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Student-produced film captures Ireland sports experience | UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

The documentary created by a UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media team premieres on campus Oct. 22 and Oct. 23. — This story, written by UNC Hussman alumnus Michael Lananna ’14, was originally published at unc.edu. — Carolina senior Anna Laible came up with the idea about a year ago. At the annual UNC Sports and Entertainment Summit, the journalism student walked up to then-athletic director Bubba Cunningham and took a chance. “Hi, Bubba, I’m not sure if you remember me, but I’m part of the student broadcast team from the Olympics,” Laible told him. “I have this idea to do an Ireland documentary on the football team.” Encouraged by the enthusiastic response to the proposal, Laible and a team of students from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media worked diligently to turn that vision into reality. In August, Laible and seven peers traveled to Dublin, Ireland, with the Carolina football team and women’s soccer team. Equipped with video cameras, the student journalists covered both teams during their international games — both wins — and filmed scenes throughout Dublin, interviewing Irish locals, Tar Heel fans and key Carolina figures who helped make the trip possible. Back home, Laible’s team put the finishing touches on the documentary, with its first screening at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 22-23 in Carroll Hall room 111. The project is the latest in a long line of sports documentaries produced under the guidance of C.A. Tuggle, John H. Stembler Jr. Distinguished Professor. Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Tuggle and the Hussman school have sent journalism students to cover each of the Summer Games, and Tuggle’s students have also produced documentaries on Carolina teams that win national championships. But this Ireland excursion presented a new kind of opportunity. “This trip is really unique,” Tuggle said. “Bubba liked the idea, so we started working on it, and it’s all because Anna was forward-thinking and assertive.” Laible’s team worked to create a holistic depiction of the Dublin trip, billed as “Much More Than a Game.” The documentary’s 12 chapters cover Irish culture, music, trips to the Guiness Storehouse and the myriad connections between Tar Heels and Ireland. “Our main focus was to make sure we gave a whole encompassing idea of what this experience was like,” Laible said. “We wanted to show not just the student-athletes, but other students, other Carolina fans, Carolina alumni, the music and really incorporate that all in the documentary.” Joining Laible in Dublin were juniors Emily Brietz, Cooper Hall, Eliza Jennings and Katherine McCullough and seniors Molly Malek, May Proctor and Merrily Tew. Those students also traveled to Milan for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in February. Those kinds of opportunities wouldn’t be possible without the support of UNC Hussman and, in the case of the Ireland trip, the Carolina athletic department. UNC Hussman students create Ireland trip documentary. (Submitted photo) “Never in a million years did I think I would have the opportunity to go to the Olympics or to the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, and now I’m even being presented with potential opportunities go to the Super Bowl,” said Malek, who served in a leadership role with Laible in Dublin. “I think that Carolina does a terrific job of connecting us to these opportunities that almost no other university does. This is a university where you have the opportunity to have an interdisciplinary education and to learn and experience a lot of things all at once.” With the support of UNC Hussman, Tuggle and fellow students like Malek, Laible turned a spur-of-the-moment idea into a documentary. When the film screens, Laible said she’s not quite sure what emotions to expect. “I’m a little worried that I might cry — not that crying is a bad thing,” Laible said, laughing. “But I’m really grateful for so many people helping, and I’m excited for everyone to see it.”

Oct 20 • 10:18 PM EDT • Sports • hussman.unc.edu

How a photo of a person’s face could help predict whether they’ll survive cancer treatment

A simple selfie could hold surprising clues to your overall health and longevity, especially among people with cancer.

Oct 20 • 9:33 PM EDT • Health • cnn.com

Knicks celebrate a banner night 53 years in the making — with sights set on another

It was at 6:57 p.m. that Jalen Brunson’s voice delivered the line Knicks fans have long been waiting for.

Oct 20 • 8:15 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

A massive asteroid slammed into the North Sea and unleashed a 330-foot tsunami

A decades-long mystery beneath the North Sea has finally been solved. Scientists have confirmed that the Silverpit Crater, buried 700 meters below the seabed, was created when a 160-meter-wide asteroid struck Earth roughly 43 to 46 million years ago. The violent collision blasted a towering curtain of rock and water 1.5 kilometers into the air and triggered a tsunami more than 100 meters high.

Oct 20 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Ryan Day Reveals Concerning Julian Sayin Injury Update

Ohio State coach Ryan Day announces Julian Sayin is out indefinitely and reveals the Buckeyes are preparing for a potentially season-long absence.

Oct 20 • 7:25 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Thunder-Spurs Opener Already Belongs to Chet Holmgren

After a bruising playoff exit, the Thunder’s versatile center faces an immediate litmus test against Victor Wembanyama, seeking to replace past hesitation with the decisive aggression Oklahoma needs.

Oct 20 • 7:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

A Billionaire Wanted a Trump Pardon. His Family Gave Alina Habba a $50 Million Deal.

Julio Herrera Velutini, a prominent Venezuelan, was seeking clemency. He got it not long after his daughter gave Ms. Habba, a lawyer close to President Trump, an extraordinarily lucrative job.

Oct 20 • 6:45 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

A Woman’s Journey to Lifelong Bone Health

When should women really start worrying about bone density? If you think the answer is 65, you might want to reconsider. A Hackensack Meridian Health expert weighs in.

Oct 20 • 6:30 PM EDT • Health • newswise.com

Hundreds of Mainers lost their health insurance due to Medicaid eligibility changes

The federal government will no longer reimburse states for Medicaid coverage provided to lawful noncitizens

Oct 20 • 6:16 PM EDT • Health • wmtw.com

OCPS rejects compromise on teacher health insurance ahead of school board hearing

Orange County Public Schools rejected on Tuesday a compromise on health insurance costs meant to break a months-long contract dispute between the district and its teachers union, saying that a special...

Oct 20 • 5:22 PM EDT • Health • yahoo.com

Older breast cancer survivors fall through Medicare home health gap

Among the increasing number of women who survive breast cancer, many older, long-term survivors remain frail. A new study out today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that in a given ...

Oct 20 • 5:20 PM EDT • Health • medicalxpress.com

Several S&T researchers among top 2% cited scientists in their fields

A total of 94 current and former researchers affiliated with Missouri S&T are among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists recognized either for their career-long impact or for their 2025 metrics, according to a Stanford University analysis of the Elsevier Data Repository....Continue Reading Several S&T researchers among top 2% cited scientists in their fields

Oct 20 • 5:13 PM EDT • Science • news.mst.edu

A community health initiative in low-income areas may reduce hospital admission rates

In this longitudinal cross-sectional RCT, 30 low-income apartment buildings in Ontario received visits from the community paramedicine clinic, resulting in…

Oct 20 • 5:00 PM EDT • Health • 2minutemedicine.com

Which Greater Boston business do you miss the most?

Several longtime businesses have shuttered this year, marking the end of an era for its employees and customers. Share your memories.

Oct 20 • 4:40 PM EDT • Business • boston.com

AFL Releases FY2025 Corporate Responsibility Report

AFL, the Duncan, South Carolina-headquartered manufacturer of fiber optic cable, equipment, accessories, and related services, released its FY2025 Corporate Responsibility Report. As a reflection of AFL’s continued commitment to creating long-term...

Oct 20 • 4:29 PM EDT • Business • greenvillebusinessmag.com

Edinburg Veterans Day Parade Entry Deadline is Oct. 29th

The City of Edinburg is proud to announce the upcoming Veterans Day Parade, honoring past and present members of the U.S. Armed Forces. The parade will take place along Closner Boulevard—affectionately known as the "Boulevard of Heroes"—on Saturday, November 7, 2026, beginning at 10 a.m.

Oct 20 • 4:12 PM EDT • Business • texasborderbusiness.com

Boeing 737 Max 10 lands long-awaited FAA certification

The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday certified Boeing’s largest Max variant, the 737 Max 10, after years of manufacturing and regulatory hurdles. The FAA’s decision clears the way for Boeing

Oct 20 • 4:01 PM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com

Police: Robbery, homicide investigation underway at business along Dixie Highway

Officers are investigating after a man was found dead inside a business along Dixie Highway, according to Fairfield police.

Oct 20 • 3:58 PM EDT • Business • wcpo.com

Scientists Find 46,000-Year-Old Bone Fragments in a Cave, Leading to Groundbreaking Discovery

Six ancient bone fragments found in a Spanish cave belonged to a male Neanderthal, and their well-preserved DNA could reveal new details about his life

Oct 20 • 3:54 PM EDT • Science • yahoo.com

iPad Mini 8 Expected Next Week With These 10 New Features

Apple reportedly plans to unveil an iPad mini 8 with an OLED display next week, with those invited to Apple's Los Angeles experience on Wednesday, October 28 expected to receive hands-on time with the device, alongside MacBook Pro models with touch-enabled OLED displays, a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip, and an iMac with an M6 chip.

Oct 20 • 3:35 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Yankees 'balance and lengthen' lineup with this 1 offseason move

The Yankees could use another slugger alongside Aaron Judge.

Oct 20 • 3:31 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Andrew Thomas’ latest update leaves the Giants waiting

John Harbaugh didn’t declare Andrew Thomas or Jermaine Eluemunor ready for Houston on Monday. He said both tackles, along with […]

Oct 20 • 3:14 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Online Communities Rarely Focus on Politics, and Many Say It Should Stay That Way

Most people in online communities see little to no politics in their go-to space, and 54% say it doesn't belong there.

Oct 20 • 3:13 PM EDT • Politics • pewresearch.org

Samsung Has Already Found the Next Way to Unfold a Phone

A leaker claims that the long-awaited Galaxy Z Slide is finally upon us.

Oct 20 • 2:20 PM EDT • Technology • gizmodo.com

Roeper alum returns to educate after long career in science

BIRMINGHAM — Shannon Cass-Calay, 1988 graduate of The Roeper School, said it was always a life goal to return to the school as an educator.

Oct 20 • 2:18 PM EDT • Science • candgnews.com

Dream and mind-wandering reports could offer hints about mental health

Dreams and mind-wandering have long fascinated psychologists and researchers studying the human mind. This is partly because these experiences offer glimpses into people's inner lives, emotions, past ...

Oct 20 • 2:00 PM EDT • Health • medicalxpress.com

Tonko, Ambrosio make their cases in 20th Congressional District race

Voters in the 20th Congressional District will choose between a longtime Democratic incumbent and a Republican who has never held elected office.

Oct 20 • 2:00 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Tonko, Ambrosio make their cases in 20th Congressional District race

Voters in the 20th Congressional District will choose between a longtime Democratic incumbent and a Republican who has never held elected office.

Oct 20 • 2:00 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Longtime Meta policy head Joel Kaplan is leaving

Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer and a key bridge to Trump, will leave after the midterms and a transition period.

Oct 20 • 1:54 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.

Oct 20 • 1:47 PM EDT • Technology • bigtechnology.com

Christina Applegate Revealed A Shock Health Update After Her MS Diagnosis

Christina Applegate, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, shared some details after a monthslong hospital stay.

Oct 20 • 1:38 PM EDT • Health • yahoo.com

Longtime metro Detroit newspaper exec, community leader Jeanne Towar dies at 91

She joined Crain Communications in 1989 and served in multiple roles, including publisher of Detroit Monthly, the precursor to Crain’s Detroit Business, and served as the marketing director for Crain’s Detroit.

Oct 20 • 1:32 PM EDT • Business • crainsdetroit.com

Longtime Nevada Republican files complaint against GOP congressional candidate

The Federal Election Commission complaint against David Flippo cites reporting on his personal finances and campaign finance reports, and calls for an investigation.

Oct 20 • 1:30 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Caitlin Clark joins Taylor Swift at Chiefs game

Caitlin Clark is making the most of her basketball offseason by returning to Arrowhead Stadium and cheering for her longtime favorite NFL team. The Indiana Fever star joined Taylor Swift as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Los Angeles Chargers, adding another memorable moment to Clark’s well-documented Chiefs fandom.

Oct 20 • 1:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Ice Cream Shop Owner Brought Her Kids to Work. Then the Health Department Arrived

“I’m sick of people acting like kids don’t belong,” the Michigan business owner tells TODAY.com.

Oct 20 • 12:21 PM EDT • Health • today.com

Almost iconic? Political violence and the making of symbolic figures in Brazil’s 2018 elections by Katherine Jensen

Ethnic and Racial Studies ABSTRACT Confederate memorialization is not limited to the United States. After the Civil War, thousands of former Confederates emigrated to Brazil where slavery continued. Santa Bárbara d’Oeste and Americana, in São Paulo State, long celebrated this Confederate heritage. Local memory politics, however, have become unsettled. This article examines local Black movement …

Oct 20 • 12:14 PM EDT • Politics • sociology.wisc.edu

Romanian lawmakers back a minority government to end monthslong stalemate

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers sought Tuesday to end a monthslong political impasse by voting for a minority government led by an independent diplomat, who now faces the challenge of securing support in a fragmented Parliament while tackling a large budget deficit. Prime Minister Luca Niculescu won 280 votes for his proposed Cabinet in

Oct 20 • 12:13 PM EDT • Politics • mymotherlode.com

Best Trader Joe's items for meal prep, according to former employee

As a former Trader Joe's employee and longtime shopper, I know the chain well. Some of my favorite items are the soy chorizo and miso-ginger broth.

Oct 20 • 11:35 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Republic Business Credit Provides $15 Million Factoring Facility to Temporary Staffing Agency

Republic Business Credit has provided a $15 million factoring facility to an established Midwestern staffing agency. The funding delivers essential working capital to support daily operations, resolve an unexpected liability, and position the Company to execute its long-term growth plans.

Oct 20 • 10:00 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Romanian lawmakers back government led by independent Luca Niculescu as country seeks to end monthslong political crisis

Romanian lawmakers back government led by independent Luca Niculescu as country seeks to end monthslong political crisis.

Oct 20 • 9:43 AM EDT • Politics • union-bulletin.com

Tracking Military Health Through the Millennium Cohort Study

Why it matters * Long-term evidence strengthens military health and readiness * Research turns service members' experiences into better care * Findings have informed policy, prevention and screeningNORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / October 20, 2026 / For more than three decades, has helped federal military leaders turn health questions into evidence that improves care and readiness. The Millennium Cohort Study shows that work in action, helping agencies better understand health challenges and

Oct 20 • 9:35 AM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com

Houston voters welcome long lines as early voting begins

For some voters, participating in the election also meant encouraging others to do the same.

Oct 20 • 9:30 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Christina Applegate Says She Was Misdiagnosed With MS After Yearslong Battle

Years after Christina Applegate shared that she was battling multiple sclerosis, the actress said she is "back at square one" after learning she had been misdiagnosed.

Oct 20 • 9:26 AM EDT • Health • eonline.com

T-shirts and silver balls: Politics get mixed in with the profane at a Trump store

By Elle Reeve, Samantha Guff, Frank Fenimore, CNN Boones Mill, Virginia (CNN) — Walk into Trump Town USA in Boones Mill, Virginia, and you may marvel at the breadth of human creativity, as long as you’re not distracted by how the merchandise tackles some of the most controversial political issues in the most vulgar way

Oct 20 • 9:05 AM EDT • Politics • kvia.com

Two longtime rivals seek new audiences in Oregon governor’s race. Who will persuade voters?

Despite the effective rematch from 2022, this year’s campaign trail has pushed both candidates to reach voters in opposing ideological lanes.

Oct 20 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • oregoncapitalchronicle.com

Guardians News: So, A Long Offseason Begins

News and Notes for Tuesday, October 20th, 2026

Oct 20 • 8:36 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust: Fall 2026 Update on Vaccine Views

The latest KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust finds about half of parents mistakenly believe spacing out vaccines is healthier for children, while confidence in many long-standing childhood vaccines is high across partisans. These findings take on new relevance following President Trump's recent executive order calling for changes in U.S. childhood vaccine recommendations, including splitting the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine—currently given as a single combined shot—into three separate vaccines across multiple visits.

Oct 20 • 8:30 AM EDT • Health • kff.org

Hanan Al Kuwari: Executive, Minister, Diplomat - And A Middle-Power Mediator?

The State of Qatar has nominated former minister of public health Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari for Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Entering a competitive contest alongside six other candidates as the WHO faces financial instability, workforce restructuring, and geopolitical fragmentation, her campaign positions her as a pragmatic, delivery-focused nominee.

Oct 20 • 8:15 AM EDT • Health • healthpolicy-watch.news

Garmin launches Edge 1060 bike computer with voice control, alongside new Edge Explore computers and Tacx Nēra smart trainer

New Edge 1060 heads up trio of new computers and trainer refresh from Garmin

Oct 20 • 8:03 AM EDT • Technology • bikeradar.com

Titans Win May Have Inadvertently Helped Colts

Tennessee's dramatic comeback win triggered a long-overdue housecleaning in Indianapolis, finally forcing the franchise to fire General Manager Chris Ballard following years of mediocre quarterback carousels.

Oct 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Rob Reiner almost helped Larry David with his unproduced screenplay but made this movie instead

The comedians had a decades-long friendship, which also helped Cheryl Hines lock in an Emmy-nominated role.

Oct 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

How much longer will Sacramento’s progressive politics let Califia suffer?

“Cali is dying on the streets because there is no way...to help her.”

Oct 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • sacbee.com

How Much Of Cisco Stock's Rise Did The Business Earn?

Cisco Systems (CSCO) supplies businesses and the hyperscalers building AI infrastructure with networking and security products, along with services. The company's stock climbed 92% between late July 2021 and mid-October 2026, before dividends. A rally of that magnitude makes it natural to credit a growing business. So take a guess: how much of that rise came from Cisco selling more.

Oct 20 • 7:02 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Scientists discover learning and memory formation in model membranes

A decades-long collaboration between two Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists is reshaping how we understand

Oct 20 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • technology.org

Foldables are about to get huge

iPhone Duo demand meets a long delivery queue, giving Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 an opening. Plus the latest Google and Android news.

Oct 20 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

Revolut and other banking apps go down as Google Cloud suffers outage

Google Cloud is experiencing service disruptions in London, along with multiple banking apps including Revolut.

Oct 20 • 6:56 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

A note to readers: Science, accountability and elections

Dear readers, As early voting begins, I wanted to share some news — and why it connects to the decisions we make at the ballot box. I’ve been selected for the inaugural cohort of the South Atlantic Climate Journalism Hub mentorship program, hosted by Covering Climate Now. I’m excited to join this group, learn from scientists and fellow journalists, and expand my science reporting. Science directly ties to governance. Local officials make decisions about where development goes, how infrastructure is maintained, what emergency preparations receive funding, and how communities rebuild after disasters. Understanding the evidence behind those decisions helps us evaluate whether our government is serving us well. Here in western North Carolina, those connections are all around us, in Lake Lure and beyond. Flood maps inform decisions about property and development. Engineering assessments help identify risks at dams and bridges. Rainfall forecasts guide emergency preparations. Geological information helps explain landslide hazards. Water testing gives communities information they need to assess conditions. Meteorologists’ knowledge and public perception of weather events shape public safety. Each involves scientific or technical knowledge. Each also raises questions about public responsibility: What did officials know? How did they use that information? What did they tell the public? What did taxpayers receive for their money? A study can identify a problem. Elected officials still have to decide what to do about it, how to pay for it, and how to explain their choices. Reporting should examine both the evidence and the response. That is where I want to strengthen my work. My reporting on Helene recovery, infrastructure, flooding, public safety, and public spending has repeatedly brought me to questions that require scientific expertise alongside public records. This mentorship may help me better understand the research, ask more precise questions, and explain the answers clearly. I also bring the perspective of someone living with these concerns. I live downstream of Lake Lure Dam, and landslides affected my property during Helene. Those experiences bring urgency to my questions. Careful reporting helps establish the answers. Readers deserve to know what the evidence shows, where uncertainty remains, and whether officials accurately describe the information guiding their decisions. You also deserve scrutiny of proposed solutions: what they cost, what they are expected to accomplish, and what risks remain. Access to that information matters. As a mostly deaf journalist who relies on written communication, I will continue pressing for written public warnings, records, and explanations that people can read and use in real time. As you consider the candidates seeking your vote, consider how they approach evidence, preparedness, and transparency. Do they support local journalism, even when it’s not parroting a press release? Do they explain weather events clearly in plain English and explain their decisions after them? Make supporting records available? Acknowledge uncertainty? Follow through when a report identifies a risk? Those are practical questions about governing. Thank you for supporting Cops & Congress and the work that makes these questions part of the public conversation. I’m grateful to David Dickson and the CC Now team for this opportunity, and I look forward to bringing what I learn back to you. Annie DanceEditor & Publisher, Cops & Congress — Learn more about this newsletter, ethics policy, how you can help shape this work, and support it. Follow on X and Facebook. Send constructive criticism, fan mail, and tips with public documents for future stories: CopsandCongress@gmail.com ICYMI: View the Cops & Congress archive — Annie Dance is the publisher of Cops & Congress, a newsletter that analyzes what happens when crime, courts, disaster, democracy, and small-town policies collide. Views expressed here are covered by the First Amendment. Dance has a Bachelor of Arts from Manhattan University in Communication with a focus in Journalism and Government. She has been a journalist for over 20 years. Share Upgrade now or give a gift subscription

Oct 20 • 6:56 AM EDT • Science • anniedance.substack.com

Bigfoot to Bojangles: How a Charlotte family built a business on make-believe

Long before the store became a Charlotte fixture, it started with a phone call, a rack of costumes and a couple willing to take a chance.

Oct 20 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • charlotteobserver.com

The New Reality of El Niño: Why “Business as Usual” Is No Longer an Option

A rapidly intensifying El Niño is increasing risks to operations, supply chains and workforces worldwide. Learn practical strategies to strengthen resilience and prepare for greater weather volatility

Oct 20 • 4:20 AM EDT • Business • zurich.com

Texas Football Prediction Has Longhorns Making $50 Million Steve Sarkisian Decision

Texas has gone from No. 1 to two straight defeats, and one college football analyst believes another disappointing finish could be bad news for Steve Sarkisian. The post Texas Football Prediction Has Longhorns Making $50 Million Steve Sarkisian Decision appeared first on HEAVY.

Oct 20 • 3:50 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

New-to-science seahorse is one of three long-misidentified species

Scientists have identified a new-to-science seahorse species from the Indian waters, which has helped resolve the taxonomy of a group misidentified for over a century. In 1856, zoologist Johann Jakob Kaup described the thorny or spiny seahorse, Hippocampus histrix, based on samples from Japan. Since then, this seahorse has been thought to be a single, […]

Oct 20 • 3:09 AM EDT • Science • india.mongabay.com

Roland unveils a new Jupiter-8-inspired Boutique synth in celebration of the original's 45th birthday – and drops an all-new wavetable synth too

A pint-sized take on the '80s classic, the Jupiter-08 launches alongside the N/vision, a wavetable synth that promises "rich tonalities, evolving textures and sophisticated sound design"

Oct 20 • 3:00 AM EDT • Technology • musicradar.com

Auburn Linebacker Xavier Atkins Dismissed From Football Program

Auburn linebacker Xavier Atkins has reportedly been dismissed from the football program following a disciplinary issue that sidelined him against Georgia. With Atkins no longer on the roster, Alex Golesh and DJ Durkin must rely on Elijah Melendez, Bryce Deas and De'Marcus Riddick against LSU.

Oct 20 • 2:42 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

James Maddison marks first Tottenham start in nearly 18 months with stunning goal in first Premier League win of season

Tottenham playmaker struck opener in 3-1 win over Coventry which moved side off foot of Premier League; the 29-year-old was making his first start following torrid long lay-off after suffering an ACL injury

Oct 20 • 2:01 AM EDT • Sports • skysports.com

An Intro to New Orioles GM Jared Banner

The Baltimore Orioles made a front-office shakeup on Monday, bringing in assistant general manager of the Chicago Cubs, Jared Banner, to become the new general manager alongside President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias. Banner, who served as the Cubs' assistant GM from 2024 to 2026, joined after Elias expressed a desire to add "fresh voices" …

Oct 20 • 1:31 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Aaron Boone Gets Terrible Update For Long-Term Yankees Future

The New York Yankees upset many fans by bringing back Aaron Boone as manager for next season. Most fans were already aware, but an official report confirmed today Boone will continue his MLB managing career in New York. Another disappointing early playoff exit for the Yankees has fans questioning if the team has any chance […] The post Aaron Boone Gets Terrible Update For Long-Term Yankees Future appeared first on HEAVY.

Oct 20 • 12:08 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

‘He’s solid, has integrity and character’: Longtime TX GOP judge backs Talarico for Senate

Oct 19 • 11:55 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

PS5 console jailbreak on latest 14.10 firmware shared before GTA 6 release date

PlayStation may have hoped it would take longer to compromise the current 14.10 firmware. However, a homebrew developer has found a way to exploit Sony's software. The PS5 console jailbreak could enable piracy of games like GTA 6 that require the update.

Oct 19 • 10:04 PM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net

In tight WA House race, sparks fly over safety at challenger’s business

Questions about safety at Braun Northwest have become a flashpoint in a Southwest Washington district grappling with a deadly tank collapse at a Longview mill.

Oct 19 • 9:59 PM EDT • Business • seattletimes.com

In tight WA House race, sparks fly over safety at challenger’s business

Questions about safety at Braun Northwest have become a flashpoint in a Southwest Washington district grappling with a deadly tank collapse at a Longview mill.

Oct 19 • 9:59 PM EDT • Politics • seattletimes.com

Roanoke leaders say empty storefronts won’t stay empty long as new businesses move in

Locked doors and empty seats. Roanoke City leaders acknowledge rising costs have been a burden on business owners.

Oct 19 • 9:29 PM EDT • Business • wdbj7.com

Charisse Childers joins Halsey Real Estate team

Halsey Real Estate has added commercial real estate agent Charisse Childers, a longtime Arkansas workforce and economic development leader, to its Little Rock commercial real estate team. Childers, who has...

Oct 19 • 8:26 PM EDT • Business • talkbusiness.net

Toppenish School District receives $7.5 million federal grant to expand mental health services for students

The BriefThe Toppenish School District has been awarded up to $7.5 million through Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a federal grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).The grant will provide up to $1.5 million annually over five years to expand mental health services, strengthen substance use prevention and intervention, and improve access to support for students.District officials say the funding will help address identified gaps in services, particularly drug and alcohol counseling at the high school level, and will allow the district to build capacity for long-term mental health support.TOPPENISH, WASHINGTON — The Toppenish School District has been awarded up to $7.5 million through Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a federal grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), to expand mental health services and substance use prevention for students.District officials said access to mental health resources has been limited, making it difficult for some students and families to get the support they need. The federal Project AWARE grant will help address those challenges by bringing schools and local healthcare providers together to better support students.The grant will provide up to $1.5 million annually over five years to expand mental health services, strengthen substance use prevention and intervention, and improve access to support for Toppenish students. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jeff Camero said the district is focused on coordinating with service providers in the area to work as a unified team."We made the awareness with the grant. But looking at all the service providers in the area and how can we all together work as a team?" Camero said.Camero said the district wants to use those resources to reach students earlier and provide more support for those struggling with their mental health. The district plans to address a range of mental health challenges, from anxiety and depression to youth suicide risk. Camero emphasized the importance of supporting students in grades eight through twelve, where suicide rates are a particular concern."Making sure from anxiety to depression, making sure that we can help support our students at those levels, but also the youth suicide risk, looking at that as a top in this area, in our grades, you know, eight, for example, eight through 12, looking at suicide rate and looking at how whether we look at the ACES or whatever program we're looking at, that's federal, how that connects and how we can better serve our students with this extra funding," Camero said.The funding will allow the district to bring in additional staff, including mental health and substance use specialists, to work directly with students and connect families with community resources. The district is already posting positions, including a director role, with additional positions expected to follow.District officials are also thinking beyond the grant's five-year timeline. Brittany Kaple, Director of Public Relations for the Toppenish School District, said the intent is to build capacity and establish connections that will sustain mental health services even after the grant funding ends."We do have the director position already posted, with some of our other positions following really close behind that. But the intent is to, you know, it's a five-year grant, so those positions would be funded for that five years. But there's also the intent to build capacity and make those connections so that at the end of the grant, when that money, you know, if that money is not renewed," Kaple said.As student mental health needs continue to evolve, access to drug and alcohol counseling has become an important priority for the district. Kaple said teachers and staff have been raising concerns about the need for more support, especially at the high school level."And that was something that was also an identified need by our high school staff when the superintendent met with them last school year. They said that that was a really great need, something that they felt was a gap in services that we were providing for our students. And so this is going to be one way to help support that need," Kaple said.The Toppenish School District says its goal is to ensure students and families have access to the support they need, both now and in the years ahead. Additional positions, including drug and alcohol counselors and family engagement specialists, are expected to be posted in the coming weeks. News Sunnyside City Council navigates 2027 budget planning Monique Garcia News "Dancing with the Stars" champion J.R. Martinez shares message of resilience during Central Washington visit Tyler Wargo News Toppenish, Mattawa educators honored at state Educator of the Year Awards Erin Wencl News Kennewick educator named 2027 Washington Teacher of the Year Erin Wencl News Voters to decide the next Yakima County Sheriff Monique Garcia ​COPYRIGHT 2026 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

Oct 19 • 7:59 PM EDT • Health • applevalleynewsnow.com

Echo Lake Entertainment Promotes Dana Jackson & Matt Horwitz To Partner

EXCLUSIVE: Dana Jackson and Matt Horwitz, a pair of longtime literary managers at Echo Lake Entertainment, have been elevated to partners in their division. Acknowledging “the extraordinary creativity...

Oct 19 • 6:41 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Pat Daley, a political freshman focused on affordability, Medicaid expansion and infrastructure

Pat Daley is running against longtime incumbent Jesse Petrea for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives representing Chatham and Bryan counties.

Oct 19 • 6:39 PM EDT • Politics • wtoc.com

Rams Get Devastating Injury News on Multiple Stars

The Los Angeles Rams suffered three long-term injuries to key position player groups during their loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. The post Rams Get Devastating Injury News on Multiple Stars appeared first on LA Sports Report.

Oct 19 • 5:36 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Malloy to open expanded Sioux Falls headquarters

Longtime Sioux Falls family business Malloy is moving to a newly renovated headquarters.

Oct 19 • 5:15 PM EDT • Business • siouxfalls.business

Davante Adams injury update as Rams star suffers hamstring rupture

Rams wide receiver Davante Adams suffered a ruptured hamstring in the teams Week 6 game against the Cardinals. Here's how long he will be sidelined.

Oct 19 • 5:04 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Local business honors World War II veteran

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Local leaders gathered in Tonawanda on Monday as Tony’s Tree and Landscaping honored World War II veteran Dr. John Long. The company, which is owned and run by a …

Oct 19 • 4:24 PM EDT • Business • wivb.com

Dee Snider to induct wife into Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame

Suzette Guilot-Snider created Twisted Sister’s iconic, trend-setting fashion Fashion designer Suzette Guilot-Snider will be inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) at their Stony Brook Village location at 97 Main Street on Saturday, November 14th at 8:30 pm. Her husband, Twisted Sister lead singer and LIMEHOF Inductee Dee Snider, will […]

Oct 19 • 3:54 PM EDT • Entertainment • themusicuniverse.com

Scientists Create “Super Ice” That’s 10 Times Stronger and Rivals Concrete in Strength

A new form of reinforced ice could offer an unconventional building material for extreme polar environments, although questions about its long-term durability remain. Scientists have developed a new form of ice that approaches the compressive strength of conventional concrete while resisting the sudden fractures that make ordinary ice so brittle. Known as BioPykrete, the material

Oct 19 • 3:06 PM EDT • Science • scitechdaily.com

Spotify introduces QR code checks for Family plans, missing verification could mean a year-long ban

Spotify is tightening household checks for its Premium Family plan with time-sensitive QR codes, and members who miss the seven-day verification window could face a 12-month restriction on joining another Family plan.

Oct 19 • 3:04 PM EDT • Technology • firstpost.com

Trump's new pitch for Republican candidates? They're really good looking

Aesthetics have long been part of the president's measuring stick, either as a source of praise or target for ridicule.

Oct 19 • 12:01 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Trump to create new NIH division, task force for women's health

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order alongside first lady Melania Trump on Monday ​creating a task force and a National Institutes of Health division focused on women's health, the White House said.

Oct 19 • 11:45 AM EDT • Health • ksl.com

Jason Segel Is Married to Kayla Radomski!

It looks like Jason Segel is married! The 46-year-old How I Met Your Mother actor apparently said "I do" to his longtime love Kayla Radomski, who you may

Oct 19 • 10:56 AM EDT • Entertainment • justjared.com

US political uncertainty complicates long-term Artemis commitments, Polish minister says

Polish minister warns that US political and budgetary uncertainty complicates the country's ability to make long-term commitments to NASA's Artemis programme.

Oct 19 • 10:49 AM EDT • Politics • europeanspaceflight.com

Richie Owens' releases new book Appalachia: Ballads, Bloodlines & the Long Journey Home Vol 2

NASHVILLE — Richie Owens, Nashville-based musician, producer, and multi-instrumentalist known for his work fusing his East Tennessee country roots with punk and alternative rock, has released Appalachia: Ballads, Bloodlines &

Oct 19 • 10:24 AM EDT • Entertainment • themountainpress.com

The Business Behind Matcha

Matcha is a ground green tea powder with roots in ancient Japanese culture, dating back centuries. Only recently has the drink reached a wider global audience, appearing on cafe menus worldwide. Its growing popularity raises a question: How does a product that has been around for so long suddenly become a global trend? During the […]

Oct 19 • 10:20 AM EDT • Business • yucommentator.org

5 Ugreen Travel Gadgets Worth Adding To Your Long-Haul Flight Kit

Ugreen has more for your flight kit than chargers and power banks, including affordable ways to cut cabin noise and keep tabs on your bags.

Oct 19 • 9:32 AM EDT • Technology • bgr.com

Trump to create new NIH division, task force for women's health

WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order alongside first lady Melania Trump on Monday creating a task force and a National Institutes of Health

Oct 19 • 9:27 AM EDT • Health • yahoo.com

Early flu season lands in WA as COVID numbers also rise

Flu season is hitting WA, along with other West Coast states, earlier than usual. Experts don't know why yet, but are urging people to get their flu shots now.

Oct 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • seattletimes.com

EMU breaks ground on new College of Business location

Eastern Michigan University’s College of Business broke ground Thursday on a long-awaited upgrade. WEMU’s Joshua Nieman reports.

Oct 19 • 8:52 AM EDT • Business • wemu.org

Veteran quarterback reportedly refused to sign with Eagles

The Philadelphia Eagles have been scrambling at quarterback ever since Jalen Hurts landed on injured reserve with a blood clot, and Sunday’s 25-14 loss to the Carolina Panthers only added to the urgency. However, there is one longtime NFL quarterback who seemingly has no interest in offering his asstance. Veteran quarterback Andy Dalton was released…

Oct 19 • 8:35 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Utah Democrats have been out of power for 50 years. As the state changes, here’s how they think they can win.

Utah seems poised to send its first Democrat to Congress in six years. Democrats and others say the state is nearing a potential turning point — and that outcry over data centers could be a sign of how to build progressive power in this longtime GOP stronghold.

Oct 19 • 8:04 AM EDT • Politics • sltrib.com