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Roma optimism grows over move for Porto talent Rodrigo Mora
Roma are increasingly optimistic about reaching an agreement with Porto for highly-rated youngster Rodrigo Mora after stepping up their efforts to sign the Portuguese talent.According to Corriere dell...
US is becoming an ‘entrepreneur’s paradise,’ small business expert says
The Marks Group PC CPA Gene Marks discusses small businesses’ impact on the U.S. economy, hiring trends and growing optimism among entrepreneurs on ‘Fox News Live.’
Only 12% of family businesses stay in the family by the third generation. A Goldman Sachs chairman says optimism is the reason
François-Xavier de Mallmann steers Goldman's relationships with many of the world's largest family-controlled enterprises.
Dodgers news: Blake Treinen shares pivotal injury update
Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen talked to reporters after his live session, where he expressed his optimism about his return
NFIB survey: small business optimism continues to rise
Hiring plans hit their strongest level since 2022, even as owners reported stubborn uncertainty and difficulty finding qualified workers.
Report: Nate Wiggins avoided structural damage in Tuesday's injury
Ravens head coach Jesse Minter said there was optimism that cornerback Nate Wiggins avoided a serious injury after Wiggins was carted off at Tuesday's practice and further testing reportedly supported that feeling.
Small business optimism rebounds in July, led by stronger hiring plans
NFIB said small business optimism rose above its long-term average in July, driven by stronger hiring and investment plans, though uncertainty remained elevated.
Small business optimism rebounds to highest level since Aug. 2025: NFIB
Small businesses last month scaled back both actual and planned price increases for the first time this year, the National Federation of Independent Business said.
U.S. small business sentiment surged to an 11-month high in July as hiring plans jumped
The optimism index climbed 2.4 points to 99.8, surpassing its 52-year average, while planned hiring jumped to its highest level since October 2022
US Small-Business Optimism Rises to an Almost One-Year High
US small-business optimism rose in July to the highest level in almost a year as firms ramped up hiring plans and inflation pressures eased.
Positive outlook for cattle business as summer business meeting concludes
With optimism for the cattle business remaining strong, nearly 700 cattle producers from across the country gathered in Colorado, for the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting.
The Beauty Of Settled Science
Commenters convinced me I made a subtle mis-step in my framing of Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine. My framing emphasized that social priming studies had failed to replicate, but that many other subfields of psychology hadn’t. This naturally led commenters to point to failed replications in other subfields. Although none of these were as bad as social priming, few or none were entirely problem-free. Instead of emphasizing the difference between social priming and other subfields, I should have emphasized the difference between settled science and novel research. Here are some of my favorite psychology findings: The brain is sculpted by reinforcement learning, and a key driver of this learning is a prediction-error-based algorithm located in the nucleus accumbens and implemented through dopamine. Psychedelic drugs exert their effects through 5-HT2A receptors, pointing to a role for these receptors in some sort of construct like the balance between priors and new evidence. Certain cognitive functions are localized to certain brain areas (for example, impulse control to the frontal lobes; linguistic structure to Broca’s area, linguistic meaning to Wernicke’s area. But injure one of these areas, or render a certain function useless (eg a blind person having no more use for their visual cortex), and these mappings can gradually shift - suggesting that neurons are general-purpose compute whose specialization is a contingent fact about convenience and efficiency rather than a necessity. Most personality traits and general capabilities are about 50% genetic and 50% random, with little role for family environment or childhood history, with a few notable exceptions like partisan preference. Recent research complicates this story, but the further you go from this basic picture, the gnarlier the chains of indirect causation you require. Neurons fire together in “brain waves”, whose exact frequency corresponds with the character of consciousness; These divide neurons into natural subpopulations and linked graphs. The gamma rhythm corresponds surprisingly well to items in conscious awareness. GABA receptors seem to be involved in something like relaxation. By hitting different GABA receptors in different ways, you can modulate the exact type of relaxation you produce. Hitting GABA-A directly is too powerful and can cause dangerous levels of sedation, but allosteric modulation of GABA is an incredibly fruitful strategy that underlies drugs from benzos to barbituates to alcohol. If you know your GABA-A subunits, you can target specific subtypes of relaxation; for example, Ambien hits GABA-A1 and induces sleep. Memory divides somewhat fuzzily into bins of immediate-sensory, short-term, and long-term, with separate retrieval and storage functions, and separate systems for declarative vs. procedural learning. These can be harmed selectively, usually by hippocampal injury, so that some patients can remember their life stories but not form new long-term memories, or learn new skills like bike-riding but not new facts. The exact substrate of memory is unclear but seems to involve new synaptic connections between neurons in at least some way. The ability of modern psychology and psychiatry to treat mental illness is real but limited. SSRIs work for half or slightly fewer than half of patients; antipsychotics work with extreme side effects; benzodiazpines work but produce addiction and tolerance in many (not all) people. Most supplements are stuck in Poor Quality Study Replication Crisis Hell, but melatonin and l-theanine stand out as especially promising. Psychotherapy works with moderate effect size, but (with a few exceptions) seems to be more about the relationship with the provider than the details of the therapy itself. Mental hospitalization can sometimes defuse immediate crises but work less well than mental hospitals would like, with some studies showing overall negative effects. Schizophrenia is mostly genetic, but risk also increases with prenatal infection (especially rubella) and obstetric complications; there is suggestive evidence for roles of social stress and drug use (with psychedelics and marijuana making things worse, and nicotine if anything making things better). Bipolar and schizophrenia are so closely linked on a pathophysiological level that it seems like they might be the same disease; on the clinical level, they do seem to follow two separate courses/prognoses but can sometimes surprise clinicians by eg someone who seemed condemned to permanent schizophrenia unexpectedly recovering. The brain’s native reinforcement learning algorithms cash out in the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning; different reinforcement schedules reinforce at different levels, which can be exploited by bad actors to make especially compelling products (eg slot machines). None of these are immune to doubt. A few are speculative; one or two are genuinely unorthodox. But they’re all a step above one p = 0.049 paper that might not replicate. If they get overturned, they’ll be overturned by the same sort of genuine scientific shift that replaced Ptolemy with Copernicus or Lamarck with Darwin, not some sort of sordid discovery about someone entering random numbers into a spreadsheet. In 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about The Beauty Of Settled Science: If you only care about scientific issues that are controversial, you will end up with a head stuffed full of garbage. The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science is worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like “General Relativity still governing planetary orbits” or “Phlogiston theory remains false”? So, by the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline. “Newsworthy” science is often based on the thinnest of evidence and wrong half the time—if it were not on the uttermost fringes of the scientific frontier, it would not be breaking news. Scientific controversies are problems so difficult that even people who’ve spent years mastering the field can still fool themselves. That’s what makes for the heated arguments that attract all the media attention. Worse, if you aren’t in the field and part of the game, controversies aren’t even fun. Don’t be embarrassed to read elementary science textbooks, either. If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at. If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty [...] A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid. Psychology isn’t centrally the new paper in Annals Of Recently-Breaking News saying that an n=5 study showing that large portion sizes increase support for terrorism. Psychology is centrally ideas like brain waves, GABA receptors, reinforcement learning, twin studies, and connectionism. People who think differently are worrying too much about BREAKING NEWS!!!, and should stop. The key distinction isn’t “recent research in social psychology” vs. “recent research in cognitive/bio/behavioral psychology”, as my essay last week unfortunately implied. It’s recent research in general vs. the deposit of settled science, battle-tested hypotheses, and carefully-earmarked speculation. And part of the reason social priming in particular was such a disaster was that it defied that heuristic, building itself up over hundreds of studies until it approached or even entered the pantheon of settled science - before collapsing (5-HTTLPR was also sort of like this). This isn’t a claim that settled science is always right - Freud was “settled science” for a long time - just that there’s an intuitive distinction between the level of credence you should have in the existence of power posing vs. the existence of Broca’s Area. (I compounded this error by calling the last post “Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine”, which suggested I was talking about the new research rather than the settled science. I actually meant to distinguish between research-psychology-the-field vs. clinical-psychology-aka-therapy, but this framing unintentionally pushed against the point I wanted to make) Some commenters on the previous article understood this point, but challenged its weight. It’s very cool, they said, to know how many neurons are in which brain lobe, but the main way that Psychology affected their lives was through bad clickbait studies used to buttress dumb policies; some p = 0.049 study says that exposure to microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel into raisins, and now their company has to implement punitive DEI or be sued for hazardous work conditions. I won’t dispute this as an accurate description of how the sausage gets made, but it’s worth examining the trains of thought that connect this observation to a campaign against psychology in general: The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad, and I don’t have good heuristics for distinguishing dumb woke psychology from other psychology, so I’m going to assume it’s all wrong and bad. The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad; it seems useful to punish/discredit psychology as a whole to assist my campaign against it, so for propaganda purposes I will try to discredit psychology as a whole. To people in the first camp, my response is: come on, your heuristics aren’t that bad. “Microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel up like raisins” is in the woke category; “the hippocampal theta rhythm seems to be associated with both memory and pathfinding, suggesting an unexpected yet surprisingly compelling relationship between the two” is in the not-woke category, don’t play dumb here. To people in the second camp, my response is: deliberately exaggerated propaganda campaigns are bad and this is a confession, not an excuse. Inability to view science through anything but a political lens was what got us into this problem; doubling down on it is a temporary solution but a recipe for permanent disaster. If you pronounce entire fields of science to be acceptable collateral damage in your campaign against bad political actors, you will alienate not just scientists but patients, clinicians, and general lovers of truth. Instead, you can say the thing you mean - that woke partisans shouldn’t try to occupy and exploit the otherwise-noble science of psychology for their own political gain - and wage the same campaign with a halo rather than a comic-book-villain goatee. From the font of oracular wisdom that is Weird Sun Twitter: [ Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit i love you all conditionally but i love the good part of you unconditionally. even if it becomes a very small part 2:11 AM · Jan 22, 2015 1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 29 Likes ](https://x.com/VesselOfSpirit/status/558084551772471298) This is how I feel about psychology1, too, but with a touch more optimism. The good part of psychology is enormous, a hoard of endless treasures. You just have to look past the headlines! 1 To play devil’s advocate - should one always be so magnamious? Astrology? Phrenology? These seem different in that their entire orientation was flawed from the start; they didn’t simply fail to find the correct constellation-personality connections, the whole project of searching for connections between constellations and personality was doomed from the start. More difficult might be asking the same question about education research, which is notoriously bad. I don’t know enough about education research to know if there’s some settled science of correct and enlightening results lurking in the background beyond the day-to-day froth of poorly-conducted and politically-motivated studies. I think if it’s 90% bad, 10% good, it’s correct to call it bad as a compact way of communicating a useful truth; I think psychology is better than that, but admit it’s a tough judgment call.
New Report: Small Businesses Lean Into Growth and AI
/PRNewswire/ -- Small business optimism remained steady in Q2 2026 with more than nine in 10 owners confident in growth over the next year, according to the...
Survey: Small business optimism picks up in Iowa, nation
Many small businesses around Iowa and the nation are seeing “encouraging developments” while also experiencing challenging times, according to a recent survey. The NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business ) Small Business Optimism Index rose 2.1 points in June to 97.4, nearing its 52-year average of 98. Expectations for better business conditions and real sales […]
Chicago advocates step up for brain health and a future without Alzheimer’s
Content oversight provided by Studio 1847 Alzheimer’s disease reshapes families and demands immense resilience. Yet a growing wave of scientific optimism is changing approaches to brain health. Local volunteers Ellen Gudjonis and …
Rivian beats quarterly revenue estimates as R2 launch, software business gain traction
By Akash Sriram July 30 (Reuters) - Rivian Automotive beat quarterly revenue estimates and raised annual delivery forecast on Thursday, buoyed by optimism over the rollout of its lower-priced R2 SUV and growth in its software business as it expands b...
Rivian beats quarterly revenue estimates as R2 launch, software business gain traction
Rivian Automotive beat quarterly revenue estimates and raised annual delivery forecast on Thursday, buoyed by optimism over the rollout of its lower-priced R2 SUV and growth in its software business as it expands beyond its premium lineup.
After Hobbes vs Rousseau: Politics must move beyond human nature
Since the great debate between Hobbes and Rousseau, our political theory has been organised around a single question: is human nature essentially good or essentially corrupt? Graham Harman, the philosopher behind object-oriented ontology, argues that this is simply the wrong question to be asking. The real forces governing our collective fate - climate change, artificial intelligence, geography, and pandemics - are non-human; therefore, questions about human nature are not the central ones. Instead, Harman proposes a politics reorganised around our relationship to non-human objects and environments, in which quasi-government institutions incentivise and deter actions with the aim of extending the survival of the human race. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This has become one of the most popular phrases among twenty-first-century intellectuals. Often misattributed to Fredric Jameson, it has been warmly embraced by such influential authors as Slavoj Žižek and the tragically departed Mark Fisher, and has fueled the notion that the major problem with the political Left is that it simply needs to become more speculative and creative. Naturally, this is never a bad idea in any human pursuit. But what if the political distinction between Left, Right, and Center itself results from a failure of imagination? SUGGESTED READING Hobbes vs Rousseau: are we inherently evil? By Robin Douglass This particular division has been with us only since the summer of 1789. During the simmering prelude to the French Revolution, it referred originally to the physical position in the National Assembly of radical figures on one side and loyal monarchists on the other. These positions are linked with two entirely different camps of modern political theory. On the Left we find a series of authors ranging from the moderate (Locke) to the supercharged (Rousseau) to the truly radical (Marx), all of them contending that exploitation of the many by the few justifies revolutionary overthrow of the existing order. On the Right they are countered by the likes of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Schmitt, a group of thinkers convinced that corrupt human nature can be tamed only by force. In the words of the Nazi supporter Schmitt: “One could test all theories of nature and state and political ideas according to their anthropology and classify these as to whether they consciously or unconsciously presuppose [humans] to be by nature evil or by nature good.” This is the division we continue to face today, even in the daily retail politics of Western democracies.___Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims.___The most refreshing feature of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s 2021 book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was their awareness that the forced choice between Rousseau and Hobbes (as they put it) is no longer sufficient. Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims. Far from being stationed “beyond good and evil,” we seem to be fully entangled with both. We are not naturally good or evil, Graeber and Wengrow contend, but naturally experimental and imaginative. They rest their case on the archaeological record, which seems to bear witness to numerous episodes of seasonally shifting governments and festivals, which vacillate in the same society (even in the same year) between the egalitarian and the dictatorial. Such praise of political experiment makes a good fit with the generally anarchist position defended by these authors. Yet it is also what I find most disappointing in their position. Although they are right that the forced choice between Hobbes and Rousseau falls short of what our new situation requires, the authors simply replace it with praise for the human being as a political tinkerer and performer. In other words, they give us just another theory of human nature, one that would not have been out of place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. What other options might we have?___The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature… We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them___One fresh approach would be to treat politics within a broader framework than human nature, given that the polis does not exist in a vacuum filled exclusively with people. When Bruno Latour went to observe the baboons of Kenya with the San Diego anthropologist Shirley Strum, they jointly concluded that these primates were more socially interdependent than our own species. Each baboon is so reliant on the dynamics of the group that they find themselves locked into constant surveillance of their potentially dangerous peers. The group structure turns out to be inherently volatile. Humans, by contrast, are able to stabilize their societies to a large degree through the mediation of inanimate objects. Although one’s position in society may seem to fluctuate over time, considerable stability is produced through such items as apartment keys, wedding rings, and identification cards, all of them serving to secure us a place distinct from that of our fellows. The Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris has written at length about the crucial role of documents in establishing social relations, making him a hero among notaries in his country. Proper names and license plates cement our position amidst other humans, as do symbolic achievements such as graduation from a top university or distinguished wartime service with its various medals and ribbons. None of this is found among baboons, despite their closeness to us on the evolutionary tree: after all, we did share a common ancestor just 25 to 30 million years ago. SUGGESTED VIEWING The goodness paradox With Richard Wrangham The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature, whether understood in the manner of the Left or of the Right. We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them. But initially, it is true, we face non-human things primarily in the form of constraints. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to form a human civilization underwater, deep underground, atop Mount Everest, or in outer space. Human dependence on the non-social background takes on subtler form in discussions of political geography, especially unloved on the more idealistic Left. Consider the luckless position of Poland during World War II, sandwiched between Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other. By contrast, note the good fortune of the United States in not having a military peer positioned on any land border. Anglo-American geopolitics, since the writings of the American naval commander Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, has been wedded to the notion that one or more liberal offshore naval powers should prevent any authoritarian “heartland” regime from gaining effective control of Eurasia. That remains the case whether the opponent is the impatient Napoleon, the swashbuckling German Kaiser, the villainous Hitler, the murderous Stalin, or the industrial juggernaut Chinese. In their current Foreign Affairs article “Heartland vs. Rimland,” Michael Beckley and Hal Brands analyze the current and coming state of the world on the basis of these same rather durable principles. In recent years a similar outlook has been embraced, in inverted form, by the Putin-loving Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an icon of the Rightist intellectual underworld. For Dugin, the Anglo-Saxons are an evil force bent on destroying the spiritually superior people of the land: much like Athens in its failed war with Sparta, or Carthage in its eventual collapse against Rome. But the shared notion on both sides is that any strategy that fails to take geography into account is likely to end up as a defeated form of excessive optimism.___When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole.___More striking for us today than geography is the non-human object called climate, which threatens rimland and heartland equally. Even if we contend that humans are one hundred percent responsible for triggering the climate crisis, it remains non-human in the sense of being an independent force beyond our effective control. In a major work published just before his death in 2002, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted the tendency of evolutionary theorists to focus too closely on the fate of individuals in view of their successful or failed adaptation to circumstances. With climate change, however, we confront a force that goes well beyond the scope of any individual life. Whereas Richard Dawkins extended evolutionary questions downward from individuals to the sub-individual gene, Gould pushed it upward, speaking of entire species or clades as impacted by environmental change. The asteroid that struck the Yucatán 66 million years ago is only the most famous example of this sort. In the wake of that catastrophe, large animals needing abundant supplies of food were at a fatal disadvantage by contrast with the smaller birds and mammals of the planet. When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole. The effect is to shift our attention away from individual beings towards the survival of the group.In the United States in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked considerable backlash among those who asserted a nearly absolute degree of individual freedom. In California I encountered those who demanded that their businesses be allowed to reopen, that it was enough to cover their mouths but not their noses, or that they should have the right to enter any public area despite refusing vaccination. Yet public health is probably the clearest argument against libertarianism, which often merely asserts the autonomy of individuals against any claims of the commons. In normal times the individual is worth defending; under conditions that threaten the survival of part or all of our species, compulsion may be our only resort, as with perfectly reasonable blackouts and rations in wartime. To rebuild human society under the constraints of climate change will be one of the great challenges of the century to come, as will our improvised grappling with artificial intelligence. Such phenomena pose existential risks for humanity, and leave far less room for tolerance of individual brattiness. Cases are mounting of devastating wildfires caused by arson. Recently it was reported that there is even a website where one can bet on the location of coming wildfires, raising the specter of deliberate blazes set to collect on wagers. The death penalty has steadily lost support in a world where many stress the infinite value of human life. But if we focus instead on entire ecosystems, those who purposely burn the forests may begin to look worse than serial murderers.___The politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere.___So far I have spoken of force, authority, and punishment: measures sure to have greater appeal to those who identify with what we know as the Right. But other implications of the post-anthropocentric world are likely to have different backers. If non-human objects are seen as structuring political space, it stands to reason that they can no longer be introduced solely by the pace of technical breakthrough. Fields ranging from cybernetics to energy will demand increased politicization once they are reconceived not just as products of individual human investment, but as renovations of collective political geography. This need not involve world government, with its inherent risk of tyranny, but may involve quasi-governmental enforcers of prestige along the lines of a less corrupt FIFA or International Olympic Committee, punishing deviant states not with violence but with less tangible incentives.Politics will never lose its historic links with conflict and faction. But rather than factions aligned by differing theories of human nature, the politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere. This will prove just as incommensurable with the modern Left/Right spectrum as a globe is with a two-dimensional map.
Viral video of Malik Nabers, Odell Beckham fuels New York Giants optimism
New York Giants fans were treated to much more than they expected on Day 1 of training camp thanks to Odell Beckham Jr. and Malik Nabers.
I’ve seen what can confound Farage on his home turf: optimism. People need a politics that offers them that
You can’t blame his constituents in Clacton for their pessimism – because they have been let down for years, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones
Packers GM Quiets Concerns Over Former First-Round Pick
One of the biggest questions on the Green Bay Packers‘ starting lineup is left tackle Jordan Morgan. Morgan is entering his first year as a locked-down starter despite entering his third NFL season with first-round status. However, General Manager Brian Gutekunst offered nothing but optimism for Morgan and an explanation for why he has not […] The post Packers GM Quiets Concerns Over Former First-Round Pick appeared first on HEAVY.
What's the Antidote to Political Polarization?
As the United States commemorates 250 years of independence in 2026, the landmark event has arrived during a time of increased political polarization. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 69% of Americans are dissatisfied with how things are going in the U.S., and 59% believe the country’s best days are behind it. Yet a majority (68%) still feel hopeful about the nation’s future. Bestselling author, social scientist, and Vanderbilt University professor Dr. Arthur Brooks shares that optimism—in part because he sees a clear path out of the divisiveness.
Zac Taylor’s New Mindset Could Define the Bengals’ 2026 Season
Trading post-Super Bowl pressure for infectious optimism, Taylor aims to unleash Joe Burrow and a revamped roster by embracing the high-stakes thrill of a pivotal campaign.
New business numbers should be source of optimism
We know and share in the pain that fluctuating energy costs and gas prices and a decade of rising prices for groceries and other costs of living have inflicted on our nation and region. A Center Square article in Tuesday’s edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette offered some good news: The United States has seen nearly […]
VIDEO: NFIB’s Holly Wade Joins Bloomberg to Discuss Rise in Small Business Optimism
NFIB Research Center Executive Director Holly Wade joined Bloomberg: The Close last week to analyze June’s Small Business Optimism Index.
Aaron Boone Reveals the Latest on Yankees Star Max Fried
The New York Yankees have been one of baseball’s best teams throughout the 2026 season to date, and as they begin the second half of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers, optimism continues to grow.With the trade deadline being just under three weeks away, there’s plenty of opportunities for this team to take a […] The post Aaron Boone Reveals the Latest on Yankees Star Max Fried appeared first on HEAVY.
Warriors Tabbed a LeBron James ‘Dark Horse’ Amid Increased Optimism
The Golden State Warriors are chasing star free agent LeBron James, but their status is up for debate as he nears a decision. The post Warriors Tabbed a LeBron James ‘Dark Horse’ Amid Increased Optimism appeared first on HEAVY.
Taxes, paid leave program on minds of N. Va. business leaders after General Assembly session
Optimism among Northern Virginia business leaders is improving, although some expressed worries about taxes and the state's approval of a paid family and medical leave program. That's according to the second-quarter 2026 Business Leader Survey released last week by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and public relations firm Pinkston, revealing the sentiments of the
Small business optimism picks up in June, survey says
Owners reported stronger sales expectations and better conditions ahead, even as inflation and hard-to-fill jobs continued to weigh on growth.
Small Business Optimism Picks Up in June
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose 2.1 points in June to 97.4, nearing its 52-year average of 98.0. Expectations for better business conditions and real sales expectations improved substantially and primarily drove the rise in the Index. The Uncertainty Index fell 2 points from May to 89, remaining well above its historical average of
Small Business Optimism Rises as Oil Prices Moderate
Small business optimism increased in June, driven by owners’ expectations for better business conditions and sales, the National Federation of Independent
U.S. small business owners grew more optimistic in June but inflation worries are climbing
The NFIB's optimism index rose to 97.4 in June, nearing its 52-year average, as 21% of owners named inflation their top business problem
U.S. Small Business Confidence Improved in June
The National Federation of Independent Business said its small-business optimism index rose 2.1 points in June to 97.4, versus economists’ expectations of 95.7.
US Small-Business Optimism Rises by Most in More Than a Year
An index of US small business optimism rose in June by the most in more than a year as lower oil prices offered firms some relief.
Flutter Entertainment shares rise as investors appear to lean into bullish positioning
Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) is up 5.4% today. Here is some analysis on what might have caused this price movement.Analysis: No obvious new company-specific filing or earnings release appeared today, so the catalyst is not fully clear. This could be because investors are reacting to a mix of recent bullish signals, including fresh high-profile buying interest in the stock, optimism around Flutter’s scale in U.S. sports betting through FanDuel, an
NEW DATA: Florida Small Business Owners Display Higher Optimism than National Average
State-specific data shows heightened optimism and positive business conditions in Florida.
AMC Entertainment (AMC) to Sell 95.25 Million Shares to Institutional Investors For $200 Million
External financing arrangements during recent weeks, along with analyst revisions to the stock’s target price, have led to optimism around AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE:AMC), which is one of the 15 best NYSE penny stocks to buy according to hedge funds. On June 24, AMC Entertainment (AMC) entered into an agreement with some institutional investors […]
Northern Virginia business optimism rebounds in Q2 as layoff fears hit lowest point in survey's history
18% of respondents are based in Alexandria; tax reduction and right-to-work top policy priorities for Spanberger and General Assembly
Cancer cases worldwide will soar in the coming decades, a report finds. Here’s why.
The World Health Organization tempered optimism about improvements in cancer treatment and said global health care inequities are driving more cases and deaths.
Can Sphere Entertainment's (SPHR) Wizard of Oz Bet Justify Its Rich Venue-Driven Valuation?
In recent days, Sphere Entertainment drew attention as investors reacted to renewed optimism around its flagship Sphere venue and an expanded content slate, including immersive productions such as The Wizard of Oz. The key tension now is that while some valuation models suggest the shares may be trading below intrinsic value, others imply the company already carries a premium earnings multiple, highlighting how sensitive sentiment could be to venue performance and cost control. We’ll now...
How society feels about breakthrough science
Greater knowledge and visible everyday benefits are driving optimism towards breakthrough science.
Yankees’ Nightmare Week Should Worry New York Fans
The New York Yankees were looking like the best team in the American League by a wide margin this time last week. However, since all of the optimism, even with Aaron Judge and others injured, things have collapsed.
Texas Democrats head to convention with optimism, but questions about November remain
The Texas Democratic Convention begins Thursday in Corpus Christi. The three-day convention features several national and statewide figures in the party — this while polls show Democratic candidate James Talarico essentially even with his Republican opponent for U.S. Senate, Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Dave And Buster's Entertainment (PLAY) Stock Sees Fair Value Cut After Q1 Analyst Revisions
The fair value estimate for Dave & Buster's Entertainment has been revised from US$18.88 to US$17.00, bringing the price target closer to updated assumptions on comparable sales and earnings. Analysts link this adjustment to a balance of cautious near term expectations after Q1 and ongoing optimism that longer term changes in the business could still support the story if execution improves. Read on to see how this evolving narrative might shape how you track Dave & Buster's Entertainment from...
Euro-Zone Business Activity Shows Resilience to Iran War Fallout
Business activity in the euro area shrank less than anticipated in June, feeding optimism that the region’s economy can weather faster inflation and the jolt to confidence dealt by the Iran war.
‘Every time you turn around, there’s a new price increase’: US small-business optimism plummets
At the same time, 29% of small-business owners also report having open positions they can’t fill
Burnham's Britain: six days in the place that just changed our politics
Andy Burnham is closing in on Downing Street after a big win in the Makerfield byelection. John Harris and John Domokos take a deep dive into a place where people's lives back up Burnham's insistence that we're living in an economy and society that need radical change – but they also find an infectious spirit of optimism
NFIB report says small business optimism declined as hiring pulls back
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell 0.6 points in May to 95.3, remaining below its 52-year average of 98.0.
May NFIB Small Business survey finds reduced optimism
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell 0.6 points in May to 95.3, remaining below its 52-year average of 98.0. The Uncertainty Index rose 3 points from April to 91, remaining well above its…
May NFIB Small Business survey finds reduced optimism
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell 0.6 points in May to 95.3, remaining below its 52-year average of 98.0. The Uncertainty Index rose 3 points from April to 91, remaining well above its…
Can Trump get a good Iran deal? Here are the major pitfalls that lie ahead
There is newfound optimism about the Trump administration reaching an agreement with Iran. But getting here was likely the easier part; what comes next will be even harder.
NFIB Florida Executive Director Reacts to May’s Small Business Optimism Index
Main Street pulls back on hiring.
Small business optimism falls to lowest level since October 2024
Market Domination host Josh Lipton welcomes NFIB Research Center Executive Director Holly Wade to discuss the latest NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, which fell to its lowest level since October 2024 as inflation concerns continue to weigh on business owners. The decline effectively erases much of the optimism gained following President Trump's return to office.
NFIB Maryland State Director Reacts to May’s Small Business Optimism Index
Main Street pulls back on hiring.
The Biggest Problem Facing Small Businesses Right Now Just Hit a 53-Year High
Due to high supply costs and global energy concerns, small business owners aren't expressing optimism about the state of the economy.
NEW NFIB SURVEY: Small Businesses Report Reduced Optimism
Main Street pulls back on hiring
Small Business Optimism Index Dips Below Historic Average
NFIB Oregon comment on June 2026 SBET
NFIB small business optimism index falls in May 2026
Soaring fuel prices are driving inflation fears among small business owners, who are pulling back on hiring and capital spending plans
U.S. Small-Business Confidence Ticked Down in May
The National Federation of Independent Business said that its small-business optimism index fell 0.6 points to 95.3 in May, remaining below its 52-year average of 98.0.
US Small-Business Optimism Falls to Lowest Since October 2024
An index of US small business optimism fell in May to the lowest level since October 2024, erasing almost all of the gains seen since President Donald Trump was elected for a second term.
Jerry Demings: 'I am confident in the path ahead' in final county address
Jerry Demings spoke about the past challenges and his optimism for the future in his final State of the County speech.
High Growth Tech Stocks In Asia Featuring Damai Entertainment Holdings And 2 Others
In recent weeks, Asian markets have been navigating a complex landscape influenced by global geopolitical developments and economic indicators. As investor sentiment remains buoyant with optimism surrounding AI and technology advancements, this article explores high-growth tech stocks in Asia, featuring companies like Damai Entertainment Holdings that are poised to capitalize on these trends. A good stock in this environment is one that demonstrates resilience through innovation and has the...
How small businesses are reading the economy right now
Tariffs, fraud, and cautious optimism.
LaFleur, Love excited about Jordan Morgan ahead of crucial year
Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love expressed optimism about Jordan Morgan and Sean Rhyan as they hope to lead an improved offensive line in 2026.
The science around GLP-1 drugs and cancer is suddenly getting a lot more interesting
Studies released in recent weeks are fueling optimism — and fresh questions — about GLP-1 drugs' potential role in cancer prevention and treatment.
Industry-Specific Survey Shows Shift in Small Business Optimism
The NFIB Research Center recently released an industry-specific quarterly Small Business Economic Trends survey.
ESCP Business School Publishes First Live, Learn & Love in Europe Survey Revealing Strong Optimism and Emerging European Identity Among Young People
ESCP Business School has published the results of the first edition of its Live, Learn & Love in Europe survey, offering a candid portrait of how young people experience, navigate, and envision life on the continent.
Curing MAHA: How to Protect Public Health After Kennedy
INTRODUCTION When President Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become his secretary of health and human services, it was possible to conjure a few faint reasons for optimism. Yes, his well-known rejection of mainstream vaccine science and general penchant for medical quackery were frightening. But Kennedy also offered one fundamentally correct critique of America’s […]
New NFIB Industry-Specific Survey Shows Shift in Small Business Optimism
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 27, 2026) – The NFIB Research Center released an industry-specific quarterly Small Business Economic Trends survey highlighting the construction, manufacturing, retail, and services industries. According to the report, the Optimism Index for all four reported industries fell fr
'A miserable campaign - but Mane looks a player'
Now the curtain has come down on the 2025-26 Premier League campaign, here is my end-of-season review - with a look back to what I predicted in August. Wolves were another side effectively going out of the Premier League from the early weeks of the season. Vitor Pereira was sacked after failing to win any of the first 10 league games and, while successor Rob Edwards occasionally hinted at better things to come and some optimism next season, this was a miserable campaign.
Colts: Players Returning from Injury a Source of Optimism
The Indianapolis Colts should get significant contributions in 2026 from players who were injured last year.
Should Steelers fans have any reason for 2026 optimism?
It appears so.
Ravens reason for 2026 optimism not centered on Lamar Jackson
This is an interesting take.
Inflation, cyberattacks top business concerns in 2026: Hartford
A new survey reveals AI optimism has been tempered by rising business risk
Business Uncertainty Costs Middle Market Companies Up to 6% of Revenue
Business uncertainty remained elevated in March, with 27% of payment executives reporting high uncertainty levels even as optimism about the next 12
Kasich aims to trade outrage for optimism with new SiriusXM show
Forget shouting matches and partisan sniping, John Kasich says he’s ready to tell political leaders to “knock it off, settle down and get things fixed.” Ohio’s former Republ…
Analysis: Wolves waiting for season of misery to end
Just one more game and then Wolves can put a truly miserable season behind them. The energy and enthusiasm that was present after back-to-back wins over Aston Villa and Liverpool a couple of months ago has well and truly gone – even the boos at full-time felt weary. Relegation was an inevitability even back then but Rob Edwards' side were at least showing something to give fans optimism for the future.
NFIB small business optimism index barely budges in April; Iowa director cites inflation drag
The National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Optimism Index edged up 0.1 points in April to 95.9, remaining below its 52-year average of 98.0 for the second consecutive month, according to the NFIB’s monthly survey released Friday, May 15. The NFIB Uncertainty Index fell 4 points from March to 88, though it remains well […]
Small business optimism impacted by global events
Three years of declining overdose deaths begets cautious optimism and some concerns
The next FDA leader, how the CDC is responding to hantavirus, and more health news from Morning Rounds
Pageantry meets politics: Xi’s stark Taiwan warning counters Trump’s optimism
Xi warns Trump that mishandling Taiwan could spark U.S.-China conflict; trade, Iran crisis, and economic ties also dominate Beijing summit.
Are you an optimist? It may help protect your heart.
A growing body of research suggests that optimism may protect the heart — both biologically and by promoting healthier habits.
Ford stock surges 13% on investor optimism for new energy storage business
Investor support for Ford Motor's energy storage business sent its stock soaring 13% Wednesday, the biggest single-day increase in about six years, following a note from Morgan Stanley highlighting details released by the company on Monday. Ford announced its wholly-owned energy subsidiary late last year, and it is being directed by Lisa Drake, who has been a key leader in the company's efforts around electric vehicles.
Ford stock surges 13% on investor optimism for new energy storage business
Investor support for Ford Motor's energy storage business sent its stock soaring 13% Wednesday, the biggest single-day increase in about six years, following a note from Morgan Stanley highlighting details released by the company on Monday. Ford announced its wholly-owned energy subsidiary late last year, and it is being directed by Lisa Drake, who has been a key leader in the company's efforts around electric vehicles. • After a $19.5 billion writedown on its EV programs in December, Ford announced it would launch an energy storage business, utilizing plant space in Kentucky that was previously meant to produce batteries for electric vehicles.
Ford Stock Soars On Energy Business Optimism
Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F) shares are skyrocketing Wednesday. Morgan Stanley released new research arguing that the company's energy storage ambitions are far more valuable than the market currently recognizes, putting the stock on pace for its best session since March 2020. Here’s what you should know. Ford Motor stock is among today’s top performers. What’s behind F gains? What’s Pushing Ford Higher? Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco reiterated an Equal‑weight rating and kept a $14 price targe
Small business owners 'increasingly pessimistic,' squeezed by higher costs, labor concerns
Small business optimism was flat last month, with an index that measures its level stuck below its long-term average for the second month in a row, the NFIB showed.
Small business owners 'increasingly pessimistic,' squeezed by higher costs, labor concerns
Small business optimism was flat last month, with an index that measures its level stuck below its long-term average for the second month in a row, the NFIB showed.
NFIB Small Business Survey: Optimism Challenged by Inflation
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index inched up 0.1 points to 95.9, remaining below the index's historical average for a second straight month.
Young Americans’ job market optimism falls as older adults stay upbeat, new Gallup poll finds
A new poll finds that younger Americans are more pessimistic than older ones about the state of the job market.
Young Americans’ job market optimism falls as older adults stay upbeat, new Gallup poll finds
A new poll finds that younger Americans are more pessimistic than older ones about the state of the job market.
Young Americans’ job market optimism falls as older adults stay upbeat, new Gallup poll finds
A new poll finds that younger Americans are more pessimistic than older ones about the state of the job market.
Young Americans’ job market optimism falls as older adults stay upbeat, new Gallup poll finds
A new poll finds that younger Americans are more pessimistic than older ones about the state of the job market.
How Disneyland Remade American Politics
America is turning 250, and The Free Press is marking the occasion with a yearlong series of events, conversations, and stories celebrating our country’s history. Today, we’re taking a journey with historian Beverly Gage to Southern California. Beverly traded the archives for the open road for her new book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History. We’re proud to publish an excerpt, on the theme park that shaped American politics—and the presidents who loved it. —The Editors On July 17, 1955, Ronald Reagan stood near a mocked-up wood-plank town in Anaheim, California, where a 13-star flag flew incongruously over an “Old West” landscape, and introduced the world to Disneyland. He had been invited by Walt Disney himself to co-host the park’s live ABC broadcast, alongside Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings—three Hollywood actors who seemed to embody a wholesome, all-American ethos. From the imagined past of Frontierland, the show leaped ahead to Tomorrowland, set in the far-off year of 1986, emphasizing the technical marvels yet to come: nuclear energy harnessed for civilian purposes, human beings riding rocket ships into space. Disney foretold great things for a 1980s in which the United States would serve as “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” But even he could not predict the most important political fact of the age: that his genial co-host would become president. Southern California was a strange place to build a park about the past, because the region at the time was all about newness and abundance and growth. For a lot of its history, Orange County had been Southern California’s version of flyover country: a vast agricultural expanse between two desirable places, Los Angeles and San Diego. But Disneyland was changing that. Before long, 50 miles south of deep-blue Hollywood, Orange County would become a region famed for its right-wing politics—but also for its mythmaking skills. Those two things, it turned out, went naturally together. ADVERTISEMENT The two presidents Southern California gave America both understood this instinctively. Richard Nixon and Reagan each built a national career on invoking a version of the American past in which the specificities of historical context mattered less than the big picture. For Nixon, progress meant proclaiming a “New American Revolution” on the eve of America’s bicentennial while dismantling the federal programs that had built the postwar middle class. For Reagan, it meant recapturing a lost optimism and an old-fashioned faith in America as an exceptional nation. Both men were less interested in history as it actually happened than in history as it felt—and Orange County, a place that had built itself almost entirely from scratch, turned out to be exactly where the myth of America’s future was getting made. I’m a historian—and historians tend to be myth-busters. With the country’s 250th birthday on the horizon, I figured it was a good time to step out of the ivory tower and check in with the past as it exists here and now, at the museums and monuments and roadside attractions where Americans go to learn about their history. After all my travels—to Davy Crockett’s Tennessee and Texas, to the real Erie Canal, to the birthplace of the American automobile and the actual Old West—I couldn’t miss out on Disneyland, the single most influential historic attraction in U.S. history.
Small Business Optimism Is at Record Highs, So Why Are Millions of Entrepreneurs Still Getting Denied Funding?
CredFin, Inc. Identifies the Hidden Credit Profile Problems Blocking American Business Owners from a potential $44.8 Billion in Available SBA CapitalMIAMI, May 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Small Business Administration guaranteed a record $44.8 billion in small business loans in fiscal year 2025, approving an average of 1,600 loans per week worth more than $860 million. That capital is available through a broad network of SBA-approved lenders operating independently across the country.
Is the FDA Really Suppressing Science? Plus. . .
It’s Thursday, May 7. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Aaron MacLean says Trump is poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the Iran war. Joe Klein on the life of CNN founder Ted Turner. Jillian Lederman on why cruise ships are here to stay. And much more. But first: Is the FDA suppressing science? On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story with an alarming takeaway. “FDA Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe,” read the headline. It is the latest in a string of stories that all have the same message: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other agencies, are engaged in a cover-up—and silencing scientists trying to get the word out about the Covid vaccine. What all these stories suggest—some more subtly than others—is that the outsiders now running the public health establishment, officials such as Marty Makary at the FDA and Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institutes of Health, are on a revenge tour. That they are doing harm to the country to get back at the scientists and bureaucrats who ostracized them for deviating from the public-health consensus during the pandemic. It’s a seductive narrative. But is it true? That’s the question we address in our latest editorial. —The Editors Read [ Marty Makary's FDA Has All the Right Enemies ](https://www.thefp.com/p/marty-makary-vaccine-study-fda) [ Trump Blinks First ](https://www.thefp.com/p/iran-peace-deal-pakistan-trump-strait-of-hormuz) Aaron MacLean In return for no detectable concessions, President Trump this week gave up on forcing open the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the Trump administration looks desperate for a deal to end the war with Iran. It’s easy to understand the desire to end the war, but are they blowing the chance at victory? Aaron MacLean makes sense of the administration’s latest moves—and Iran’s response—in his column today. Read full story Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson: Live in New York City Join Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson on May 19 for a live recording of School of War at the iconic New York Historical. In a conversation as timely as it is wide-ranging, Aaron and Niall will explore the strategic stakes of the moment, including the Middle East, China, and the future of American leadership on the global stage. Get Tickets Now [ Ted Turner, the Optimist Who Built CNN ](https://www.thefp.com/p/ted-turner-cnn-tribute) Joe Klein The man who gave us CNN and the 24-hour news cycle, Ted Turner, died Wednesday at the age of 87. Today, political writer Joe Klein—who almost ghostwrote Turner’s autobiography—remembers his friend, the American media mogul who stood out for his idealism and lack of a filter—something that got Turner in trouble more than once. “His was not a traditional intelligence, but one of horizon: Ted saw things before other people did,” Joe writes. Read full story [ Nothing Can Sink the Cruise Ship ](https://www.thefp.com/p/cruise-ship-hantavirus) Jillian Lederman A viral outbreak on a cruise ship that left three passengers dead has left some people wondering: Are cruise ships on the way out? Not so fast, says Jillian Lederman, who has been on many a cruise herself. Read her piece on why 38 million people a year take a cruise—and aren’t about to stop. Read full story [ The Great Writers Who Were Terrible People ](https://www.thefp.com/p/the-great-writers-who-were-terrible) Shilo Brooks Throughout history, some of the greatest literary geniuses have also been immoral bigots. In the latest episode of Old School, Shilo Brooks is joined by Eli Lake for a conversation about those geniuses, from Voltaire to Norman Mailer and Roald Dahl—and why we should read their work despite their odious prejudices. Listen on MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS [ Inside the Digital Intifada ](https://www.thefp.com/p/digital-intifada-social-media-hamas-terror) Warren Kinsella Read full story [ This Week in American History: Trump’s Over-Arching Problem ](https://www.thefp.com/p/this-week-in-american-history-trumps-over-arching-problem) Jonathan Horn Read full story [ Humanity Is Still Evolving—and Fast ](https://www.thefp.com/p/humanity-is-still-evolvingand-fast) Razib Khan Read full story THE NEWS Thirteen D.C. Metropolitan Police officers have been placed on administrative leave and could face termination after an internal investigation found evidence that crime statistics were manipulated to make the city look safer. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee previously alleged that former D.C. police chief Pamela Smith pressured officers to skew data. Tennessee Republicans unveiled a redrawn U.S. House map yesterday that would split up Memphis’s black-majority Democratic district, the latest move in a nationwide push to redraw congressional boundaries ahead of the midterms. The effort follows a Supreme Court ruling last week on Louisiana’s districts, which Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton said gave states the green light to redraw maps along partisan lines. Israel struck Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect last month, saying it targeted a commander of the militant group’s elite Radwan force in the city’s southern suburbs. The strikes risk destabilizing that truce at a delicate moment, as Iran and the U.S. report progress toward a deal to resolve their own standoff. The U.S. Air Force is aiming for a Fourth of July delivery of a Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, hoping to add it to the Air Force One fleet in time for the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, Reuters reported. (For more on the controversy surrounding the aircraft, read Jed Rubenfeld’s piece “It’s a Terrible Idea, but Trump Probably Can Accept a Free Jet from Qatar.”) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified privately before Congress that he has no memory of why he and his family dined on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012, according to Reuters. The admission contradicts Lutnick’s earlier claim that he had cut ties with the convicted sex offender well before that visit. Weeks before a former JPMorgan investment banker filed a lawsuit packed with explosive allegations, the bank reportedly offered him $1 million to settle his sexual assault and harassment claims, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed by Chirayu Rana, alleges he was sexually assaulted by a female colleague, subjected to racial discrimination, and forced into a degrading dynamic at work. JPMorgan says the claims lack merit, and the female colleague’s lawyers call the accusations fabricated. A new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows that, for the first time in roughly 20 years, church attendance is trending upward, with more people volunteering and clergy expressing renewed optimism. The study’s authors described the findings, based on a survey of more than 7,400 congregations, as showing signs of widespread recovery from low attendance numbers.
Iran deal optimism lifts markets; anger as Shell’s profits more than double
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Trump administration under ‘increasing political pressure’ to secure Iran deal: Former Navy SEAL
Former Navy SEAL Jason Redman discusses President Donald Trump's optimism about an Iran deal and the ongoing U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on 'The Evening Edit.'
Anglonordic Life Science 2026: A focus on execution
The latest Anglonordic Life Science Conference on 23rd April exhibited a cautious optimism.
Opinion: Young people make nonprofit boards better. Here’s how.
Research suggests that young people have greater optimism, creativity, and motivation to drive social change than other age groups.