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Results for " self " 2,657 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle

Oppo’s Bubble is a thin round screen for taking rear camera selfies

Better selfies, if you have an Oppo phone.

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May 26 • 11:07 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Betting On Herself: After 30 Years Of Service, Local Leader Launches Consulting Business To Help Teams Thrive

SOUTHERN MARYLAND — After 30 years in federal service, Mandy Miedzinski didn’t walk away with a perfectly mapped-out plan — she walked away with a feeling she couldn’t ignore: she still had more to give. What began as a simple conversation with a mentor quickly gained momentum. One introduction led to another. Ideas turned into […]

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May 26 • 10:00 AM EDT • Business • thebaynet.com
The Latest: Iran deal progress is murky after US military says it carried out ‘self-defense’ strikes

President Donald Trump insists a peace deal is close on this 88th day of the Iran war, but Iran on Tuesday denounced U.S. strikes a day earlier as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” as negotiations continue.

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May 26 • 9:26 AM EDT • Politics • news4jax.com
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Trump to undergo annual physical after year of public attention to health issues

US president, who turns 80 next month, frequently casts himself as fit but recent photos have added to questions about his health

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May 26 • 7:53 AM EDT • Health • theguardian.com
Southeast Michigan’s future won’t build itself. Here’s how we do it.

Detroit leaders call for smarter, community-driven growth to create jobs, strengthen schools and build a sustainable, shared economic future.

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May 26 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • crainsdetroit.com
Mumade’s childhood experience guides her healthcare journey

Hamdiya Mumade, a senior majoring in biological Sciences and microbiology, speaks through her passion for medicine. Mumade walked us through how the spark for medical sciences first ignited her ambitious future goals to change the healthcare field itself.

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May 26 • 1:30 AM EDT • Health • news.unl.edu
Country star steps away from music to focus on himself after fame took a toll

Country star Jake Worthington announces hiatus from music, saying he needs to work on himself for his family. Famous friends rally in support.

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May 25 • 2:17 PM EDT • Entertainment • foxnews.com
Self-Storage Business Powers U-Haul Holding Company’s (UHAL) Valuation

Yachtman Asset Management released its first-quarter 2026 investor letter for its AMG “Yacktman Focused Fund”. A copy of the letter is available to download here. The Fund returned 10.37% for the first quarter, outperforming both the Russell 1000® Value Index and the S&P 500 Index, which returned 2.10% and -4.33%, respectively. The U.S. markets continue […]

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May 25 • 11:45 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
I redesigned my toddler's room to teach him independence

Victoria Lee Jones redesigned her son's bedroom to encourage independence, confidence, and self-expression from a young age.

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May 25 • 11:25 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Hyperreal Politics: When the Simulation Becomes Too Absurd to Satirize

The foreign policy playing out today in the West is so preposterously self-destructive it would be rejected as implausible fiction

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May 25 • 10:06 AM EDT • Politics • fairobserver.com
Business Monday: Maui artist opens Paint Aloha gallery in Waikōloa with classes for all ages

With business struggling on Maui after the Lahaina fires, artist Annabelle Ramil found a new home for herself and her gallery on the Big Island.

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May 25 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • bigislandnow.com
Toby Fox says creating DELTARUNE by himself "wouldn't be possible" due to the work required and his "physical condition"

Determined nonetheless

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May 25 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • gonintendo.com
Commentary: Illinois mixed strategy and intention to mount a resurgence

Global companies are choosing Illinois because the state is aligning itself with where the economy is going, not where it has been.

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May 25 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com
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Semiconductor decoupling. Powell's politics. Industrializing Ogaden. Free trade and the Magna Carta.

Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Feliks Topolski, 1907-1989 8th Army’s Front, Italy 1944 Semiconductor decoupling Source: FT One thing that Jerome Powell deeply understood is that chairing the Fed under current conditions is a deeply political job. “Powell has successes and mistakes to his name. But he stands out as having thought more carefully about the Fed’s democratic legitimacy than any chair since Paul Volcker,” said Paul Tucker, a former deputy governor at the Bank of England, referring to the Fed chair who successfully fought the great inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. … While Powell was at the Treasury in the early 1990s, he watched Alan Greenspan build relationships within the government. That convinced Powell he needed to follow the former Fed chair’s lead and spend more time in Congress than his predecessors Yellen and Bernanke. “The accountability for the Fed runs through Congress,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed official who is now chief economist at New Century Advisors. “That’s not just about having people on speed dial — it’s answering questions, explaining policy and getting feedback.” Source: FT Ethiopia’s PM Abiy and Nigerian business tycoon, with Chinese engineering, are driving industrialization in Ogaden/Somali region of Ethiopia. - Michael Masri’s reporting for Africa Report if fascinating. Ethiopia has launched a cluster of large industrial schemes in the Somali region, laying foundation stones for a urea plant and an oil refinery in Gode while opening the first two phases of the Ogaden LNG project. Abiy Ahmed framed the push as part of a broader strategy to link energy, agriculture and industry. “These projects embody more than industrial growth,” he said. “They represent our shared responsibility to harness opportunities, strengthen co-operation and promote peace.” The Gode urea plant, backed by Dangote Group and Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH), is designed for 3m tonnes a year. Dangote owns 60%, while EIH holds 40%. Officials say Dangote’s equity totals about $2.5bn, while the state provides land and implementation oversight. Gas from the Calub fields will be piped 108km to the site. Construction is slated for 40 months, with operations targeted for 2028. Ethiopia imports most of its fertiliser, spending more than $1.2bn a year for 1.5m–2m tonnes. Usage was roughly 1.7m tonnes in 2023, almost half of it urea, and demand for 2024–25 is put above 2.4m tonnes. If delivered on time, the Gode plant could cover domestic needs and allow exports to neighbours. Brook Taye, chief executive of EIH, called the venture “a significant milestone in the journey toward industrial self-sufficiency”. Dangote told the groundbreaking crowd that the complex would be integrated with gas supply and a polypropylene unit to support local inputs. He pointed to Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), with a capacity of more than 5,000MW, and noted his group’s cement operations and expansion plans. The Gode refinery is being developed by Golden Concord Group of China. It is designed to process 3.5m tonnes a year of crude and condensate from the Hilala field, with associated storage. Backers say it will ease foreign-exchange pressure from fuel imports and anchor further industrial activity, including a proposed steel smelting site in Dire Dawa. GCL’s chair, Zhu Gongshan, cast the project as “a key step in Ethiopia’s path to energy sovereignty”, underscoring the Beijing–Addis ties. Financing details are still being finalised, but the refinery is central to the government’s energy-security narrative. Source: The Africa Report Dangote’s Ethiopian vision: Dangote began with cement. His crown jewel, Dangote Cement, dominates Nigeria’s market and has 10 operations in other nations in Africa. The formula has been consistent: identify sectors with chronic shortages – cement, fertiliser, sugar – commit massive local investments, and scale up to serve regional demand. Ethiopia was a natural extension of that model. In 2015, Dangote launched the Mugher Cement Plant outside Addis Ababa at a cost of $600m, with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes. The investment gave him a firm foothold in one of Africa’s fastest-growing construction markets. But success came with risks. In May 2018, violent unrest led to the killing of Dangote’s country manager and temporary shutdowns at Mugher. While other investors might have retreated, Dangote doubled down. Today, he is preparing to spend $400m to expand Mugher’s capacity to 5 million tonnes, alongside a new grinding unit near Addis Ababa. Cement is just one market Dangote is targeting. Ethiopia’s enormous state-controlled sugar industry, long plagued by inefficiency and debt, has struggled for years to reform. Its Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, touted as one of the continent’s largest initiatives, continues to face delays and mismanagement. … The most ambitious venture of all is the planned fertiliser production complex in Gode, Somali region. Publicised on 28 August 2025, the Dangote Group and Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) deal plans one of the world’s largest single-site urea manufacturing plants. The project costs an estimated $2.5bn and has an estimated capacity of 3 million metric tonnes annually, a rate that would not only render Ethiopia independent, but even a net exporter of fertiliser. EIH, the state wealth fund of Ethiopia, will hold 40%, while 60% is held by Dangote Group. … For Dangote, Ethiopia is a trifecta: Cement demand is projected to grow by 10% annually, its sugar consumption is growing with rapid urbanisation, and fertiliser demand is all but insatiable, given that farming supports the livelihood of 70% of Ethiopians. Source: The Africa Report The stakes for Abiy are high: For Addis Ababa, the $4bn fertiliser project in Ethiopia’s Somali region is no longer simply a manufacturing investment. It is increasingly being framed as a strategic state project tied to food sovereignty, import substitution and the government’s broader attempt to build economic resilience under mounting fiscal pressure. “Becoming self-sufficient in food is our main agenda,” Abiy says during the visit. “Land is needed; we have it. Water is needed; we have it. Human resources are needed; we have it.” The scale is enormous even by African industrial standards. Once operational, the plant is expected to produce three million metric tonnes of urea annually, potentially making it one of the continent’s largest fertiliser complexes. Ethiopian officials say the project now includes a 110km gas pipeline, a 120MW power plant, a polypropylene packaging facility and a two-million-tonne NPK blending plant. For a government grappling with chronic foreign exchange shortages, ballooning import bills and pressure on agricultural productivity, the numbers matter politically as much as they do economically. The decision to anchor the project in Gode is deliberate. Long viewed as peripheral to Ethiopia’s industrial economy, the Somali region is now being repositioned by the federal government as a future irrigation and agro-industrial corridor. Officials argue that the area’s vast land reserves and access to water could eventually support large-scale commercial farming capable of reshaping Ethiopia’s food economy. The government is simultaneously building housing infrastructure for about 5,000 residents near the plant, while officials project broader industrial expansion along the corridor. Abiy goes further, comparing the long-term revenue potential of the Gode development zone with Ethiopia’s flagship state enterprise. “The investments we are making in this Gode area, combined, will generate high revenue for Ethiopia, at par with Ethiopian Airlines,” he says. Source: The Africa Report Feliks Topolski 1907-1982 Topolski’s Chronicle, ‘Nazi Revival’, Vol. 8, Is. 1-2, 1960 HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. Photo by Jakub Dziubak on Unsplash If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $50. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Grim vision of drone warfare by Sylvie Kaufmann For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe The state of the art in Colbert-studies. Jean-Baptiste Colbert was Louis XIV chief minister from 1661 to 1683 and traditionally seen as an architect of absolutism and mercantilism. Alexander Hamilton later cited him as an inspiration in 1782. Now his legacy is disputed. Daniel Dessert, the chief critic, sees Colbert as the orchestrator not so much of an absolutist state as of an elite cabal. Would be great to have a good English-language review of this important debate. Source: lhistoire Didn’t know that the Magna Carta included free trade provisions Fighting for the right to the beach in Oregon in 1967: Source: Research Gate RAF Station – British and Polish Flags, c. 1940-45, The Ingram Collection Feliks Topolski, 1907-1989 ink and wash If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe

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May 25 • 6:23 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com
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'Arsenal rolled their sleeves up'

Everyone now wants to play like how Pep Guardiola's teams play but Mikel Arteta has tried that for the last three years and he hasn't won the league. When you look at the job that Mikel has done, he mentions the noise and doubting himself, I think he deserves great credit for sticking with it.

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May 25 • 3:29 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
How integrating tradition and self-care has strengthened public health in the Americas

On 13 May 2026, a regional dialogue for the Americas titled, Innovative Experiences to Strengthen Health and Self-Care through Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine, was hosted by EsSalud, the government agency responsible for social security and health care in Peru.The event brought together representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), WHO collaborating centres, the health sector and academia. It presented regional perspectives from BrBolivia, Brazil, Mexico and Peru to explore how self-care and traditional medicine can strengthen public health, empower communities and support more inclusive models of care. Across all four countries, a clear message emerged: traditional medicine is not being positioned as an alternative to formal systems, but as a way to strengthen them. In the Americas region, the challenge is to consolidate intercultural and holistic care, with the aim of strengthening the healthcare system – making care more preventive, culturally relevant and community-based.Peru: institutionalizing complementary care over 28 years Dr Martha Villar López from EsSalud Peru demonstrated how integration can be institutionalized over time. With nearly three decades of investment, including a research programme dating back to 1998, traditional medicine is now embedded within public health infrastructure. EsSalud’s flagship programme, Reforma de Vida, operating as Prevenir, takes multidisciplinary teams into workplaces to reduce and detect risk factors for chronic noncommunicable diseases. Education cycles are structured around three pillars: celestial nourishment, focused on life purpose and movement; terrestrial nourishment, centred on regional food and healthy diets; and human nourishment, addressing identity, relationships, stress and spirituality. Grounded in Andean cosmovision and the principle of the ayllu, the programme aligns with local cultural values. Since 2007, it has trained over 6600 health leaders, certified more than 3100 health-friendly organizations and built alliances with nearly 11 000 employers.Bolivia: legal recognition and medical pluralism Adelino Pau Carpacheco, an 82-year-old Callawaya healer, described working with more than 220 medicinal plants, supported by deep generational knowledge. Traditional healers and plant medicine are highly respected in the country. Bolivia’s contribution also highlighted the role of policy in enabling integration. Through Law 459, traditional medicine has been formally recognized within a legal framework and led the country to medical pluralism where traditional medicine coexists with biomedicine, and both are now offered free of charge through the public health system. Mexico: preserving Indigenous knowledge and reinventing food culture Mexico presented two complementary approaches focused on knowledge preservation and food systems. In Veracruz, communities partnered with a university to safeguard Totonac traditional medicine through a diploma programme launched in 2019. This collaboration has already produced practical outputs, including manuals and a dictionary, helping to sustain knowledge at risk due to migration and generational change. Alongside this, Dr Hernán García, Directorate of Traditional Medicine and Intercultural Development – Mexico, explained how the Dieta de la Milpa programme addresses Mexico’s dual burden of malnutrition and rising noncommunicable diseases. Rooted in traditional Mayan cultivation systems and ingredients, it promotes healthier diets through community-led, intercultural approaches involving local authorities, Indigenous leaders and cooks. By reconnecting food, culture and health, it offers a practical pathway to prevention. Brazil: community therapy as a public health tool Brazil’s experience centred on Integrative Community Therapy, a methodology developed over 40 years ago by Dr Adalberto Barreto and now used in more than 47 countries. Therapy circles create spaces where participants share experiences and coping strategies, building social support networks at very low cost. Within Brazil’s Unified Health System, the approach has expanded rapidly since its inclusion in national policy in 2017. By 2025, more than five million integrative practice procedures were delivered annually in primary care, with registrations for this therapy increasing by over 500% in eight years. The main challenge now is equity, with access still concentrated in urban areas such as São Paulo. A shared regional direction against a global backdrop Drawing these experiences together, Dr Natalia Aldana of the TCIM Network of the Americas highlighted the shared outcomes of the interventions discussed. Such approaches strengthen healthy behaviours, social networks and community resilience; they are low-cost, adaptable and enable active participation in care, while showing potential to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases.The regional momentum mirrors a broader global shift. Dr João Paulo Souz, Director of BIREME (Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information), the specialized center of PAHO/WHO, emphasized that the Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 promotes a vision centred on people, evidence and integrated use. He noted that health should be understood through the relationships between people, community, nature and spirituality. Self-care interventions as a critical pathway towards universal health coverage Dr Manjulaa Narasimhan, Unit Head for Sexual Health and Well-being across the Life-course at WHO, delivered a presentation titled Advancing Self-Care in Traditional Medicine: Aligning the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 with the WHO Self-Care Framework, co-authored by Dr Geetha Krishnan Gopalakrishna Pillai, Unit Head for Research, Data and Innovation at the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre. WHO recommends self-care interventions for every country and economic setting as a critical path to reach universal health coverage – and traditional medicine acts as a bridge for self-care. Dr Narasimhan explained that traditional medicine contributes most effectively to self-care when embedded directly into primary health care, not operating in parallel, siloed systems. This, she stated, “is possibly the only sustainable way to deliver continuity of care that meets the needs, rights and priorities of communities and individuals”. The Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 is a move towards a more people-centred approach to health care that champions holistic approaches to health equity and patient autonomy.The integration of traditional medicine and self-care requires collaboration across disciplines, clear referral pathways, trained health and care workers, and strong leadership that supports integration. The WHO self-care competency framework defines 10 key competencies for health and care workers to support self-care in their clinical practice, supported by the WHO guideline on self-care interventions for health and well-being. These documents help health-care workers safeguard their own well-being and ensure that care is consistent, safe and grounded in shared standards and values.Together, the discussion through this dialogue points to a fundamental shift in how health systems are designed in the region, and globally, towards models that are more inclusive, culturally-grounded and responsive to the needs of the communities they serve. It is a move towards a system where traditional medicine is respected and responsibly integrated, where self-care provides empowerment and evidence-based care, and where health systems are supportive rather than being distant from these systems.Traditional medicine perspectives from Bolivia, Mexico and Peru - WHO's "Restoring Balance" seriesInnovative Experiences to Strengthen Health and Self-Care through Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine was streamed in Spanish, with Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. Recordings are available through the CABSIN YouTube channel with Portuguese subtitles and on the BVS MTCI Americas YouTube channel with Spanish subtitles. Dr Narasimhan’s session can be watched in English on both channels.

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May 24 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • who.int
Fujitsu develops self-evolving multi-AI agent technology that learns and adapts to business operations

Fujitsu Limited today announced the development of a self-evolving multi-AI agent technology that enables multiple AI agents to perform tasks as a team, continuously and safely learning from daily execution results, human feedback, policy revisions, and specification changes.

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May 24 • 8:00 PM EDT • Business • global.fujitsu
Why Trump Lost to Iran

The president failed to deliver on his Iran bluster, and in the end fooled only himself.

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May 24 • 10:45 AM EDT • Politics • theatlantic.com
Spencer Pratt isn't running on MAGA. He's running on frustration.

Pratt is gaining ground because he hasn't presented himself as a traditional establishment Republican. Instead, he's targeting a very specific voter.

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May 24 • 4:01 AM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com
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Diamondbacks 5, Rockies 4: Good Enough!

It might not have been pretty, but winning is itself a beautiful thing

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May 24 • 3:01 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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5 science-backed ways parents can build a child’s confidence

Confidence is not something children magically “have” or “do not have.” It is built in small, repeatable moments: when a child is heard without being dismissed, encouraged without being overpraised, and guided without being controlled. Research-backed parenting practices point to a simple truth: children tend to feel more secure, capable, and resilient when home is predictable, warm, and emotionally steady. They also grow stronger when adults make room for effort, autonomy, movement, sleep, and good nutrition, because these basics shape learning, mood, and self-regulation. Here are five science-backed ways parents can help build lasting confidence in children.

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May 24 • 1:15 AM EDT • Science • timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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Better Business Bureau: Protect yourself from deepfake scams

Artificial intelligence is changing the way businesses and consumers interact every day.

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May 23 • 12:00 PM EDT • Business • timesfreepress.com
OpenClaw passed 300,000 GitHub stars. Then Google launched Spark.

Google's Gemini Spark launches as a 24/7 cloud agent, splitting AI agents between managed convenience and OpenClaw's self-hosted control.

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May 23 • 11:30 AM EDT • Technology • thenewstack.io
F1 Canadian GP LIVE: Sprint, Qualifying updates, results, stream, highlights, video from Montreal race weekend

Follow live updates and watch the best video from Saturday at the Canadian Grand Prix Sprint weekend with the Sprint itself and Qualifying. Watch live on Sky Sports F1

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May 23 • 11:17 AM EDT • Sports • skysports.com
Jason Voorhees Is Coming to ‘Dead by Daylight’! [Trailer]

The wish for the addition of Jason Voorhees to Behaviour Interactive’s asymmetrical horror hit Dead by Daylight is finally being granted. With Dead by Daylight celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year, what better way to celebrate than to finally land the big guy himself?! Jason’s impending arrival in The Fog was revealed as part of […]

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May 23 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • bloody-disgusting.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.

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May 23 • 7:57 AM EDT • Politics • msmagazine.com
OpenAI hires in preparation for AI that could train itself

OpenAI and Sam Altman aim to automate AI research. They are now hiring for a role to prepare the company for self-training AI.

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May 23 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO filing just told us what business he’s betting on for the future—and it’s not rockets

Elon Musk's creation has essentially re-invented itself from a commercial space pioneer facing little competition, to an AI-centric player battling all the hyperscalers.

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May 23 • 4:00 AM EDT • Business • fortune.com
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Memphis business owner seeks support after food truck set ablaze

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis business owner is looking for ways to support himself after he lost his food truck to a fire, which police say was purposefully set. “Not able to feed the com…

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May 22 • 3:37 PM EDT • Business • wreg.com
Memphis business owner seeks support after food truck set ablaze

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis business owner is looking for ways to support himself after he lost his food truck to a fire, which police say was purposefully set. “Not able to feed the community, that’s ...

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May 22 • 3:37 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com
Rapid rise of "Cockroach Janta Party" online protest movement appears to spook India's leaders

The satirical "Cockroach Janta Party" calls itself a "political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth." India's government may be trying to squash it.

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May 22 • 12:47 PM EDT • Politics • cbsnews.com
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How crime is forcing this Washington business owner to bathe himself with a bucket
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May 22 • 10:28 AM EDT • Business • yahoo.com
The Democrats’ Autopsy Isn’t Helpful. New Ideas Are

At long last, and after much scrutiny, the Democratic National Committee’s audit of the 2024 election cycle is out. And so are the knives. The nearly 200-page report landed with a thud, angering the party faithful just five months before an election that demands Democrats play error-free ball. While the DNC has oddly distanced itself from its own report, which hardly seems that revelatory or controversial, actual Democrats already seemed to be implementing some of the lessons.

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May 22 • 8:30 AM EDT • Politics • bloomberg.com
World Health Assembly endorses resolution on precision medicine

At the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly, Member States endorsed a new resolution on Precision medicine: a path towards targeted, personalized and equitable care, taking an important step towards advancing precision medicine as part of efforts to strengthen equitable, effective and sustainable health systems. Precision medicine refers to the use of clinical, molecular, genomic and other health data to inform prevention, diagnosis and treatment, taking into account variability while applying appropriate ethical and legal safeguards. When integrated responsibly into health systems, precision approaches can improve outcomes across different disease areas and across the life course – from cancer and rare diseases to infectious diseases, maternal, newborn and child health, mental health and noncommunicable diseases. The resolution reflects rapid advances in genomics, diagnostics, data science and digital health, alongside widening global inequities in access to these innovations. Many populations – particularly in low- and middle-income countries – remain underrepresented in data and research, limiting the public health impact of precision medicine and risking the widening of health disparities if action is not taken now. "Precision medicine is not an aspirational idea for health delivery in the future – it is already transforming lives across the world. But its benefits remain out of reach for too many and the research driving progress is concentrated in high income countries. This WHA resolution gives global health leaders, ministries of health, and WHO a clear mandate: to act. From infant screening to setting up genomic databases WHO will work with countries to bring about the power of these innovations." Dr Meg Doherty, Director Science for HealthThrough the resolution, Member States commit to developing and strengthening national policies, infrastructure, workforce capacity and governance frameworks to support the safe, ethical and equitable integration of precision medicine into health systems, aligned with universal health coverage. This includes promoting affordability, ensuring inclusive research and data systems, strengthening regulation and data governance, and fostering collaboration across sectors and regions.WHO is requested to provide technical and normative support, review and coordinate existing guidance, facilitate global and regional collaboration, and develop a Global Strategy on Precision Medicine to guide equitable and context‑appropriate implementation. WHO stands ready to support Member States through tools such as a country maturity model for countries to self-assess capacity in implementing precision medicine depending on their context. In the immediate term WHO will map all existing guidance and frameworks and host extensive consultations with interest holders globally.By placing equity, inclusion and public value at the centre of precision medicine, the resolution reinforces WHO’s commitment to ensuring that scientific advances benefit all people, everywhere, and that no one is left behind in the next era of health innovation."By uniting people-centered healthcare with innovation, precision medicine has the potential to transform lives. This resolution helps ensure those advances serve the shared goal of health for all." Dr Sylvie Briand, Chief Scientist For further information please visit the Health Topic: Genomics

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May 22 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • who.int
Arsenal's Mikel Merino opens up on injury: 'I had two options, to cry myself to extinction or keep my head up'

The Spanish midfielder is set to return to training ahead of Arsenal's Premier League finale and next week's massive Champions League clash with PSG

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May 22 • 7:01 AM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com
Stowaway Fox Gets Clean Bill of Health and a Name: Basil (Like ‘Dazzle’)

He made his way to New York on a ship from England and then found himself stuck in quarantine at the Bronx Zoo for months.

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May 22 • 1:40 AM EDT • Health • nytimes.com
5 Takeaways From the Democrats’ Autopsy of Kamala Harris’s 2024 Loss

A draft report released by the Democratic National Committee argued that Ms. Harris did not sufficiently separate herself from President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

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May 21 • 2:01 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
I Cloned Myself With Gemini’s AI Avatar Tool. The Result Was Unnervingly Me

I used the Gemini app to generate lifelike videos featuring a digital clone of myself. Google sees this as the future of creation. I’m still creeped out.

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May 21 • 11:48 AM EDT • Technology • wired.com
Is Cam Ward set up to fail? Can Jaxson Dart protect himself? Biggest Year 2 questions for top 2025 draft picks

From Ward's supporting cast to Dart's style of play, these second-year players could shape the NFL landscape in 2026

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May 21 • 11:34 AM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com
Mercer Health awarded Acute Stroke Ready Certification from The Joint Commission

Mercer Health has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® and the American Stroke Association’s Heart-Check mark for Acute Stroke Ready Certification. Mercer Health underwent a rigorous onsite review on February 6, 2026. During the visit, a team of Joint Commission reviewers evaluated compliance with related certification standards including program management and supporting self-management. […]

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May 21 • 11:31 AM EDT • Health • mercer-health.com
One Nation says it’s the only party in Australia to question climate science. It should ask itself why

Climate change denial has become untenable yet Hanson’s party digs in – with conspiracy theories, cherrypicking and claims that are easy to refute

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May 21 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • theguardian.com
Bonus 228: The $1.776B Political Question

Every so often a story comes along that is so brazen, so cleanly emblematic of the moment we are living through, that staying quiet about it feels like a kind of complicity unto itself. Monday’s announcement by the Department of Justice that the Acting Attorney General has unilaterally created a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate so-called “victims of lawfare” is one of those stories. And the reason I want to write about it here, in a newsletter ostensibly devoted to the Supreme Court and the law and politics surrounding it, is that I’m increasingly worried that we’re asking the wrong institution to save us from one of the most offensive, alarming, and anti-constitutional things we’ve seen from any president in American history. As I explain below the fold, the Anti-Weaponization Fund is not principally a legal problem awaiting a judicial fix. It is a shockingly egregious political abuse—the President suing his own government, purporting to settle with himself, and routing nearly $2 billion from the Treasury to his own supporters as a not-so-subtle (and not-so-formal) reward, if not an incentive, for political violence. And the Constitution’s answer to political abuses of this kind and magnitude is a political remedy, not a legal one. In his majority opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius (the Affordable Care Act case from 2012), Chief Justice Roberts defended the Court’s endorsement of Congress’s power to adopt the individual mandate by noting that it is “not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” As much of a judicial supremacist as I am, that sentiment is, for better or worse, an entirely correct (and, in the long term, normatively desirable) institutional assessment. One can believe in substantial judicial power without believing that literally every political dispute in our country can and should be resolved by unelected judges. The real upshot of this latest headline (among so, so many other similar headlines) is that it is past time to reinvigorate impeachment—not because conviction is realistic in this Senate, or even because impeachment itself is feasible in this House, but because forcing every member of Congress to vote on the record whether this brazen, corrosive, and affirmatively dangerous corruption is impeachable is itself a point worth fighting for (and fighting with our friends over). Assuming the courts will save us absolves our political leaders of both responsibility and accountability for allowing this kind of mischief to continue, and it absolves all of us of our responsibility to refuse to tolerate those who would just as quickly shrug their shoulders and move on. For those who aren’t paid subscribers, we’ll be back (no later than) Monday with our continuing coverage of the Supreme Court. For those who are, please read on.

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May 21 • 7:17 AM EDT • Politics • stevevladeck.com
Subnautica 2 dev apologises for telling combat-seeking players to "go play Sons of the Forest or something"

A desire for self-defence in the underwater survival game comes from some mechanics not working well enough yet, Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds explains.

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May 21 • 5:36 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net
Ruben Östlund Shoots New Scene of 'The Entertainment System Is Down'

The two-time Palme d'Or winner, who ruled himself out of this year's Cannes race, makes a festival pit stop to launch MyList, a film recommendation site he's launched in Sweden.

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May 21 • 3:36 AM EDT • Entertainment • hollywoodreporter.com
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Texas nursing board suspends Camp Mystic chief health officer's license over alleged flood response failures

The Texas Board of Nursing alleges Mary Liz Eastland, the Chief Health Officer, evacuated herself and her children from the camp and never called emergency services.

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May 20 • 11:17 PM EDT • Health • khou.com
Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences becomes India's first HIMSS AMAM Stage 6 hospital

The organisation says analytics and AI became essential to balancing affordability, efficiency, and clinical outcomes in India's predominantly self-pay healthcare environment.

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May 20 • 9:23 PM EDT • Health • healthcareitnews.com
AMD says its $4K Ryzen AI Halo workstation practically pays for itself

AMD says its $4K Ryzen AI Halo workstation practically pays for itself

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May 20 • 8:00 PM EDT • Technology • theregister.com
MIT scientists discover amino acid that helps the gut heal itself

MIT scientists have identified cysteine — an amino acid found in foods like meat, dairy, beans, and nuts — as a potent trigger for intestinal repair. In mice, a cysteine-rich diet activated immune cells that released healing signals, helping stem cells rebuild damaged intestinal tissue after radiation exposure. Researchers say the discovery could eventually lead to new dietary therapies for cancer patients suffering from treatment-related gut damage.

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May 20 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
SMART update: Self-expanding TAVR valves still linked to superior durability after 3 years

These three-year data represent a major update to one of the more noteworthy TAVR trials in recent memory.

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May 20 • 5:02 PM EDT • Business • cardiovascularbusiness.com
Cornell CAT convenes researchers, industry to accelerate life sciences innovation

At a daylong event designed to promote academic-industry collaboration, Cornell’s Center for Advanced Technology in Life Science Enterprise cast itself as both a funder of early-stage research and catalyst accelerating connections that move discoveries foward.

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May 20 • 10:15 AM EDT • Science • news.cornell.edu
Hollywood’s new political agenda: Save Hollywood

Long a force in presidential politics, the industry is entering the midterms with a more urgent and self-interested agenda.

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May 20 • 8:55 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com
Big Ten explores self-governance as College Sports Commission sputters, Congress action stalls

As frustration grows with stalled federal action and a shaky NIL enforcement system, Big Ten leaders are exploring a future where the conference sets and polices its own rules

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May 19 • 11:17 PM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com
Series Preview: 3 Biggest Challenges Golden Knights Face Against Avalanche

It’s been a self-proclaimed trying year for the Vegas Golden Knights, and they’d love nothing more than to cap it off with a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals. The only thing standing in their way… is the President’s Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.

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May 19 • 9:01 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
In Texas, Trump made one of his dumbest political decisions ever

Trump’s decision on Tuesday to endorse Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge against Republican Senator John Cornyn couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Republican Party, or possibly even for Trump himself.

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May 19 • 2:34 PM EDT • Politics • bostonglobe.com
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Trump endorses Paxton in Texas Republican primary, boosting effort to oust Sen. Cornyn

Although the four-term Cornyn has backed Trump’s agenda in Washington, Paxton pitched himself as a political warrior for the MAGA movement.

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May 19 • 1:12 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
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Oronde Gadsden II is the Chargers’ best-kept secret

I think I can, without a doubt, say that second-year tight end Oronde Gadsden II is one of the most exciting Chargers fans are looking forward to watching in 2026 after a great rookie season. He became a dangerous weapon for Justin Herbert once he cemented himself in the team’s starting lineup and will once […]

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May 19 • 12:13 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Self-censorship, more stress, tougher recruiting – we asked US researchers how the Trump administration’s science policies have affected them

What do US researchers make of all the Trump administration science-related policy changes? A survey of 280 academic scientists asked them.

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May 19 • 8:23 AM EDT • Science • theconversation.com
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The UAE’s economy and image as Mideast haven are tested by war

The United Arab Emirates for decades advertised itself as a haven for business in the Middle East.

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May 19 • 2:07 AM EDT • Business • seattletimes.com
Dallas Wings respond to coach's public criticism with blowout win over Mystics

The Dallas Wings responded to coach Jose Fernandez's 'selfishness' call-out with a dominant win over the Mystics.

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May 19 • 12:35 AM EDT • Sports • usatoday.com
Video: Opinion | The End of Reality TV Politics

Reality TV politics is coming to an end because, Sarah Isgur argues, reality TV itself is dying. On “The Opinions,” she explains why she believes voters are now gravitating toward more optimistic, Ted Lasso-style candidates instead.

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May 18 • 5:20 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
'It's kind of a no-brainer': Why pop band MUNA is tackling politics on album 'Dancing on the Wall'

“Dancing on the Wall” is a departure from MUNA’s previous work, trading the sunshine-y pop instrumentals, country influences and sweeping ballads of their self-titled album for gritty, atmospheric tracks influenced by 1990s punk and rave scenes.

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May 18 • 12:05 PM EDT • Politics • wunc.org
Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff | 97.3 The Sky

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May 18 • 10:10 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff | WWJ Newsradio 950

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May 18 • 10:10 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff | News-Talk 1380 WAOK

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May 18 • 10:10 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
The Subnautica 2 fish self-defence debate rages on, as the game’s non-violent themes clash with player desire to fend off underwater threats

Unknown Worlds has stayed true to its oceanic pacifism themes, while the realities of living with dangerous animals has some players frustrated.

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May 18 • 7:17 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net
Brian Kemp passed on a Georgia Senate run. Then he threw himself in the middle of the GOP primary

Brian Kemp may not be running for US Senate — but the Georgia governor is campaigning like his name is on the ballot.

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May 18 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Carrick made himself the 'only candidate'

BBC Senior football correspondent Sami Mokbel says Michael Carrick's impact and record as interim Manchester United boss made him the "only candidate" to be given the permanent role. United secured their 11th victory in 16 games under Carrick against Nottingham Forest on Sunday and his appointment on a two-year deal, with a one-year extension, is expected from the club imminently. "Carrick has taken that job in his stride so impressively," Mokbel told BBC Radio 5 Live's Football Daily podcast.

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May 18 • 5:03 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Country music star cancels tour: ‘I need to be honest with myself’

The 39-year-old shared the news on social media.

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May 18 • 5:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • lehighvalleylive.com
Europe is paying to make itself sick – and the health bill proves it

Europe spends billions on fossil fuel subsidies while facing huge healthcare costs. Leaders must prioritize people and environmental sustainability.

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May 18 • 3:00 AM EDT • Health • weforum.org
Selfish Salah should be dropped from Anfield finale

Mohamed Salah should be dropped from Liverpool's season finale for 'selfish' criticism of Liverpool, says Wayne Rooney.

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May 18 • 1:11 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
“Un-African” or Unjust? The Politics of Homophobia in Senegal

In recent months, Senegal has found itself at the center of growing debates over LGBTQ rights as rising homophobia and stricter laws reshape the nation’s social and legal landscape. Building on past legislation, a 2026 bill to increase penalties for queer individuals has been met with strong public

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May 18 • 1:00 AM EDT • Politics • irreview.org
Pete Davidson's ex Elsie Hewitt says she's 'exhausted' from parenting on her own after couple split

Pete Davidson's ex Elsie Hewitt, the mother of his daughter, defended herself as a solo parent following criticism of her appearance after their split: 'I'm doing it on my own.'

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May 17 • 1:08 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
Commentary: Spirit of small business is alive in their stories

As I think about National Small Business Week, I find myself reflecting not only on the awards presented but also on the people behind them — the entrepreneurs whose journeys remind us why this...

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May 17 • 12:36 PM EDT • Business • myrgv.com
Rory McIlroy Accused Of 'Selfish' Behavior At The PGA Championship

Rory McIlroy is showing everyone who he is at the PGA Championship. That's what some longtime critics think, anyway. While McIlroy has won back-to-back Masters championships, he hasn't been happy with the setup or the conditions at the PGA Championship. And he's been speaking out in a big way at ...

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May 17 • 11:16 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Pete Crow-Armstrong's self criticism stood out after Cubs defeat

Pete Crow-Armstrong did not celebrate his late homer after the Cubs' loss, instead dissecting the mistakes he made against Davis Martin.

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May 17 • 11:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Scientists reveal the sweet spot for sleep, if you get less — or more — you're aging yourself faster
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May 17 • 10:22 AM EDT • Health • nypost.com
My 8-year-old calls his friends to make playdates himself

My son arranges his own playdates by phone, and watching him do it has changed how I think about independence.

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May 17 • 10:10 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Tomoyuki Sugano notches his 150th career win

The Japanese ace finds himself adjusting to pitching at elevation.

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May 17 • 9:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
A nurse was sued for $55K in student loans; how she's navigating it

A student-loan borrower who was sued by Sallie Mae is representing herself in court. What started as a "glitch" spiraled into a confusing legal maze.

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May 17 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Pols & Politics: Mike Minogue rule? State lawmaker seeks to ban self-funded campaigns

As budget week kicks off on Beacon Hill, state Sen. Rebecca Rausch has filed a budget amendment that would strike out a provision allowing political candidates to self-fund their campaigns.

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May 17 • 4:25 AM EDT • Politics • bostonherald.com
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What Your Brain Is Actually Doing While You Doomscroll, According to Science

If you find yourself endlessly scrolling as you maneuver through the various landmines intent on detonating your attention span, it could mean that you have some kind of digital addiction problem. But it could also mean your mental focus is so strong that you’ve quietly figured out how to treat social media like an external […]

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May 17 • 2:30 AM EDT • Science • vice.com
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The ungovernable country? Why Britain keeps losing prime ministers

May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, and now perhaps Starmer: each one was brought low for a reason. But what if the deeper problem is the office itself?

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May 17 • 1:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com
St. Johns County seventh grader helping grow girls hockey in Northeast Florida after championship success

While hockey continues to grow in the Sunshine State, one young player from St. Johns County is already making a name for herself on the ice. At just 12 years old, Rory Mayer is piling up championships and helping lead the next generation of girls hockey in Jacksonville.

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May 16 • 8:18 PM EDT • Sports • news4jax.com
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Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success

At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)

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May 16 • 6:41 PM EDT • Politics • energymixweekender.substack.com
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'Top Gun' creators say Tom Cruise 'barfed on himself' during jet ride that sold him on doing the movie

'Top Gun' co-writer Jack Epps says Tom Cruise 'barfed on himself' when the Blue Angels took him on a gnarly jet ride to convince him to do the movie: 'They shook him around.'

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May 16 • 4:28 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
Kyle Schwarber joins Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire in MLB history

The Phillies' slugger continues to etch his place in the history books as he finds himself in the company of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire.

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May 16 • 1:57 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
I used to email myself everything — these 5 Google Drive features fixed that

Drive features that fixed my messy workflow

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May 16 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com
Perseverance Checks In From Mars With A Selfie, The Mounting Pollution From Satellite Launches, And More Science Stories

This week’s science news.

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May 16 • 12:00 PM EDT • Science • engadget.com
A hospital worker felt healthy. Then he had 3 heart attacks in 4 days: "What have I done to myself?"

Tommy Bell thought he was in good shape. But a series of heart attacks painted a more complicated picture.

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May 16 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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A North Carolina farmer is testing whether Democrats can still win rural America

In North Carolina, Jamie Ager is distancing himself from his national party to win a congressional seat.

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May 16 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com
Did You Mean to Share That Selfie? What to Know About Instagram Instants.

Instagram’s new feature blasts photos to your mutual followers or close friends, immediately.

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May 16 • 5:01 AM EDT • Technology • nytimes.com
Scientists say just 30 minutes of exercise a week could transform your health

You may not need hours at the gym to boost your health after all. Researchers say just 30 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week — broken into tiny bursts of effort that leave you out of breath — can dramatically improve cardiovascular fitness, lower the risk of dozens of diseases, and even help protect the brain as we age. The key isn’t how long you exercise, but how hard you push yourself.

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May 15 • 7:52 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Lemonade Day offers children chance to learn business skills and money management

Children will sell lemonade and other self-made items around Dickinson County

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May 15 • 5:15 PM EDT • Business • uppermichiganssource.com
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General Catalyst posted VC rage bait and it worked, especially on a16z

Compulsive X user Andreessen himself couldn't resist responding, many, many times.

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May 15 • 4:25 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com
Andrew Abbott leaned into some science to get his season back on track

Andrew Abbott locked in on the stick-figure graphic of himself. The world of biomechanics is very advanced. But with Abbott going through the worst rut of his big league career, he opened up to some new ideas to get himself back on track. He asked for some help, and he leaned into some sports science. He said the stick figures made it clear, and he credits biomechanics for helping him get his season back on track. Over his last three starts, he has allowed two total runs in 17 ⅔ innings. “There’s a photo of (me) last year and the year before on a graph, and this year is in a different color,” Abbott said. “You see where you are in comparison to that. Where the hands are at this moment, where your feet are, where the knee is, where your head is at, where your shoulders are at, it breaks it all down if you want it.” When Abbott saw his mechanics in this objective way, he recognized exactly what had been going wrong. “When my tempo, my feet and my hands are aligned, then normally my mechanics are sound,” Abbott said. “And when my mechanics are sound, my stuff behaves normally. The fastball is jumpy. I’m up in velo. My extension is better.” Abbott said that he started diving more into his biomechanics in the middle of April. The Reds have a biomechanics team, which works closely with pitching coach Derek Johnson and hitting coach Chris Valaika. Leading the group is biomecahnics manager Franky Mulloy. “I laugh every day,” Francona said. “When Franky starts talking, I start laughing. I remind him to know his audience.” Francona isn’t a scientist. The Reds’ manager jokes about his own comprehension of the data. But it’s easy for him to recognize the value that the biomechanics team is providing. “That’s why we got them,” Francona said. Abbott said that he had his first big biomechanics-oriented meeting in the middle of April. Behind the scenes, there was already a lot of communication going on within the Reds’ staff. “Franky calculates all the things, builds it into these graphs, and DJ gets them,” Abbott said. “They have their internal communication. Then, we go to them and ask what about this or that. The main thing for me is arm angle.” The data shows Abbott how his arm angle evolves from start to start. He hasn’t meant to change it. But just like all of us, our posture might be different from one day to the next. Pitchers’ arm angles can make minor shifts without the pitcher or even coaches noticing. But the data can’t miss a change like that. Abbott recognized that his arm angle had been moving around without him noticing. Now, he checks in with the data to make sure that his mechanics are in sync. “They get into these cool looking graphs,” Abbott said. “I can’t really describe them. I don’t know what they are. But for me, it’s a photo of a stick figure of myself.” The stick figure of his current positioning is superimposed over previous versions of himself. With that format, Abbott can compare his mechanics on any given day to what they were when he was pitching at his very best. “It was very noticeable from the moment I saw this year as black compared to two years ago and last year, it was very, very different,” Abbott said. “I could see with my eyes without having to ask any questions about the difference in the photos.” For any pitcher, there are a lot of moving pieces in your delivery. For Abbott to be the best version of himself, he needs his head, his arm, his hand, his knee and his feet to be on the right “tempo.” “Tempo is a word I’ve used a lot,” Abbott said. “Getting everything in certain areas working together.” He has been much better at that recently. The data backs that up, and so does Abbott’s ERA. The biomechanics data has also given the Reds’ staff and Abbott some better ideas for some training that he can do between starts. He has added drills to shore up areas of his body that Abbott needed to make stronger. “They make a plan based off what they see,” Abbott said. “If things start changing, we know what to revert back to.” Overall, Abbott says that he’s not a very analytical guy. There’s so much information out there, and he says that it’s important for him to not get too analytical when he breaks down his specific pitches. He has learned the value of being “analytical about mechanics.” And the way that the Reds presented that information to him made it easier for him to make the right adjustments without being overloaded by information. “It was a very simple fix,” Abbott said. “It took a long time to finally get there, feel the results and see it. But for the most part, it was very simple to apply it.”

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May 15 • 8:29 AM EDT • Science • charlieschalkboard.substack.com
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Trump and top CEOs leave a more self-reliant China with few deals to show for it

Before leaving a two-day summit in Beijing, President Donald Trump said he had made many trade deals with China, accompanied by a cohort of “brilliant” tech billionaires.

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May 15 • 8:15 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com
Self-funding and special interests: How money shapes California’s political campaigns

The 2026 governor’s race has been marked by major financial backing, either from candidates themselves or a variety of special interests.

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May 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • capradio.org
America's most powerful CEOs don't have much to show from their China trip so far

With red-carpet treatment, selfies and culinary diplomacy, America's richest and most powerful executives - from Tesla's ​Elon Musk to Nvidia's Jensen Huang - sought to rekindle business ties with China this week at a leadership summit in Beijing.

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May 15 • 5:57 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com
Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.

Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe

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May 15 • 3:04 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com
How old do you look? Try this AI tool from Boston researchers

Could a selfie reveal clues about your health and life expectancy? A new AI tool developed by Boston researchers is using facial images to estimate biological age — and NewsCenter 5’s Jessica Brown tested it herself.

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May 14 • 10:14 PM EDT • Health • wcvb.com