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Colorado governor candidates confront business climate, housing affordability woes

Four of the five major-party candidates for Colorado governor share common ground on two big issues: they see the perception that Colorado has become less business‑friendly as a serious concern, and they view housing affordability as central to the state’s economic future. At a Thursday forum in Glendale, the two Democratic candidates — U.S. Sen. […]

May 28 • 5:47 PM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

Dr. Alexander Chiu Awarded UW Health Rising Star Clinical Practice Award

Dr. Alexander Chiu, assistant professor in the Division of Endocrine Surgery, was awarded the UW Health Rising Star Clinical Practice Award at the Physician Excellence Awards Reception on May 20. The UW Health Rising Star …

May 28 • 12:31 PM EDT • Health • surgery.wisc.edu

Iowa ABI names 2026 Leadership for Iowa Award recipient

The Iowa Association of Business and Industry and Leadership Iowa have announced Myron Linn as the 2026 recipient of the Leadership for Iowa Award, recognizing his decades of leadership in business, public service and community engagement across the state. Linn, a graduate of the 1988-89 Leadership Iowa class, will accept the award June 3 at…

May 28 • 11:46 AM EDT • Business • businessrecord.com

How Asian American politics has changed, and where it stands today

A Good Chat with Janelle Wong challenges the misconceptions about Asian American political behavior.

May 28 • 9:46 AM EDT • Politics • goodauthority.org

Build trust in science through your conduct, ERC president says

Maria Leptin also emphasises importance of research to democracy in award acceptance speech

May 28 • 8:30 AM EDT • Science • researchprofessionalnews.com

Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for 3% funding target

Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Lehigh Valley HVAC Company to Pay $300K and Revise Business Practices After AG Sunday Lawsuit for Aggressive, Deceptive Sales Practices

HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that Curtis Total Service, Inc., and two of its employees – current manager Richard Price and former HVAC field supervisor Matthew Price – have agreed to pay the Commonwealth $300,000 and significantly revise their business practices to comply with the Pennsylvania Consumer Protection Law and Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act.

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • attorneygeneral.gov

Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for better conditions

Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Russia puts electronic warfare on drones fighting Ukrainian interceptors

The modified Shaheds comes as Ukrainian interceptor drones are logging a growing number of drone kills.

May 28 • 7:34 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Bournemouth want to keep key trio

Eli Junior Kroupi, Rayan and Alex Scott – this summer. The Cherries will present a strong case that European football only enhances the platform on offer at Vitality Stadium, while significant player sales in recent seasons mean there is no financial pressure to sell. Scott, 23, is under contract until 2028, but Bournemouth accept he is deserving of a new deal.

May 28 • 3:10 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

25 years ago click chemistry changed science. What happened next?

Barry Sharpless and his team first introduced the concept of 'clicking' molecules together 25 years ago

May 27 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • chemistryworld.com

NC could change rules on voter ID, mail-in ballots. Here’s how you can weigh in

The North Carolina State Board of Elections is considering a series of changes to the rules surrounding voter ID, absentee ballots and conduct at polling sites. Over the next two months, the board will be accepting public comment on the proposed changes online and in public hearings.

May 27 • 4:27 PM EDT • Politics • newsobserver.com

U.S. Supreme Court settles long-running water dispute over dwindling Rio Grande

In a brief order Tuesday, the court accepted the recommendation of a special master to move forward with agreements first proposed last year by New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.

May 27 • 2:58 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Dodge’s New Copperhead SRT Might Not Have a V8, and It's Not Based on the Charger

In an exclusive interview, the "Father of the Hellcat" reveals why the Copperhead’s proportions are "not cheated" and why a hybrid V8 is "an 8-track" technology.

May 27 • 2:28 PM EDT • Technology • thedrive.com

Brewers Manager Pat Murphy On Abner Uribe Crotch Chop: 'Unacceptable'

Brewers manager Pat Murphy said antics on the mound by reliever Abner Uribe against the Cardinals on Tuesday were "unacceptable."

May 27 • 10:17 AM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com

Dragon Quest XII subtitle changed to Beyond Dreams, ‘Sneak Peek’ trailer

Square Enix has re-revealed the May 2021-announced Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate under the new title Dragon Quest XII: Beyond Dreams. The original concept announced in 2021 has been scrapped…

May 27 • 9:08 AM EDT • Technology • gematsu.com

'Food Noise' and the Science of Interoceptive Awareness

Eliminating "food noise" comes with a cost. True health requires mindful nourishment rather than total control.

May 27 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • psychologytoday.com

Ebola, chemical plants and health, hantavirus, common colds, heat and more

As they say, bugs have ears. Public health has had a relentless May. Chemical plant (near) explosions, Ebola, hantavirus, and that's before you even get to the usual suspects: common colds, heat, and ticks. Here’s an attempt to keep you up to speed and, more importantly, what it means for you and your community. But first, an announcement: World Cup The World Cup starts in 15 days (not like anyone is counting down), and we are hanging TVs in the Health Security Operations Center. It’s going to be a gorgeous, chaotic celebration of basically every culture on earth. And it’s going to take a team effort—from communities to individuals, from public health to health care—to keep people healthy. That’s where you come in. If you’re going to the games or live within 30 miles of a stadium, we would love to hear from you. Sign up for a weekly survey here. Thanks to the more than 1,280 people who have already signed up…you will be hearing from us soon!! Global disease “weather report” Hantavirus: Two more cases The global count of cruise ship passengers with hantavirus has now increased to 13 cases (11 confirmed), with three deaths. The two new cases are overseas and among people who were already quarantining: A crew member in the Netherlands. A Spanish national passenger who was quarantining at home tested positive through daily monitoring. They are now in a biocontainment unit. In the U.S., everyone remains negative. There may be more cases, given that the incubation period of hantavirus (the time from exposure to infection) is 45 days. But this week, we will reach a major milestone: the median incubation window is 18 days, and that will pass on May 29. What this means for you: Your risk from this cruise ship outbreak remains essentially nil at this point. Ebola rages on in Central Africa Big thanks to Dr. Craig Spencer, a humanitarian physician who has treated and survived Ebola, for jumping in to provide the YLE community with an update. Craig, take it from here… The combined confirmed and suspected Ebola cases in DRC are now more than 1,000. All signs are pointing to a very long and catastrophic outbreak in Central Africa: This is a vast undercount. We know this because the test positivity rate is hovering around 50%, only 20% of contacts are being traced (and in some areas, no contacts at all), and more cases keep popping up with no known connection. This all points to widespread and undetected community transmission. This is in only a week of detection. Compared to previous outbreaks, the growth is very fast, as the huge West Africa outbreak in 2016 was first detected at 49 cases and rose to 208 cases a month later. It took four months for that outbreak to reach the size of the current one in the DR Congo. The cases are spread out across 16 health zones. There are now multiple epicenters, making containment very difficult. Next door in Uganda, the case count is seven. While this number is low compared to DRC, a concerning development is that two health care workers recently tested positive with uncertain exposure histories. If they weren’t treating known Ebola cases, this means it’s spreading undetected in Uganda as well. On the ground, backlash, including the burning of health centers, has emerged, a pattern seen in nearly every outbreak and rooted in deep community distrust. It often stems from outside actors working in communities without fully understanding or addressing local priorities. Affected populations may recognize the severity of Ebola while still holding other concerns as more pressing, such as where their loved ones are buried. Community trust is essential to an effective response, but difficult to build during an active emergency. It is best established long before a crisis begins. U.S. priorities are made clear, and may backfire. The U.S. Administration has shown that its first priority is keeping Ebola out, with helping end the outbreak in the DRC a secondary concern. That's meant travel restrictions broader than anything we've imposed before — covering travelers from across the region, and reportedly some green card holders and permanent residents as well. For example, just these past two days, news broke that high-risk American travelers will be subject to a mandatory quarantine in Kenya before they are allowed to return. If an American is infected, the U.S. government plans to send them to a hospital it is standing up from scratch in Kenya. (Currently, Americans who were in the area are allowed to return but are diverted to three airports—Houston, Atlanta, and DC—for further screening.) Past administrations have used travel notices and stepped-up screening; this goes much further. At first blush, these strict precautions may sound prudent. But this approach could backfire in three ways: Restrictions this blunt give people every reason to hide where they’ve been and whom they’ve been near — making the people we most need to find harder to track, not easier. They also breed a false sense that this is someone else’s problem. But diseases are humbling. They find the small cracks in even the most impenetrable-seeming defenses. Lives lost. There is no treatment for this Ebola strain, which means survival depends heavily on the quality of the health system. We have that system in the States, but we are choosing not to use it for infected Americans. This is unbelievable and infuriating. (See a deeper dive from me here.) The only real way to lower the risk to Americans — and everyone else — is to end the outbreak in the DRC and across the region. What this means for you: If you have travel plans to this region, it’s time to cancel them. This is a high-risk situation in Central Africa, and CDC released a Level 4 Travel Advisory. There is also great uncertainty if and when the Administration will let you back in. To the general public in the U.S., your risk remains very, very low right now. U.S. disease “weather report” Ticks: past peak season? Good news, especially for people in the Northeast and Midwest: tick numbers continue to decline. Though we are at the peak of the season, this unusually early year is trending favorably. Heat-related illnesses in the North Heat risk is certainly not blanketing the entire country yet, but this week it will be moderate in the Midwest and the Southeast. What this means for you: Be sure to check the CDC HeatRisk tool. A red day isn’t the best day for that soccer game for a kid with asthma, and a stretch of orange days is a great time to check on your elderly neighbor. Common colds surging As far as respiratory viruses go, the only thing really going around right now is the common cold. It is higher this year than last year, but should peak very soon before returning this fall. Spotlight: Chemical plants Over the weekend, YLE California covered the serious situation that unfolded around a chemical plant in Orange County, California. Thankfully, the worst-case scenario (a chemical explosion) was mitigated, but only through luck. The health implications in a densely populated area could have been catastrophic. As the situation was winding down, another chemical explosion struck Washington State. This one was fatal. Health officials say the risk to surrounding residents from chemicals in the air and ground remains low, though the community deserves far greater clarity. Clean air and clean water consistently rank as Americans’ top public health concerns — yet when chemical disasters strike, communities are too often met with reassurances rather than transparency and accountability. Residents near the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, for example, are still waiting to understand the long-term impact on their health, with few clear answers. What this means for you: Many are wondering if facilities processing potentially dangerous materials are in their neighborhoods. This interactive map allows you to enter your ZIP code and see all facilities monitored by the EPA, including any violations. Good news Ebola vaccines and treatment for the Bundibugyo species are in development. Two vaccine platforms are being explored, at least one of which may be deployable in as little as 2 months. One vaccine is being developed by Oxford, and the other uses the same biotechnology as the FDA-approved Zaire species of Ebola. (It may provide cross-protection, but it’s unclear at this point.) On the treatment side, two promising monoclonal antibody cocktails are likely to be deployed, though doses are limited and logistical hurdles remain significant challenges. Anni over at The Biotech Tea had a great explainer about the Ebola vaccine gap, if you want to read more. [ The Biotech Tea The Ebola vaccine gap, reading vessel damage, & the Makary exit 🗝️ Paid subscribers get the Biotech Term of the Week at $30/year (~$2.50/month). I try to keep it intentionally accessible, but if cost is ever a barrier, send me a message. A few people asked about expensing your subscription, so I put together a short email template… Read more 6 days ago · 10 likes · Annicka Evans, PhD ](https://www.thebiotechtea.com/p/the-ebola-vaccine-gap-reading-vessel?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been officially renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), following more than a decade of debate and input from roughly 22,000 clinicians, researchers, and patients worldwide. This is good because the old name was medically misleading, leading to patients without visible cysts being dismissed or overlooked entirely. The WHO estimates that 70% of people with the condition remain undiagnosed. A more accurate name should improve recognition, reduce stigma, and ultimately help the millions of people living with this condition get diagnosed and treated sooner. Poll Loading... Bottom line Public health situations are everywhere right now. Staying healthy takes public health professionals and systems working tirelessly behind the scenes and each of us showing up for our neighbors and communities. Love, YLE Big thanks to Ed Nirenberg for staying on top of the Ebola vaccines, Hannah Totte for all the figures, Dr. Craig Spencer for the Ebola insight, and Dr. Matt Willis for covering the chemical situation in CA. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “Translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

May 27 • 7:43 AM EDT • Health • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society

Over 90 outstanding researchers from across the world have this year been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences.

May 27 • 5:03 AM EDT • Science • royalsociety.org

Scientists have scrapped the worst-case climate scenario – because action is making a difference

Removing the worst-case climate future for Earth isn’t failed science, as climate sceptic Donald Trump claims. It’s a sign climate action has made a difference.

May 27 • 12:35 AM EDT • Science • theconversation.com

Inside the program shaping Ascension’s next generation of leaders

For 30 years, Leadership Ascension has worked to develop the next generation of civic and business leaders in one of Louisiana’s fastest-growing parishes, pairing leadership training with hands-on community impact projects. The Ascension Chamber-affiliated program, which runs from January through November, accepts a class of roughly 30 to 36 participants each year representing businesses of […]

May 26 • 6:35 PM EDT • Business • businessreport.com

'Concept cafes' blur line between ordinary establishments, adult entertainment

So-called concept cafes — themed cafes where employees serve customers while wearing revealing outfits — are gaining popularity across Korea, raising concerns that a new form of quasi-sexual entertainment is expanding without proper regulation.

May 26 • 6:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • koreajoongangdaily.joins.com

National Senior Health & Fitness Day Preview

This morning we’re getting a preview of National Senior Health & Fitness Day and how older adults can stay strong, active, and independent through simple movement. Jeremy Smoot and fitness guest Karen Cepress join Good Day DC with easy exercises designed to improve balance, posture, mobility, and everyday strength.

May 26 • 5:37 PM EDT • Health • fox5dc.com

Epic Games Removes Porsche "Concept Image" That Sure Looks Like AI

This week, Epic Games published a concept-art image showing what appeared to be a Porsche vehicle dropping into Fortnite. However, it was quickly removed after players theorized it had been made with the use of generative AI. And while Epic has since offered an explanation for what happened, something still seems … off. Almost immediately...

May 26 • 5:36 PM EDT • Technology • gamespot.com

Fortnite-Themed Porsche AI Concept Image Causes Online Ruckus

The image was deleted, then reuploaded just so Unreal Games could explain that Porsche were the ones who made it

May 26 • 4:07 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

Pinellas: Suncoast Health Council vacancies announced

Applications are being accepted for three positions on the Suncoast Health Council. All three of these positions are for Health Care Providers. Appointments are for two-year terms, beginning on the date of appointment. Applications are due by 3 p.m. on Wednesday, June 24, 2026.

May 26 • 3:42 PM EDT • Health • pinellas.gov

UIC and UI Health: Reshaping the future of telesurgery

Researchers at UIC and UI Health are challenging accepted beliefs […]

May 26 • 12:11 PM EDT • Health • today.uic.edu

Advancing CAR-T Cell Science in Lupus: Meet the First Recipients of the Lupus Research Alliance–Genentech Fund

The inaugural recipients of the Lupus Research Alliance (LRA)– Genentech Award on Immune Resetting Therapies for Lupus (LGA-IRT) are… Anne Davidson, MBBS, The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy can lead to long-lasting remission in lupus, but it is not yet clear how it works at a cellular level or […]

May 26 • 11:18 AM EDT • Science • thedermdigest.com

FinTech Pet Care Software Kennel Connection Brings Petwealth Pet Health Diagnostics to Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo West Following Strong Industry Reception at Intergroom

MOORPARK, Calif., May 26, 2026--Kennel Connection expands its exclusive Petwealth diagnostics partnership to Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo West following strong reception at Intergroom

May 26 • 10:29 AM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com

A Not So Happy Anniversary: A Year of Deceptive Science “Standards”

Saturday, May 23rd marked a year since President Trump signed an executive order (EO) to “restore” so-called “gold standard science.” On the surface, the language and title of the order sounded promising. But to science policy nerds like me, the EO—and the actions the administration has taken to imp

May 26 • 9:44 AM EDT • Science • blog.ucs.org

Louisiana's new SNAP restrictions set in Tuesday, health officials say

Beginning Tuesday, EBT cards will only be accepted for purchases made within Louisiana and in select ZIP codes near the state line in neighboring states.

May 25 • 11:53 PM EDT • Health • wwltv.com

Advancing high-threat pathogen preparedness in WHO South-East Asia Region: 2025 in review

Effective preparedness for high-threat pathogens demands more than technical tools — it requires a coherent strategy, sustained country engagement, and the institutional infrastructure to translate evidence into action. In 2025, the Pandemic and Epidemic Management (PEM) Unit advanced all three, working across the full spectrum of high threat pathogen (HTP) preparedness: from methodology development and evidence generation to country-level technical support, emergency response, and regional workforce strengthening.At the core of the PEM unit's work is building the regional evidence and policy architecture needed to prioritize and respond to HTPs systematically. A major milestone was the development of the HTP Prioritization Methodology — a structured, multi-criteria approach to ranking pathogens by epidemic potential, severity, and national context — and its national pilot in Bangladesh, where SARS-CoV-2, Nipah, dengue, and cholera emerged as the highest-priority threats, informing the PEM unit's contribution to 2026–27 biennium prioritization and workplan development (Access link here).Underpinning this work, the PEM unit advanced the peer-reviewed evidence base for HTP preparedness in the South-East Asia Region (SEAR), with three publications in international journals in 2025: Development of a zoonotic influenza distribution assessment and ranking system (ZIDAR): Technical application in Nepal to support cross-sectoral risk-based surveillance in One Health; Implications for influenza A virus surveillance in Southeast Asian Region countries: a scoping review of approaches for the surveillance of swine influenza viruses at human-swine interfaces in BMJ Public Health; and Operationalizing multisector partnerships: a Theory of Action and Reflection tool for zoonotic influenzas in Health Policy and Planning. Together, these contributions move the Region’s HTP preparedness agenda from practice to science — generating the transferable methodological foundations that will inform evidence-based capacity strengthening in Member States.Country-level engagement in 2025 reflected the breadth of contexts in which HTP preparedness must function. Technical support was provided for Mpox and cholera events across the Region, including coordination of cholera and acute watery diarrhea prevention and control in Myanmar in the wake of the March 2025 earthquake. In Myanmar, the PEM unit contributed technical leadership to the earthquake emergency response — one of the most complex humanitarian emergencies in the SEAR — as Health Operations and Technical Support lead within the Incident Management Support Team. This included strengthening emergency response planning, supporting operational and after-action reviews, and providing monitoring and evaluation support for both acute and protracted crisis response. The breadth of HTP support provided to emergency operations across the SEAR was documented in the PEM unit’s contribution to the regional report for the Health Security Interface Technical Advisory Group.In Sri Lanka, technical collaboration with the WHO Country Office and the Ministry of Health laid the groundwork for the National Steering Committee's 2026 annual meeting, development of Standard Operating Procedures for specialized emergency response, and a national training programme — all structured around evidence-based risk assessment for specialized hazards including HTPs.Across the SEAR, the unit contributed to strengthening the workforce architecture that underpins HTP response. Technical inputs shaped the WHO South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Workforce Strategy 2025–2030, and the PEM unit supported conceptual development of the health emergency workforce framework for the Pandemic Fund Round 3 proposal.Alongside this, the unit's sustained engagement on the meningitis agenda culminated in the launch of the Regional Implementation Framework to Defeat Meningitis in South-East Asia by 2030 at the Seventy-eighth Session of the Regional Committee, ensuring the Region's priorities were reflected in the Global Technical Task Force and expanding the unit's HTP engagement beyond outbreak-prone zoonotic pathogens (Regional Implementation Framework to Defeat Meningitis in South-East Asia by 2030).Taken together, 2025 demonstrated that meaningful HTP preparedness is built incrementally — through methodology, engagement, and the steady accumulation of institutional capacity across Member States.Bangladesh piloted the HTP Prioritization Methodology and identified the highest-priority pathogens in the country context (Photo credit: WHO Country Office, Bangladesh).

May 25 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • who.int

Report Paratici targeted by Milan as new director of sport

Fabio Paratici only accepted the Fiorentina job in February, but multiple sources claim he is being targeted by Milan to be their new director of sport.The Rossoneri are having a complete clear out of...

May 25 • 3:05 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Ebola health screenings at Bush Airport for certain passengers begin Tuesday

Houston is one of three airports in the entire country that will accept travelers from the outbreak zone in Central Africa, and passengers from impacted areas are expected to arrive as early as Tuesday.

May 25 • 12:24 PM EDT • Health • abc13.com

Women's health fair set at Ebeid Center

A women’s health and resource fair Saturday at the ProMedica Ebeid Center will feature screenings and wellness resources. Community organizations will be ...

May 25 • 9:02 AM EDT • Health • toledoblade.com

Breaking down schizophrenia stigma during Mental Health Awareness Month

As Mental Health Awareness Month enters its final week, one woman is using her experience with schizophrenia to help others and challenge common misconceptions about the illness.

May 24 • 10:08 PM EDT • Health • ky3.com

Quantum Batteries Could Run For Years Off Of A Single One-Minute Charge

Quantum batteries have been a theoretical concept since 2013, but Australian scientists have just created a working prototype with insane charging speeds.

May 24 • 5:45 AM EDT • Technology • slashgear.com

Black Women, Beauty Politics and the Power of Rage in 'Is God Is'

In one of the film’s most surreal scenes, the twins at the center of *Is God Is*—Racine, “the Rough One,” and Anaia, “the Quiet One”—pretend to be strippers for a room full of men. But while Racine is welcomed, Anaia is rejected because her scarred face disrupts the men’s fantasies. That moment crystallizes one of the film’s central questions: What happens when Black women refuse to shrink themselves for the comfort of others? In Aleshea Harris’ Gothic revenge thriller, ugliness becomes both a burden and a source of power, as the film transforms into a stereotype-busting meditation on misogynoir, beauty politics and righteous rage. As the twins travel cross-country seeking vengeance against the father who burned their mother alive, Harris layers the conventions of the revenge genre with distinctly Black feminist aesthetics. The film moves between absurd comedy, trap music, intimate sisterhood and brutal violence while interrogating the ways Black women are expected to manage their pain, suppress their anger and perform acceptability. Anaia’s scarred face and Racine’s consuming rage become mirrors of the same misogynoir that shapes Black women’s lives—whether through beauty standards, domestic violence or the demand to remain silent. What makes *Is God Is* so striking is its refusal to look away from the “ugly.” Harris insists that Black women marked by violence, scars and fury still deserve visibility, complexity and even divinity. The film embraces the “angry Black woman” and the “ugly” Black woman as figures worthy of space, power and humanity. In doing so, it expands the tradition of Black feminist filmmaking by asking viewers to confront the realities dominant culture would rather ignore—and to recognize the beauty, dignity and selfhood that exist beyond respectability.

May 23 • 7:57 AM EDT • Politics • msmagazine.com

Mind-bending scientific concepts leave this layman in science class every day

Science is found in so many places from the physical world to within the mind.

May 22 • 10:25 PM EDT • Science • adn.com

Armed man experiencing mental health crisis peacefully exits Fond du Lac hotel room

A mental health crisis situation in Fond du Lac was peacefully resolved Friday, thanks to police officers and a social worker.

May 22 • 5:57 PM EDT • Health • fox11online.com

Editorial: Delay Illinois’ swipe-fee law before chaos hits

With litigation unresolved and federal regulators intervening, Springfield should pause Illinois’ swipe-fee law before the July 1 deadline.

May 22 • 1:37 PM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 Adds Exactly What You Wanted: A 4th Player and Smarter Xenos

With a fourth player added, a new completely open-ended Specialist class, new special Xenomorph types, and a totally new campaign, Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 may not be reinventing the PvE Alien-game wheel, but it doesn’t need to. It’s adding seemingly everything we’d reasonably want in order to take the already well-executed concept from the first Fireteam Elite to the next level.

May 22 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • ign.com

The next evolution of American healthcare is here

Every Democratic administration in the past century — no exceptions — came to Washington promising to rewire the healthcare system, mainly to protect Americans from the costs of illness. So did mos…

May 22 • 12:00 PM EDT • Health • thehill.com

Former head of Mission Hill health center gets 6-month prison term for absconding funds from facility

“Mr. Francis accepts full responsibility for his actions and deeply regrets the conduct that gave rise to his guilty plea,” his lawyers wrote in a sentencing memo.

May 22 • 10:04 AM EDT • Health • bostonglobe.com

Google has apparently ended updates for every Chromecast except one

Following a strange issue causing first-generation Chromecast devices to fail, Google has ended software updates for nearly every other Chromecast...

May 22 • 9:50 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

If I could only have one laptop for work and gaming, I’d get this one

The new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is almost perfect for me, except it’s $3,600.

May 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Reduced health insurance payments for hospital births had a bigger impact on sterilization rates than correcting an injustice

Changes in how healthcare is managed have had a meaningful effect on what contraceptive options are available to women.

May 22 • 8:43 AM EDT • Health • theconversation.com

Maserati Has No Business Outsourcing to China

As China becomes the auto industry’s main innovation center, global carmakers wanting the most advanced technology should be embracing its supply chains. But there is an exception: heritage brands. Doing so could dilute the very identity that makes them valuable.

May 21 • 6:01 PM EDT • Business • bloomberg.com

PETER PIPER PIZZA TO OPEN REIMAGINED FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE IN MESQUITE, TEXAS

/PRNewswire/ -- Peter Piper Pizza is returning to Mesquite with a next-generation restaurant concept unlike any other Peter Piper Pizza guests have experienced...

May 21 • 3:37 PM EDT • Entertainment • prnewswire.com

007 First Light Targets 60 FPS Everywhere Except Series S, As IO Blames RAM And GPU Headroom For The Cutback

IO Interactive says 007 First Light targets 60 FPS on PS5, PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series X, while Series S is limited to 30 FPS due to RAM and GPU

May 21 • 6:00 AM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com

Todd Monken says Browns' QBs threw "embarrassing" interceptions at OTAs

May 21 • 5:12 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

DTLA Entertainment Zones Could Reshape Downtown Recovery

LA officials are exploring entertainment zones in DTLA to boost nightlife, tourism and struggling local businesses.

May 20 • 4:22 PM EDT • Entertainment • lamag.com

On ‘Jewish Money’ in American Politics

The biggest loser of yesterday’s primaries, Tom Massie, accepted his defeat with precisely the class and honor one would expect of him: none. He blamed the Jews, of course. Specifically, Jewish...

May 20 • 3:36 PM EDT • Politics • commentary.org

Alamo Drafthouse and Sony Interactive Entertainment Bring PlayStation's STATE OF PLAY Broadcast To Theaters

This June, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Sony Interactive Entertainment are teaming up to bring the upcoming State of Play broadcast into theaters for the first time. On June 2 at 2pm PT/4pm CT/5pm ET, select Alamo Drafthouse locations nationwide will host a live screening event featuring the latest PlayStation news and new game reveals in […]

May 20 • 9:59 AM EDT • Entertainment • boxofficepro.com

UConn Hartford Students Apply Organic Chemistry to Public Health

Through a service-learning partnership with UConn Student Health and Wellness, students in an organic chemistry lab at UConn Hartford applied course concept ...

May 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • today.uconn.edu

Exploit released for new PinTheft Arch Linux root escalation flaw

PinTheft, a recently patched Linux privilege escalation vulnerability, now has a publicly available proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that allows local attackers to gain root privileges on Arch Linux systems.

May 20 • 6:52 AM EDT • Technology • bleepingcomputer.com

Hawaiʻi-Philippines Business Tradeshow, Symposium and Reception to showcase expanding economic opportunities

A tradeshow featuring products from Hawai‘i and Ilocos Norte will run concurrently. The event will close with an evening banquet featuring remarks from Hawai‘i Gov. Josh Green, followed by a reaffirmation ceremony marking 22 years of sister-state relations between Hawai‘i and Ilocos Norte.

May 19 • 9:30 PM EDT • Business • mauinow.com

Artificial eggshell comes first in attempt to revive giant flightless moa

De-extinction company hopes artificial incubation system can be scaled up but other scientists are sceptical

May 19 • 1:05 PM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

American Players Theatre in Spring Green has won a Tony Award

The classical repertory company is the first theater in Wisconsin to win a Tony Award. Leadership will accept the award at Radio City Music Hall on June 7.

May 19 • 12:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • captimes.com

Fortnite Returns to the App Store Worldwide as Epic Signals 'Final Battle' With Apple

Fortnite is back on the App Store in every country except Australia, Epic Games announced today, as the company declared it is entering the "final battle" of its long-running legal dispute with Apple. Epic said the decision to push Fortnite back onto iOS globally was prompted by Apple's own words to the U.S.

May 19 • 9:08 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Microsoft launches Surface Pro 12 and Surface Laptop 8 with Intel chips

Three new Intel-powered Surface devices arrive for businesses, but they all have high price tags.

May 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Preserving traditions and animal health in Colombia   - WOAH - World Organisation for Animal Health

Animal health in Colombia - Indigenous communities have organised their productive systems around the concept of the chagra for centuries. Learn more.

May 19 • 8:06 AM EDT • Health • woah.org

From avoidance to greater acceptance: Interest grows in youth combat sports

Columbia parents and kids are finding benefits from mixed martial arts not only in the gym but beyond it as well.

May 19 • 7:00 AM EDT • Sports • columbiamissourian.com

Britain Business

Small business representatives, British Business Secretary Peter Kyle, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, centre right, pose for a group photo as Starmer hosts a reception to mark the introduction

May 19 • 4:21 AM EDT • Business • journal-news.com

SCI Lab: Finding common ground on divisive science - Morgridge Institute for Research

As a scholar on societal perceptions of scientific research, Dominique Brossard focuses a lot of energy on divisive, challenging and controversial topics. But her ultimate goal is to find the "rock" we all stand together on.

May 18 • 6:00 PM EDT • Science • morgridge.org

Kudos to Cheer Club, College of Business faculty, Cybersecurity team and more

Becky Cottrell, Ph.D., Department of Social Work, and Bridget Arend, Ph.D., School of Education Becky Cottrell from the Department of Social Work and Bridget Arend, Ph.D., from the School of Education co-authored an article recently published in an international journal. Read the article. Biff Baker, Ph.D., College of Business Biff Baker, Ph.D., received a Best in Track award from the Society for Advancement of Management for research examining bureaucratic inefficiencies within Section 8 subsidized housing programs. The study focuses on how administrative delays and communication breakdowns can create housing instability for families and discourage landlord participation. It also offers recommendations to improve accountability and trust in public housing systems. Brendan Fry, Ph.D., Department of Mathematics and Statistics Brendan Fry, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, co-authored the article “Modeling the Impact of Venous Collapsibility on Retinal Oxygenation,” published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The interdisciplinary research brought together scholars from the University of Delaware, Indiana University Indianapolis, McGill University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. Access the article. Bridget Arend, Ph.D., School of Education Bridget Arend, Ph.D., professor in the School of Education, co-published the book “Facilitating Seven Ways of Learning: A Resource for More Purposeful, Effective, and Enjoyable College Teaching, Second Edition” with James R. Davis. The book explores practical approaches to improving college teaching and student learning experiences. Buy the book. College of Business Faculty At the 2026 Western Decision Sciences Institute international conference, Sally Baalbaki-Yassine, Ph.D., Debora Gilliard, Ph.D., and David Lynn Hoffman, Ph.D., from the College of Business received the Best Case Study Paper Award for “Oreo: A Global Success Story in Brand Evolution and Market Leadership.” Lisa McVicker, Ph.D., and Apryl Brodersen, Ph.D., also had their paper, “Electronic Performance Monitoring: Employer Panacea or Legal Quagmire?” accepted for publication in the Journal of Business Leadership. Community Engagement Exchange Program Metropolitan State University of Denver was selected to host international Fellow Aleja Henao Espitia of Bogotá, Colombia through the Community Engagement Exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State. View Espitia's LinkedIn profile. David Varel, Ph.D., College of Letters, Arts and Sciences MSU Denver historian David Varel, Ph.D., has been awarded a 2026 ACLS Fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies. The fellowship program supports outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, and selected just 63 scholars from more than 2,000 applicants this year. Varel’s project, “The Black Chicago School: Academic Activism in the Age of American Apartheid,” explores the work of Black scholars who challenged scientific racism, built alternative institutions and helped lay the foundation for the modern civil rights movement. The fellowship provides up to $60,000 to support full-time research and writing. Learn more about the fellowship. MSU Denver Office of Financial Aid Team Several MSU Denver employees were recognized for leadership and service during the Colorado Association of Financial Aid Administrators (CAFAA) conference held in May in Crested Butte. Don Holtzen, interim associate director of systems, chaired the conference and was recognized for his service as CAFAA conference chair and technology chair during the 2025-26 term. Holtzen also received the Postsecondary Institution Professional of the Year award, which recognizes financial-aid professionals who have made significant contributions to their institutions and to CAFAA. Tori Pacheco, associate director of Student Services, helped design décor and facilitate the conference and was recognized for her service as CAFAA secretary during the 2025-26 term. Destiny Candelaria, call center coordinator, served on the conference planning committee and presented on One Stops during the event. Michael Nguyen, executive director of Financial Aid and Scholarships, assisted as a CAFAA board member and was recognized for serving as president-elect during the 2025-26 term. Richard Balbag, program assistant I, received the Distinguished Support Staff Member of the Year award, honoring staff members who have made exceptional contributions to their financial-aid offices. Military Friendly Recognition Military Friendly has awarded MSU Denver Gold Status as a military-friendly university and ranked the University No. 7 nationally for military spouses. The recognition reflects MSU Denver’s strong support systems for veterans and military spouses, including transfer credit assistance and retention-focused resources. As of 2026, 1,050 military-connected students are enrolled at the University, advancing institutional priorities around serving veterans and supporting student retention. MSU Denver Cheer Club The MSU Denver Cheer Club earned third place in the 4-Year College Small Coed Intermediate division at the USA Spirit Nationals. Celebrate the win on Instagram. MSU Denver Cybersecurity Team An MSU Denver cybersecurity team earned first place in the Strategist category at the 2026 CYBER RECon National Competition hosted at Fort Meade, Maryland, by U.S. Cyber Command. Led by Jeffrey London, Ph.D., and undergraduate student Matthew Bopp, the team competed against universities and law schools nationwide with its 30-page legal analysis on cybersecurity and free speech titled “Freedom of Speech and MDM: Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation.” The paper also earned Bopp a personal invitation to apply to the University of Maryland School of Law. MSU Denver Debate Team MSU Denver Debate won the 2026 Sierra Sustainability Summit hosted at Yosemite National Park in April. Students Kat Conte and Simon Bernhard bested teams from George Washington University, Gallaudet University, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the University of San Francisco and Tennessee Tech in the modified present-and-defend style competition. Their proposal recommended adapting Colorado’s Keep Colorado Wild Pass model to support California state parks facing budget constraints. Learn about the summit. MSU Denver Women’s Golf MSU Denver Women’s Golf was represented on the national stage this month as junior Neige Dunn competed as an individual at the NCAA West Regional. She became the first Roadrunner in 10 years to qualify for NCAA Regionals as an individual. Get the details.

May 18 • 5:59 PM EDT • Business • early-bird.msudenver.edu

Crime Reports: Investigation into ‘deceptive business practice’ conducted at Abilene restaurant

Editor’s Note: The Abilene Police Department supplied the following arrest and incident reports. All information below is based on reports made by responding officers, and all suspects are considered ...

May 18 • 5:31 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com

Nominations Open for Annual NJBIA-NJ Business Magazine's 'Awards for Excellence'

New Jersey Business Magazine is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Awards for Excellence competition, powered by NJBIA, which recognizes outstanding businesses and their leaders who have improved New Jersey’s economic climate and quality of life. Awards will be given for Executive of the Year, Outstanding Employer, Community Service and Excellence in Disability Inclusion. Winners will be[...]

May 18 • 1:21 PM EDT • Business • insidernj.com

KC Concepcion switches to No. 1

Browns rookie receiver KC Concepcion sported No. 17 when at his introductory press conference and during rookie minicamp.

May 18 • 11:44 AM EDT • Sports • nbcsports.com

Xbox Execs Congratulate Forza Horizon 6 Dev On 'Exceptionally Rare' Success

"Very proud of the teams..."

May 18 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • purexbox.com

New MatterChat Model Helps AI to ‘See’ the Language of Science

From writing emails to generating computer code, much of the artificial intelligence prevalent in our daily lives has succeeded by mastering one domain: text. However, this leaves a major blind spot in the physical sciences, where models depend on the high-resolution, three-dimensional data of the physical world, like the intricate lattice of atoms in a crystal. Delivering on the promise of using AI for science requires teaching these data-driven text models to seamlessly “talk to” physics-based models. Now, a new AI framework from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), called MatterChat, solves this problem by creating a specialized “bridge.” It connects the conversational power of a Large Language Model (LLM) with a physics-based AI that models “interatomic potentials”: the complex physical forces between atoms. The resulting system already significantly outperforms general-purpose AI tools like GPT-4 at predicting material properties, and the team hopes it can accelerate scientific discovery by serving as a robust research partner that provides grounded insights and generates step-by-step instructions for synthesizing novel materials. A paper describing this work was recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence. “Traditional simulations can provide the physical rigor required for materials science, yet their computational cost remains prohibitive for high-throughput screening. Conversely, while LLMs excel at rapid knowledge synthesis, they inherently lack the ‘structural vision’ to interpret materials directly from their underlying atomic coordinates,” said Yingheng Tang, a postdoctoral researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Applied Math and Computational Research Division (AMCR) and lead author on the paper. “MatterChat was built to solve this dilemma, empowering LLMs with a structural ‘vision’ that allows researchers to leverage their full potential for solving complex, real-world materials challenges.” Empowering language models to solve complex challenges in materials science To build MatterChat, the Berkeley Lab team drew inspiration from technologies like Vision Question Answering (VQA) and Text-to-Image (T2I) generation. In these tasks, AI must translate high-level text concepts into visual images, or vice versa. Doing so requires developers to build tools that “bridge” two fundamentally different forms of data. The researchers adapted this concept to the physical sciences. With MatterChat, they created a “bridge model” that successfully connects an LLM’s general knowledge with the deep understanding of the atomic-scale world encoded in scientific interatomic potentials. Until now, researchers using LLMs to solve materials problems usually had to feed them raw data files as if they were just strings of text. It’s like asking an AI to understand a complex 3D engine based only on a parts list: the LLM can read the names, but it can’t “see” how the atoms fit together in space. MatterChat solves this by training a specialized AI bridge model, pre-trained on millions of crystal structures and an LLM, to align the LLM’s representation of the world with the interatomic potential’s representation of the world. The bridge model can translate physical insights into a format the LLM can actually understand. By giving the LLM these “scientific eyes”— a scientific “inductive bias” in the terminology of AI — the Berkeley Lab team has transformed it into a robust research tool capable of providing grounded scientific insights into complex materials challenges, such as predicting thermal stability or analyzing electronic band gaps. “We think of atoms as living in a physical space, but from a machine learning perspective, they are just vectors living in some very non-trivially structured manifold in a high-dimensional Euclidean space; and, of course, the same is true for the sentences and paragraphs that we use to express our ideas about those atoms,” said co-author Michael Mahoney, Berkeley Lab’s Scientific Data Division (SDD) AI Initiative Research Lead. “The bridge model basically gets those two structures to ‘talk with’ each other.” As a proof-of-concept of this general approach, the team trained their bridge model on a dataset curated by pairing nearly 143,000 stable atomic structures from the Materials Project with their corresponding physical properties. This training data was automatically assembled using the Materials Project’s API and deliberately enriched with properties fundamental to microelectronics design — like formation energy and bandgap — allowing MatterChat to learn the complex patterns connecting a material’s atomic blueprint to its functional performance. To validate their model, the researchers benchmarked MatterChat against a suite of other AI systems, from general-purpose LLMs to other specialized scientific AI methods. The results show that MatterChat consistently outperformed its competitors across a range of tasks. The model was more accurate in classifying material types and demonstrated superior precision in predicting numerical properties. For example, it excelled at predicting a material’s bandgap, a property critical for designing new electronics from high-capacity energy storage to next-generation computer chips. “Our design is significantly more efficient because we don’t have to build a massive AI model from the ground up,” said co-author Zhi (Jackie) Yao, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s AMCR. “Instead, we take two powerful, pre-trained models — a structural encoder for materials physics and an open-source LLM — and use them off-the-shelf. The only component we actually train is the lightweight ‘bridge model’ that translates between them. It’s the difference between building an entire car factory and simply designing a smart adapter that connects a world-class engine to a world-class navigation system. This approach is not only computationally efficient, but also makes the system modular, so we can easily upgrade components or adapt the bridge for other scientific domains in the future.” Crucially, this modular design highlights exactly how institutions like Berkeley Lab and the Department of Energy are carving out a highly valuable niche in the booming AI landscape. Rather than competing with Silicon Valley tech giants to build ever-larger language models from scratch, the lab is focusing on the specialized connective tissue that makes commercial AI useful for hardcore science. Because the bridge model approach underlying MatterChat is forward-compatible, it is perfectly positioned to leverage these parallel tracks of innovation. As Mahoney pointed out, “We expect that industry will continue to develop improved LLMs, and we expect domain scientists and facilities will continue to generate new data. An important part of scientific machine learning is not simply to solve problems on today’s data, but instead to develop general methods that will be forward-compatible with orders of magnitude more data, whether from scientific domains or from LLMs.” According to Yao, the MatterChat project, which was initially developed and enhanced with funding from a Berkeley Lab Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) Program, will now expand its capabilities. In a collaboration with Fermilab, MatterChat is already contributing to a U.S. Department of Energy Genesis Mission project — called Accelerating eXtreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon (AXESS) — that aims to speed up the development of next-generation, high-speed, radiation-hardened detectors for challenging particle physics experiments by using advanced 3D integrated circuits (chiplets) and AI-driven data analysis. In addition to the LDRD support, the team also credits supercomputing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), located at Berkeley Lab, with MatterChat’s success. “We are incredibly grateful to NERSC; this research simply would not have happened without access to the Perlmutter supercomputer through their AI for Science program,” said Tang. Wenbin Xu, a NERSC postdoctoral fellow at the time, was also a major co-author of the work, as was Benjamin Erichson, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s SDD, highlighting the benefits of AMCR-SDD collaboration on AI for science. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

May 18 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • newscenter.lbl.gov

Director-General presents Award for Global Health to four distinguished leaders

At the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has presented four distinguished leaders with the Award for Global Health, recognizing their lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to improving the health and well-being of communities worldwide.

May 18 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • who.int

How Carle Illinois College of Medicine is changing the health care innovation ecosystem

Carle Illinois College of Medicine blends medicine, engineering and AI to speed health care innovation from concept to patient care.

May 18 • 7:00 AM EDT • Health • chicagobusiness.com

How Carle Illinois College of Medicine is changing the health care innovation ecosystem

Carle Illinois College of Medicine blends medicine, engineering and AI to speed health care innovation from concept to patient care.

May 18 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

Final Fantasy VI AI Remake Wins Over Series Creator In 600K+ Viewed Video, but SaGa Veteran Begs Him To Stop

Hironobu Sakaguchi praises a Final Fantasy VI AI remake concept, but fans and developers do not agree with him

May 18 • 6:35 AM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com

Inside the U’s baby science research lab, a look at how the world learns

The University of Minnesota Child Brain and Perception Lab explores how infants and toddlers make sense of the people around them. MPR News spent a day recently at the lab watching one of the “pilot babies” discover their world.

May 18 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • mprnews.org

Exploit available for new DirtyDecrypt Linux root escalation flaw

A recently patched local privilege escalation vulnerability in the Linux kernel's rxgk module now has a proof-of-concept exploit that allows attackers to gain root access on some Linux systems.

May 18 • 3:18 AM EDT • Technology • bleepingcomputer.com

New Windows 'MiniPlasma' zero-day exploit gives SYSTEM access, PoC released

A cybersecurity researcher has released a proof-of-concept exploit for a Windows privilege escalation zero-day dubbed "MiniPlasma" that lets attackers gain SYSTEM privileges on fully patched Windows systems.

May 17 • 6:30 PM EDT • Technology • bleepingcomputer.com

What to know about the Ebola outbreak now declared a global health emergency

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — The World Health Organization declared Sunday the Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern. Africa’s top public health body first confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Ituri province on Friday. By Saturday, it had reported 336 suspected cases and 88 deaths. All the cases are in Congo, except for two recorded in neighboring Uganda. Health authorities say the current outbreak is caused by

May 17 • 5:30 PM EDT • Health • pbs.org

Galileo Galilei, scientist: “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual”

Galileo’s warning about scientific consensus still resonates centuries later as modern discoveries continue overturning accepted wisdom.

May 17 • 1:50 PM EDT • Science • en.as.com

First Disney Store Limited Time Location Opening This Week

As Disney continues experimenting with smaller-scale retail concepts, the Disney Store is becoming a little easier to find in person.

May 17 • 12:47 PM EDT • Technology • wdwnt.com

Todd Graves’ Billion-Dollar Chicken Chain Started With the Worst Grade in Business School

Todd Graves told Masters of Scale host Jeff Berman that his Raising Cane’s business plan earned the worst grade in his partner’s business class, despite being painstakingly detailed. “The professor said, the plan’s exceptional. I mean, I knew details. I knew exactly what our aprons would cost to get washed,” Graves recalled. The strategic flaw, ... Todd Graves’ Billion-Dollar Chicken Chain Started With the Worst Grade in Business School

May 17 • 10:28 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

WHO declares Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, Uganda a global health emergency

DR Congo accounts for all except two of the suspected cases, both of which were reported in neighbouring Uganda.

May 17 • 2:55 AM EDT • Health • aljazeera.com

Hearts say ‘shameful’ scenes at Celtic ‘embarrassed Scottish football’

Hearts blasted the ‘shameful, unacceptable’ scenes at Celtic which ‘embarrassed Scottish football’ as their Premiership title dream ended on Saturday.The Jambos lost the crucial away game 3-1 ...

May 17 • 1:45 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Intercept Health Treatment Foster Care hold event to bring awareness to foster care in Roanoke

On Saturday, Intercept Health’s Treatment Foster Care Team came together in Roanoke to raise awareness of the need for more foster parents in the commonwealth - especially for teens.

May 16 • 6:31 PM EDT • Health • wsls.com

Rooted in San Francisco: 10 Years of the Legacy Business Program

Opening reception at the San Francisco Public Library for the exhibit celebrating a decade of San Francisco’s Legacy Business Program, June 4 from 6:00-7:45 p.m., SFPL Main Library, 4th Floor

May 15 • 11:11 PM EDT • Business • sf.gov

Scientists Say a 40-Year-Old Childhood Obesity Warning May Be Completely Wrong

A long-accepted explanation of childhood growth patterns is now being challenged by new research that questions whether BMI changes in early life reflect fat accumulation at all.

May 15 • 8:12 PM EDT • Science • scitechdaily.com

CDC Didn’t Tell New York About Resident on Hantavirus-Plagued Cruise

There’s no indication that the New Yorker was returning to the U.S. But public health experts said the city and state still should have been informed.

May 15 • 4:41 PM EDT • Health • theintercept.com

BMW’s bonkers six-cylinder Vision K18 concept hints at wild future bagger plans

The Vision K18, while wild to behold, may be the Munich firm hinting at a future six-cylinder bagger model.

May 15 • 2:00 PM EDT • Technology • motorcyclenews.com

County getting into the Entertainment (Zone) business

Hoping to help local businesses and attract more visitors ready to spend some money, the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors on May 12 conceptually approved the establishment of Entertainment

May 15 • 1:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • mtdemocrat.com

Dallas weighs City Hall’s future as potential Mavericks sports, entertainment site

There were 418 submissions from residents, developers, architects, business leaders and others who responded to the city’s call for concepts favored repairing or restoring the Dallas City Hall.

May 15 • 11:37 AM EDT • Entertainment • sportsbusinessjournal.com