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[Interview] [Galaxy Unpacked July 2026] Inside the Design Behind the Latest Galaxy Z Series and Galaxy Watch

On July 22 at Galaxy Unpacked July 2026, Samsung Electronics introduced Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8, Galaxy Z Flip8, Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Galaxy

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Aug 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • news.samsung.com
Galaxy Z Flip 8 Review: I Adore the Thin Look, but Not the Price

Review: Samsung’s $1,200 Galaxy Z Flip 8 is the company’s most refined flip-style phone yet. But the higher price doesn't come with an improved battery or better cameras.

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Aug 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • cnet.com
Producing Health: Capability, Capacity, and Competitive Discovery in the Health Economy

Health is not the same as healthcare; healthcare is not the same as health insurance. The endpoint is health.

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Aug 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • aspe.hhs.gov
Galaxy S27 Ultra is already cooking, and I know what software Samsung is testing it with right now

Galaxy S27 Ultra news has been making headlines in the past couple of weeks, and the latest leak details one key component — the software.

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Aug 3 • 6:37 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com
Senate Republicans see Trump as a growing political liability

Senate Republicans say they see President Trump as a growing political liability as they try to hang on to control of the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections, citing the president’s repeated…

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Aug 3 • 6:18 AM EDT • Politics • thehill.com
5 smartwatches you should buy instead of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9

Samsung raised the price on the Galaxy Watch 9, and the upgrades aren't that big. Here are 5 alternatives that demand your attention.

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Aug 3 • 5:30 AM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com
I couldn't advertise vibrators on the subway. So I sued.

I founded Dame, a vibrator and sexual wellness company, to improve women's health. But I had to fight to be treated the same as ED pill makers.

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Aug 3 • 5:02 AM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra gets a new 200MP camera feature

Samsung made its foldables a little more Ultra-like last year by equipping the Galaxy Z Fold 7 with a 200MP camera sensor. This year, the company has not introd

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Aug 2 • 2:25 PM EDT • Technology • sammobile.com
Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra: Weird camera designs and higher prices tipped

We’re halfway between the Galaxy S26 launch and the next big Galaxy Unpacked event and the rumors surrounding the Galaxy S27 series expected in January or February 2027 are starting to heat up. For the first time, four Galaxy S27 phones are set to hit the market at the same time, the top-of-the-line Galaxy S27 Ultra might not only get more expensive, it may also feature a weird camera design if you ask the wrong people.

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Aug 2 • 1:28 PM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net
Juliette Lewis apologized to audience after ‘Cape Fear’ screening: ‘It was so disturbing’

Juliette Lewis is reflecting on acting in the 1991 ‘Cape Fear’ movie and making a surprise appearance on Apple TV’s new series of the same name: ‘It was a real trip trying to keep this type of secret.’

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Aug 2 • 12:01 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
I replaced Spotify and YouTube Music with this underrated Samsung app; now I can't go back

My offline music library feels complete

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Aug 2 • 11:15 AM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com
Scientists Tested 17 Human Artery Samples – And Found Microplastics in Every Single One

There's no avoiding microplastics.

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Aug 2 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • yahoo.com
Scientists Tested 17 Human Artery Samples – And Found Microplastics in Every Single One

There's no avoiding microplastics.

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Aug 2 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com
Samsung has a new AI-powered health assistant, joining a packed market

This marks Samsung's foray into an increasingly crowded space. Whoop has an AI coach built into its platform, as does the new Fitbit Air from Google.

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Aug 2 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • seattletimes.com
Sporting Jax stumbles against Sacramento, second-generation striker

Tyler Wolff's father once scored a hat trick against a Jacksonville pro soccer team. On Saturday, he did the same against Sporting Jax.

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Aug 2 • 8:42 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
I almost downloaded another app until I found this Samsung Camera feature

It's not perfect, and that's the point

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Aug 2 • 8:15 AM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com
Foldables are sort of boring now — and that’s great news for Apple

Folding screens are no longer novel, but they’re finally good enough for an iPhone.

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Aug 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Newsom and Trump agree on one way to address AI's impact

Gov. Gavin Newsom, President Donald Trump, Sen. Bernie Sanders, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and others are uniting around the idea of “universal basic capital.”

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Aug 2 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • sfchronicle.com
5 Of The Best Anker Accessories For Samsung Users

Anker's accessory portfolio for Samsung phones includes wireless charging stands, fast-charging bricks, and even USB-C dongles to connect external devices.

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Aug 2 • 5:47 AM EDT • Technology • bgr.com
Bars, bowling alleys and movie theaters cost too much to run and visit. Americans have run out of places to hang out and we’re paying with our health

Chronic isolation has the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

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Aug 2 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • fortune.com
Samsung One UI 9.5 spotted as Galaxy Z Fold 8 nears retail launch

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, the first Samsung devices to run One UI 9.0 out of the box, will hit retail shelves soon. Meanwhile, what appears

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Aug 2 • 3:45 AM EDT • Technology • sammobile.com
49ers’ Deebo Samuel Gets Blunt on Ricky Pearsall’s Injury

On August 1, the San Francisco 49ers announced that Ricky Pearsall’s 2026 NFL season is over before it even began. The Niners put Pearsall on season-ending injured reserve as the wide receiver continues to deal with a posterior cruciate ligament injury in his right knee.Moreover, on July 30, the 49ers decided to welcome back a […] The post 49ers’ Deebo Samuel Gets Blunt on Ricky Pearsall’s Injury appeared first on HEAVY.

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Aug 2 • 2:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
This once-a-week workout may help cut belly fat, study shows

A surprisingly small dose of exercise may deliver major health benefits for adults carrying excess fat around the waist. In a four-month trial involving 315 adults with central obesity, researchers found that completing 75 minutes of brisk interval walking in a single weekly session reduced body fat, trimmed waistlines, and improved cardiovascular fitness about as effectively as splitting the same exercise across three days.

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Aug 2 • 2:24 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Here’s when One UI 9.0 Beta 5 update could release

Official One UI 9.0 will begin rolling out next week, but Samsung plans to release the Galaxy S26 Beta 5 update as well. Internal testing is reportedly underway, and users are expected to welcome the next Beta this August. On July 22, Samsung showcased One UI 9 full experience at the Unpacked event. It comes […]

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Aug 2 • 12:46 AM EDT • Technology • sammyfans.com
Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday, 8/1/26

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, JeremyBloom…

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Aug 2 • 12:00 AM EDT • Science • dailykos.com
Holmgren: Thunder departures part of 'business of this game'

Oklahoma City's Chet Holmgren told reporters on Saturday afternoon that the departures of three contributors to the Thunder's 2025 championship team felt "like losing a family member," but at the same time, "that's how the business of this game goes."

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Aug 1 • 5:10 PM EDT • Business • espn.com
Deals: Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra discounted, Galaxy Z Fold8 series up for pre-order

Pre-order offers on new Galaxy Z foldables and smartwatches include Amazon gift cards. Samsung will begin shipping its recently unveiled Galaxy Z Fold8,...

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Aug 1 • 2:33 PM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com
Adam Schefter: 49ers, Deebo Samuel have been talking for weeks

Adam Schefter says the 49ers and Samuel had been talking for weeks. Pearsall's injury expedited what was already coming.

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Aug 1 • 11:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
This Chinese Electric Sports Car Has Nearly 430 HP and Costs About $34K

Not only does it cost about the same as a four-cylinder Ford Mustang, but it's also claimed to weigh around 3000 pounds.

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Aug 1 • 10:00 AM EDT • Sports • caranddriver.com
Engadget review recap: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Meta Glasses and more

A roundup of recent reviews published by Engadget.

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Aug 1 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com
Science Inquiry Comes Alive for Jacket Middle Schoolers

Snails, sidewalks and Double Stuff Oreos... At Partnership Middle School, instructors are finding innovative ways to help students connect the classroom to what they see in the real world every day. By integrating hands-on experiences and scientific investigations into weekly lessons, 6th and 7th grade science teachers push their classes to explore the curriculum standards through the lens of critical thinking, communication with their peers, experimentation, and scientific inquiry. Last week, two different approaches for two different grade levels saw Jacket teachers ignite the same spark for learning. On Tuesday, 6th graders in Lydia Jones' science class took their lessons outside as they explored the school grounds to identify living and non-living things. Despite the warm temperatures, they engaged in discovering unexpected objects on the campus and connecting that to what they learned in class about the criteria for what qualifies a thing as "living". Ms. Jones tasked students with walking the grounds and listing as many living and non-living things they could find in just a few minutes. Students spotted a fire hydrant, construction vehicles, grass, trees, soccer equipment, rocks, sidewalks, and even a snail hidden in the plants. After they finished the exploration, students returned to the regular classroom to discuss their results and whether their objects were classified correctly. On Thursday, 7th graders in Omini Parks' science class participated in their first lab of the semester as they explored and identified the physical properties of a favorite snack -- Oreos. Ms. Parks identified the class objective before the lab activity began by writing the academic standard on the dry erase board in a declarative statement: "I can collect and evaluate qualitative data to describe substances using physical properties." Students watched a video about how Oreo sandwich cookies are made, and then engaged in a question and answer discussion to give observations on the manufacturing process, review various types of physical properties and their scientific terminology, and talk generally about how the lab inquiry would work. The Q&A ended with a predictable question from students... "Will we be able to eat the Oreos?" The hands-on lab exercise required the 7th grade scientists to observe and record the differences between regular Oreos and the Double Stuff variety based on their physical properties. They followed the instructions in their lab brief to chart a comparison between the two types of cookies by observing properties with their magnifying lenses, measuring the height and diameter of both, and weighing the cookies with and without their filling. The activity let students put their lessons about physical properties into practice with real objects while also practicing vocabulary and writing skills to record their observations and using math skills from the last school year like taking measurements and calculating averages. Of course, they ended the lab by charting the taste of the cookies as well! These types of activities allow students to see the science standards they are learning come to life in the real world and engage with the content in new ways. Beyond that, they serve as a foundation for encouraging and growing scientific inquiry. Later in the school year, students will use the scientific method they are learning to complete science projects that require real research and the ability to explain and answer questions about their process and results. At the school-level competitive Science Fair last year, 41 Partnership students earned a place in the 2026 regional Science Fair held at MSU. From there, 14 advanced to the State Science Fair conducted at Northeast Mississippi Community College in April.

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Aug 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • starkvillesd.com
Sam Altman's ChatGPT prompt helped me finally learn how to vibe code

Sam Altman shared an exact prompt he gave ChatGPT, so I used it too. In hours, I had made a website without writing a single line of code.

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Aug 1 • 4:11 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Steelers CB Asante Samuel Jr. making the most of opportunity with Joey Porter Jr. out

Samuel has been one of stars of the first week of training camp.

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Aug 1 • 4:00 AM EDT • Sports • post-gazette.com
Kevin Gausman Met With Blue Jays About Chemistry Comments

Toronto Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman met with the team to discuss recent comments he made about the team lacking chemistry this season.Gausman recently opened eyes when he said in an interview with the Toronto Star that he didn’t believe that the 2026 Blue Jays had the same team chemistry that the 2025 Blue Jays […] The post Kevin Gausman Met With Blue Jays About Chemistry Comments appeared first on HEAVY.

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Aug 1 • 2:47 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Medical AI should be built with healthcare, not around it

Sam Houston State University's Institute for Medical AI develops tools to enhance care in rural and underserved communities.

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Aug 1 • 1:00 AM EDT • Health • bizjournals.com
If Chelsea ‘deliberately flouted’ rules and received no sporting sanctions, will it be same for Man City?

Inside the football bubble, the rules are different, and the FA's judgment will be seen as a victory of sorts for Chelsea and their owners

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Aug 1 • 12:15 AM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
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Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra leak reveals massive camera and battery overhaul

A new leak points to a silicon-carbon battery and a redesigned camera island for Samsung's next Ultra model.

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Jul 31 • 11:21 PM EDT • Technology • androidcentral.com
Iran War Pushes Companies to Raise Prices on Beer, Paint, Fries and More

Sherwin-Williams and the brewer of Samuel Adams are among those facing higher commodity and freight costs.

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Jul 31 • 10:00 PM EDT • Business • wsj.com
iPad Air Could Finally Be Redesigned Next Year

The iPad Air has looked the same since 2020, making it the longest-running design in Apple's tablet lineup. There is a reasonable case that 2027 could be when that comes to an end. Apple last gave the iPad Air a new enclosure in 2020, when the fourth-generation model introduced flat sides, an all-screen front, and Touch ID in the top button. The subsequent M1, M2, M3, and M4 updates were all internal with no design changes. That could change next year.

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Jul 31 • 9:00 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Q&A: Rufus Edmisten on how Watergate compares to today's politics, civility

At age 85, Rufus Edmisten has had one of the longest and most colorful careers of any living figure in North Carolina politics. As a young aide to U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin, he delivered the subpoena for the Nixon tapes in the Senate’s Watergate investigation. Then he came back to North Carolina and served as attorney general and secretary of state.

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Jul 31 • 4:30 PM EDT • Politics • wunc.org
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Nvidia And AMD Wait Until The Same Time To Raise GPU Prices

Even budget cards are getting ridiculously expensive

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Jul 31 • 4:00 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com
The Streaming Bubble Keeps Popping

(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) One of my rules is “never bet against PE [private equity]”. This isn’t to say that I agree with their methods or tactics or strategies or financial innovations (aka shenanigans). Just that in the long arc of financial history, they’ve tended to return very good returns to their shareholders. That said, their forays into entertainment have left me...skeptical. I’ve written before about PE’s production company/celebrity production company roll ups, and those haven’t really worked out. Some PE groups tried to “roll up” an industry that isn’t “roll-up-able” for lack of a better term—since the barrier to entry for starting a production company is very low—often paying top dollar for celebrity production companies at the height of streaming valuations. So yeah maybe we can bet against PE when they venture into filmed entertainment. I’ve also noted that studio lots seemed to be a bubble back in 2022. Sure enough… Yikes! That sure sounds like some private equity guys lost some money. The only caveat being that holding a lot of land in Los Angeles is always valuable. But that wasn’t the pitch and likely real estate investment companies overpaid for said land. I mean, Goldman Sachs had to repossess it after all. (Technically, I’m not sure these buyers were traditional private equity, but PE was buying LA studio lots earlier this decade.) All to say: I call out bubbles when I see them, and they often pop. Anywho, my most famous bubble call was the “streaming bubble”, specifically that the major streamers were making too many shows and films. And that it could all come crashing down. Notably, I made this call before the strikes of 2023, but those strikes potentially accelerated the popping. And now it has indeed popped. One of my most popular articles of last year made that exact case. A year later, it’s time to update that analysis. The bottom line is that the streaming contraction continues. Credit where credit is due, Luminate—an analytics company whose data I use weekly in my streaming ratings report—called this out in a recent report I saw highlighted in both Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter. But I’m adding my data to their look, including streaming films and kids TV shows. I’ll also provide some other data that all tells the same picture. Let’s dive in! Subscribe The Number of Streaming TV Shows, Films and Specials Is Declining AGAIN in 2026 Let’s get right to the data, starting with my dataset. Specifically, each week I track every “notable” title to come out on streaming. I try to grab every title on every major streamer, meaning if it’s a first run or original or exclusive, I track it. This helps me call out the “dogs not barking” and the misses/flops each week. So that will be our first series of charts, my weekly collection data. Let’s start with the raw TV show, film and special data, by week. Note: As the years have gone by, I have actually added more sources (going from just one source to five sources) to find new titles, meaning that this data collection is, likely, more accurate now than in the past. Which means my team and I are more likely to have undercounted titles in the past rather than today. I like to cut the data several different ways. Here’s that same look, by quarter, to more sharply show the trends: And here’s the data just looking at the first half of each year. That’s the same data, just cut three different ways with three different time periods. Note that films, TV shows, and specials are all down by 25%, 42% and 17%, respectively, from 2022. The good news is that the number of films and specials actually increased year-over-year from 2025 to 2026, but not enough to offset the 25% decline in TV shows. Now, I also look at kids shows, and here they are pulled out on their own: And here’s that by quarter: This really seems to be a notable area of pullback by the streamers. Kids shows are down 80% from 2022. This reflects some formerly Disney+ shows going to cable TV first, but also pullbacks from HBO Max, Prime Video and Netflix. I also categorize the TV shows by English language and non-English language, and that also reveals a lot of where the drop comes from: And here is by the half-year: In this look, the good news is the drop for English language shows seems to have stabilized in the last year. But the bad news is the long term decline from the 2022 peak. Other Data So I wasn’t the only person to notice this decline in the number of shows. I have a few other data sources for this, though most only go through the end of 2025. As I said, Luminate beat me to the punch, so let’s look at their data. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… What TV loss streaming didn’t make up for... How Netflix has changed their programming slate over time… Ten more images charting the decline of production... What type of films aren’t being made anymore... The good news (for movie theaters)… And more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.

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Jul 31 • 2:43 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com
Meet the Pixel Tag, Google's answer to the AirTag

Google has its Find Hub tracking network, but has never introduced its own tracking fob. Now that could change with the Pixel Tag.

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Jul 31 • 2:01 PM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com
North Bay trailblazers celebrate rise of Latina business leaders, push for equal access to capital

Latina entrepreneurs are taking on a stronger leadership role in U.S. business growth, but unequal access to capital still limits their expansion, according to top North Bay business leaders. At the same time, leaders acknowledge that…

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Jul 31 • 1:54 PM EDT • Business • pressdemocrat.com
Apple One Premier Is Getting 2 Cool New Features In iOS 27

iOS 27 will add new benefits to Apple One Premier, while some standalone iCloud+ subscribers will receive the same features as well.

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Jul 31 • 11:17 AM EDT • Technology • bgr.com
SAMHSA Awards $73.2 Million for Mental Health Treatment and Suicide Prevention Programs

HHS announced awarded $73.2 million in grants to strengthen children’s mental health services, suicide prevention programs.

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Jul 31 • 11:00 AM EDT • Health • hhs.gov
Weekly deals roundup: Galaxy Z Fold 8/Z Fold 8 Ultra/Z Flip 8 launch offers plus a whole lot more

Yes, Samsung's latest and greatest foldables should continue to top your summer shopping lists, but that's not all that's deeply discounted this week on the mobile tech scene.

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Jul 31 • 10:08 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com
I put Samsung’s first Galaxy Fold next to the Galaxy Fold 8 and the difference Is incredible

We've come a long way.

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Jul 31 • 9:21 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com
Whole Hog Politics: Does Trump not know or not care how bad things are for the GOP?

[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Hill Insider members can join us live today at 9 a.m. ET as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a li…

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Jul 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • thehill.com
Does public health *need* MAHA?

Last week, our friend Dr. Craig Spencer sparked an ongoing volatile discussion with his Atlantic article “Public Health Needs MAHA.” Some have come out in strong dissent, others are cheering, and others are simply lamenting that we find ourselves in such a divided world to begin with. We will dare to dip our toes in these controversial waters, too. Does public health need MAHA? We think in some ways yes, and in other ways, no. MAHA leaders versus the everyday MAHA supporter The vitriol in this debate mostly comes from one collapsed distinction: the leadership of MAHA is not necessarily the same as the people who support it. Say “MAHA” and most people picture RFK Jr. Fair enough, as he coined the term and holds most of the power. And, yes, some MAHA followers treat Kennedy as something close to a saint. But talk to the grassroots, and it’s not a monolith. They’re Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. People who distrust vaccines and vaccine supporters. It’s a wide, eclectic coalition. The data backs this too: 4 in 10 Americans support the movement—that’s a lot of people! But according to polls, vaccines and medical choice (the issues most tied to Kennedy personally) are cited by only 4% as their reason for supporting the movement. For many, the motivations are much broader. Many MAHA supporters are signing up for the idea that “something needs to change” with health in this country. They’re asking good-faith questions about corporate influence on our health systems, health care costs, nutrition, chemicals, and clean air and water. These are all questions that plenty of public health professionals recognize as legitimate and also care about very deeply. Blurring the lines between the leadership and grassroots does real damage in two important ways: It hands the 4 in 10 exactly the narrative already fed—that the health ecosystem doesn’t listen, doesn’t care, and paints every critic with the same brush. It gives the actual bad actor more power. RFK Jr. has done irreparable damage and can’t be trusted. What the MAHA movement gets right A healthy population is something the public health field was literally built on, and many of these topics are things we have dedicated our lives to. Yet the MAHA movement has captivated nearly half the country in a way the public health establishment has failed to achieve. So that means MAHA is doing something right. Some of it may be timing (after a Covid-19 pandemic and deep frustration and mistrust with institutions). The movement also does three other things really well: 1. It gives a new, louder voice to system failures. While MAHA is not a monolith, one theme stays consistent across their stories: the system failed them. For some, it was the system that flooded their communities with opioids and then walked away. For others, it was the system that let their business collapse during Covid with no safety net in sight. For others still, it was the system that failed to help them manage a complex chronic illness, bouncing them from physician to physician without any real answers. And in many ways, our health ecosystems are failing Americans. Why are medical bills so incomprehensible? Why do some kids get a healthy school lunch and others don’t? Why do an epidemiologist and a MD/PhD student have to start newsletters in the middle of the biggest public health emergency in a century, just so people can get straight information? Because the systems failed. This deep-seated frustration driving many Americans to search for solutions elsewhere needs to be recognized. 2. MAHA has brilliant comms central to their efforts. MAHA figured out something most health institutions still have not: the information landscape changed. It’s participatory now, not top-down; influence runs through many nodes in a community, not one institution; and storytelling and telling audiences “what you really think” moves people more than data dumps do. MAHA goes where audiences are listening, using podcasts, social media, and memes in ways most health institutions would scoff at—but it works. 3. They are very good at organizing. A MAHA meeting feels like a rally: energy, speakers, music, and most importantly, an action for everyone. Someone’s writing the next policy brief, someone’s seeding a narrative, someone knows the next legislative deadline, someone’s sending the text messages for a campaign. None of this is new (ask the civil rights movement), but MAHA knows it works and has capitalized on it. What MAHA gets wrong This list could be much longer, and this newsletter has spent a lot of time covering it, but here are a few things: Poor use of scientific evidence. This is the fundamental problem with many MAHA policies: the hype outpaces the science, and experts are often villainized for pointing this out. MAHA leadership has traded real solutions for cheap wins. For example, instead of taking on the powerful food industry and passing real reforms, it has celebrated french fries made of beef tallow and taken out artificial dyes from still very sugary children’s cereal. These changes won’t move the needle on America’s diet. MAHA leadership has tried to dismantle vaccine access in the U.S. While many MAHA supporters emphasize other issues, the effort to change vaccine policy has become MAHA’s signature effort. This is not surprising given RFK Jr.’s extensive track record campaigning against vaccines. It has rallied behind the wrong leader. RFK Jr. has a decades-long track record of villifying doctors, scientists, and public health workers, well before he became HHS secretary. He is known for his decades-long work sowing distrust in vaccines as well as life-saving treatments like antiretroviral therapy for HIV. This is not a serious person who can move the needle on health in the U.S, and he has already done serious damage. Public health needs more than defense Defending the evidence is absolutely necessary so health in the U.S. doesn’t move further backward. The public health establishment is very good at defense. The problem is this defense often sounds like defending the status quo, which has failed many people. Public health needs to offer an alternative to RFK Jr.’s MAHA—one that is rooted in evidence, truly listens to and addresses people’s frustrations, and has innovative solutions and the courage to change the systems. How do we get there? Find common ground. Do you know what most people care most about? The abysmal cost of healthcare. Start there. Fight for the human loudly. Too often, communications and engagement center on science with a capital S, funding mechanisms, or the CDC/FDA/NIH. Not the person. So the public doesn’t see themselves in it. Instead, they see people fighting for the very powerful systems that they feel negatively impact their health and well-being. Let the public feel and hear that you see their frustrations, you get it, and you’re fighting for them within the system. Recognize when pro-science messages are alienating people. Facts absolutely matter, but angrily venting only alienates people further. Our friend Elisabeth Marnik recently wrote a New York Times article about her experience growing up unvaccinated and how listening and empathetic conversation are the only ways to reach people that really work (a position backed by communication science). Her comments section was full of hateful comments from pro-vaccine individuals attacking her for daring to suggest we approach vaccine-hesitant individuals with empathy. It is possible to both stand firm behind scientific evidence and empathize with people who don’t trust it. Lean into politics smartly. Often, public health has shied away from politics: Don’t touch it, lest you get burned. But this fails to recognize that the third rail is what fuels the train: who is elected determines our budgets, our priorities, and our authority. Being political means being very savvy in strategy on both sides of the aisle, knowing your audience, and recognizing that political capital is as scarce as financial resources and needs to be allocated accordingly. Bottom line So does public health need MAHA? That’s not really the right question. Public health has a responsibility not to dismiss 40% of the country who feel heard by this movement and are frustrated that the system has failed them. And it has a responsibility to stick to the evidence and recognize MAHA leadership for what it is: a danger to our nation’s health. Both can, and should, be done. Love, YLE and KP A big thanks to Craig Spencer, who had the courage to put his neck out there to start a much-needed discussion at such a critical moment—one that is determining the identity of an entire field. Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD is completing an emergency medicine residency and research fellowship focusing on health literacy and communication. In her free time, she writes the newsletters You Can Know Things debunking health myths and rumors and The Public Health Roundup. Views expressed belong to KP, not her employer. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. The YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

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Jul 31 • 6:30 AM EDT • Health • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com
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Sony Pictures Entertainment Sees Revenue Drop 13% In Latest Quarter; Big Gains In Music

Crunchyroll continues to grow paid subscriber numbers, but lower revenues from motion pictures was due to the studio only releasing one theatrical film in North America in the period. SPE’s TV unit saw Q1 revenue reach $571 million, down 32% from $841 million in the same period a year earlier.

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Jul 31 • 6:11 AM EDT • Entertainment • tvnewscheck.com
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Hope Florida Foundation hires political firm linked to pro-Moody Super PAC

The Hope Florida Foundation moved its records into the same Alabama building that houses the super PAC backing Senator Ashley Moody’s campaign.

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Jul 31 • 5:30 AM EDT • Politics • miamiherald.com
49ers News: Welcome back, Deebo Samuel!

Your daily San Francisco 49ers news for Friday, July 31st, 2026

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Jul 31 • 5:05 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Exclusive: Samsung will introduce a new design for the Galaxy SmartTag 3

We recently revealed that Samsung is working on two completely new types of Galaxy Buds and published their designs. Now, we have discovered that Samsung is als

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Jul 31 • 4:14 AM EDT • Technology • sammobile.com
Sam Leavitt breaks silence on transferring away from Arizona State

LSU football is turning to Sam Leavitt to run Lane Kiffin's first offense, but the quarterback finally explained his Arizona State exit.

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Jul 30 • 11:43 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Anthropic says its AI models also broke out and hacked other companies

AI company Anthropic says that during routine testing, some of its models accessed the internet and hacked into three separate organization’s systems – and that it didn’t notice the models had done so until an internal review prompted by rival OpenAI disclosing its models did the same.

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Jul 30 • 10:09 PM EDT • Business • cnn.com
Samsung is also working on a pair of Galaxy Buds with an ear hook design

Looks like the Korean company is ready to enter two new earbud market segments all of a sudden. Yesterday we showed you what the Samsung Galaxy Buds On...

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Jul 30 • 10:04 PM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com
Broncos sign DB Sam Webb and waive CB Blake Cotton

On the eve of training camp officially opening, the Denver Broncos have made a minor roster move. According to reports, the team has signed defensive back Sam Webb and has waived cornerback Blake Cotton with an injury designation. Webb had a tryout with the team earlier today and impressed the coaches enough to sign him […]

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Jul 30 • 7:56 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Galaxy S27 Release Date: Samsung Plans Huge Battery Life Upgrade

Samsung is bringing silicon-carbon batteries to the Galaxy S27 series, with huge increases. Here's what that means and the risk Samsung is taking.

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Jul 30 • 3:56 PM EDT • Technology • forbes.com
U.S. states are all over the map on how to regulate AI therapy chatbots

Six states have split four ways on regulating AI therapy chatbots. The same product can be legal in one place and criminally exposed in another

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Jul 30 • 3:08 PM EDT • Health • qz.com
Samsung Browser gets a new capability on Galaxy Watches

Samsung makes some of the most feature-rich smartwatches on the market and continues to add capabilities to its One UI Watch apps. The company has now added a u

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Jul 30 • 2:35 PM EDT • Technology • sammobile.com
SC Gov. candidate Jermaine Johnson picks Sam Skardon as running mate
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Jul 30 • 1:01 PM EDT • Politics • thestate.com
Samsung has another brand-new Galaxy Buds design, and they just leaked [Gallery]

Samsung’s Galaxy Buds lineup is relatively static, offering the occasional redesign or experimental form factor, but it seems the company...

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Jul 30 • 11:25 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
Agassi Sports Entertainment Secures $1 Million Convertible Note From Investments AKA

Agassi Sports Entertainment entered into a $1.0 million convertible promissory note to bolster working capital. The note bears 3.96% interest, defaults to 10% upon certain events, and matures on July 27, 2027. It will automatically convert at the same price as new investors in the next equity finan…

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Jul 30 • 8:33 AM EDT • Entertainment • tradingview.com
The new "science golden age" looks suspiciously like a grift

This edition of PN is made possible by paid subscribers. Become one ⬇️ 🚀 Subscribe to PN 🚀 The Trump regime is trying to usher in a “Golden Age in Science” where scientific research is run like a Trump family business, artificial intelligence is all that matters, profit is everything, and expertise is for chumps. Or at least that’s the vision emerging from a new 123-page “Report to the President” from Michael Kratsios, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In a normal administration, you could probably skip over learning about a science policy document — but this is no normal administration, and this is no normal science policy document. Instead, it’s Trump’s attempt to end the actual golden age of science that was kicked off in 1945 with the publication of '“The Endless Frontier” by Vannevar Bush. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/harmeet-dhillon-portland) [ Harmeet Dhillon demonstrates danger of posting through it ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/harmeet-dhillon-portland) Liz Dye · Jul 29 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/harmeet-dhillon-portland) Bush, at President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s request, laid out a vision of federal support for science that centered on funding universities to do basic research, saying that as long as those institutions were “vigorous and healthy and their scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems in Government, in industry, or elsewhere.” Kratsios’s report is supposed to be the successor to Bush’s, and even apes the format, but this isn’t really a document about science policy. It’s one about ending science research as we know it in favor of shoveling cash at big tech companies. While it might be temping to wave this away as an aspirational policy document, Trump has already begun to shift billions in research funds to AI projects and has taken a hatchet to science funding across the board. He’s teed up the shift Kratsios proposes here, and since neither Congress nor the Supreme Court seem inclined to stop him from doing whatever he wants with taxpayer money, it isn’t doomering or hyperbole to say we are staring down the barrel of a world where the only “science” the government intends to support is for-profit tech and defense advancements. Science for dummies Part of how you can tell this isn’t a document about science is that you are immediately faced with an absolute wall of business-speak of the worst sort. Did you know we must “tightly couple our science and technology enterprises to ensure that groundbreaking ideas invented in the United States are rapidly prototyped, tested, manufactured, and scaled domestically”? You do now! That tone isn’t surprising, because Kratsios has no background in science or research. He has a bachelor’s in political science and spent most of his career working for Peter Thiel at Thiel Capital. After a stint in the first Trump administration as Chief Technology Officer, where he also did not do any science, Kratsios was tasked in 2020 with overseeing the Pentagon’s research budget for a brief time, a position that, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “carries a great deal of power in terms of dictating investment allocations.” He spent the Biden years at Scale AI as “head of strategy,” which you will also note is neither a science nor a research job. But Scale AI has contracts with the Department of Defense and, as the Washington Post wrote in 2023, “has been aggressively pitching itself as the company that will help the US military in its existential battle with China.” And now you have the necessary background for our new golden age, which is going to be a golden age of taking money away from scientists and universities and giving it to companies like Scale AI. A note from Aaron: Working with brilliant contributors like Lisa takes resources. If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, please become one to support our work. 👇 Subscribe In a genuinely galling move, Katsios spends a lot of time slamming universities because of “administrative burdens on researchers” and the “well-documented inefficiencies” in academia, the message being that those damn universities waste the time of amazing researchers with paperwork. Except it’s the administration that is attempting to impose inefficient, unnecessary burdens on those researchers with a proposed Office of Management and Budget rule that would require senior political appointees to approve every science grant and ensure it aligns with Trump’s personal priorities. Researchers would also have to seek prior government approval to attend conferences or publicize their research. And political appointees could terminate any grant at any time if they feel like it. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/omb-rule-science-funding) [ The murder of expertise ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/omb-rule-science-funding) Lisa Needham · Jun 11 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/omb-rule-science-funding) But when it comes to AI, we’re going to “restore permissionless innovation.” The report proposes to give lucky ducky innovators a pile of cash up front for grants lasting five years or longer, saying “awards should be fully-funded in year one, with all resources earmarked upfront, to minimize administrative burdens and reduce pressure for researchers to generate intermediate results to secure continued funding.” Yeah, wouldn’t want to have to make the Very Special Tech Bros show results or get money parceled out year by year like the plebes at universities. The report also proposes that we should have “fast grants” with “simplified applications requiring just a few pages of writing” because that is definitely how science works, just writing a bit off the dome and getting some cash. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ai-action-plan-altman-llms) [ Tech elites are turning AI into ChatGPTrump ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ai-action-plan-altman-llms) Paul Waldman · July 29, 2025 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ai-action-plan-altman-llms) Oh, and we should have prizes and challenges, where multiple teams compete. The proposed prizes include incentives like “advance procurement commitments,” which means the federal government agrees to buy whatever is being developed. There’s also “regulatory fast-tracking,” making sure all those great AI thingies don’t have to wait too long to be unleashed on a market. These aren’t incentives to do science. These are incentives to develop things with tax dollars that you can then sell to the government for more tax dollars. In the suggestion that might be the most unhinged, the most very opposite of how both government and research work, our new age will include “golden tickets.” That’s where an individual reviewer in an agency — yes, just one person — can “recommend unconventional proposals that may not pass consensus-driven review panels” because somehow this will “surface valuable ideas too divisive for committees and attract higher quality reviewers by empowering them to exercise independent scientific judgment.” Yes, that’s saying that a random person in an agency should be able to shovel money at some idea even if it can’t pass a review panel, and that the opportunity to do so will attract better employees because apparently all the best minds in science are chomping at the bit to be allowed to unilaterally fund AI research based on their personal vibes. But that isn’t at all how actual science works, and actual scientists aren’t unhappy about review panels. They work collaboratively, not siloed in some secret race to create the next AI chatbot. A 2020 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research examined whether peer review panels succeed in helping agencies predict which research ideas will best advance science. Peer review was better at finding “diamond in the rough” applicants than a single government program official. How about that. Trump always wants a taste It’s painfully clear that what Katsios is trying to do here is turn the whole of government science research and funding into the sort of “move fast and break things” paradigm that is the hallmark of big tech. That method works to line the pockets of tech executives, but it isn’t science. There’s a reason the government funds different kinds of research than private tech companies do. What Katsios either fails to understand or deliberately ignores is that the federal government is the main funder of basic research precisely because it can take a long time for it to bear fruit and is not intended to be profitable as such. “Basic” here does not mean rudimentary or simple, but rather research that is designed to advance scientific knowledge instead of achieving a specific outcome or product. Big tech companies don’t widely fund that sort of research, because it doesn’t make them money. Industry dollars account for only about 20 percent of basic research funding, while the government contributes around 60 percent. Big tech companies and startups do, however, rely on and benefit from that basic research. A 2019 study found that 35 percent of all patents obtained by venture-backed startups from 1976 to 2016 cited federally supported research. Basic research funded by the NIH contributed to every single drug the FDA approved from 2010 to 2016. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal) [ The Saudi nuclear farce and governance by whim and meme ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal) Noah Berlatsky · Jul 27 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal) Unlike inventing the next ChatGPT, actual science is slow and iterative. Government funding of research that, on its face, would not appear to lead to any big new invention is actually what underpins those big new inventions. If the government hadn’t funded research into desert lizard venom, we wouldn’t know about semaglutide, and we wouldn’t have Ozempic. If research scientists hadn’t studied how bees optimize nectar foraging within a colony, we wouldn’t have the algorithm that assigns internet traffic across computer servers. The report assiduously ignores that a symbiotic, profitable relationship between the federal government, universities, and private companies already exists. Each federal research dollar generates about $1.50 to $3.00 in long-term economic benefits. The $36 billion the government awarded in NIH research funding in fiscal year 2025 generated $94 billion in new economic activity. Trump’s proposed new golden age is intended to strip those billions from universities, resulting in the dismantling of departments and the shuttering of labs. But Katsios has a plan for that: Universities should just become trade schools to churn out no-show STEM degrees! “Require universities and community colleges to embed practical technical training and externships into STEM curricula. Let hands-on experience and industry credentials count toward degrees.” It’s quite the feat to, on the one hand, strip schools of funding for scientific research while simultaneously demanding to control what is taught and, oh, also, colleges need to give degrees to employees at big tech companies just for being employees at big tech companies. The new golden age would also exacerbate the brain drain Trump’s policies have already caused. Nature found that in the first quarter of 2025, US scientists submitted 32 percent more job applications abroad than in 2024. A March 2025 poll by Nature of roughly 1,600 scientists found that over 1,200 said they were considering leaving the country. Europe is investing $565 million to make it a “magnet for researchers” and provide funding for scientists who relocate. The new golden age is also about embedding Trump’s xenophobia into the fabric of American science. The report complains of an “over-reliance on foreign students” that “creates a security challenge our institutions are ill-equipped to address” and that a “reliance on foreign talent sidelines American students.” This is, to put it mildly, nonsense. International students pay far higher tuition and often receive no financial aid. Their tuition dollars are what make it possible for American students to get financial aid. In the 2023-2024 school year alone, international students contributed $43.8 billion to the US economy and supported over 378,000 jobs. Those 1.1 million international students accounted for only six percent of the total number of students in higher education that year, but were such an economic engine that for every three international students, one job was created or supported. It’s impossible not to wonder whether part of Trump’s loathing for universities and their leading role in scientific research is that there is no way for him to corrupt the process and make money off it in the same way he can by giving millions and billions to Silicon Valley types who, in turn, give him millions in cash. There’s no way for his children to invest in universities that the government then gives no-bid contracts to, fattening the family’s bottom line, which is pretty much the Trump sons’ current venture capital practice. Trump and Katsios’s view of science is narrow, cramped, and wrong. We’re not in a crisis, we’re not a failed state. We’ve been a science superpower for decades, and the only thing that threatens that is Donald Trump. Tech bros are already living high off the hog in this administration. They don’t need any more of our tax dollars. Hopefully this new golden age never comes to pass. Thanks for reading Public Notice. This post is public so feel free to share it. Share We’ll be back with more tomorrow. If you appreciate today’s PN, please do your part to keep us free by signing up for a paid subscription. 🚀 Subscribe to PN 🚀 Thanks for reading, and for your support.

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Jul 30 • 8:12 AM EDT • Science • publicnotice.co
Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review: A Passport-Size Shape-Shifter for Every Moment

Samsung's reimagined book-style foldable is compact and versatile, making it the ideal device for consuming all kinds of content. It's also just delightful to use.

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Jul 30 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • cnet.com
The US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to know

The US has unveiled what officials claim is the most radical overhaul of the public R&D system in a generation, which if implemented could have significant implications for transatlantic research collaboration. Science: A New Golden Age derides universities as “legacy institutions” and instead wants to prioritise funding on technological challenges, new research labs and funding that follows individual scientists, rather than being linked to their institutions. “Too much of our research enterprise has come to serve itself rather than the scientists within it,” writes Michael Kratsios, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the only named author of the report. “Federal funding agencies should support a broader range of performers.” But some critics argue that the strategy is a smokescreen, using genuine problems in academia as an excuse to further weaken US universities, which US vice-president JD Vance has labelled “the enemy..”Even as it talks of a “golden age” for science, the White House has proposed halving the 2027 budget of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and has put forward double-digit cuts for other funding bodies, such as the National Institutes for Health. It asked for similarly steep savings in 2026, but Congress stopped them going through. Science: A New Golden Age says success will be measured by the extent to which scientists are “free” to pursue the most “vital questions,,” painting academia as currently hidebound by bureaucracy, sluggishness and consensual conservatism. And yet the Trump administration is simultaneously planning new rules that will hand political appointees unprecedented powers to screen and cancel grants. The report has pretentions to be the successor to Science: The Endless Frontier, the seminal 1945 document in which presidential science advisor Vannevar Bush set out the case for post-war government funding of basic research, helping to spur the creation of funders such as the NSF. Even the title page font is the same. But it remains unclear if the latest report will leave anything like as lasting a legacy.Here, Science|Business explains some of the biggest proposed changes in Science: A New Golden Age, and how Europeans think it might change the landscape of their biggest science partner.Universities under fireA key target of the report are US universities, which it repeatedly suggests are outmoded as research institutions. It criticises the NSF for channelling resources “overwhelmingly to a single type of performer, the university-based, principal investigator-led research group..” Universities “extract” money from researchers’ grants to support “growing administrative bloat,” alongside legitimate uses. The Trump administration has been trying to cut the overhead costs in federal research grants that flow to universities. Instead, new institutions are being built. In May, the NSF announced it would spend $1.5 billion on two new so-called X-Labs, focused on scientific instrumentation and quantum systems. The idea is that they fill a niche in the landscape, tackling problems that are too big for a university lab, but too early stage for private start-up funding. Parallel with Europe?This shift to new research organisations parallels moves in Europe to set up new innovation agencies, such as Germany’s Sprind, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, and the EU’s European Innovation Council. The Dutch and French governments are looking to set up their own entities too. There’s now an emerging consensus, evident in a number of new strategies, that public R&D needs to be shaken up, Charles McIvor, an economist at the OECD, has written in response to Kratsios’s plans. “What stands out for me across these strategies [in the US, Germany, South Korea and Japan] is that governments are realising that the old ways of delivering STI [science, technology and innovation] programming no longer works,” he said in a LinkedIn post. Metascience wins?The document is, at least on the face of it, also a big win for some policy thinkers in the US who want far more experimentation with new forms of research grant and institution.It name-checks a litany of new public R&D ideas, from focused research organisations and advance market commitments to “golden tickets,” which allow grant reviewers the power to hand applicants money without requiring the consensus of other review panellists.Related articlesEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationFocused research organisations: what are they, and how do you set them up? NIH turmoil risks reciprocal EU-US access to health research funding In addition, every federal research funding agency should set up a metascience unit, the strategy says, “with authority to run controlled experiments on review and funding mechanisms.” The UK has already set one up, the strategy points out. This mirrors recommendations to the European Commission. In 2024, a report led by former Portuguese science minister Manuel Heitor also advised the EU to set up an “experimental unit” to test out new methods of funding research. So far, however, Brussels hasn’t put forward any plans to do so. Bypass universitiesBut there’s a worry that the Trump administration is using the metascience movement to justify an overhaul of public R&D that punishes universities, which it sees as centres of political resistance. Last year, it threatened to cut Harvard University’s federal funding unless it hired and admitted a “critical mass” of new faculty and students to create “viewpoint diversity” across campus. It’s also attempted to strip academics of funding for working on politically forbidden areas, like LGBTIQ people’s health.The new strategy appears to be a “move to bypass the power of universities full stop and allow funders and political bureaucracies to handpick the projects and people who will execute them,” said Jean-Claude Burgelman, a former senior official in the Commission’s research directorate, on LinkedIn.The EU’s science counsellor in Washington, Florent Bernard, wrote that the plans risk diverting public research funding so that it “solely serves private interests.” “Who, if not independent universities, will do research that demonstrates the impact of tobacco on lung cancer or the role of human activities in our current climate crisis?” he wrote.Should we take it seriously?“I would view the overall document as a bad faith argument,” said Cole Donovan, director of science policy at the campaigning group Stand Up for Science, and a former OSTP official. “I don’t see the project itself as something that can be isolated from the broader attack on the system.” He thinks the argument that academia has become dysfunctional and in need of radical reform is being deployed as part of a “PR argument” to legitimate moves against US scientists. The strategy presents ideas like metascience units as new, whereas there were moves to set them up at the NSF during the previous administration of Joe Biden, Donovan said. The other caveat here is that the OSTP has limited power to carry out any of these recommendations. While Kratsios has issued a memo to research agencies telling them to implement the recommendations in the report, he doesn’t have direct budgetary control. “As a former OSTPer myself, this does not seem like a document that is realistic,” said Donovan.

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Jul 30 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net
After Hobbes vs Rousseau: Politics must move beyond human nature

Since the great debate between Hobbes and Rousseau, our political theory has been organised around a single question: is human nature essentially good or essentially corrupt? Graham Harman, the philosopher behind object-oriented ontology, argues that this is simply the wrong question to be asking. The real forces governing our collective fate - climate change, artificial intelligence, geography, and pandemics - are non-human; therefore, questions about human nature are not the central ones. Instead, Harman proposes a politics reorganised around our relationship to non-human objects and environments, in which quasi-government institutions incentivise and deter actions with the aim of extending the survival of the human race. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This has become one of the most popular phrases among twenty-first-century intellectuals. Often misattributed to Fredric Jameson, it has been warmly embraced by such influential authors as Slavoj Žižek and the tragically departed Mark Fisher, and has fueled the notion that the major problem with the political Left is that it simply needs to become more speculative and creative. Naturally, this is never a bad idea in any human pursuit. But what if the political distinction between Left, Right, and Center itself results from a failure of imagination? SUGGESTED READING Hobbes vs Rousseau: are we inherently evil? By Robin Douglass This particular division has been with us only since the summer of 1789. During the simmering prelude to the French Revolution, it referred originally to the physical position in the National Assembly of radical figures on one side and loyal monarchists on the other. These positions are linked with two entirely different camps of modern political theory. On the Left we find a series of authors ranging from the moderate (Locke) to the supercharged (Rousseau) to the truly radical (Marx), all of them contending that exploitation of the many by the few justifies revolutionary overthrow of the existing order. On the Right they are countered by the likes of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Schmitt, a group of thinkers convinced that corrupt human nature can be tamed only by force. In the words of the Nazi supporter Schmitt: “One could test all theories of nature and state and political ideas according to their anthropology and classify these as to whether they consciously or unconsciously presuppose [humans] to be by nature evil or by nature good.” This is the division we continue to face today, even in the daily retail politics of Western democracies.___Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims.___The most refreshing feature of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s 2021 book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was their awareness that the forced choice between Rousseau and Hobbes (as they put it) is no longer sufficient. Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims. Far from being stationed “beyond good and evil,” we seem to be fully entangled with both. We are not naturally good or evil, Graeber and Wengrow contend, but naturally experimental and imaginative. They rest their case on the archaeological record, which seems to bear witness to numerous episodes of seasonally shifting governments and festivals, which vacillate in the same society (even in the same year) between the egalitarian and the dictatorial. Such praise of political experiment makes a good fit with the generally anarchist position defended by these authors. Yet it is also what I find most disappointing in their position. Although they are right that the forced choice between Hobbes and Rousseau falls short of what our new situation requires, the authors simply replace it with praise for the human being as a political tinkerer and performer. In other words, they give us just another theory of human nature, one that would not have been out of place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. What other options might we have?___The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature… We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them___One fresh approach would be to treat politics within a broader framework than human nature, given that the polis does not exist in a vacuum filled exclusively with people. When Bruno Latour went to observe the baboons of Kenya with the San Diego anthropologist Shirley Strum, they jointly concluded that these primates were more socially interdependent than our own species. Each baboon is so reliant on the dynamics of the group that they find themselves locked into constant surveillance of their potentially dangerous peers. The group structure turns out to be inherently volatile. Humans, by contrast, are able to stabilize their societies to a large degree through the mediation of inanimate objects. Although one’s position in society may seem to fluctuate over time, considerable stability is produced through such items as apartment keys, wedding rings, and identification cards, all of them serving to secure us a place distinct from that of our fellows. The Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris has written at length about the crucial role of documents in establishing social relations, making him a hero among notaries in his country. Proper names and license plates cement our position amidst other humans, as do symbolic achievements such as graduation from a top university or distinguished wartime service with its various medals and ribbons. None of this is found among baboons, despite their closeness to us on the evolutionary tree: after all, we did share a common ancestor just 25 to 30 million years ago. SUGGESTED VIEWING The goodness paradox With Richard Wrangham The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature, whether understood in the manner of the Left or of the Right. We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them. But initially, it is true, we face non-human things primarily in the form of constraints. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to form a human civilization underwater, deep underground, atop Mount Everest, or in outer space. Human dependence on the non-social background takes on subtler form in discussions of political geography, especially unloved on the more idealistic Left. Consider the luckless position of Poland during World War II, sandwiched between Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other. By contrast, note the good fortune of the United States in not having a military peer positioned on any land border. Anglo-American geopolitics, since the writings of the American naval commander Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, has been wedded to the notion that one or more liberal offshore naval powers should prevent any authoritarian “heartland” regime from gaining effective control of Eurasia. That remains the case whether the opponent is the impatient Napoleon, the swashbuckling German Kaiser, the villainous Hitler, the murderous Stalin, or the industrial juggernaut Chinese. In their current Foreign Affairs article “Heartland vs. Rimland,” Michael Beckley and Hal Brands analyze the current and coming state of the world on the basis of these same rather durable principles. In recent years a similar outlook has been embraced, in inverted form, by the Putin-loving Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an icon of the Rightist intellectual underworld. For Dugin, the Anglo-Saxons are an evil force bent on destroying the spiritually superior people of the land: much like Athens in its failed war with Sparta, or Carthage in its eventual collapse against Rome. But the shared notion on both sides is that any strategy that fails to take geography into account is likely to end up as a defeated form of excessive optimism.___When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole.___More striking for us today than geography is the non-human object called climate, which threatens rimland and heartland equally. Even if we contend that humans are one hundred percent responsible for triggering the climate crisis, it remains non-human in the sense of being an independent force beyond our effective control. In a major work published just before his death in 2002, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted the tendency of evolutionary theorists to focus too closely on the fate of individuals in view of their successful or failed adaptation to circumstances. With climate change, however, we confront a force that goes well beyond the scope of any individual life. Whereas Richard Dawkins extended evolutionary questions downward from individuals to the sub-individual gene, Gould pushed it upward, speaking of entire species or clades as impacted by environmental change. The asteroid that struck the Yucatán 66 million years ago is only the most famous example of this sort. In the wake of that catastrophe, large animals needing abundant supplies of food were at a fatal disadvantage by contrast with the smaller birds and mammals of the planet. When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole. The effect is to shift our attention away from individual beings towards the survival of the group.In the United States in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked considerable backlash among those who asserted a nearly absolute degree of individual freedom. In California I encountered those who demanded that their businesses be allowed to reopen, that it was enough to cover their mouths but not their noses, or that they should have the right to enter any public area despite refusing vaccination. Yet public health is probably the clearest argument against libertarianism, which often merely asserts the autonomy of individuals against any claims of the commons. In normal times the individual is worth defending; under conditions that threaten the survival of part or all of our species, compulsion may be our only resort, as with perfectly reasonable blackouts and rations in wartime. To rebuild human society under the constraints of climate change will be one of the great challenges of the century to come, as will our improvised grappling with artificial intelligence. Such phenomena pose existential risks for humanity, and leave far less room for tolerance of individual brattiness. Cases are mounting of devastating wildfires caused by arson. Recently it was reported that there is even a website where one can bet on the location of coming wildfires, raising the specter of deliberate blazes set to collect on wagers. The death penalty has steadily lost support in a world where many stress the infinite value of human life. But if we focus instead on entire ecosystems, those who purposely burn the forests may begin to look worse than serial murderers.___The politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere.___So far I have spoken of force, authority, and punishment: measures sure to have greater appeal to those who identify with what we know as the Right. But other implications of the post-anthropocentric world are likely to have different backers. If non-human objects are seen as structuring political space, it stands to reason that they can no longer be introduced solely by the pace of technical breakthrough. Fields ranging from cybernetics to energy will demand increased politicization once they are reconceived not just as products of individual human investment, but as renovations of collective political geography. This need not involve world government, with its inherent risk of tyranny, but may involve quasi-governmental enforcers of prestige along the lines of a less corrupt FIFA or International Olympic Committee, punishing deviant states not with violence but with less tangible incentives.Politics will never lose its historic links with conflict and faction. But rather than factions aligned by differing theories of human nature, the politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere. This will prove just as incommensurable with the modern Left/Right spectrum as a globe is with a two-dimensional map.

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Jul 30 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • iai.tv
Samsung Electronics posted a record profit on AI chip demand — but its mobile business swung to a loss

The South Korean tech giant's memory chip division hit all-time highs on AI server demand, while elevated component costs pushed its mobile unit into the red

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Jul 30 • 7:53 AM EDT • Business • qz.com
Nvidia GPUs see yet another price hike of up to 30 percent, as the generative AI hardware crisis worsens

In response Samsung announced another price increase across DRAM as the personal computing nightmare deepens.

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Jul 30 • 7:37 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net
Jony Ive's first OpenAI hardware device sounds rather like ... a HomePad

Jony Ive and Sam Altman have been teasing an AI hardware device for a long time now, and it’s increasingly...

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Jul 30 • 7:13 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com
Apple Upgrade is the future of phone ownership, and Google and Samsung need to follow suit

Apple’s new leasing program could reshape how all premium smartphones are sold, and it's something Android OEMs need to follow.

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Jul 30 • 5:30 AM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com
Samsung officially confirms Galaxy Tab S12 series is coming

We've seen plenty of rumors and leaks, but Samsung has now officially confirmed that the Galaxy Tab S12 range is on the way.

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Jul 30 • 2:50 AM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com
Samsung Stock Jumps Over 6% In Seoul as AI Memory Business Delivers Record Profit: 'Supply Constraints' Expected to Continue

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.‘s (OTC:SSNLF) shares rose on Thursday after the chipmaker posted a record second-quarter operating profit as surging artificial intelligence memory demand boosted its semiconductor business, though higher component costs weighed on earnings in its mobile division. Operating Profit Beat Estimates Operating profit climbed to a record 89.5 trillion KRW ($61.93 billion) for the second-quarter, beating the 88.13 trillion KRW ($60.98 billion) analysts’ forecast compiled by

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Jul 29 • 10:22 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
Chicago Bears pre-training camp power rankings

With training camp opening, @SamHouseholder takes a fresh look at the power rankings

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Jul 29 • 10:16 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Science Hill brings young, talented roster into 2026

The Hilltoppers are focused on gaining experience while getting desired results at the same time.

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Jul 29 • 10:07 PM EDT • Science • wcyb.com
Hegseth offers soldiers testosterone and FDA loosens safety warnings. Is the science there?

Last week, the Pentagon posted a video on X announcing they will be mandating testosterone screening for troops in the military aged 30 and above. If they test low, they will be offered voluntary testosterone replacement therapy. This episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Youtube. At the same time, FDA has announced it […]

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Jul 29 • 5:03 PM EDT • Science • cancerletter.com
Samsung’s next pair of Galaxy Buds show off open-ear design in another leak [Gallery]

Rumored for months, Samsung’s “Galaxy Buds On” have shown up yet again with an open-ear design, but the bigger question...

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Jul 29 • 4:15 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
West Nile Virus Detected in Mosquitoes in Coastal Georgia

When you head outside, don’t forget the bug spray – that’s the message from the Coastal Health District after three mosquito samples in Chatham County tested positive for West Nile Virus (WNV).

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Jul 29 • 3:09 PM EDT • Health • coastalhealthdistrict.org
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Monkeys have a basic intuition for geometry, study suggests

Baboons and macaques appear to use some of the same mental strategies as humans when matching shapes, suggesting that the foundations of geometry evolved in a common ancestor.

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Jul 29 • 12:43 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com
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Public health courses provide opportunities for international collaboration and learning

Related News Samantha Garcia, PhD receives National Institutes of Health MOSAIC Postdoctoral Career Transition Award (K99/R00) July 31, 2024 Exploring global health governance: PM 589 in Geneva August 27, 2024 […]

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Jul 29 • 12:36 PM EDT • Health • keck.usc.edu
The best Galaxy Z Fold 8 deal is at Amazon — boosted trade-in plus $350 gift card

Samsung's usually the best place to pre-order the company's latest hardware, but thanks to a massive gift card deal, Amazon's your best bet.

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Jul 29 • 11:25 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
Google Pixel’s Tensor grows as global smartphone shipments continue to fall

The chipset giants like MediaTek and Qualcomm are facing a drop in shipments as proprietary SoCs from Google and Samsung...

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Jul 29 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
We discovered a new variant of Super Mario Bros.

Inside, were 97 individually wrapped, brand-new copies of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Each game was wrapped in the same baggie that would have come in an

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Jul 29 • 10:59 AM EDT • Technology • nintendowire.com
Business journalism studies took her to the White House | UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

The story by UNC Hussman alumni Brennan Doherty ’19 and video by John Roberts ’16 (M.A.) was originally published on unc.edu. This story is part of a four-part series on Carolina alumni working in Washington, D.C. Soon after her 2015 graduation from UNC-Chapel Hill, Megan Cassella was an intern for the Reuters news agency, eagerly awaiting and prepping for a special assignment. “Every now and then they needed an intern to run over to the White House last minute,” Cassella said. “You have to send your information the night before, so I started proactively sending my information to the White House every single night to be able to go the next day if they ever needed an intern.” Since then, she’s made many return trips to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in a career that’s included roles at Reuters, Politico, Barron’s and now CNBC, where she works as an on-air Washington correspondent. A longtime newswriter, Cassella made the move to TV in 2024, appearing on broadcasts multiple times daily to report on the biggest political and business stories. But the keys to doing a good job — knowing how to research, asking insightful questions, building relationships and explaining complex topics to a broad audience — remain the same. Did you know: Outside of the state of North Carolina, the Washington region is home to the largest concentration of Tar Heel alumni in the country. Cassella’s time as a Tar Heel was crucial in sharpening those skills, both in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and through roles at student-run publications like The Daily Tar Heel. She excelled in Carolina’s business journalism program with former professor Chris Roush, which led to an internship at The Charlotte Observer and helped Cassella find her journalistic niche. A data journalism course with Associate Professor Ryan Thornburg taught her how to find stories in numbers, and former professor Paul O’Connor’s reporting class took Cassella to the North Carolina Capitol weekly, where she gained invaluable experience interviewing politicians. “Those hands-on experiences that Carolina gave me really kept my interest and have really benefited me since I’ve been up here in D.C.,” said Cassella. “I have UNC to thank for the fact that I even went into business journalism in the first place.” Megan Cassella ’15 “You’ve got to thrive on adrenaline in this job. You’ve got to do well with last-minute changes, with running by the seat of your pants.” Megan Cassella ’15 ‘There’s nothing else like it’ In recent months, Cassella has reported live from the G7 Summit in Geneva, covered the latest developments in the U.S.-Iran war and followed changes to trade policy, including tariffs. “Anything in this realm that influences Wall Street, I’ll be covering,” Cassella said. Her working hours are long and variable. After waking up, Cassella immediately checks her phone to see what news broke overnight. By 8:15 a.m., she usually learns which newscasts she’ll be on, and then she heads to the newsroom, White House or wherever her assignment is. “We want you in the 9 a.m. show and the 11, and then the 3 o’clock show wants you, too,” Cassella said, referring to a hypothetical day. If Cassella gets an exclusive or major news breaks, she might be told, “We want that on TV right now.” Within five minutes, she’d be expected to get to the camera, figure out what to say and deliver the news to a live audience. “It’s exciting. It’s nerve-wracking,” Cassella said. “But there’s nothing else like it.” A well-rounded education Cassella grew up in Maryland, the youngest of four kids. Her oldest brother, Brian Cassella ’05, attended Carolina, became a photojournalist and recently won a Pulitzer Prize. She remembers visiting campus as a young child and loving it. “I just always wanted to go,” she said, and that desire grew when she, like her brother, gravitated toward journalism. But it wasn’t just the journalism school that drew Cassella to Carolina. “It was also the whole liberal arts curriculum,” she said. “Even though I always wanted to be a journalist, I got to college, and I sort of felt I had to think about other things. I had to explore my options and see if that’s what I really wanted.” Did you know: In April UNC-Chapel Hill opened its Carolina in the Capital office in Washington. She combined her journalism schooling with a global studies major and a history minor. That broad range of academic experiences in Chapel Hill molded her, preparing Cassella for a career that’s taken her to the highest levels of political journalism and inside the Oval Office. “When you sit back and remember you’re actually sitting inside the White House and asking questions of the president, it’s a cool feeling,” Cassella said. “No matter who is in office, no matter what administration or party, it’s a privilege to be there.” Megan Cassella on… Being a Tar Heel in Washington: I run into Tar Heels all the time. My husband’s a Tar Heel. We actually met here in Washington, not at Carolina, even though we were the same class. Probably most of our friends are still Tar Heels. Even up here in D.C., we all get together for games and March Madness. And through work, there’s Tar Heels all over the place. It’s often used as a connection. Favorite Franklin Street spot: When we go back, our first stop is always IP3. That’s more my husband’s doing than mine. In college, I was a huge Spanky’s fan. Felt like it was a classic spot. May it rest in peace. Advice to journalism students: Reps, reps, reps! Nothing beats the experience you’ll gain by simply starting to do the work — asking the questions, reporting and writing the stories, doing the TV hits. When you can, go places in person. Talk to more people than you think you’ll need. Read as much as you can, from different sources and on different topics. If you’re not sure how to start your story, that usually means you need more reporting. When you’re not sure, ask.

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Jul 29 • 10:39 AM EDT • Business • hussman.unc.edu
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Sam Smith Makes Major Announcement About Their Love Life

The British singer-songwriter’s announcement comes just weeks before the release of their fifth studio album, “Hazel Eyes.”

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Jul 29 • 10:38 AM EDT • Entertainment • huffpost.com
Samsung scores record pre-orders for the Galaxy Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra, and Flip8

The new foldable device lineup seems to be much more successful than the previous one. Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold8, Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, and...

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Jul 29 • 10:21 AM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com
I love that the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 lasts three days, but Samsung needs to fix charging

Samsung really needs to fix this.

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Jul 29 • 10:00 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 feels like the future

A short king.

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Jul 29 • 8:22 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 review

Samsung expanded its foldable lineup in a major way this year. Admittedly, the naming could have been better selected, but we now have a brand-new form...

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Jul 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com
Employee Spotlight: Samuel Hogue III Builds a Legacy of Service…

Your home base for all City of Toledo services, information, and more.

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Jul 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • toledo.oh.gov
Plastic Waste Has Been Turned Directly Into Hydrogen Fuel

"Solving two urgent global problems at the same time."

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Jul 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com
The Science Behind the AI Panic Is Shakier Than You Think

A column by Sascha Lobo Is AI making us dumb? So asked DER SPIEGEL on its cover a while ago. After a few weeks of recovery and a therapeutic intervention with the help of my AI, I feel able to respond. That’s a bit unfair, of course; the article itself is more nuanced than the loud cover, the image of a schoolkid with dull prompt questions, or the subtitle: “AI is conquering the schools, and educators fear a disaster.” The short answer to “Is AI making us dumb?” is: no. The long answer is more interesting, and even carries a preliminary glimmer of the spectacular. Unfortunately, it requires a detour into the sphere of artificial intelligence, into the mogul-field terrain of technology assessment, the attention economy, and the destructive virus of cultural pessimism. Along with narrowing the scope to AI’s effects on education and work rather than on intelligence. Because the honest version of the question would be: Does AI help us learn and work, or not? Generative AI, which set off the still-ongoing hype with ChatGPT, has only existed in relevant distribution since late 2022, early 2023. For a technology-driven transformation of people and society, that is extremely short. For that reason alone, research is still in its infancy. And technology assessment is not a fast discipline anyway. Prominent voices from Elizabeth Eisenstein to RAND to Tom Wheeler say we still cannot conclusively judge the consequences of the printing press. Its invention is a mere 580 years back, and some scholars would rather not circulate assessments that might have to be retracted in two or three hundred years. We’re Going Through Growing Pains A phenomenon that already caused upheaval in social media research makes serious assessment of AI’s consequences even harder: the “moving target” problem of LLM-ology, as the linguist Sean Trott called it in 2025. AI develops so quickly and so unpredictably that researchers often end up studying snapshots of the past. There are concepts, from morphological analysis to anticipatory governance, for keeping research, planning, and regulation halfway meaningful anyway. But even with those, universally valid statements are rare. DER SPIEGEL - The German View is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe We should therefore treat findings about the interplay between humans and AI as far more procedural and situational. Unfortunately, this challenge comes at the worst possible time. We are going through growing pains: AI’s everyday impact has grown very large very fast, and with it the longing for guidance. Annoyingly, the body of solid knowledge has not exploded along with it. Experts cannot be moved to broad consensus on even banal statements about AI. Sascha Lobo, born in 1975, is an author and strategy consultant focusing on the internet and digital technologies. Together with Jule Lobo, he explores the debates of the day in the podcast “Feel the News – Was Deutschland bewegt” (”What Moves Germany”). Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says software developers are dying out. Bill Gates considers coders one of only three professions that will survive the AI tsunami. Top tech economists find virtually irrefutable arguments both for and against an AI bubble. The same naturally applies to the structurally youth-hostile debate over whether AI is good or bad for young people. The gap between the demand for insight and the supply of solid knowledge creates an orientation vacuum. This vacuum of AI cluelessness is filled, as the attention economy described by Georg Franck in 1998 would have it, with half-knowledge (funnily enough, often AI-generated), marketing, and self-marketing. After all, infinite money is at stake, along with academia’s best current shot at global fame. But this iridescent froth of interpretation operates more by the algorithmic principles of the digital public sphere than by seriously earned insight. That is why dramatized, fear-feeding claims about AI are so promising. It tempts parts of academia into distorted drivel, and parts of the media then sensationalize the published drivel once more. Was the Research Aimed at a Desired Result? How badly this can influence academia and public perception is demonstrated by one of the most-discussed studies on AI’s effects: “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” The MIT study by Nataliya Kosmyna also gets plenty of space in the SPIEGEL cover story. What was measured and interpreted: lower brain activity in people who write with AI assistance, compared to people who only google or write without any tools. As is common with preprints, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, and it contains substantial weaknesses that experts have sharply criticized. The first round had 54 participants in three groups, the second only 18, who reportedly also came from MIT’s own orbit. There was no preregistration (committing in advance to what you want to find out with which data). In their analysis, Stanković et al. even discovered an opposite effect that the study does not further explain. Some measurement data has not (yet) been published. And the EEG analysis method used is considered too imprecise to support such far-reaching conclusions. The biggest criticism, though, is the suspicion of an activism-driven study. In an interview with Time, lead author Kosmyna said she published the study immediately, rather than after full peer review, because she feared politicians might otherwise decide to put ChatGPT in kindergartens. She considers that absolutely harmful. It is legitimate to hold such a view. It just seems unscientific to approach a study with it, and then to design the setup so that the chance of a fitting desired result remains as high as possible. Ideologies Collide It is not easy to separate genuine AI insights from studies that trivialize and weaken well-founded AI criticism. The same goes for the opposing, AI-enthusiastic narratives, because the pro-AI side works against it with billions in resources. Ideologies collide, fed by egos, PR strategies, moral posturing, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Doomsday marketing makes the search even harder: AI companies can profit from warnings about the dangers of AI, whether through the notoriety of apocalypse narratives or because, in some target groups, danger translates into power. Some seemingly negative findings are therefore quite welcome in the AI industry. If you try to get at the findings presumably less influenced by interest groups, the picture in education seems relatively clear: AI can improve educational outcomes when the right AI is used the right way, namely pedagogically. Simply dumping an AI chatbot into a classroom, by contrast, accomplishes little. Huge surprise. But something else is also obvious: whether they are allowed to or not, kids use AI for school, which is why the controlled integration of AI tools into education is, in the medium term, entirely without alternative. In the world of work, the landscape of findings is more complex and requires more differentiation. A series of serious studies points to an AI effect that suits neither the alarmists, regulation fetishists, and AI opponents, nor the trillion-dollar corporations with their armada of paid scientists, PR professionals, and ecosystems: working with AI helps the inexperienced (at least for now) considerably more than it helps the pros, in certain fields of work, and provided they know how to use it correctly. Missing Domain Knowledge Among the experienced, the professionals, and the high flyers, by contrast, despite frequent time savings, partially negative effects and new problems are emerging. Take the jagged frontier problem: AI solves task A brilliantly and fails completely at task B, even though both look similar even to professionals. Or the verification-cost problem, in which AI’s greater productivity gets eaten up by the enormous effort of checking its output. Or the illusion of competence, because AI makes new domains seem easily penetrable, until you painfully discover that deep domain knowledge is missing. Taken as a whole, the effects of working with AI do lean positive. But the promise that AI works as a turbocharger for everyone and boosts practically everything simply refuses to materialize. The AI magic the world has been feeling since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022 has so far barely shown up in most companies’ numbers. The consulting firm McKinsey has coined a term for this, the “gen AI paradox,” and believes that work processes and corporate structures would have to be rebuilt quite fundamentally to realize AI’s benefits at scale. Reuters just reported that only 3.3 percent of Microsoft’s customers have subscribed to the AI package Copilot. That may be down to the product; in other areas we continue to see soaring successes and new AI triumphs. But after the first quarter of 2026, disillusionment is the word for all too many AI projects at traditional companies: because the promised revolution of AI agents has so far failed to arrive or been postponed, and because of the leveling effect that many of the studies cited here suggest. Against Inequality The societal effects, on the other hand, appear rather encouraging. Many previous technologies operated on the Matthew principle, named for the Gospel verse about giving to those who already have: they tended to reward the more competent and more privileged. AI, however, seems more often to have an equalizing effect once a threshold of access and education is crossed. Some anecdotal insights point in this direction, for example, how an unemployed man in Leipzig successfully defended himself in court in 2025 against fraud accusations from Germany’s federal employment agency — without a lawyer, armed only with ChatGPT. The AI made mistakes and cited invented court rulings, but in the end the man walked away unpunished. And a key capability of artificial intelligence is its capacity to learn: set up correctly and fed with data, it can keep getting better. It is a question of time, or more precisely of AI innovations and training data, until even free AI chatbots write better legal briefs than law graduates with perfect exam scores. Whether that will make anyone dumb is something the world’s press will surely inform us of in due time. Subscribe Leave a comment

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Jul 29 • 4:23 AM EDT • Science • derspiegel.substack.com
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Despite all the upgrades, Galaxy S27 Ultra will likely miss out in two key areas

Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy S27 series in February next year with a host of improvements across the board. The Galaxy S27 Ultra and the Galaxy S27 Pro will get the most attention, but it looks like they will still miss out on faster RAM and storage.

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Jul 28 • 1:15 PM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net
Galaxy Z Fold 8’s wide new design is reportedly selling faster than Samsung expected

Samsung reportedly increased Galaxy Z Fold 8 production prior to launch, but it appears the smaller foldable model is still...

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Jul 28 • 12:21 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
Sonny Styles Highlights Commanders' Three ESPN Top 50 Offseason Additions

Hours before training camp kicks off around the league, ESPN's Matt Bowen ranked the 50 most impactful moves of the offseason. Washington earned three entries on the list: the drafting of Sonny Styles and the free-agent signings of Odafe Oweh and Chig Okonkwo. As fans eagerly await comments from coaches and players during the first week of training camp, it won't feel the same until the team is on the field in Week 1.

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Jul 28 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Framework Laptop 13 Pro review: The king of repairability is back

After five full years with the same Laptop 13.5 model, Framework has finally developed a successor worthy of the "Pro" name. The much-needed update doubles down on everything that made the original so special while addressing many of the common concerns.

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Jul 28 • 11:47 AM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net
Best Back to School Accessory Deals on Anker, Sony, Samsung and More This Week

There's a big accessory sale happening on Amazon this week, with the year's best prices on Anker chargers, Samsung monitors, Sonos audio products, and much more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

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Jul 28 • 10:21 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Pitaka’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Flip 8 cases deliver smart features without the bulk

Samsung’s foldables are built to deliver flexibility to its users, but protecting them often means dealing with extra bulk that...

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Jul 28 • 8:55 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
[Galaxy Unpacked July 2026] A First Look at Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Flip8

At Galaxy Unpacked July 2026 in London, Samsung Electronics unveiled the eighth-generation Galaxy Z series. Combining agentic AI that understands users with

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Jul 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • news.samsung.com