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Japan, U.S. business leaders urge governments to boost AI cooperation
Japanese and U.S. business leaders on Wednesday called on their governments to step up cooperation on artificial intelligence, ranging from measures to support corporate procurement of necessary power sources to harmonizing governance of the rapidly growing technology.
Opposing political groups go head-to-head on Austin’s Prop I
Two political groups in Austin are at odds over a charter amendment proposition on the November ballot, and both held press conferences on Wednesday to share why they support or oppose the measure.
Opposing political groups go head-to-head on Austin’s Prop I
Two political groups in Austin are at odds over a charter amendment proposition on the November ballot, and both held press conferences on Wednesday to share why they support or oppose the measure.
Ravens trade for Eagles center Cam Jurgens to bolster offensive line
BALTIMORE — Desperate times call for desperate measures. After seeing their offensive line — particularly at center — decimated by injuries, the Ravens acquired veteran Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens
Analysis: Voters are angry about money in politics. But are they angry enough to oust popular Republicans?
Journalists Kevin Woster and Seth Tupper check in on the campaigns and measure the effects of big money in state politics. They also explore the confusion of Amendment I.
Apple Watch Series 12, Ultra 4 Owners Report Skin Irritation
Some Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 owners have experienced unexpected skin irritation with the new models, according to reports on the MacRumors forums and Reddit. Affected users complain of a burning sensation and redness under the sensor area. The Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 measure heart rate every five seconds, and some people have wondered if that's the cause of the skin irritation.
Bryan Seaver accused of evading service amid Dolly Parton estate lawsuit
After acquiring a restraining order against Dolly Parton's nephew Bryan Seaver, her company is leveling allegations that he implemented evasive measures to avoid being served legal documents in the
Ways and Means Promotes Tax Law to Small Businesses in Tennessee
At a Tennessee hearing, House Ways and Means lawmakers touted the One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax benefits for small businesses. Read what the measure means.
The same union supporting a billionaire tax wants voters to limit clinic spending. Here’s what to know about Prop. 44
Prop. 44 would require clinics to spend more money on patient care, but clinics say the measure will bankrupt them.
Why are out-of-state billionaires funding a California voter ID measure?
Packaging magnate and Illinois businessman Richard Uhilein and venture capitalists Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are among the big spenders bankrolling California’s voter ID measure.
UM Health-West introduces new security measures
UM Health-West has expanded its safety measures with the help of a new wearable device used to alert the building to security threats. It’s called Canopy Protect, and hospital leaders say they’ve already seen safety improvements since implementing the device about two weeks ago.
The London School of Economics and Political Science | New study finds major HIV service declines in Uganda and Zimbabwe after 2025 US aid cuts
The study is the first to measure what happened to HIV services after the US froze foreign aid and halted PEPFAR and USAID work in January 2025.
Health Alert – U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia (October 6, 2026)
Health Alert – U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia (October 5, 2026) Location: Irkutsk, Russia Event: The U.S. Embassy is aware of press reports from the Irkutsk region of suspected pneumonic plague resulting in the death of an individual and of associated quarantine measures in, and closures of, hospitals in Irkutsk. We continue to track the situation closely. The U.S. government has limited ability to help U.S. citizens in Russia, especially outside of Moscow. U.S. government personnel may face additional restrictions for personal and official travel to specific regions due to health and security concerns. The State Department’s Level 4 Travel Advisory (Do Not Travel) for Russia remains in place and states U.S. citizens currently in Russia should depart immediately. U.S. citizens planning travel to Russia are again strongly advised not to travel to Russia due to risk of wrongful detention and security concerns. Actions to Take: S. citizens in the area should follow the guidance of local health authorities, avoid affected facilities, and seek medical care promptly if they develop fever or respiratory symptoms. Visit the CDC Page on Plague for additional information about the disease. Visit the CDC Travelers’ Health Page for Russia for country-specific health updates. Monitor your health for 14 days following travel if you traveled to an area experiencing the outbreak. Review the S. Embassy country page for general health information. Refer to the Embassy’s list of medical providers. Check with your travel insurance provider about medical evacuation options should you fall ill while overseas. Have a plan to depart in an emergency that does not depend on U.S. government help. Monitor local media for updates. Be prepared to adjust your plans. Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program(STEP) to receive health and security updates. Assistance: U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia +7 495 728-5577 MoscowACS@state.gov U.S. Embassy Moscow web page State Department – Consular Affairs (+001) 888-407-4747 or (+001) 202-501-4444 Russia Country Information Follow us on Facebook and Twitter State Department – Consular Affairs 1-888-407-4747 or 1-202-501-4444
US Congresswoman Joins Fight to Keep Cannabis Legal in Massachusetts
Rep. Ayanna Pressley is urging Massachusetts voters to reject a ballot measure that aims to repeal the state’s adult-use cannabis laws.
Brazil: Lessons from a Disaster
By Antonio Martins (Outras Palavras) Defeats become deeper and more prolonged when we misunderstand what caused them, avoid correcting course, and embrace “solutions” that only compound our mistakes. Lula’s government and the Brazilian left suffered a disaster in Sunday’s election. Contrary to every poll, the president finished the first round 2.2 million votes behind Flávio Bolsonaro—and, more significantly, 3.4 million votes below his total four years ago, when the machinery of the state was working against him and in favor of his opponent. His vote share declined in 98 percent of Brazil’s municipalities. The PL, the main party of the far right, elected 121 deputies and 28 senators, becoming the largest caucus in both houses of Congress. The parties aligned with the Centrão—Brazil’s bloc of transactional center-right parties—were somewhat diminished, but will still hold roughly 250 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 35 in the Senate. That will make it easier to assemble the majorities needed to amend the Constitution or impeach Supreme Federal Court justices. If elected, Flávio Bolsonaro could appoint four members of the Court, substantially altering its internal balance of power. What produced these results? How can the far right be prevented from consolidating them into a prolonged political hegemony? And what is the essential change of direction the left now needs? Explaining the Disaster Across the commercial media and the exuberant chaos of digital platforms, interpretations are multiplying. Some focus on specific episodes: Lula’s absence from the Globo debate, his very close relationship with Alexandre de Moraes, or his emphasis on issues supposedly remote from most people’s everyday concerns, such as rare earth minerals. Among the more systemic interpretations, three seem especially questionable. One argues that the principal defeat was not the left’s, since its congressional representation declined only slightly. The decisive movement captured at the ballot box, according to this view, was a shift within the right itself—from the more moderate and transactional forces of the Centrão toward the more ideological and radicalized forces of the PL and Novo. A second interpretation holds that the nature of electoral and political processes has changed. The material interests and aspirations of society, it argues, no longer play the central role they once did; they have given way to forms of subjective self-identification that the left has yet to understand. And a third concludes that, because of these two developments, we should expect a political winter: a prolonged period in which the far right and the broader right dominate Brazilian political life. There are important elements in all three interpretations. The problem lies in what they deny or leave out: Lula’s third government was a small-bore government. It offered the majorities that elected it neither a clearly better life nor reasons to believe again in politics and its power to transform society. These failures flowed from two fatal accommodations, which I will examine below. As a result, the government suffered a slow but steady erosion of support. And, as has happened in so many Western countries, it gave the far right the opportunity to present itself as anti-system and to benefit from popular frustration and distress. The interpretation that emphasizes the migration of votes from the center-right and traditional right toward the far right has been advanced, among others, by the courageous journalist Leonardo Sakamoto. In his UOL column on Monday, October 5, he highlights the miserable behavior of the traditional conservative parties. Over the past four years, they repeatedly joined forces with the “neo”-fascists, helping to “normalize” them—a criticism that could equally be directed at almost the entire corporate media. Believing they could use the far right as a stepping stone, they instead ended up partly devoured by it. This was especially true in the Senate, where the PL’s gain of 13 senators and Novo’s gain of two came at the expense of the PSD, which lost nine; the MDB, which lost two; the PSDB, which lost two; and the PP, which lost one. Sakamoto’s observation is accurate and necessary, but it leaves uncomfortable questions unanswered. Why did the erosion of the Centrão benefit the far right rather than, for example, producing growth for the left—as has happened so many times before, both in Brazil and elsewhere? The answer is not difficult. Throughout its four years in office, Lula’s third government was almost invariably associated with the Centrão. Here lies its first accommodation: accepting the limits imposed by conservative institutions; avoiding, as much as possible, any attempt to strain those limits through popular pressure; and believing only in the modest changes that could be squeezed through openings in Congress. The failure of the campaign to end the six-day workweek is emblematic. Lula could have electrified the presidential race by pairing it with a popular campaign for passage of the measure. Instead, he chose to place his hopes in the hands of Senate president Rodrigo Alcolumbre. He generated no mass mobilization, did not force his opponents onto an uncomfortable defensive, and won no victory. In September 2025, the government squandered the greatest of its many opportunities to shake up conservative power in Congress. Popular opposition to the so-called Shielding Amendment—which, if approved, would have restricted criminal proceedings against members of Congress—brought crowds into the streets, mobilized primarily by artists and social movements. This opened the possibility for a broader political education: a campaign that could begin exposing the limits and dysfunctions of Brazil’s political system while putting Bolsonaro’s movement on the defensive for its predictable support of political privilege. The amendment was defeated. But the executive branch then backed away from the fight. It remained associated with an institutional world widely seen as corrupt, elitist, and indifferent to ordinary people’s struggles. In doing so, it forfeited its credibility as a vehicle for the protest vote. On Sunday, it reaped the bitter fruits. Are We Doomed? Taking a different approach from Sakamoto, the philosopher Moysés Pinto Neto and other writers have drawn attention, in their first analyses of October 4, to the fragmentation of the public sphere produced by Big Tech platforms. Through their algorithms, these platforms present each person with a different view of social reality. As a consequence, it becomes much harder to identify common material problems and demands—for example, the fight for labor rights or for a properly funded public health system. Voters no longer embrace such demands, these authors argue, because they no longer see themselves as part of a collective. Instead, they tend to value the identities assigned to them by neoliberal subjectivity—the role of the entrepreneur, for example. On this interpretation, the left’s possible error lies in clinging to outdated illusions. Moysés’s warning is highly relevant and resonates with arguments such as Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s “Apocalyptic Fascism and the Billionaires’ Bet.” Unlike a century ago, the far right no longer promises a radiant future. It concentrates instead on resentment—especially that of young men. “They belong to a generation that fears it may never own a home, but compensates with the pleasure it gets from constantly provoking progressives online. Convinced their future has been stolen, they share memes romanticizing historical authoritarian regimes,” the authors write. But Moysés seems to confuse this danger with inevitability. He fails to see that the left’s answer cannot be adaptation. On the contrary, it must strengthen the possibility of politics as collective action. Nor does he recognize that precisely such a reversal is already becoming possible in some of the most promising mobilizations of the twenty-first century: the election, at the end of 2025, of the young Muslim Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, on a platform centered on the intensely material fight for an affordable city; the Left Party’s victory in Berlin two weeks ago, built around the demand to expropriate private real-estate corporations; and the very recent wave of demonstrations in Spain—including an occupation of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol—in which tens of thousands of young people mobilized by the Tenants’ Union have demanded limits on rents. By putting itself in the straitjacket of the “fiscal framework” in the first months of 2022, Lula’s third government adopted the second fatal accommodation of its term. Faced with conservative institutions and a country devastated by four years of Bolsonaro, increased public investment was the government’s remaining weapon for offering a more dignified life to the majority and forging an anti-conservative pact with them. The same state that disburses 1 trillion reais a year to enrich a small class of rentiers could instead spend money to extend the Family Health Strategy to every Brazilian, at a cost of 30 billion reais; provide full-day public schooling and childcare to all adolescents and children—and, especially, relief to their mothers; achieve universal sanitation while cleaning up polluted urban rivers; multiply metro systems; begin transforming the urban peripheries; and undertake many other urgently needed projects. In April 2023, an article in Outras Palavras warned that the fiscal framework could “shrink the Lula government and preserve the forces that condemn the country to inequality and regression.” A year later, another article showed that restraints on public spending were strangling policies vital to ordinary people and undermining the president’s popularity. In November 2024 came a reality check, in the form of the government’s humiliating defeat in the municipal elections. Even then, the fiscal lock was neither removed nor loosened. On the contrary: throughout the government’s four years, fiscal restraint remained central to its political narrative. The administration proudly proclaimed that it had “put the state’s accounts in order,” without grasping either how misleading that phrase was—given the payment of 1 trillion reais in interest—or how badly the message was hurting it politically. Lula finally woke up in September 2026. The increase in Bolsa Família benefits, after four years of being frozen; the announcement that anti-obesity drugs would be offered through Brazil’s public health system; and the ban on online betting showed that the state has the power to act decisively on behalf of the majority when those in government are willing to confront obstacles. The huge marches that closed the campaign in Fortaleza, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo on the eve of October 4 showed how such initiatives can mobilize activists and the broader public. But it was too late—and too little to change the outcome of the first round. History has not ended The possibility of a turnaround in the three weeks leading up to November 25 cannot be ruled out. It will not be simple or easy. Lula must not only make up a deficit of 2.2 million votes; he must also offset the movement of voters who backed other right-wing candidates in the first round, most of whom are likely to move toward Flávio Bolsonaro. Pulling that off will require a broad, grassroots effort to win over voters, potentially reinforced by new initiatives from Lula. The coming hours and days will be decisive. If Bolsonaro’s movement also wins the presidency, the result will create a high-risk situation for Brazilian sovereignty and democracy. The enormous challenges posed by such an outcome would require the left to reexamine, in depth and with a genuine willingness to engage in self-criticism, its political projects—or its lack of them—and its practices. But would that mean we are condemned to the long winter of far-right hegemony that some analyses are beginning to forecast? It is far too early to say, suggests a recent text by Álvaro García Linera, the thinker who served as vice president of Bolivia under Evo Morales. His central hypothesis is that this political current will prove short-lived. At a moment when the entire world is once again talking about sovereignty and protecting national economies, the far right offers a stale, recolonizing neoliberalism. Its submission to the United States is as blatant and pathetic as Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro’s overtures to Donald Trump. Its project amounts to something like every man for himself: greater inequality, capitalism without limits, devastation, and supremacism. Will it work? In the United States, just two years into his second term, Trump himself is reaching record levels of unpopularity and may be on the verge of losing Republican control of both the House and Senate in November. Every new beginning is difficult. Whatever the outcome of the second round, the defeats of October 4 show how profoundly the Brazilian left will have to rethink and rebuild. But just as it would be foolish to underestimate the seriousness of its mistakes, it would be equally foolish to conclude that rebuilding a political project is no longer possible. History has not ended. The times are moving faster than ever. Originally published in Portuguese by Outras Palavras. English translation by Eric Blanc; I’ve added the subtitles. More We can’t stop the far right at home or abroad without a revitalized labor movement, which is yet another reason why you should become a sustaining supporter of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) — one of US labor’s pivotal bright spots. Relatedly, Jacobin published a short piece of mine reflecting on a decade of Bernie Sanders inspiring a whole new generation of young worker organizers.
How hunger is devastating Yemen’s children
Al Jazeera travels to Yemen's displacement camps to measure the toll of malnutrition on the country's children.
Penn State College Of Health & Human Development Launches New Public Health Major
The new major will prepare students for global health challenges, preventative measures, and more.
Deshaun Watson's Rollercoaster Performances for the Cleveland Browns
I'm going to focus on EPA for this piece. EPA stands for Expected Points Added, which measures the value of individual plays based on how much they increase or decrease a team's likelihood of scoring.Here is a fantastic video explaining what EPA is and why it is a measure that looks at years on NFL history rather than one person's subjective opinion on a certain play.Deshaun Watson's Current...
Polling shows ban on trans girls in girls' sports could pass in November
Washington state voters will soon weigh in on a ballot measure to ban transgender girls from playing on girls’ school sports teams. The initiative is controversial, but national and local polling suggest it could have enough silent support to pass.
Hawaiʻi Island program bridges the gap between food and health
Through a partnership with the Hawaiʻi Island Community Health Center and the Food Basket, the initiative provided 25 patients with weekly food boxes that are completely locally sourced to measure how regular access to healthy, local foods would impact their overall health.
Massachusetts Governor Urges No Vote on Cannabis Prohibition Measure
Gov. Maura Healey said she opposes Question 8, a ballot measure that aims to wipe out the state’s adult-use legalization laws.
Congressional candidates discuss expanding executive power and need for political will
Congressional approval ratings are in the tank. By some measures this is one of the least productive sessions of Congress in living memory. WGLT's Charlie Schlenker reports those things may not change much any time soon.
Nutritional countermeasures to spaceflight studied at URI
KINGSTON, R.I. – Oct. 5, 2026 – As humans spend longer periods of time in outer space and venture further from Earth, it’s increasingly important for scientists to learn how varied gravity levels affect muscle function and muscle loss, and how those effects can be counteracted or minimized. Theodoros Pavlidis, a second-year doctoral student who […]
Can Health Trackers Help You Manage Menopause Symptoms?
Apple, Oura and Whoop have all recently added features for midlife women. Here’s what the tools can — and can’t — measure.
Healthy aging should be measured by what we can keep doing
Healthy aging is about personal goals. Learn how to stay active and independent at an upcoming Tallahassee event.
Senate Unanimously Passes the Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act
A bipartisan bill that seeks to improve healthcare cybersecurity and resilience has been unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate. The bill - The Health Care The U.S. Senate has voted unanimously to advance the Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act, which requires more robust cybersecurity measures for healthcare organizations and authorizes grants to help rural and under-resourced providers improve cybersecurity.
Anti-trans ballot measures are a political test run for the 2028 presidential election
LGBTQ+ movement leaders warn that anti-trans ballot measures in five states could become a testing ground for a broader political strategy in the 2028 presidential election.
Apple Health Age test: What to expect
Bridget Carey puts Apple's new Health Age test to the test, from squats to walking, and finds out how she measures up.
KUNC's 2026 midterm election voter guide for Northern Colorado
Everything Northern Colorado voters need to know about the state’s midterm election, including major races, ballot measures, voting deadlines, how to return your ballot, and where to find trusted election resources.
5 tax measures are on the California ballot. Here’s how to make sense of them all
California voters haven’t had to make so many decisions about tax policy at the ballot since 1994. Our analysis shows voters to reject new taxes.
Integral Ad Science to Provide Brand Safety and Suitability Measurement in ChatGPT Ads
NEW YORK, October 05, 2026--As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes digital advertising, marketers face a critical new challenge: ensuring brand safety and suitability within dynamic, generative AI-native environments. Without independent verification, advertising in conversational channels risks creating a blind spot for enterprise brands seeking reliable media quality standards.
Yale School of Medicine On the Science of Childhood Anxiety, Say, Anxiety Disorders Are the Most Common Mental Health Challenges In Youth
Credit: Matt Bradbury October 5, 2026 - By Isabella Backman - Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health challenges in youth. Left untreated, they can disrupt the lives of both children and their families. The good news is that with intervention, most children will overcome these conditions. Across Yale School of Medicine, scientists are working to understand anxiety at every level, from common anxious behaviors to molecular biomarkers in the brain. They are using their findings to develop and disseminate new evidence-based treatments for childhood anxiety. Today, the go-to treatment for childhood anxiety disorders is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This is a form of psychotherapy that teaches children skills for confronting anxious thoughts and helps them practice managing situations that cause anxiety. While it is the gold-standard treatment backed by considerable scientific evidence, up to 50% of children will not see sufficient benefit from CBT alone. Wendy Silverman, PhD, Alfred A. Messer Professor in the Child Study Center, co-directs the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program alongside Eli Lebowitz, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center. One of their main interests is learning how to improve outcomes beyond CBT. “We’re developing cutting-edge, research-based knowledge that can reduce the suffering that anxiety causes children and their families,” says Silverman. Changing parent behavior YSM experts are investigating how to improve CBT outcomes for children by involving the parents. Silverman’s research has uncovered two main components of parent intervention that improve childhood anxiety: not enabling children to completely avoid the things that make them anxious and taking steps to enhance their autonomy. Parents may unintentionally reinforce their child’s anxiety by allowing them to avoid what makes them anxious. They also may unintentionally limit the children’s sense of autonomy by being overly intrusive. “One of the things that we take pride in is that we’ve focused on trying to understand what parents need to do, and to test our ideas and see if changing the parents’ behaviors is enhancing the effects of CBT,” Silverman says. “Our findings thus far suggest that they do." As much as CBT can be helpful, it can also be challenging to get one’s child to do the necessary steps for CBT to work. This is one important reason why Lebowitz created a novel intervention program for parents named Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). Existing intervention programs often teach parents to act as therapists for their child, such as training them on how to practice breathing exercises. “It makes sense, but this doesn’t work very well in practice,” says Lebowitz. “And part of the reason, I think, is that it’s not easy to get your kid to do things, especially if they’re not excited about doing it.” SPACE is unique because it focuses entirely on parent involvement and changing parental behavior—children are not involved in the sessions. For example, parents learn how to use supportive messages that convey confidence that their child can tolerate and manage distress. “It might sound like a parent saying to a child, ‘I get that this is really hard for you, but I know that you can handle it,’” Lebowitz says. The program also works with parents to identify the ways in which they are accommodating anxious behaviors. “We’ll pick one thing that parents are doing that is an accommodation and help them make a detailed plan for how they’re going to change that,” Lebowitz explains. Treating Anxiety in Children and Adolescents Much of the existing research on SPACE has focused on parents of children under age 14. Ongoing studies are now exploring its use with parents of older teens. “Both anxiety and accommodation can interfere with normative developmental shifts during the teen years, including increased autonomy and individuation from parents,” says Rebecca Etkin, PhD, associate research scientist in the Child Study Center. “In this sense, SPACE may be particularly well-suited for anxious teens and their parents. We want to see whether it is effective during this distinct developmental window.” Unfortunately, many families in need of CBT face barriers, including limited availability of services and geographic constraints. One way to improve access is digital interventions. Silverman and her team are developing an evidence-based digitized intervention program for parents that they can access directly from their computer or smart phone. “The work we’re doing will be one of the very few parent interventions that is digitized and importantly tested for effectiveness,” she says. Creating interventions for anxiety-related challenges Silverman and Lebowitz recently received a generous gift to develop and test other interventions that help parents reduce other child anxiety-related behavioral and emotional difficulties, such as restrictive eating and unexplained somatic symptoms. One of these projects in particular focuses on understanding the risks of social media and its potential benefits, including offering a sense of connection. “A lot of research has focused on the idea that social media is harmful and the less of it the better,” says Lebowitz. “But we actually see is that this is not quite right—there are negatives, but there are also positives. So, we’re trying to get a little bit more nuanced of a picture.” The team is working with teens with social anxiety and their parents over an extended period to better understand their social media habits and how their anxiety levels affect engagement with different platforms. The teens will answer questions sent to an app on their phones about mood and social media usage in an effort to capture emotional responses as they unfold. “We hope to develop interventions that can help make the best of social media while protecting against the more problematic effects,” Lebowitz says. The brain’s role in anxiety Researchers are also testing therapies to address anxiety at the neurological and molecular levels. In collaboration with Dylan Gee, PhD, professor of psychology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Hilary Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, Lebowitz and Silverman are using brain imaging to identify changes in a child’s brain before and after parents enroll in SPACE. In one study, children viewed anxiety-inducing images while undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); the researchers conducted scans with and without the children’s parents nearby. Before SPACE, children’s brains were better able to activate the regulatory circuitry needed to turn off an anxious response when their parents were nearby. But after SPACE, children could activate this circuitry even without the parent around. “As parents work on gradually reducing some of their accommodations, you can see a child get better at regulating their own fear system in the brain,” Lebowitz says. “It’s remarkable.” Research into the molecular underpinnings of anxiety can also inform new childhood anxiety treatments. In a recent study, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Flora Vaccarino, MD, Harris Professor in the Child Study Center, discovered that a protein known as fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) could be protective from the toxic effects of stress. FGF2 levels in children and their parents were linked to the children’s risk of developing anxiety and depression, the study showed. The findings could help explain why some children who are exposed to early life trauma such as poverty or abuse are more prone to developing mental health disorders. And FGF2 could be a target for treatment. “This is very novel because it starts to give a clue to what is the molecular chain that connects those lived experiences to the actual psychological outcomes,” Lebowitz says. New ways to study and treat childhood anxiety Michael Crowley, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center, collaborates with Silverman and Lebowitz to study the role that attention plays in development and maintenance of childhood anxiety. There is a large body of research that shows that anxious children, like anxious adults, are prone to focus on threatening stimuli such as angry faces compared with neutral faces. This has led to innovative interventions that involve attention retraining. The idea is that if experts train children to look away from threatening stimuli, it may reduce their anxiety—especially children with social anxiety who are most prone to attend to threats. The researchers have just completed a clinical trial for attention retraining with 10- to 14-year-olds with social anxiety disorders and are currently analyzing the findings. Besides this innovative attention retraining research, as Crowly notes, “I like to design tasks that are engaging to kids,” Crowley says. “My goal is to assess something without the kids knowing what we are assessing.” With this goal in mind, Crowley has created a virtual game, named Boom, to study threat processing in children with anxiety disorders. The game is similar to that of hot potato—the child and three digital players take turns virtually passing a ball to each other’s gloves. At some point, the ball turns into a bomb, and as the bomb lands in each player’s glove, the outline of the glove turns yellow. The goal is to avoid having the bomb go off in your glove. What isn’t obvious is that the game is designed to measure different types of threatening stimuli, both ambiguous and direct. In the game, the direct threat occurs as the bomb is traveling towards your glove. The ambiguous threat is the yellow outlined glove as it is unknown where the bomb will travel next. While children play the game, Crowley’s team measures their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). The researchers have discovered that in kids with anxiety, the brain reacts more strongly to ambiguous threats than it does in their peers, but less strongly to direct threats. They believe that the initial abnormally large brain response to not knowing where the bomb is going impairs the brain's ability to properly respond when the threat is actually traveling the child’s way. “The brains of children with anxiety are unable to differentiate between threats you need to do something about and those that are not your problem.” Michael Crowley, PhD, develops innovative games for studying anxiety in children and adolescents.Credit: Matt Bradbury Based on these insights, Crowley hopes to study whether interventions like attention training could restore appropriate threat processing. Crowley’s team is also working on a test called the Balloon Risk Avoidance Task, which evaluates risk-taking and avoidance behaviors. It features a digital balloon that is full of air and about to burst. Kids have six seconds to let air out of the balloon. The more air they let out, the less risk they face that the balloon will pop. But at the same time, the balloon becomes less valuable as it deflates. “The more air you keep in the balloon, the more points you get,” Crowley explains. So far, the researchers have found that when the balloons pop unexpectedly, teens with social anxiety show distinct brain responses. Studying these responses can help psychologists understand the underlying pathways driving the various manifestations of anxiety. The genetics of anxiety When Thomas Fernandez, MD, associate professor in the Child Study Center and of psychiatry, was still in training, there was a lot of excitement about understanding the genetics associated with autism spectrum disorder. Since then, scientists have identified around 250 genes associated with autism. The genetic contribution to anxiety disorders, on the other hand, has historically received less attention. Anxiety is less heritable than autism, but the genetic contribution for anxiety disorders that emerge in childhood may be higher than for anxiety disorders overall. While scientists estimate the heritability of anxiety disorders in general to be around 30% to 50%, some studies suggest higher heritability for certain childhood-onset anxiety presentations. “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism,” Fernandez says. “So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism. So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” Thomas Fernandez, MD Associate Professor In the Child Study Center and in Psychiatry Now, Fernandez and Emily Olfson, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Child Study Center, are studying children and their parents to identify genetic changes that are present in the child but not the parents, known as “de novo mutations.” “All of us have some de novo mutations—maybe about 50 to 100 sprinkled throughout the genome,” Olfson says. “But when they occur within the coding regions of genes, they can be really disruptive.” Previous research shows that people with autism have higher rates of damaging de novo mutations than the general population. In 2022, Olfson, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Fernandez published a study on 68 children and their families that found that children with anxiety had similarly high levels of these mutations. Studying de novo mutations can help point the researchers to where they should be looking for genes associated with anxiety. “The end game is using the genes to steer us toward the right part of biology that we can then target to come up with better treatments,” Fernandez says. Building on those findings, the team is now studying more families to better understand how these de novo mutations, along with other genetic and environmental factors, shape pediatric anxiety disorders. They recently received a National Institutes of Health grant to enroll 750 new families over the next five years. Olfson is the principal investigator, with co-investigators Lebowitz, Fernandez, Silverman, and Shuangge Steven Ma, PhD, department chair and professor of biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health. Neurodevelopment, Risk Genes, and Mental Health Conditions - The Olfson Lab Joel Gelernter, MD, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry, is interested in how different anxiety disorders differ genomically. “We are studying social phobia, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, working to understand why people differ in their risk to these specific anxiety disorders and evaluating various risk factors,” he says. Gelernter was recently involved in one of the largest studies to date of the genomics underlying anxiety disorder. The study included around 122,000 people with anxiety disorders and around 730,000 without. It found that some genetic differences associated with anxiety were linked to signaling that helps reduce overactivity in the nervous system. Many anxiety medications available today work by targeting this process. “It’s nice when the biology that you get out of a large genome-wide study ratifies things that we already know because that can help increase confidence in further findings from the study,” Gelernter says. Uncovering the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders John Krystal, MD, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry, is interested in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of which anxiety is a major symptom. In the late 1980s, Krystal’s team discovered that the drug yohimbine activated symptoms in patients with PTSD. “This was the first time we could link a specific biological mechanism to the symptoms of PTSD,” Krystal says. At the time, he adds, this finding was highly controversial. “A lot of people felt that PTSD was a purely psychological syndrome that didn’t have an underlying biology.” Since then, Krystal has dived deep into understanding the neurobiology of PTSD to learn how to better treat it. His team is evaluating the use of ketamine and psychedelics. These would be among the first treatments to be developed specifically for PTSD. They may also be applicable for other disorders including anxiety disorders, Krystal adds. An important gap in PTSD treatment is the absence of biological tests that inform how to best help patients manage their PTSD symptoms. A doctor doesn’t diagnose cancer based on how they feel. Rather, they use tests of the biology of the cancer to determine the best course of treatment. “And we can’t do that in any psychiatric disorder other than Alzheimer’s disease,” Krystal says. “But now we are building a foundation for this approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders for the first time.” Source: Yale School of Medicine
MedX Health Appoints Monaderm as a Representative for SkinSecure™ Across Europe for Beauty and Aesthetics Research
MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, October 05, 2026--MedX Health Corp. (TSXV: MDX), a data-driven skin health analytics company, today announced the appointment of Monaderm, the Monaco-based skin measurement specialist, as a key European sales agent for SkinSecure™, expanding the commercial reach of its non-invasive, objective biological skin measurement technology, which maps collagen, melanin and hemoglobin non-invasively in living skin in a single 30-second capture, across the European cosmetics and skin
This mysterious hole on the Moon may open into a giant cave
NASA has selected the GIMLI project to investigate whether the Marius Hill Pit opens into a vast underground cave or lava tube. Using radar, seismic sensors, gravity measurements, and cameras, researchers will search beneath the lunar surface and estimate the size of any hidden void. Such caves could preserve clues to the Moon’s volcanic history and potentially provide protected shelters for future astronauts.
It’s Nearly Impossible to Budget for AI Spending
Artificial-intelligence use is measured in tokens, but the models’ use of tokens at any given task can be unpredictable.
Valkyries' Natalie Nakase takes steps to monitor her health after on-court scare
Golden State head coach Natalie Nakase addressed the causes of her on-court collapse late in the Valkyries' series-clinching win Friday, and measures she's taking for her health.
$3.3M National Institutes of Health grant funds UH study of microplastics, infant brain development
Researchers will measure exposure through maternal blood, examine fetal brain development through ultrasound and collect cord blood and placenta samples. Infants will be assessed at 2, 6 and 12 months for neurological function, motor development, language skills and cognition.
Valkyries’ Natalie Nakase takes steps to monitor health after scare
Golden State head coach Natalie Nakase addressed the causes of her on-court collapse late in the Valkyries’ series-clinching win Friday, and measures she’s taking for her health.
California voters to decide Prop 45 to change how environmental laws impact key construction
California voters this November will decide Proposition 45, a measure that could change the state’s environmental laws to speed up construction projects such as housing, bridges, and clean energy infrastructure.
How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy
Hey all, Jason here. Money20/20 is still two weeks away, but I’ve already started packing (not procrastinating for once!). My calendar is already filling up with various sessions I want to catch, meetings, and of course happy hours, dinners, and other side events. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to catch up, let me know by replying to this email, and we can try to find a time amidst the chaos of the Venetian. A big if not totally unexpected piece of news dropped on Friday: the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents smaller U.S. banks, filed a lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould, arguing that the regulator’s move to grant trust bank charters to firms seeking to use them to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authorities granted to the OCC by Congress. I haven’t had time to fully digest the legal filing or speak to folks in my network about it, but you can expect to see coverage and analysis on it in next week’s newsletter. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading The NerdCon agenda just dropped. It’s stacked. Partner content: Nubank built an AI-first bank. Chime built its own banking core. Figure and Valon are rebuilding the mortgage stack. At NerdCon, you’ll hear from the people behind those bets: what they chose, what they learned, and what they’re still figuring out. The agenda is live, with leaders from Nubank, Chime, OpenAI, Remitly, Mercury, Figure, Valon and more. Follow the mainstage conversations, bring the problem your team is wrestling with to a hands-on workshop, or pull up a chair at a roundtable. Pick your quests. Meet us in San Diego, November 18–20. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% with code FBW20. Explore the Agenda Things To Know & Other Good Reads Federal Reserve Board finalizes changes to enhance the transparency and public accountability of its stress test and reduce volatility in its stress test-related capital requirements (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) FDIC Announces Conclusion of Independent Monitorship (FDIC) Modernizing Financial Regulation: Initial Observations from eSLR (Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman) The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI (Fed Governor Christopher Waller) Financing the AI buildout (Brookings) Q3’26: Rules for Banks but Not for Crypto (Fintech Takes Banking) The Inevitability of Local Stablecoins (Lombard Notes) Delusions of AI Governance: The Human-in-the-Loop Comfort Blanket (Fintech Snark Tank) Stripe agrees to acquire Parafin to expand revenue opportunities for platforms and help small businesses grow (Stripe) Listen: Fighting Fraud in the Age of AI, with SEON’s Tamas Kadar (Fintech Business Weekly) How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy If there is one overarching theme across the economy and politics in the U.S. at the moment, it’s “affordability.” The term is vague enough to encompass a panoply of factors shaping Americans’ day-to-day lives: rising costs for the hallmarks of being “middle class,” including healthcare, housing, childcare, and education, inflation and rising interest rates, and a job market with the specter of AI hovering over it. At the same time, policy shifts under the Trump administration have resulted in reduced subsidies to those who get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and new restrictions on qualifying for Medicaid and SNAP, the impacts of which have yet to be fully felt. These factors are contributing to declining consumer confidence and general dissatisfaction with the economy, despite continuing GDP growth and stock market records. This divergence is encapsulated in the idea of the “K-shaped” economy, in which a small proportion of Americans have seen their wealth balloon, while the majority of American households struggle to preserve the lifestyle they have. Perhaps the greatest determinant of which branch of the “K” a household is on is whether their wealth and income are primarily derived from employment vs. from assets. Nearly two decades of low interest rates and, more recently, elevated rates of inflation have benefited asset owners, while those whose income is primarily or solely derived from labor have largely seen real purchasing power stagnate or decline. This is reflected in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that labor share of U.S. GDP — the fraction of economic output that accrues to workers as compensation in exchange for their labor — dropped to just 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since the BLS began keeping records. In 1947, approximately 2/3rds of economic output accrued to workers; even as recently as 2001, labor’s share of GDP was 64.1%. Against this backdrop, we’ve seen the rise of more credit and credit-like products: cash advance apps, “no-fee” overdraft, earned wage access, and buy now pay later, which are often used as small-dollar short-term borrowing mechanisms to meet immediate consumption needs or pay other bills (eg utilities, cell phone, other debt payments). With the markers of a middle class existence and, increasingly, basic financial stability seemingly out of reach for many, it should be no surprise there’s been an increase in “financial nihilism,” something industry peers like Alex Johnson and Frank Rotman have discussed and analyzed the roots of. The explosion of gambling and gambling-adjacent products and services — often marketed under the guise of being an “investment” — is inextricably intertwined with the rise of financial nihilism. Crypto, sports betting, and, more recently, prediction markets offer an escape or even hope of sorts, like a contemporary, digital version of a scratch-off lottery ticket, while leaving the overwhelming number of people who use such products worse off. Share of Households That Are Financially “Vulnerable” Ticks Up The Financial Health Network’s 2026 Financial Health Pulse® report adds context on how American households are faring. (I linked to this report in last week’s newsletter, but wanted to take time to further unpack the data in the report this week.) The Financial Health Network publishes the report annually, providing insight into how Americans’ financial circumstances are changing over time. The 2026 report is derived from a survey fielded in April and May 2026. The report leverages survey responses to assess indicators of financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning/protecting and to determine a zero to 100 “FinHealth” score. Those with scores between 0 and 39 are considered “Financially Vulnerable,” consumers with scores ranging between 40 and 79 are defined as “Financially Coping,” and those with scores of 80 to 100 are “Financially Healthy.” The report found that moderate improvements in 2025 were reversed, with the share of respondents considered financially “vulnerable” rebounding to 17%. The longitudinal data reflect the impact of pandemic-era programs, like expanded unemployment, cash stimulus payments, and pauses of federal student loan payments. The positive impacts of those programs, as reflected in the Financial Health Pulse reports, had largely disappeared by 2023. While pandemic-era inflation — to be fair, in part caused by the various support and stimulus measures — had come down from as high as 9% in 2022, it has rebounded since the start of Trump’s second term, with tariffs and energy market disruptions owing to the war in Iran pushing prices back up. Specific indicators in the survey that deteriorated from 2025 to 2026 include the share of respondents spending less than their income over the past 12 months, the share paying all bills on time over the past 12 months, the share that have a manageable amount or no debt, the share that are “moderately” or “very” confident their insurance is adequate to cover them in an emergency, and the share that “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that their household plans ahead financially. Unsurprisingly, lower- and moderate-income households are more likely to struggle to pay their bills on time and have any funds leftover to save. The share of low-income households whose income exceeded their spending dropped from 35% in 2025 to 31% in 2026, while the share of upper-income households whose income exceeded expenses remained unchanged at 63%. Households with student loans or revolving credit card debt reported having “a bit more” or “far more” debt than was manageable at rates far higher than those not carrying these types of debts. The share of those with student loan debt indicating their debt load was too high to manage increased from 50% in 2025 to 55% in 2026, while the share of those with revolving credit card debt saying the same ticked up from 51% in 2025 to 54% in 2026. Households that had student loans were markedly more likely to be financially “coping” or “vulnerable” vs. those without student loans. In 2026, 27% of households with student loans were considered financially vulnerable, a jump of 6% points vs. 2025. Households without student loans saw just a 1% point increase (not statistically significant) in those considered financially vulnerable. Households’ perception of the affordability of categories of goods and services paints a stark picture, with less than one-fourth considering higher education affordable, about a third deeming childcare affordable, and less than half viewing healthcare as affordable. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Democratic Senate Report Highlights How Iran Uses Tether to Evade U.S. Sanctions Iran uses stablecoins, specifically Tether, to evade sanctions, fund regional proxies, and to purchase military drones, a report released last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says. The report was authored by committee ranking member Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the minority staff. Crypto and stablecoin proponents will often push back on criticism that criminals make use of these assets by arguing that, on an absolute dollar basis, far more illicit funds flow through traditional banking systems and payment rails than via crypto and stablecoins. And while that is likely true, it elides the reality presented in news story after news story: whether state actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea — or criminal groups, those looking to engage in illicit transactions increasingly favor stablecoins and, specifically, Tether (USDT). The report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released last week adds context to how Iran uses Tether has a lynchpin in its shadow banking system. The report analyzed 846 wallets that have been sanctioned or targeted for seizure, finding that 84% of them transacted exclusively or primarily in Tether. The ability to create near limitless, anonymous wallets and to move funds effectively instantaneously and irreversibly have made crypto a favored financial mechanism for bad actors. Stablecoins solved key drawbacks of bitcoin, namely, the original cryptocurrency’s highly volatile value in dollars. And while Tether (the company) has the technical ability to “freeze” or destroy funds, the company is often limited and reactive in its approach to doing so, the Senate report argues. Tether, which is nominally based in crypto-friendly El Salvador, “has stated that its compliance with OFAC sanctions is ‘voluntary’ and that it follows ‘OFAC guidelines,’” the Senate report says. Owing to these favorable attributes, Tether “became a primary cryptocurrency for Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis beginning in 2023 and has expanded in scale since,” according to the report. Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking system, the report says, is enhanced by crypto exchanges like Bybit, Kyrrex, OKX, Gate, and Binance, and through “over the counter” exchanges and hawala networks. The consequences of these financial flows aren’t hypothetical. The Senate report links Tether as a funds transfer mechanism to Iranian proxies in the region, including Hizballah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Tether has also been used to make payments to secure components necessary to manufacture drones, the report says. The report concludes by arguing that “[s]tablecoin issuers with a significant nexus to the United States, particularly those that offer dollar-denominated stablecoins, should be subject to American sanctions law rather than being allowed to hide behind foreign jurisdictions.” Stablecoin issuers like Tether must be held accountable for repeated failures to prevent illicit finance and sanctions violations by law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OFAC, the report argues. [Paying Subscriber Exclusive] OUSD Goes Live, Make Your Own Neobank, U.S. Sanctions Russia’s A7 Network As “Transnational Criminal Organization” OpenUSD, the stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium that includes Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, core providers, crypto firms, and numerous banks, went live last week. Social commerce platform Whop raised eyebrows in fintech by offering creators on its platform the ability to launch their own neobanks, which the company describes as “great businesses that are easy to run,” in just 15 minutes. And OFAC and FinCEN target Russia’s “shadow banking” A7 Network — more on these stories after the paywall.
Our take on Colorado’s 2026 ballot measures
Constitutional Amendment 81: Law enforcement reporting requirements to federal authorities Changes the state constitution. All such amendments need 55% to be enacted. Amendment 81 would amend the state constitution to require law enforcement to notify U.S. government immigration officials when they charge a person who is in the country illegally and the alleged offense is […]
What was Austin Wells thinking on costly Yankees baserunning play?
In a measured tone, Austin Wells talked about his decision to stretch a double into a triple in ALDS Game 1.
Trump appears to post Sen. Tom Cotton’s cell number in push to make daylight saving time permanent
The House passed a bill in July to make daylight saving time permanent, and the Senate has yet to take up the measure.
Ballot measure to ban youth gender-affirming surgeries could disrupt other forms of healthcare
Colorado voters in November will vote on a ballot measure to decide if the state should ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Amid bleak financial forecast, Brown Health announces buyouts, executive layoffs
Brown University Health announced a series of cost-cutting measures Thursday on the first day of its fiscal year, including executive layoffs and non-clinical buyouts. The hospital operator projects a $64 million deficit due mostly to federal budget cuts.
Rabies detected in Crook County bat prompts public health warning
Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) --- Crook County Public Health is advising residents to take precautions to protect their families and pets after rabies was recently detected in a local bat in Crook County, Ore. Health officials noted that rabies has been found in bats throughout the state, making awareness and preventive measures critical. Rabies is a
PAHO regional meeting of health ministers concludes with new measures to strengthen health security and address key health threats
Health authorities approved new regional strategies to strengthen preparedness for health emergencies, tackle antimicrobial resistance, curb dengue and other arboviral diseases, and improve food safety, while advancing access to vaccines, medicines and other essential health technologies across the Americas.
Voter guide: Prop 134 asks Colorado voters to bar transgender student athletes from certain school sports
Here’s a closer look at Proposition 134, a measure that’s similar to a controversial 2025 executive order issued by President Donald Trump.
Your 2026 voter guide
From ballot measures to the candidates running in 2026 visit this link for all the information you need – https://www.coloradopolitics.com/tag/2026-voter-guide/
3.2K views · 30 reactions | New research measures the loudest birds...
New research measures the loudest birds known to science, with three South American species topping the chart. https://wapo.st/3TA5iab
Coastal forces shape building sciences practice
When Built Environments relocated to Wilmington, the firm’s partners weren’t looking for the lazy tranquility one hopes for when on vacation. Instead, they sought sultry heat. They wanted to understand whipping coastal winds and punishing precipitation – the kind that tropical storms produce. That’s because how materials degrade can reveal a lot about how they can be improved. “We specifically chose the Wilmington market because it does fall within Climate Zone 3A, which is a coastal warm-humid climate,” said Jarrett Davis, who joined Built Environments in 2023 to lead the company’s building science practice. “There’s not a lot of product research in that climate zone, but there are a lot of structures here that get weatherized pretty severely.” Built Environments has provided building science, material testing and code compliance consulting for 25 years, ever since principal materials scientist Steve Doggett founded the company in Minnesota. “There are very few manufacturers that understand fully how their own materials and products work, whereas we know their shortfalls and their benefits out in the real world on jobsites,” Doggett said. “That’s why the original Built Environments was formed, to make buildings better.” He said the 15-employee company is just as comfortable on a jobsite, retrofitting a high-end beachside property, for example, as it is recreating some of the coast’s most intense weather conditions in the great indoors. The company operates an A2LA-accredited ISO/IEC 17025 mechanical testing laboratory on Wright Street. The year-old facility has expanded Built Environments’ in-house capabilities, Doggett said. “We’re able to simulate that hurricane wind (and) rain and perform structural and impact testing on wall assemblies, roof assemblies and glazing assemblies,” he said. “There are certain requirements that those windows and doors need to meet as far as wind ratings and pressure ratings and things of that nature.” Standard Glass Co.-Glass Depots, of Wilmington, is currently testing a new glazing system using Built Environments’ stress testing, the partners said. One method involves what’s called a “large missile cannon.” “We take 8-foot two-by-fours, and we shoot them at assemblies, so they have to withstand that impact,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool to see, I’m not going to lie.” In many cases, the lab can run a full, wall-scale test of a product in a matter of weeks or months, whereas “it might take midrange manufacturers years,” Doggett said. “We’re nimble. We can cut that time in half.” The lab also develops intellectual property. Doggett, for example, shares a patent with Sustant LLC, of Minnesota, on a fastener patch to increase the air and water tightness within building envelopes. “We have too many ideas and not enough time,” he said. But the partners noted that they or their fellow principals – of which the company has four total, including a principal engineer and a principal codes and standards expert – could be anywhere on a given day, including in the courtroom providing expert testimony in contentious insurance cases. “Let’s say there is a fire on a structure,” Davis said. “We can analyze all the specific materials within that assembly – an exterior wall or something like that – because there are loads that require certain heat release. And so, we can measure each one of those materials, if need be, to say if this was likely or not a code-approved assembly.” Despite what can be inferred in a lab, the partners said nothing beats learning from how materials change over time under real-world strain. Take, for instance, the curious case of the creaking condo. “We recently had a customer that came to us trying to assess a sound issue of a roof. It was making noises that no one could explain or account for. How do you tackle something like that?” Doggett asked rhetorically. “There’s really no generally agreed-upon methodologies.” The problem turned out to be a faulty installation of a commercial roof system. “The building in this particular case was not local,” he said. “In the initial installation, the commercial roofing contractor installed the wrong fasteners in the wrong locations into the deck, and essentially the solar radiation was causing the building to move quite substantially early in the morning when the sun initially hit that assembly after a quite cool evening, causing the threads on the fasteners to kind of jump within the material, within the metal.” Built Environments designed an effective repair methodology that was within budget, the partners said. “We get the bizarre,” Doggett said. “I will say that’s something that has stayed the same over 25 years.” The partners said they are hiring, and that Cape Fear Community College is one of their main recruiting grounds. Davis and Doggett look for talented people who can understand traditional methodologies yet are open to on-the-job training and new understandings, they said. After all, it’s not just weather that can ruin a building. “My favorite saying is,” Davis said, “‘What are the eight most expensive words in construction? That’s how my daddy used to do it.’”
Coastal forces shape building sciences practice
When Built Environments relocated to Wilmington, the firm’s partners weren’t looking for the lazy tranquility one hopes for when on vacation. Instead, they sought sultry heat. They wanted to understand whipping coastal winds and punishing precipitation – the kind that tropical storms produce. That’s because how materials degrade can reveal a lot about how they can be improved. “We specifically chose the Wilmington market because it does fall within Climate Zone 3A, which is a coastal warm-humid climate,” said Jarrett Davis, who joined Built Environments in 2023 to lead the company’s building science practice. “There’s not a lot of product research in that climate zone, but there are a lot of structures here that get weatherized pretty severely.” Built Environments has provided building science, material testing and code compliance consulting for 25 years, ever since principal materials scientist Steve Doggett founded the company in Minnesota. “There are very few manufacturers that understand fully how their own materials and products work, whereas we know their shortfalls and their benefits out in the real world on jobsites,” Doggett said. “That’s why the original Built Environments was formed, to make buildings better.” He said the 15-employee company is just as comfortable on a jobsite, retrofitting a high-end beachside property, for example, as it is recreating some of the coast’s most intense weather conditions in the great indoors. The company operates an A2LA-accredited ISO/IEC 17025 mechanical testing laboratory on Wright Street. The year-old facility has expanded Built Environments’ in-house capabilities, Doggett said. “We’re able to simulate that hurricane wind (and) rain and perform structural and impact testing on wall assemblies, roof assemblies and glazing assemblies,” he said. “There are certain requirements that those windows and doors need to meet as far as wind ratings and pressure ratings and things of that nature.” Standard Glass Co.-Glass Depots, of Wilmington, is currently testing a new glazing system using Built Environments’ stress testing, the partners said. One method involves what’s called a “large missile cannon.” “We take 8-foot two-by-fours, and we shoot them at assemblies, so they have to withstand that impact,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool to see, I’m not going to lie.” In many cases, the lab can run a full, wall-scale test of a product in a matter of weeks or months, whereas “it might take midrange manufacturers years,” Doggett said. “We’re nimble. We can cut that time in half.” The lab also develops intellectual property. Doggett, for example, shares a patent with Sustant LLC, of Minnesota, on a fastener patch to increase the air and water tightness within building envelopes. “We have too many ideas and not enough time,” he said. But the partners noted that they or their fellow principals – of which the company has four total, including a principal engineer and a principal codes and standards expert – could be anywhere on a given day, including in the courtroom providing expert testimony in contentious insurance cases. “Let’s say there is a fire on a structure,” Davis said. “We can analyze all the specific materials within that assembly – an exterior wall or something like that – because there are loads that require certain heat release. And so, we can measure each one of those materials, if need be, to say if this was likely or not a code-approved assembly.” Despite what can be inferred in a lab, the partners said nothing beats learning from how materials change over time under real-world strain. Take, for instance, the curious case of the creaking condo. “We recently had a customer that came to us trying to assess a sound issue of a roof. It was making noises that no one could explain or account for. How do you tackle something like that?” Doggett asked rhetorically. “There’s really no generally agreed-upon methodologies.” The problem turned out to be a faulty installation of a commercial roof system. “The building in this particular case was not local,” he said. “In the initial installation, the commercial roofing contractor installed the wrong fasteners in the wrong locations into the deck, and essentially the solar radiation was causing the building to move quite substantially early in the morning when the sun initially hit that assembly after a quite cool evening, causing the threads on the fasteners to kind of jump within the material, within the metal.” Built Environments designed an effective repair methodology that was within budget, the partners said. “We get the bizarre,” Doggett said. “I will say that’s something that has stayed the same over 25 years.” The partners said they are hiring, and that Cape Fear Community College is one of their main recruiting grounds. Davis and Doggett look for talented people who can understand traditional methodologies yet are open to on-the-job training and new understandings, they said. After all, it’s not just weather that can ruin a building. “My favorite saying is,” Davis said, “‘What are the eight most expensive words in construction? That’s how my daddy used to do it.’”
Montana's ballot measure on the initiative process, explained
The state constitution guarantees the people the right to propose ballot initiatives, but the sponsors of CI-133 say, in recent years, the Legislature has been making it harder to exercise that right.
Vermont's Department of Health offers advice during peak season for fall allergies
Health officials in Vermont say allergens and irritants are present year-round. If the ragweed pollen is still bothering you in early October, there are measures you can take to ease symptoms.
Amendment 81 | Local cooperation with federal immigration authorities
Colorado voters will consider Amendment 81, a ballot measure requiring law enforcement agencies to notify federal immigration authorities in certain criminal cases.
Amendment 85 | Eight grade reading level for ballot questions
Colorado voters will decide in November whether ballot measures should be written in language that is easier for the average voter to understand.
California voters to decide $7.5 billion science and health research bond measure in March 2028
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed Senate Bill 895 (SB 895) on Sept. 30, sending a $7.5 billion bond measure that would fund scientific and health research and development to voters on March 7, 2028. SB 895 would also establish the California Foundation for Science and Health Research within the Government Operations Agency and the California […]
California voters to decide $7.5 billion science and health research bond measure in March 2028
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed Senate Bill 895 (SB 895) on Sept. 30, sending a $7.5 billion bond measure that would fund scientific and health research and development to voters on March 7, 2028. SB 895 would also establish the California Foundation for Science and Health Research within the Government Operations Agency and the California […]
Political lies, part II
Another mailer, another set of outright lies. This one arrived today, and calls Prop. I a “nonprofit slush fund.” Prop. I “ties the city hand by requiring millions to flow to a small group of nonprofits such as those who wrote the measure with no requirement that they actually build housing.” That’s factually untrue. Prop. […]
Endorsement: No on Costa Mesa Measure C’s tax hike on businesses
Measure C is simply another liability dumped onto contributing members of society by a government that refuses to live within its means.
$7.5B plan for California science agency free from Trump’s influence will go to voters
Championed by UC scientists, the bond measure scheduled for the March 2028 ballot would help offset federal research cuts by the Trump admin.
Measure B: San Diego County Health & Safety Act
In this 2026 General Election guide, explore an in-depth explanation of San Diego County's Measure B, including pros and cons, endorsements and key arguments to help voters make informed decisions.
90 Ideas in 90 Minutes: Blaire Massa
Measure belonging, not just outputCompanies are exceptionally good at measuring transactions. At Ballet Des Moines, we know exactly how many tickets we sell, how many students attend our programs, how many dollars we raise. But those numbers look backward, not forward. We wanted to find out whether people were going to come back. So we…
Oregon Moves to Implement Workplace Violence Law for Healthcare Settings
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (Oregon OSHA) recently released a proposed rule to implement a new law that requires certain healthcare employers to implement a set of measures aimed at preventing workplace violence.
Colorado Business Confidence Falls Heading Into Q4
Colorado business leaders remain pessimistic heading into the fourth quarter, with confidence declining across every measure tracked by the Leeds Business Confidence Index, according to a new report from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Proposition 134: Colorado voters asked to ban transgender kids from gendered sports
The measure would require that kids from kindergarten through college play on school sports teams that match their biological sex, not their preferred gender
These birds can match the earsplitting decibels of a chainsaw
New research measures the loudest birds known to science, with three South American species topping the chart
AI safety measures widely backed by most Americans, poll finds
WASHINGTON — A vast majority of Americans favor requiring artificial intelligence companies to meet independent safety benchmarks for their models, even if those standards mean slowing development of the technology,
Newsom signs UC-backed $7.5 billion research bond measure for 2028 ballot
This post was updated Sept. 30 at 9:33 p.m. A UC-backed bond measure to fund scientific research across California will appear on the March 2028 ballot.
Ancient hydrogen spotted in the early universe could open a new way to study space's baffling expansion
After seven years of work, Canada's CHIME telescope has a measurement of dark energy from 2019. More detailed studies are planned to expand the research.
Senate blocks data center, stock trading bills ahead of November midterms
Battleground Republicans were hoping to campaign on the bills, but Democrats blocked both measures, saying they don’t go far enough
Democrats Block Stock-Trading Bill, Denying the G.O.P. a Pre-Midterm Win
A Republican measure to limit, but not bar, congressional stock trading faltered in the Senate as Democrats thwarted a G.O.P. bid to show progress on an issue that has rankled voters.
Congress Set to Leave Washington for the Midterms With No A.I. Progress
Senate Democrats were expected on Wednesday to block a measure that would encourage, but not require, states to protect consumers from power rate hikes as a result of data center growth.
Congress Set to Leave Washington for the Midterms With No A.I. Progress
Senate Democrats blocked a measure that would encourage, but not require, states to protect consumers from power rate hikes tied to data center growth, and had no limits on A.I. use or deployment.
Senate blocks measure requiring report on Israeli violence in West Bank
Nearly all Senate Democrats voted to require the State Department to report on Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.
Montana's ballot measure on political spending, explained
Frustration over outside groups' political spending, and the mailers and TV ads that go along with it, is what the supporters of Initiative 194 say they’re responding to.
California poll: Voters back a billionaire tax, but the proposal falls short of majority support
A new NBCUniversal Local/Telemundo Station Group poll shows “yes” supporters leading 48% to 38% on the California ballot measure.
Proposal 2 targets political giving by businesses. A court fight is a sure bet.
With Proposal 2 polling strongly, attention is already shifting to an expected constitutional challenge from business interests if voters pass the measure on Nov. 3.
Proposal 2 targets political giving by businesses. A court fight is a sure bet.
With Proposal 2 polling strongly, attention is already shifting to an expected constitutional challenge from business interests if voters pass the measure on Nov. 3.
Democrats in Congress embrace a more punitive posture toward Israel
Nearly every Democratic senator voted to advance a measure calling for a human rights report on Israel’s conduct in the West Bank, as some in the party propose punishing settlement activity with sanctions.
CAS launches program for breakthroughs at science frontiers
The first batch of 10 projects under the program was unveiled at the media event, targeting research in fields such as the synthesis of new elements, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, microscopic measurement of chemical bonds and the creation of synthetic cells.
Democrats in Congress Embrace a More Punitive Posture Toward Israel
Nearly every Democratic senator voted to advance a measure calling for a human rights report on Israel’s conduct in the West Bank, as some in the party propose punishing settlement activity with sanctions.
The Witcher 3 Remastered showed 38 FPS with DLSS 5 versus 68 FPS for the Next-Gen version
Detailed performance and visual quality measurements of the updated version have appeared online. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered using...
Senate passes college sports bill amid opposition from CT senators
Blumenthal’s measure could make it easier for schools like UConn to join a power conference. But he and Murphy didn't back the overall bill.
AFP-MT Opposes I-194, Warns Measure Would Silence Montanans, Threaten Businesses
HELENA, MT — Americans for Prosperity-Montana (AFP-MT) today announced its opposition to I-194, a statewide ballot measure that would strip Montana small businesses, family farms and ranches, and nonprofit organizations of their right to speak up in the political process — and put their ability to legally operate in the state on the line if […]
Months After LA County Cut Clinical Services at Seven Public Health Sites, It Has Not Shown Whether Patients Found Replacement Care
Measure ER starts on October 1, and a county-affiliated nonprofit is soliciting pledges. However, the county still hasn’t publicly shown which services have been replaced or whether referred patients received them.
Quantum teleportation breakthrough: Scientists crack a 25-year entanglement challenge
Scientists have developed and experimentally demonstrated a long-sought method for identifying W states, an important form of multi-photon quantum entanglement. The technique could make complex entangled systems much easier to measure, opening new possibilities for quantum teleportation, communication, and computing.
Charges fly over $120 million housing measure
Lurie, allies clash say it would create a “slush fund,” but measure's advocates deny the claim.
Pa. Health Department reverses course on new disease-tracking guidance, for now
Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has rescinded a 502-page proposal that could’ve given the agency more control over how it tracks and investigates the spread of diseases — and that spelled out the measures officials can take in response.
Senate Resoundingly Approves Sweeping College Sports Measure
The outlook for the legislation, which seeks to stabilize the unsettled collegiate sports landscape, is uncertain in the House. It was one of the last congressional actions before the midterms.
Senate passes bipartisan bill to overhaul college sports
President Donald Trump wants the House to clear the measure quickly.
Chicago renter ordinance votes delayed as Johnson, opponents seek compromise
Neither Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal nor a competing measure has enough support to become law as the two sides continue negotiations.
UI computer science professors discuss growing AI safety concerns
Artificial intelligence industry experts are expressing increasing concern in recent weeks about the growth of AI, calling on governments to slow down development and increase safety measures. Gov. JB Pritzker announced Tuesday the creation of an Illinois AI Cabinet to assess possible risks. The main concerns are rogue AI agents, such as the Hugging Face...
Pope Leo defends entering political fray on France end-of-life law
Pope Leo on Monday defended his decision to vocally oppose assisted dying initiatives while in France, acknowledging he may have entered the political fray two months after the country approved such a measure, but wanted to share the Catholic Church's viewpoint.
Flutter Entertainment PLC Stock (FLUT) Moved Down by 7.20% on Sep 28: Facts Behind the Movement
Flutter halted Brazilian betting operations after a government provisional measure banned online gaming.An extended shutdown will reduce revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and impact non-cash accounting assets.Technical indicators show sell signals, while the company reported annual revenue of $16.38B.
Experts spotlight financial strategies to advance sustainability
Financial strategies can advance sustainability goals, but only if environmental trade-offs can be measured and incorporated into decisions, a panel of experts said at a Climate Week NYC 2026 event co-hosted by the SC Johnson College and Cornell Atkinson.
Senate Passes Pilot Mental Health Bill
Measure would require FAA changes to medical certification and mental health policies.
DRC politician beaten to death after radio appearance about Ebola outbreak
Marie-Celestin Karondwa was attacked on Sunday after promoting measures to prevent spread of disease, his party says