Costco adds hot fan favorite to food court menu as shoppers debate taste and value
Costco is expanding its famously affordable food court menu with a new $6.99 chicken strip meal and the addition has already divided shoppers over its flavor, breading and value.
Ranking Member Markey, Senator Hirono Reject Trump’s SBA Policy Proposal that Harms Underserved Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
Letter (PDF) (Washington, July 17) – Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) submitted a comment letter to the Small Business Administration (SBA) opposing a proposed rule change by Trump’s SBA to the 8(a) Business Development Program that would harm underserved small business owners and entrepreneurs. The 8(a) Business Development Program was created by Congress more than 50 years ago to level the playing field for small business owners and entrepreneurs who have faced discrimination in starting and operating their businesses. The SBA’s proposed change ignores the existence of historic discrimination that minority and underserved small businesses have faced and continue to face. In the letter, the lawmakers wrote, “SBA’s proposed rule ignores present-day barriers that entrepreneurs from minority and underserved communities face. Discrimination is not dead; minority entrepreneurs continue to face reduced access to contracting opportunities and capital, as well as racial threats and targeting, including unequal treatment, refusal by others to work with minority-owned firms, being called racial slurs, and bias in the workplace. These barriers lead to wide underutilization of, and less revenue for, minority-owned businesses compared to majority-owned businesses, as supported by decades of disparity studies. The proposed rule diminishes the history of systemic racial and ethnic discrimination in the United States by claiming that remedies for discrimination create discrimination in and of themselves.” The lawmakers continued, “The program has always been open to anyone who can prove they have experienced prejudice or cultural bias in education, employment, entrepreneurship, and other facets of our society. Nonetheless SBA has moved forward with the proposed rule. It lacks a reasoned basis, purporting that the federal government has discriminated against White Americans, but offering no substantive qualitative or quantitative data or research in support. If the examples provided in the proposed rule are the only basis for what constitutes discrimination to the agency, they are woefully insufficient. The final rule must provide strong evidence that there is discrimination against White individuals and show how the rule is narrowly tailored to address it. The record remains devoid of evidence of discrimination against White individuals on the basis of race.” Ranking Member Markey is fighting to protect federal programs that address historic discrimination against small business owners from minority and underserved communities, and for a small business agenda that ensures economic opportunity for all. In June, Ranking Member Markey released a statement condemning the SBA’s proposed changes to the 8(a) Business Development Program. Also in June, Ranking Markey released a new report highlighting Trump’s drastic reduction in federal contracting dollars awarded to American small businesses, including minority-owned small businesses. In February, Ranking Member Markey, alongside Senators Hirono and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Representative Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), introduced the Strengthening Place-based Access, Resources, and Knowledge (SPARK) Act to spur entrepreneurship and increase access to capital and resources for underserved entrepreneurs nationwide. Ranking Member Markey previously held a field hearing in Roxbury, Massachusetts, to discuss how government and the private sector can come together to make entrepreneurship more accessible for underserved communities. Earlier in February, Ranking Member Markey secured funding with the Appropriations Committee for Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers, SCORE Chapters, and Veterans Business Outreach Centers and provisions to rein in the Administration’s attempts to eliminate programs that support women, veterans, and underserved entrepreneurs. In January, Ranking Member Markey sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to oppose rule changes that would gut protections against discriminatory lending practices that harm small businesses. In December 2025, Ranking Member Markey sent a letter to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler expressing significant concerns with the SBA’s overly burdensome request and unclear guidance for extensive financial documentation over the holidays, as a part of their sweeping attempts to dismantle the 8(a) Business Development Program. In July and December 2025, Ranking Member Markey sent letters to the SBA Administrator demanding answers about the Trump administration’s efforts to limit economic opportunity for American entrepreneurs, including immigrants. In May 2025, Ranking Member Markey sent a letter to the SBA Administrator rejecting President Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal and calling on SBA to immediately release funding for the entrepreneurial development programs, which include programs like the Women’s Business Centers and the Veteran’s Business Development Centers that support underserved small business owners. In April 2025, Ranking Member Markey introduced the New Start Act of 2025 to establish a five-year pilot program providing grants to support entrepreneurial development training for currently or formerly incarcerated individuals. In February 2025, Ranking Member Markey sent letters to the SBA Administrator and Government Accountability Office (GAO) condemning President Trump’s war on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) policies and asking how the SBA intends to implement Trump’s anti-DEIA executive orders. ###
Obviously, Bethesda Is Remastering 'Fallout: New Vegas' and 'Fallout 3'
The remasters have been an extremely poorly kept secret for months, but now, they're official.
Recall update: FDA now urging clinicians to return vascular device linked to 3 deaths
Cardiologists and vascular surgeons were previously told they could still use the device if necessary. Now, however, the message is that they should return the product to the manufacturer.
Gov. Greg Abbott names Robert Howden as Texas secretary of state
Howden, previously Gov. Greg Abbott’s legislative director, succeeds Jane Nelson, whose resignation took effect Friday morning.
FDA raised conflict of interest concerns ahead of new peptide panel
That panel will meet to weigh whether the agency should allow Americans to have broader access to seven injectable peptides previously restricted over potential safety concerns.
Exclusive : Diagnostics log confirms iPhone 18 Pro Max camera specs ahead of launch
An ISP diagnostics log, part of the trove of internal Tata Electronics files leaked in June by the World Leaks ransomware group, confirms several previously rumored iPhone 18 Pro Max camera specs ahead of Apple's official announcement.
Diamondbacks to call up Tyler Locklear, per report
Nick Piecoro added that Tyler Locklear will be taking the roster spot previously occupied by Tommy Troy.
Trump revives rule denying green cards over public benefits use
The policy was previously implemented by Trump, but it was reversed by Biden
Trump revives rule denying green cards over public benefits use
The policy was previously implemented by Trump, but it was reversed by Biden
Trump immediately fires the new court-appointed top prosecutor in Seattle
President Donald Trump fired the new top U.S. prosecutor in Seattle on Wednesday less than an hour after the attorney was unanimously appointed by the federal judges in the district, highlighting tensions between the courts and the president over the powerful positions.
Trump is expected to make election conspiracies a focus of his national address
President Donald Trump is set to address the nation on Thursday night on topics he said will include elections and voting machines, suggesting he is likely to revisit some of the unproven claims he has previously made about Republican losses, particularly his own in 2020.
Trump expected to make election conspiracies a focus of his national address
Trump's comments suggest he's likely in Thursday's speech to revisit some of the unproven claims he's previously made about Republican losses
Rock Entertainment Group to sell naming rights for downtown soccer stadium
REG previously partnered with the Cleveland Soccer Group on its failed bid to bring an expansion NWSL team to the city.
Chico City Council moves forward with proposed entertainment zones ordinance
Seeking to revitalize local businesses, the Chico City Council voted unanimously to approve the first reading of a proposed ordinance establishing two entertain
Uber Announces Acquisition Offer for Delivery Hero
Cash consideration of €41.50 per share offered to all Delivery Hero shareholders, representing an Equity Value of $14.8 billion, or $13.7 billion adjusted for Uber’s prior stake purchases The transaction is expected to be accretive to Non-GAAP EPS upon close; high-single-digit percentage accretion by year three Delivery Hero has separately agreed to sell part of its business covering 14 markets to SSW Partners Management Board and Supervisory Board of Delivery Hero unanimously welcome and support the Takeover Offer and intend to recommend Delivery Hero shareholders to tender into the offer, subject to their review of the Offer Document Prosus has irrevocably committed to tender their shares, which would bring Uber’s total economic interest to ~53% Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) has entered into a business combination agreement with Delivery Hero, extending the world’s largest mobility and delivery platform to a total of 99 markets, with combined pro-forma Gross Bookings of $236
ZeniMax Online Studios leadership to exit as part of Xbox cuts
There are major changes happening atop Maryland-based ZeniMax Online Studios, developer of the Elder Scrolls Online, Game File has learned. Joe Burba, a 14-year veteran of the studio who was appointed to run it last July, is departing, along with ESO executive producer Susan Kath, studio game director Rich Lambert and production director Ala Diaz. Their roles were listed among hundreds of others cut last week from the Maryland offices of ZeniMax, in a WARN letter sent to the state by ZeniMax and obtained today by Game File. Tonight, BUrbam Kath, Lambert and Diaz notified Zenimax Online Studios workers of plans to “transition” to a new leadership team consisting of promoted ZOS veterans. That transition will occur “over the next few months,” they told workers, according to a copy of the notice reviewed by Game File. “We will remain in place during the transition period to help ensure a smooth handoff.” Last week, Microsoft laid off of 1,600 workers across its vast gaming teams in locations around the U.S. and abroad. Just who has been impacted and how hard various studios have been hit has been emerging day by day. Game File reported last week that Microsoft/ZeniMax notified officials in Maryland that 379 gaming jobs were being cut across the state. They tallied cuts in two locations: one for ZeniMax Media Inc. (covering Elder Scrolls/Starfield/Fallout-maker Bethesda Game Studios and central Bethesda game publishing) and one for ZeniMax Online Studios (Elder Scrolls Online). More than 200 jobs were cut at the latter. Last week’s totals did not reveal job titles, nor did Microsoft announce any leadership changes in the ZeniMax group. That has now happened. Earlier today, Game File obtained from Maryland officials a breakdown of the 379 impacted roles, which, extraordinarily, included “studio head.” Microsoft later confirmed to Game File which studio head that referred to: ZeniMax Online Studios’. Microsoft has since has notified studio employees and internally announced new leadership. ZOS will now be run by Josh Henderson, previously head of business operations at the studio, and Nick Giacomini, who was promoted to game director for ESO last August. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Last week’s news of 200+ cuts at ZeniMax Online Studios generated public sympathy for those workers and questions about the long-term viability of the Elder Scrolls Online. ESO is a massively multiplayer online game that inherently persists on the strength of new content being developed for it. Earlier today, fans and workers in Maryland protested the cuts at the ZeniMax teams in a rally organized by the Communication Workers of America, the union that represents many of the impacted employees. Regarding concerns around the game, a community manager stated on Saturday: “The plan is still to deliver great content, and we will hopefully have an update soon.” In their note to the studio today, the outgoing leaders of ZeniMax Online Studios predicted “growth” for the game: We have tremendous confidence in Josh and Nick, the future of this studio, and the continued growth of ESO. With exciting experiences still ahead for our players as we wrap up work for Update 51 and beyond, we believe that your passion, creativity, and commitment to each other and the community will continue serving as the heartbeat of ESO. The list of jobs cut in the ZeniMax WARN notice in Maryland includes several very senior roles, including: Studio Head Studio Operations Director Studio Game Director Studio Audio Director Studio Art Manager Vice President and Controller VP, Global Sales & Business Development While some of those job descriptions match the exiting ZOS leadership team, Game File couldn’t verify if all were from that studio. The full list of cut roles shared by Maryland officials also covers workers at Bethesda Game Studios and its central publishing office. The following is an excerpt: The list of 379 eliminated ZeniMax jobs in Maryland also includes: four animators three bilingual CS (community service) leads for Chinese, Italian, and Japanese a creative director for the Elder Scrolls Online Player Life Cycle two food service workers seven producers more than 60 senior QA testers. and many others The WARN notice states that almost all of the 379 workers were notified of their layoff on July 6. In fine print, it states: “Approximately 9 employees were notified of the elimination of their position prior to July 6, 2026.” A 2021 mega-merger scaled back Microsoft announced in 2020 that it intended to buy ZeniMax and its network of game studios in 2020, and closed the $7.5 billion deal in March 2021. The purchase, which preceded Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, added several award-winning studios to Microsoft’s portfolio, including Bethesda (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), Arkane (Dishonored), and id Software (Doom). The studios’ output since then included a 2024 Game of the Year contented from MachineGames in the form of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle along with Starfield from Bethesda and the poorly-received Redfall from Arkane Austin. In recent years, a Microsoft repeatedly in cutback mode closed ZeniMax’s Tango Gameworks (which was reconstituted by Krafton) and closed Arkane Austin. The Xbox cuts last week have hit the ZeniMax group hard, with 158 jobs eliminated in Texas, many of them at id, and 379 from the ZeniMax teams in Maryland. Xbox also said last week that it would be entering a consultation process around Arkane Lyon, a process expected to end in a sale, shutdown or other form of divestment. The Lyon team has been working on a game tied to Marvel’s Blade vampire-hunting super-hero.
Trump administration 'screwed up' Epstein files communication, Vance says
During a lengthy podcast interview with Joe Rogan released Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance pointed largely to former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who infamously stated that an alleged “client list” of Epstein’s was “sitting on my desk right now.”
Iran, Epstein, Space Travel: 5 Takeaways From JD Vance’s Interview With Joe Rogan
In his first on-air conversation with the popular podcaster since 2024, the vice president cautiously defended the Iran war while also hinting at skepticism about it.
Carrier-financed iPhones in the US now get locked to that carrier
Previously, you could buy an iPhone from Apple using carrier financing and you would get an unlocked unit. There is still a way to get unlocked units, though.
Top 10 Mountain West Football Games of the Divisional Era
With the Mountain West changing, I thought it would be fun to go back and highlight the best players, games, and teams since the last phase of conference realignment 13 years ago. Previously, I’ve covered Top 10 football players, Top 10 basketball players, Top 10 Football Teams, and Top 10 Basketball Teams. Today’s list covers […]
Scientists show that DNA can last for up to 50,000 years in Africa — much longer than previously thought
Researchers extracted DNA from long-dead animals that lived in South Africa during the last ice age, revealing that genetic material lasts longer in hot climates than was previously thought.
County business park to get first infrastructure, new name
New Hanover County’s Holly Shelter Business Park could be getting its first infrastructure and a new name in the coming months. The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a $6.5 million infrastructure construction contract and renaming on Monday. Once developed, the approximately 300-acre master-planned industrial park is expected to accommodate more than 2 million square feet of industrial space. The construction contract was awarded to Carolina Civilworks, which submitted the lowest responsive bid for the construction of the infrastructure, Akin Akinola, the county’s engineer, told commissioners on Monday. In May 2023, the county approved a development agreement with Sidbury Land & Property Company to establish the business park. The firm then conveyed approximately 52 acres to the county, giving officials the option to purchase another 200 acres, Akinola said. “The county’s role is to construct the initial public infrastructure that will make the site ready for future development,” he said. “Today’s contract award represents the first major construction phase of that project.” The first phase of development will include approximately 2,750 linear feet of business park roadway, a water main and fire hydrants, along with a sanitary sewer pump station, sewer force main and gravity sewer. Other infrastructure will include a right-turn lane on Holly Shelter Road, along with associated drainage, utilities and traffic control improvements. “Completing this work establishes the backbone infrastructure necessary to serve future development and positions the site for future economic investment,” Akinola said on Monday. County staff, in consultation with Wilmington Business Development officials, are also recommending renaming the park as the I-40 Coastal Commerce Park, said Jennifer Rigby, the county’s chief strategy officer. The new name would emphasize the park’s proximity to I-40 and its location on the coast, she said. Several county commissioners also asked to add New Hanover County's name to the business park's name to commemorate the county's contributions. “We are hoping to achieve space for our businesses to grow and expand here in New Hanover County,” Rigby said. “We’ve had great success with out Blue Clay Business Park and this is another opportunity to really provide locations for our businesses to grow and expand.”
47 revelatory hours with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
To review this month’s supposed remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I must first correct the record. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced isn’t a game about pirates (and assassins) in the 18th century Caribbean. Sure, sure, that’s what the trailers would have you believe. They’ve go their clips of Edward Kenway swinging his swords and steering his pirate ship into cannon-blasting combat against British frigates. Is Resynced truly a pirate game? Of the 47 hours I spent playing Resynced over the past few weeks, I will admit I spent maybe 44 (?) of them collecting plunder with Blackbeard, drinking rum with Anne Bonny and debating the pros and cons of the lawless pirate-run settlement Nassau with Benjamin Hornigold. I may in fact have spent dozens of hours sailing to remote islands, reading treasure maps, opening messages left in bottles, sinking the odd Man o’ War with a well-timed broadside, collecting sea shanties for my crew, befriending a pet monkey, and hunting whales. I am nevertheless neither so Gullible nor so Narrow-Minded as to call the magnificent Resynced a “pirate remake.” Oh no. Forget any reviews of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced you may have read. Forget what you yourself may have played, if you’ve spent any time with the game since its launch. What Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is really about I’m here to give you the scoop (spoilers for Resynced’s Animus menu lore, which many players are probably not going to see): Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the new game whose development was led by Ubisoft Singapore, is set in the year 2096. It’s about a societal split, about revolution, about an old Assassin’s Creed adventure repurposed in the series’ distant future as propaganda or samizdat. It’s about the overheated future of 2096, essentially conquered by the series’ well-established nefarious Templar-run company Abstergo. (In this future, Abstergo is, among other things, remaking a 2013 pirate movie called Devils of the Caribbean, but this time in VR. The VR version will be backed by a marketing plan that involves AI influencers, a 10,000-avatar “metaverse premiere event” and that manufacturing of memes aimed at “50 million VR nodes.” See what I mean about Abstergo being evil?) Resynced is about a late 21st-century population mollified by the widespread use of Abstergo’s Animus devices which let people experience the lives of historical figures culled from “genetic memories.” It’s about an insurgent faction of Assassins. And it’s about a plan to wake the population into revolutionary fervor by showing them the memories of 18th century pirate Edward Kenway, who—as depicted in the original Black Flag and again in Resynced—gradually comes to an understanding about the Assassins of his day and their centuries old fight for freedom. Resynced is also about an AI developed within the late 21st-century Animus, called Ego. It has found a way to alter genetic memories, to create and show Animus users false ones. The game is about Ego’s efforts to tell the people experiencing Edward Kenway’s memories that Kenway was wrong, that fighting against order is folly, that we should crave a world where “compliance is rewarded with power.” Who are we in this game? We’re an unnamed Animus user in 2096 who experiences Kenway’s journey virtually. At four moments during Kenway’s exploits in the Caribbean our virtual jaunt can be interrupted for 10-15 minutes, as we explore Animus “rifts” where Ego explicitly tries to tell us how wrong Kenway was. None of this is what 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was about, of course. That was a different game, even if you also spent dozens of hours pirating as Kenway in that game, across missions and a map that’s been faithfully reintroduced and rebuilt for Resynced. The 2013 Black Flag was about you playing as an unnamed researcher newly hired in 2013 by Abstergo Entertainment, the video game development wing of the Templars’ evil-corp. In that game, you were assigned to use the Animus to dive into the genetic memories of Desmond Miles, a man who died in Assassin’s Creed III and who was descended from a long line of Assassins (and at least one Templar) whose adventures were featured across the prior AC games. In 2013’s Black Flag, your mission was to plumb the Edward Kenway experience for material that Abstergo could use in productions such as the motion picture Devils of the Caribbean, though the Templars had some ulterior motives for the assignment. Resynced is therefore not a remake of 2013’s Black Flag. It’s a sequel. It is a new game about a new exploration of Edward Kenway’s pirate/assassin journey, set 83 years after the framing sequences of the original game. Resynced provides a new narrative framework that, thanks to the concept of an AI that wants to alter historical memories, arrives with creative justification to tweak a now-classic 13-year old game. That makes Resynced, already a hot seller, a tantalizing hint of where Ubisoft could go with a line of Assassin’s Creed remakes. They could remake the first game, the Ezio games, even the recent ones set in ancient Egypt and Greece. And for each, they could not just modernize the graphics and controls but expand and alter their sequences of events to use them as reference points for a conflict set in the late 21st century, as rival factions try to weaponize historical memories. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, even when that work consists of ravings about Assassin’s Creed’s modern day plot, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe A story most players will probably miss If you didn’t know any of this, I’m not surprised. If you played the game and still didn’t catch it, I’m not a bit shocked. If Ubisoft has no plans to do more of this, I won’t fall down. Almost all of what I’ve described is optional and missable in Black Flag Resynced. I nearly missed it myself, as I planned for a breezy playthrough of an old Assassin’s Creed favorite. Instead, I found myself in a 40+ hour hunt for the “real” story, buried deeper in Resynced than any gold-filled chest. The story of 2096 is Resynced’s meta-story, told in two remote pockets of the game: 1) four optional playable “rifts” that players may find as they proceed through Resynced’s pirate fantasy , 2) in dozens of text files tucked three menus deep in the game’s barely-interactive Animus hub. Assassin’s Creed games have almost always had a meta-story about people in the 21st century (usually matching the game’s release year) and their connections to the main history portions you play. Those meta-stories have always been squeezed into the margins, though seldom as severely and as, uh, graphiaclly simple, as in recent games. Back in 2013, the modern-day exploits of you as an Abstergo Entertainment employee were prominent. They were portrayed via first-person portions that occasionally interrupted the third-person Kenway experience and could be explored for hours, complete with their own missions, side quests and puzzles. Resynced’s 2096 story—of Assassin “Watchers” vs. Abstergo/Tempar goons, of rogue AIs, of panicking scientists, of a woman wondering why her Animus-addicted husband is muttering about Mary Read (“What does he mean by Assassins?”), of a fight for the population’s hearts and minds via varying interpretations of Edward Kenway’s life choices—is mostly told through unlockable text files. The files are interesting. Offered via diary entries, intercepted chats and news reports, they present varied perspectives of a world in crisis. One set works as a narrative puzzle as it reveals the Rashomonic interpretations of a massacre, or was that a successful Assassin hit? Another favorite reveals the rising bitterness of a person who, through Edward Kenway’s journey, now shakes at the ignored evil around him. One surmises that Ubisoft is averse to putting the Assassin’s Creed’s meta-story in the way of more marketable pirate playgrounds and ninja/samurai epics. Instead, we get a better-than-nothing text-in-menus approach introduced in 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In Shadows, players unlocked the meta-story text files largely via time-gated missions that called on the user to kill X number of enemy type Y, clear three enemy castles, re-win a three-phase fighting tournament, and other grinds. Time restrictions on accessing these missions and unlocking the files meant it could take players months to access the full story in-game. But even in the most hardcore Assassin’s Creed hangouts, the fanbase instead seemed to throw up their hands rather than grind to keep up. In Resynced, Ubisoft has shown some mercy, diminishing the amount of new text files that are tied to timed grinds. Now, most of the text-based 2096 lore are associated with “data file” collectibles that players can find in the world. That includes a batch of written entries that explain a historical link between the feudal Japan era in Shadows and the piracy adventures in Black Flag. Players who explore a lot will find dozens of data files, though the game does not appear to offer any in-game tracker for finding each one. You just need to keep looking for them. As of this writing, I have most of them, but not all. I can’t find any full guide for them online. And even Ubisoft’s optional $5 microtransaction that reveals lots of items in-game does not appear to reveal the locations of the text files (at least the official description omits them from its collectibles list). That’s not a huge bother, because tracking the data files down compelled me to re-explore the waves and islands of Black Flag. That was a thoroughly pleasant task to do for the first time in a dozen years. I expect many players, though, will be content to wait for the files to be reproduced in an online AC wiki somewhere, the easier to read on a web page. It may not seem enticing to play a video game in order to gradually unlock pages of text to read. Why not, you may ask, just read a book, where they put the pages in order? For one, they’ve not tucked this latest installment of Assassin’s Creed’s meta saga in a book. I also enjoy the unordered delivery, the dawning comprehension of a story about 2096’s desperate people and questionable tech, which I glimpsed first at its middle, then the end, then the front, then other moments in between1. I am also enamored with the idea of the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve previously played, including Black Flag, being repurposed for an information war. The ideas in Resynced’s meta-story, which builds off characters and ideas in Shadows’ chunks of text, are strong. The potential of where they could go with it is exciting. As for the pirate stuff? Looks great, controls pretty well, is fun to play and oh so speedy in terms of how much of a good time you can have with each sit-down. It never gets old to chase a new shanty page across a rooftop, bombard a fort with upgraded mortars or use a diving bell to explore sunken wrecks (hats off to the team at Ubisoft Barcelona that worked on the underwater portions in Resynced; that team is now facing layoffs, such is the misery of modern gaming and oft-troubled Ubisoft). New pirate missions in Resynced involving new ally characters are brief, dramatic and add more to Edward’s story, even if the gameplay perks they provide barely enhance the gameplay. A new denouement for high-class pirate Stede Bonnet is affecting; a new hunt for Blackbeard’s treasure is a welcome extra moment. A new epilogue to hunt down a pirate killer, on the other hand, over-complicates Kenway’s character. The ending credits remain my favorite of any game I’ve ever played. Black Flag provides great source material. The revisit is well-made and a great sign of what could be. It is offered in a different wrapper that hints at an opportunity for more interesting remakes to come, should Ubisoft choose to pursue such treasures—and as we brace to resist or comply with an Abstergo future. 1 The messages that Edward Kenway finds in bottles tell another out-of-order story, one about a man reckoning with the strange memories and voices he’s heard in his head since he was a boy. That tale was also in the 2013 game and develops into one of Black Flag’s most compelling character arcs. In Resynced, it has lost its climax, because the bottle story previously paid off in the halls of the first-person Abstergo Entertainment, which is exclusive to the older game. An altered resolution, written by the 2013 game’s lead writer is fine, doesn’t invalidate the 2013 version, but makes for an inferior final note.
Xbox Helix May Only Sell 2 Million Consoles In Its Launch Year, Says Analyst
Microsoft has given out perilously few details about Xbox’s Project Helix, its next-generation console which will arrive on the back of a truly dismal period for the brand.
Lindsey Graham’s sister to be temporary replacement
Graham Nordone has not previously held elected office
Why Science Is Taking UFOs Seriously, and You Should, Too
Why are scientists taking unidentified aerial phenomena seriously? Because every answer matters for science, national security, and the people whose lives are changed by these experiences.
NBC host gives health update after previously revealing cancer diagnosis on air
She shared the news on her Instagram page on Sunday.
Is court mandated mental health help working? Victim's have concerns.
Rutledge Deas, previously convicted in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish for posing as a special needs individual, was arrested again in Lafayette earlier this year, raising concerns about court-mandated mental health treatment and sentencing.
Trump’s Cease-Fire Effectively Collapses as He Vows to Restart Blockade and Tolls
After several days of strikes, the president notified Congress that fighting had begun again and announced shipping fees that his administration previously deemed illegal.
Opinion | Why China is seriously cultivating AI entertainment
With rules and support, policymakers appear to be positioning AI and its entertainment nexus as the foundation for a new cultural economy.
The Quintessential Trump-era Politician
In 2020, I wrote an article about collaboration and collaborators. The title was History Will Judge the Complicit, and it started with the story of two famous East Germans, Markus Wolf and Wolfgang Leonhard, who both landed in East Berlin just after the end of the war. Although they came from very similar backgrounds, the former stuck with the regime, eventually becoming its spy boss; the latter, horrified by the brutal reality of Soviet-style communism, escaped. By way of juxtaposition, I also wrote about Lyndsey Graham and Mitt Romney. These two men also made very different decisions when confronted by Donald Trump’s assault on the ideals that they had both grown up believing: A glance at their biographies would not have led many to predict what happened next. On paper, Graham would have seemed, in 2016, like the man with deeper ties to the military, to the rule of law, and to an old-fashioned idea of American patriotism and American responsibility in the world. Romney, by contrast, with his shifts between the center and the right, with his multiple careers in business and politics, would have seemed less deeply attached to those same old-fashioned patriotic ideals. Most of us register soldiers as loyal patriots, and management consultants as self-interested. We assume people from small towns in South Carolina are more likely to resist political pressure than people who have lived in many places. Intuitively, we think that loyalty to a particular place implies loyalty to a set of values. But in this case the clichés were wrong. It was Graham who made excuses for Trump’s abuse of power. It was Graham—a JAG Corps lawyer—who downplayed the evidence that the president had attempted to manipulate foreign courts and blackmail a foreign leader into launching a phony investigation into a political rival. It was Graham who abandoned his own stated support for bipartisanship and instead pushed for a hyperpartisan Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son. It was Graham who played golf with Trump, who made excuses for him on television, who supported the president even as he slowly destroyed the American alliances—with Europeans, with the Kurds—that Graham had defended all his life. By contrast, it was Romney who, in February, became the only Republican senator to break ranks with his colleagues, voting to impeach the president. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office,” he said, is “perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.” In the wake of Graham’s unexpected death on Saturday, I wrote about him again. He was, in many ways, the quintessential politician of Trump’s Washington, a man who shifted 180 degrees. Graham had been a fervent American patriot, proud reserve officer and military lawyer; he became one of the most important defenders of a president who believes soldiers are “suckers and losers” and shows no respect for law of any kind. As his politics changed, his language grew coarser and his behavior grew worse: He urged Israel to “level the place” in Gaza, and insulted the Danish prime minister in Munich, prompting a colleague, Senator Elissa Slotkin, to issue an apology. Here’s an excerpt from the article, which you can read in The Atlantic (gift link here) Like his close friend John McCain, Graham believed that America should stand at the center of a broad democratic alliance. The few times I met him were in that context, at the Munich Security Conference or at other European-American gatherings, which he once attended with great regularity. He also took seriously the practice of American democracy at home. In a 2014 conversation with The Atlantic, he described himself as a pragmatic politician who eschewed populist slogans. “I know Washington is broken, but what’s broken about it is everybody yelling and nobody trying to fix it,” he said. “I’m trying.” When Donald Trump first appeared in U.S. politics, Graham recognized him immediately for what he was: the spokesman for an alien ideology, one radically different from the idealistic patriotism that Graham had practiced and preached since childhood. Trump privately mocked the military that Graham loved as nothing but “suckers and losers.” He put falsehoods, cynicism, and personal greed at the center of his politics, while expressing disdain for transparency, accountability, and democracy itself. In 2015, Graham described Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who should “go to hell.” Also as a “nutjob.” When Trump won, Graham understood, as did so many others, that he would have to make some important choices. For a while, he went silent. In the spring of 2016, I saw him at one of those conferences in Europe. He seemed too depressed to speak. But then, like many other Republicans—and, more important, like many other people who have lived under political occupation or experienced radical regime change—he made the decision to abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunistic collaborator. As I wrote in 2020, it’s very hard to look in to anyone’s heart and to understand their motivations from the outside. But it does seem that Graham had a deep need to be relevant, to be in the game, to be a player, at any cost. And that, rather than any particular achievement, is what he will be remembered for. Continuing to monitor conflicts of interest, ostentatious emoluments, outright corruption and policy changes that will facilitate outright corruption. (Read my original article, Kleptocracy Inc and check out the SNF Agora Institute chart) June 27 Trump diverted funds from more than 900 projects nationwide—including safety upgrades at national parks—to finance beautification projects around Washington, including $700,000 used to fix a White House walkway. June 28 After a years-long Department of Justice investigation into Abbott Laboratories over its management of a baby formula facility where potentially deadly bacteria turned up enough evidence to criminally charge the firm, top department officials instead opted for a financial penalty—illustrating the department’s move away from strict corporate enforcement under the Trump administration. June 29 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stacked the Defense Policy Board—which is charged with providing independent national security recommendations to the Office of the Secretary of Defense—with Trump allies, including tech billionaire Marc Andreessen, who has invested in defense contractors like OpenAI and SpaceX, after purging the panel last year. Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in Axon—which makes about 90% of US tasers—two weeks before ICE solicited bids for a $220 million taser contract. The White House unveiled limited-edition US passports for America’s 250th birthday, featuring a portrait of Trump overlaid on the Declaration of Independence. June 30 Trump made around $1.2 billion from his various crypto companies last year, including more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial and $600 million from sales of his meme coin. Trump is considering issuing 250 pardons to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. These are expected to be largely doled out through the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s informal network of intermediaries. White-collar defense attorneys say they can typically win pardons for clients for $2 million. Last year, Trump administration officials awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million to Clark Construction for the White House ballroom—negotiations in which the president was directly involved. July 1 The Amazon MGM Studios documentary about Melania Trump earned the First Lady more than $10 million. Trump made hundreds of individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million the day before his announcement pausing “Liberation Day” tariffs for 90 days sent the S&P 500 soaring nearly 10%—one of the largest single-day gains ever. Mar-a-Lago and Trump National Doral saw record surges in revenue during Trump’s first year in office, earning $77.5 million and $121.9 million respectively, compared to average annual revenues of $25 million and $75 million during Trump’s first term. Entities across the Persian Gulf paid more than $300 million to Trump’s businesses last year, including $263 million from the sale of half his stake in World Liberty Financial to a firm backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a top UAE royal and brother of the country’s president. Kash Patel failed to properly disclose his stock purchase of a Department of Justice contractor, MicroStrategy, worth up to $250,000 last year, despite laws requiring disclosure within 45 days of the trade. July 2 Trump has been directing administration officials to steer more government contracts—so far worth more than $2.4 billion—to Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin aerospace firm, after Amazon gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, donated to the White House ballroom project, and reached a $40 million deal to license a Melania Trump documentary. Alongside the billions he made from cryptocurrency last year, Trump earned millions of dollars from real estate licensing fees, including $21 million from organizations in the UAE and $9.2 million in Saudi Arabia, along with smaller sums from merchandise sales, including $4.7 million from Trump Watches and $35,920 from 45 Guitar, a guitar brand endorsed by the president. House Democrats accused consultants tied to the Trump administration of financial fraud, alleging they gave prospective donors to America250—the bipartisan committee created by Congress to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial—the banking and routing numbers for Freedom 250, the White House’s fund for events like the UFC cage fight. Democrats also allege that Freedom 250’s CEO traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos to solicit donations from foreign government officials and business leaders. The Trump administration’s proposed rollback of gun regulations would lift the prohibition on mailing handguns to individuals, a significant win for GrabAGun—the direct-to-consumer firearm retailer on whose board Donald Trump Jr. sits and in which he holds a 1.1% ownership stake. GrabAGun currently must rely on a middleman to transfer firearms to customers. Trump’s financial disclosure revealed that he made more than 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office, growing his investment account to at least $858 million across stakes in around 1,600 companies, compared to the 13 total trades Joe Biden made during his entire presidency. July 4 Nearly 1 million people who bought the president’s meme coin—Trump Coin—collectively lost $3.8 billion on the token, while he walked away with $636 million. July 6 Shares of Dell closed up 4.4% after Trump recommended people buy the firm’s computers during a speech announcing the launch of Trump investment accounts for children, boosting the more than $1 million worth of shares the president owns in the company. July 9 Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh named crypto investor and Trump ally Marc Andreessen to a task force aimed at modernizing the Federal Reserve, including rethinking its approach to inflation—a key factor keeping interest rates elevated. Palm Beach International Airport has officially changed its name to Trump International Airport—a move that will require Florida to pay royalties to the president’s family for licensing his name. I was there a few months ago, during a trip to Barcelona. The sculptures were a revelation, I’d never seen so many together before. Each one has its own personality. Enjoy the good weather, if you are lucky enough to have it. History Will Judge the Complicit The Quintessential Politician Autocracy Inc Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
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The First Test of Bar Harbor's New Entertainment Rules.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Bar Harbor Historical Society. BAR HARBOR—The Finback Alehouse was the first real test of the town’s new special amusement permit process, July 7 while eight other permits sailed through the process last week. The permit allows music in places where liquor is served. The town’s ordinance which was recently tweaked for a new process allows for the regulation of noise and hours of activity. The only discussion at the July Town Council meeting was about the Finback Alehouse on Cottage Street, in the heart of Bar Harbor’s downtown district. The Finback’s distinctive design—a front wall that is like a garage door that can be opened and closed—was a key to that discussion. The restaurant, which often hosts live bands, singers, and karaoke, at night, has had one substantiated noise complaint this season, which is documented on its application. According to Bar Harbor Police Chief David Kerns, most complaints about noise happen after 10 p.m., and if the Finback had two more violations within a year, they’d have to stop having music. One town councilor said that he’d have no problem reissuing the permit if the door was down. The permit passed through the process with no conditions. Vice Chair Earl Brechlin moved the motion with two time changes for two holiday weekend dates. It passed unanimously. The council asked the Finback why they’d chosen an indoor license with a wall that can be opened to the street. Dale Stockburger, representing the Finback, said he’d applied for an indoor permit rather than an outdoor structure or partial structure (which is usually applied to tents or pavilions). The restaurant has traditionally had an indoor license. Stockburger said that whether the door is open or closed is immaterial because he now stands outside with a decibel reader to make sure that the music isn’t too loud. OTHER SPECIAL AMUSEMENT PERMITS New Councilor Deborah Vickers worried that she had potential conflicts of interests on two other renewals due to the location of her employee housing. Vickers co-owns the Black Friar Inn. They have employee housing directly behind the Finback, which is also 300 yards from the Bar Harbor Inn, she explained. The Bar Harbor Inn also had a permit up for renewal. The councilors unanimously voted she did not have a conflict of interest. The councilors approved permits at The Bluenose Inn, 90 Eden St, Class A; Acadia Hotel Downtown, 20 Mount Desert St, Class A and C; the Bar Harbor Inn, 8 Newport Dr, Class A, B, C and D; C-Ray Lobster, 882 State Hwy 3, Class D; Holiday Inn Bar Harbor Regency, 123 Eden Street, Class B; Finback Alehouse, 30 Cottage St, Class B; Project Social, 278 Main St, Class C and D; Bar Harbor Beer Works, 119 Main St, Class B and D; and Mainely Meat BBQ Dreamwood Hill, 369 State Hwy 3, Class D. That process is laid out in the Special Amusement Ordinance of the Bar Harbor Town Code which is Chapter 14 of the town code. Special amusement permits have class codes. These are the meanings: Number - how many musicians are allowed by the permit. Class A - Indoor non-amplified entertainment. Class B - Indoor amplified entertainment or dancing. Class C - Outdoor non-amplified entertainment. Class D - Outdoor amplified entertainment. RESIDENCE LICENSES RENEWED AND A TAXI LICENSE The councilors also renewed the licenses for three specific sorts of residences that require that yearly renewal per the town code. The employee living quarters at Atlantic Oceanside Hotel, 119 Eden St and another at 278 Main Street were renewed. The shared accommodations license renewal at 39 Kebo Street also occurred. These are annual renewals. Bernard Taxi Services’ license was also renewed. This license had been added to the agenda at the meeting. Bar Harbor Update on Leaf and Grass Clipping Disposal BAR HARBOR — Bar Harbor residents will still have a place to throw away their leaf and grass clippings this summer. The town’s agreement with EMR in Southwest Harbor for disposing of those items will continue through November 30. The agreement, according to a town press release, will continue “while the Town continues evaluating long term composting solutions and the required state permitting process.” As of July 1, residents bringing their grass and leaves across the island to the facility in Southwest Harbor will have to fill out a property registration card. Each property can throw out up to 85 pounds of the grass and leaves. “Any disposal exceeding the 85 pound allowance during this period will be the responsibility of the property owner at the applicable disposal rate,” the press release explains. LINKS TO LEARN MORE Watch the meeting Meeting agenda QUICK NOTE: We’d released the Bar Harbor Leaf information as a brief, but wanted to make sure that people saw it, so we’ve included it here, too. HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
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MAGA's attack on science is even worse than it looks
In my post on America’s 250-year anniversary, I argued that respect for the individual was the “secret sauce” in the U.S.’ long-lasting preeminence among nations. But it was certainly not the only factor. There were plenty of institutional innovations that helped the U.S. stay on top — economically, militarily, and in terms of the attractiveness of its society. One of these was American science. Today we take things like the modern research university, government grants for science, public-to-private research spinoffs, etc. for granted, but a lot of that infrastructure wasn’t there before World War 2. It was either invented or scaled up massively by the U.S. government in the postwar period, led by far-sighted scientist-bureaucrats like Vannevar Bush (pictured above). If you want to read about this history, a good place to start would be Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson’s excellent book Jump-Starting America. Those scientific institutions didn’t exist in a vacuum, however. They were backed by the U.S. government’s abiding faith in the power of science — and, even more fundamentally, by deep popular trust in the scientific enterprise. Science gave us radar and the atom bomb in wartime, and in peacetime it gave us plastics, vaccines, cheap food, and a thousand other things that made our lives easier. Science was also the driver behind American industry — chemicals, aerospace, telecommunications, computers, electronics, and so on. We owed science our jobs, our livelihoods, our comfortable living standards, and our greatness and power as a nation. It’s little wonder that both political parties, even as they fought viciously over other issues, were steadfast in their support of science. For a long time, the only people who distrusted science were a hippie fringe on the left who disliked modernity (or thought they did, anyway), who also disliked American industry and American power, and who subscribed to an early version of degrowth environmentalism. America’s scientific enterprise is still strong, especially compared to the systems in Europe, Japan, Korea, and other developed countries. It has lost a lot of ground to China in a relative sense, but a lot of that is because of China’s incredible growth; as China has poured untold amounts of money and talent into its research labs, spending and output have overtaken the U.S. by some measures. There are a few ways in which China’s rise creates problems for American science — for example, top scientists can choose to work in China instead of in the U.S. — and of course there’s the concern that China’s technological strength will help its military to reign supreme. But overall, China’s rise in science should be good for American science, since American scientists can use Chinese discoveries for free and build on them. The much bigger problem is that the scientific enterprise America built during and after World War 2 is now being threatened with absolute decline. The biggest problem, of course, is that much of the country — the Republican half — has basically lost faith in the scientific enterprise. To what degree this loss of faith is justified is an open question, and deserves to be discussed openly. But the larger point — that the system that powered American dominance is under threat — is true either way. Most Americans still trust science, but MAGA Republicans don’t There’s a myth, popular in right-wing circles, that scientists have lost the trust of regular Americans — either due to the increasingly left-wing composition of academic departments, or to misbehavior during Covid, or to DEI-related research taking over science, etc. This also fits with a wider narrative that Americans are losing trust in all of our institutions. But it just isn’t true. Poll after poll shows that on the whole, Americans still trust scientists and want to spend more on science. For example, here’s a Pew poll from late 2025 showing that although about a fifth of Republicans did lose confidence in science in 2020, two thirds still have at least “a fair amount” of confidence: That same poll found that scientists are among America’s most trusted groups — even better trusted than the military! In fact, Americans trust scientists more than people in most other countries do. Other polls show that although Republican trust in science has dropped somewhat, Republican support for spending more on science remains very strong: A Pew poll in 2023 found the exact same thing: So when MAGA types tell you about scientists losing their credibility, or a drop in trust in science, they’re only talking about themselves. Whatever left-wing politicization of science happened during the Biden administration — and there was definitely some of that — it was not enough to make most Republicans lose faith in the scientific enterprise, or favor research cuts in order to purge unwanted ideology from the system. That doesn’t mean I think progressives should continue down the path of politicizing scientific research. They should not, and Biden made real missteps in this area. Objectivity clearly matters for public trust of science in the long term. But as of right now, there’s no crisis of trust in science, except among the smallish minority of people who are running around screaming that there’s a crisis of trust in science. But despite science’s overwhelming popularity and public trust, Trump and his administration are launching an unprecedented and devastating attack on American science — cutting funding, and forcing science projects to undergo ideological review by government commissars. 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Fathom Entertainment July 8 announced the appointment of Jason Brenek as its new CEO following the previously announced retirement of Ray Nutt. Brenek assumes the position as the company continues its transition from Fathom Events into Fathom Entertainment, a specialty theatrical distributor with major motion picture distribution capabilities. The company’s upcoming theatrical release of Wildwood, … Continue reading "Fathom Entertainment Names Jason Brenek New CEO Following Retirement of Ray Nutt"
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Hungary’s new government is aiming to overhaul the governance model of the institutions and universities that lost access to Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ funds “in a short timeframe,” according to Péter Horváth, the new state secretary for science policy and innovation. “As of today, the two non-university foundation-controlled institutions under my remit have been transformed,” he told Science|Business. “We hope the universities will follow and that this will be enough to satisfy the EU’s demands.”Under the previous government, led by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party, many academic and scientific institutions were restructured and made into special public trust foundations, with members strongly linked to the government given lifelong mandates and significant decision-making powers with little oversight. The European Commission deemed that this undermined academic freedom and transparency in the country, leading to a ban on 34 institutions in 2022, including 21 universities, which saw academics in Hungary lose access to Horizon Europe grants. The new Hungarian government, elected in May and led by Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party, has promised to dismantle this governance model and restore the institutions to EU programmes. As a result, the European Commission has promised to return access to the Erasmus+ education mobility programme, but so far no concrete agreement has been made on the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation. Hungary has already made legislative changes in June to allow the institutions to be reformed and set a timeline for the implementation.The non-university foundations, which are mainly cultural centres such as the Foundation for Hungarian Culture or the Makovecz Campus Foundation, will all be dissolved by August 31 this year, a date tied to EU-set milestones that Hungary must meet to unlock frozen funds, with control transferred to relevant ministries. Meanwhile, the universities will have until 31 August 2027. For each university foundation, the government will set the dissolution date and the body to take over operations. There is no final decision on a permanent new model for the universities, according to Hungarian MEP Eszter Lakos, who is shadow rapporteur for the Horizon Europe specific programme, a separate piece of legislation detailing implementation rules for the EU’s next research programme, due to start in 2028. “The aim of the transition year is to settle this with [the universities], not to impose a model, and not to put them under state control,” she told Science|Business. “The goal is to give academic independence back to universities.”There are three models that are most likely to be implemented. One would be a return to a traditional, state-run model. Another could be a newer, more self-standing public institution. A third option would be a reformed version of the foundation models that meet EU standards. According to Lakos, the dismantling of the system put in place by the Orbán government is well underway and if all goes according to plan, Hungary could regain access to EU research money by the start of the next academic year in 2027. “I believe that the Hungarian government is doing the necessary changes so the universities could return as beneficiaries to Horizon from the next school year,” she said. In the meantime, “the universities, institutes and cultural assets carry on under proper public stewardship rather than a handful of unaccountable trustees,” said Lakos. The laws passed in June impose new safeguards: board terms are capped at four years and renewable only once, appointments are made through open competitions and sitting politicians cannot join joining these boards.It remains unclear whether a domestic science funding programme set up as a back-up scheme by the former government following the EU funding ban, called HU-rizon, could be continued. “This programme should never have had to have been established in the first place, but it has proven to be quite popular,” he said. “I am considering continuing this programme with a refined focus on helping international collaborations.”Re-organising the research network One of the first priorities for Horváth and his cabinet is to resolve questions over the future of the Hungarian Research Network, Hun-Ren. The network of academic institutes was taken away from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2019 and turned into a quasi-private organisation, with similarities in its governance to the public trust foundations.Horváth and his team have consulted over 5,000 representatives from the network and the conclusion is broad unhappiness with the directors of all the institutes involved. “We have presented the results to the president and the chief executive of the network and this is currently being discussed,” Horváth said. The plan is to re-integrate the network back into the Academy of Sciences but in an improved way, “learning from mistakes of the past,” he added. The government also wants to reintegrate four humanities and social science research centres into the network that the previous government had transferred to Eötvös Loránd University. The transfer brought sharp criticism from the academic community, with a group of Hungarian research heads, including European Research Council grant recipients, sending an open letter to Orbán warning that the transfer would “cause historically significant harm to the entirety of Hungarian scientific life.” The transfer was “one of the biggest shames in Hungarian research in the past 20 years,” Horváth said. “We want to immediately re-integrate them back into the research network and to regain the trust of these institutions, because the way they were treated was really unfair.”Another pressing issue is the Élvonal Excellence Research and Talent Development Foundation, led by Nobel laureate Ferenc Krausz. The foundation signed a financing agreement with the former government earlier this year for a budget of over €730 million over the next five years. The goal is to create a world-class centre to attract top talent from abroad and to develop local researchers. But there was little transparency about this foundation, and news of its huge budget, which is nearly as much as Hungary’s entire research budget, caused a stir in the media following the recent elections. Another issue is that, as with the foundation boards of the institutes banned from Horizon Europe, there was little-to-no oversight of decisions led by Krausz. “It was an excellent idea but an unacceptable execution,” Horváth said of the foundation. “The fact that this is out of the Hungarian funding scheme, mostly concentrating on one person who decides on the budget is unacceptable for us.”The government plans to merge the centre with the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, the country’s R&D funding agency, with a reduced budget. Horváth is hopeful that Krausz will still be involved. The new government’s R&D goalsA phrase that crops up regularly during the discussion with Horváth is “democratic process.” The new state secretary is determined to involve Hungary’s research community in shaping future policies. This marks a departure from the previous government’s approach, and several people in Hungary’s research community have commented on the openness of the new government. In terms of concrete goals, Horváth and his team already have plans. He wants to create a new science fund in Hungary, based on the best practices of other European countries. The fund would not be tied to annual government budgets and would provide long-term, stable financing. “If we were to succeed in creating this fund, then I think it would be one of the biggest achievements for me in this period of government,” Horváth said. On the innovation side, he is looking into how best to bring in the private sector. “We want to make sure that we are working with the private sector to support innovation,” Horváth said. One of his big aims is to introduce entrepreneurship teaching into high schools. Hungary already has a reputable national academy offering research and innovation training in the field of natural sciences, and Horváth wants to expand this to all disciplines and across the whole country. “One of the main ways to elevate our innovative businesses is to teach our children to be innovative,” he said. “This will probably need ten years to pay off, but this is what we should do. Our aim is to make Hungary strong in our region, and this is what is needed.” Related articlesHungary’s Horizon Europe performance in numbersCommission unlocks Erasmus+ cash for Hungary, Horizon could be next‘Academic Huxit.’ Hungarian researchers speak out on impact of EU ban A more difficult task will be funding. The new government is aiming to increase research spending to 2% of the GDP by 2030, and then increase it to 3% in line with EU objectives. Currently, spending sits around 1.3%. But according to Horváth, the current budget, inherited from the previous government, is “heavily in the negative,” so any plans to increase research spending will have to start next year. Achieving 2% by 2030 already needs a big push, almost doubling the research budget. “This is something we’d definitely like to reach, and something I can see us achieving,” he said. “From the 2030s, I’d like to see an innovative generation growing up that can help us reach the 3% target.” Positivity in the new governmentDespite the many challenges facing Horváth and his team, the mood is positive. “It feels a bit like a start-up right now. Everyone is working 24/7, day and night, trying to do as much as they can. There is a lot of energy,” he said. It is a big change for the state secretary who, like many in his cabinet, is coming from a background in research or business, and not in politics. “Six weeks ago, I was sitting with my microscope and my research PhDs, so it’s been a big change for me,” said the computer scientist, who was previously the director of the Institute of Biochemistry at the Hun-Ren Biological Research Centre in Hungary and worked at the Institute for AI for Health at Helmholtz Munich. But he is relishing the task to transform the country’s R&D landscape. “We feel enormous support from the Hungarian people, but also from Europe,” he said. “We’ve received a lot of letters of support from around Europe. There is big trust there, and huge responsibility on our side. We want to get everything back on track, and there’s a lot to do.”
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