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Video: The C.D.C. Is Waging a Political Fight Over Measles Deaths

After Pennsylvania reported two measles deaths, the C.D.C. took the highly unusual step of challenging the state. Our reporter Apoorva Mandavilli explains how this tension between the Trump administration and states over health issues is creating confusion for Americans.

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Sep 4 • 8:20 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
OB-GYN on maternal mental health after mistrial declared in Lindsay Clancy case

Dr. La Tanya Hines, an OB-GYN with Kaiser Permanente, discusses postpartum psychosis and postpartum depression. This video was broadcast during the NBC4 News at 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026.

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Sep 4 • 8:13 PM EDT • Health • nbclosangeles.com
Court Filings In A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports

Filings made Friday in The New York Times’s closely watched lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft included a range of copyright law and cultural references.

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Sep 4 • 8:02 PM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
Nicolas Cage-led “Spider-Noir” canceled after 1 season at Prime Video

The live-action show was based on the Marvel comic “Spider-Man Noir.”

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Sep 4 • 7:38 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Postal Service Internal Watchdog Opens Inquiry After Whistle-Blower’s Complaint

The Trump administration’s effort to screen mail-in ballots for the midterms is facing numerous challenges.

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Sep 4 • 7:01 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
North Carolina Adds New Restrictions to Vote-by-Mail Program

The changes are almost certain to cause some votes to be tossed. They come at a time when President Trump is promoting false claims of widespread fraud in mail voting.

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Sep 4 • 7:00 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
The Heart Drug Pelacarsen Fails, Shocking Novartis and Cardiologists

Doctors were hopeful the drug, which was being tested in a large clinical trial by Novartis, was going to be a powerful new tool to fight heart disease.

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Sep 4 • 6:44 PM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
AI-generated ads have come to Oakland politics. Accessible solution

Slowly but surely, more campaigns are using videos and songs made with artificial intelligence. We asked local candidates and experts about the implications.

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Sep 4 • 6:37 PM EDT • Politics • oaklandside.org
Deep dive
😐 Neutral (8%)
wow
40%
ahah
39%
love
21%
C.D.C. Says No Deaths This Year Attributed to Measles

The agency’s weekly update escalates a political fight after Pennsylvania said two deaths had been caused by the virus.

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Sep 4 • 6:28 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
iPhone Ultra, iPhone 18 Pro, and More: Apple's September 9 Event Preview

Apple's September event will take place on Wednesday, September 9 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Apple will announce its 2026 iPhone lineup, and this year is a big one. Along with the slab-style iPhones we've been using for years, Apple is going to debut its first foldable device. We'll also get new Apple Watches, a new set of AirPods, and possibly some other surprises. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.

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Sep 4 • 6:26 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
15 discouraging hours with Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and 10 brilliant ones with He Who Watches

In the last few weeks, while playing some video games that I might review, I emailed two cries for help. I sent the first to a rep for Capcom, confessing that the company’s samurai game Onimusha Way of the Sword (out today for PC and console) was crushing me. “Feels like I’m playing ‘hard’ mode, not ‘normal,’” I wrote. “And I don’t want to have to knock it down to “story”. I’m exploring, trying to level my gear, but these two-phase boss fights with no mid-fight checkpoints are brutal.” I wagered I was only about halfway through the game, if that. I wasn’t sure I could keep up with the steepening difficulty curve. Was I missing something? Then, on Monday, I took some photos of some puzzles that were baffling me in the mind-bending He Who Watches (out now on PC), wrote out lengthy descriptions of how I’d been trying to solve them and asked Bobby Vanden, the game’s solo developer, for a nudge in the right direction. I told Vanden I’d spent hours on these puzzles. “I’m stuck in triplicate,” I told him. Could he tell me if the solutions I was attempting were even on the right track? I didn’t mention that the puzzles—coupled with major time pressures from other work—were stressing me out so much that playing the game was giving me headaches. This double dose of panic was unusual. I’m used to managing a workload full of reporting and reviewing, used to a crowded schedule and the need to stay calm amid the bustle. But I was stressed about these games. No one was forcing me to review them, nor even play them. I’d simply found them interesting enough to start, hoped they’d be interesting enough to write about and I’d sunk hours into them assuming I’d made the right call. Suddenly, however, I felt trapped. I was emailing for a way out. Above: This guy took me about an hour to beat. The feedback I got from Capcom confirmed my fears. They didn’t say it, but I will: Onimusha Way of the Sword is not for me. It’s a brutally hard game in need of a normal difficulty level. It’s a game that spikes so severely during its abundant boss fights—yet offers such flawed ways to improve when outside of them—that it feels like a bait-and-switch. In the new Onimusha, you play as famed samurai Musashi Miyamoto, aided by a magical soul-absorbing gauntlet that is possessed by a lady who offers advice. (Way of the Sword is a continuation of Capcom’s long-dormant Onimusha series, but that set-up had me wondering if the company was cribbing from their ill-fated Bionic Commando reboot; read about “wife-arm” when you get a chance). Way of the Sword is partially set in 17th century Kyoto, an explorable city where Miyamoto can fight demons, help civilians and eventually rescue ghostly dogs. The city evolves over time, with new mini adventures and obtainable loot on offer, all feeding into systems that promise to upgrade your gear and sword-fighting skills. Upgrades, however, are so incremental as to be imperceptible, causing the exploration of Kyoto to feel like inconsequential busywork. From that hub, players can go on linear missions into forests and old temples, where they will encounter many of the game’s tough bosses. Combat in Way of the Sword is akin to many modern melee games. Players are asked to mix attacks with dodges and parries. They’re encouraged to deplete an enemy’s stamina bar in order to do greater damage to its health bar. The old Onimusha games’ signature move was the issen, a counter-attack so sudden it’s all but pre-emptive. You strike just as they begin to strike toward you, beating them to the cut. By definition, the issen is a high risk move, leaving you wide open to pain. It feels risky in the game, especially against bosses, who can maul you in just a few blows. A game might train you to perform an issen well by offering a variety of lesser enemies who are not as tough as the boss but get close. Or it might offer a toehold against bosses by saving or checkpointing the player’s progress when a boss’ first health bar has been destroyed and before the second health bar appears. It might offer the less skilled player a chance to over-level their character, should the player simply commit to playing through its optional sidequests. Way of the Sword does none of this. Fighting its trivially easy grunt enemies and then its ferociously adept bosses is like playing a game of chess where I’ve got a rook, while the opposing side is all pawns and five queens. Bosses simply don’t checkpoint. You may be able to clear a boss’ first phase without taking much damage. Good for you. Do it again, every time you fail the second phase. As for the the central Kyoto hub, I kept pace with all of its added side activities and never felt like I was overpowered. Bosses could still easily buckle me. The new Onimusha, I concluded, is just too discouraging to keep playing. The advice I got from Capcom had been well-intentioned. They reminded me of the game’s various systems. They alerted me to an optional assist that flashes recommended button inputs (basically: counter this move; dodge that move). It was a little helpful. So was dropping down to “story mode,” which I tried last night. Story mode turns on those button prompts by default. It makes countering and dodging way too easy, nearly automatic. I don’t consider myself a master of action games like these, but I’ve cleared the likes of God of War, Stellar Blade, Star Wars Jedi and others of sub-Sekiro difficulty and had a fun time doing so. Not here. Not yet. Unless they patch Onimusha: Way of the Sword and add a middle difficulty or just checkpoint the damn bosses when they’re between health bars, my streak of loving Capcom games released in 2026 will likely end at two. It’s a shame, because I was having a good time finding those ghostly dogs. And then there’s He Who Watches, a phenomenal first person puzzle game with Portal vibes, except instead of a portal gun you’ve got a magical bow that shoots one arrow that can activate switches or be used to drag blocks. The twist is an actual twist: you can also walk on walls and the ceiling, reorienting gravity as you do, thereby placing blocks onto those other surfaces. Walking on walls and ceilings to solve problems is really the best thing. Would that I could in reality. He Who Watches consists of locked-room challenges, each brief enough to only require about a minute to actually solving, though it will take five, 10, eventually 30 minutes to figure out said solutions. They are not obvious! It’s a game of layered mechanics and shocking solutions. For example, see if you can follow this: You can drag a block to a wall. Then you can walk on the wall, which now feels like the floor, and drag that block across the wall. Later, back on the floor, you might realize you can look up. The block is still on the wall, stuck to it. You can shoot your magic arrow to its underside. Doing so creates a tether, so that you can yank the block off the wall and carry it, as if it were a balloon, into the spot where you need it to be to solve the puzzle. Here, watch Vanden explain some of the game’s basics in this launch trailer: As with any great puzzle game, the solutions to He Who Watches’ puzzles elicit relief and amazement. Oh my god, that worked! I didn’t even think that could be possible! Learning to solve the game’s puzzles feels like learning magic. But, oh, does the game get hard. Its Steam reviews, mostly glowing, are full of players remarking how quickly He Who Watches made them sweat. Wrote one: “loving this one already although my brain is hurting!” Wrote another: “As you get further in the game it feels like you need an IQ level of at least 120+.” Vanden has shown some mercy. Each locked room puzzle includes an optional junior version of the puzzle, meant to teach you. Difficulty nevertheless ramps severely. By the time I was emailing Vanden for help, I was struggling to even clear one of the hint puzzles. When I messaged him, my stress was exacerbated by strange things I’d found in the game’s various hubs: suspicious passageways, odd blocks and some intriguing locked doors. These were hints of secrets, I realized, yet I sensed I needed to play further into the game to understand them. I was stuck, but I wanted to see the rest. Vanden offered to give me the exact solutions, to solve those three puzzles for me, but first he gave four nudges. Three were for the specific puzzles, but his best hint was for all and ultimately proved to be a terrific life lesson: go back a bit, he suggested. Do the puzzles right before those. They were teaching you something. Focus on what their lesson was. Don’t rush, in other words. Recognize what you’ve accomplished. Build off of that. I did so. I absorbed the lessons. I saw those three tough puzzles in a new light. I solved one the night after he wrote back, another the morning after. I left a third for another time. I didn’t need it and I wanted to plunge deeper into the game, closer to the moment when I was sure I could start unlocking those secret doors. My head stopped hurting, too. He Who Watches feels special. It’s got more challenges, and I’m undeterred. It’s also nice that its puzzles don’t have a surprise second health bar. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: In brief… 🎮 Ilari Kuittinen, co-founder of Helsinki-based Housemarque (Super Stardust HD, Resogun, Returnal) has stepped down from his studio, after a 31-year run, saying he’s “ taking a rare and well-deserved breather.” Sony purchased Housemarque in 2021, and the studio released its newest game, Saros, earlier this year. Trend-watch: Sony-owned Insomniac saw its founder Ted Price retire in early 2025, after a 30-year run. Sony-owned Sucker Punch saw its co-founder Brian Fleming step down in late 2025, after a 28-year run. 👀 Savvy Games Group chief Brian Ward is stepping down from the Saudi-government-backed games conglomerate, Bloomberg reports. No word on a long-term successor yet, nor if this augurs any closer integration between Savvy and Electronic Arts. EA was purchased by a consortium led by Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, in early August. 💿 Square Enix has denied a Japanese media report that the company was planning to go private. In very different Square Enix news, the company revealed that the physical version of Final Fantasy VII: Revelation, the April 2027 finale of its radical remakes of FFVII, will include just one disc in its case, requiring a download for the rest. The first two FFVII remakes in the trilogy shipped on two discs apiece. While Square hasn’t commented on the reason why, a feature here in Game File last month broke down the processes and costs for physical games. The expense of a second disc comes out of the game publisher’s cut of each copy. Square could be saving in excess of a dollar a copy with this move. 🟥 Grand Theft Auto IV’s 26-minute ’‘extended look” gameplay showcase that premiered on Netflix last week—and was exclusive to the platform for six hours—drew 31.1 million views in its first four days, the streamer announced. (Netflix calculates views as total viewed hours divided by runtime; excludes replays). Compared to YouTube: The version that later premiered on Rockstar Games’ YouTube channel is sitting at 22.6 million views after seven days (YouTube’s more liberal counting system tallies anyone who viewed even just the first few second.) Compared to other Netflix mega-events: Last year, Stranger Things season 5’s first four episodes, which debuted together, drew a record 59.6 million views in their first few days on Netflix. For more of a live event type of comparison, in 2024, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match drew 65 million concurrent streams as it happened; Netflix didn’t release live numbers for the GTA premiere. ☁️ Microsoft is changing the way it charges for cloud gaming, from an all-you-can-play offer for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, to caps for the subscription’s tiers (15 hours per month at the Ultimate tier), with the option to buy more hours in bulk beyond that. The company also said it will sell batches of cloud gaming time to non-Game Pass subscribers, details TBA. Microsoft does not release figures for cloud game usage, but said its changes would impact 4% of Game Pass subscribers. That implies a small portion of its subscribers exceed the 15-hour monthly mark. Cloud gaming offers the promise of playing games without the need for console or PC hardware, as the graphics, sound and controls are all transmitted via a streaming connection. Microsoft notes that its cloud gaming service can be used for a range of things, including Xbox One players using it to play newer-gen Xbox Series games via streaming; and people playing games via streaming, sans any console, “in markets where consoles are less available or affordable.” (That latter use case could even be relevant in Xbox’s home market soon, as console prices keep rising.) Take Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick recently told investors he expects game-streaming tech, which has been only lightly adopted by gamers for over a decade, to be widely used within three years. 🇺🇸 The Trump administration has published multiple agenda-driven web video games to the White House’s website. One called Build The Wall partially clones Tetris as it asks players to build a wall to stop a “zombie border siege.” While actual Tetris involves clearing lines and basically not building a wall, the Trump-backed game omits the line-clearing aspect (and omits the fun as well). On Instagram, Tetris’ official license holders reacted by stating: “At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them. To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community. P.S. The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of ‘Build the Wall.’ P.P.S.: We take copyright infringement very seriously.” Item 3: The week ahead: Tuesday, September 8 Game releases: Mewgenics (consoles; already out on PC) is an engrossing tactical combat game (with cats). It is getting its console port right after the release of a Star Wars tactics game and ahead of the late September launch of a Fire Emblem–a bumper crop for the genre. Wanderburg (PC) is an auto-shooting game like Vampire Survivors, but you’re a castle on wheels Event: Nintendo airs a 30-minute Nintendo Direct (10am ET) focused on The Legend of Zelda’s 40th Anniversary. A full unveiling of the upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is expected. Will they also show footage from next year’s live action movie? Tease the next big 3D Zelda? Add Link to Mario Kart World? Shadow-drop a new Tingle game? Wednesday, September 9 Event: Nintendo again! On this day, they’re planning to air a 45-minute Nintendo Direct (10am ET) focused on games heading to Switch 2 this winter. Followed by about an hour of gameplay demoed by the company’s Treehouse team. The September Nintendo Directs are always some of the year’s biggest. The 2025 edition included announcements of several major 2026 Switch/Switch 2 games: Pokémon Pokopia, Mario Tennis Fever, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave. Plus the return of the Virtual Boy. Friday, September 11 Game release: EA Sports NHL 27 (PlayStation, Xbox) is a hockey game. There are so few that an indie studio that had been making wacky sci-fi first-person shooters just announced that, hey, we’re going to fill a void and make a hockey game for PC.

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Sep 4 • 6:23 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
Judge Once Again Blocks Trump Administration’s Plans to Restrict Mail-In Ballots

The ruling arrived before the Supreme Court could decide whether to intervene but appeared certain to set off yet another round of appeals.

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Sep 4 • 6:09 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Video card RTX 4090 showed a higher frame rate with DLSS 5 than the RTX 5080

A detailed comparative benchmarking of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 graphics accelerators with 16 GB of memory and GeForce has appeared online. RTX 4090 With...

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Sep 4 • 5:17 PM EDT • Technology • en.gamegpu.com
Prosecutors Won’t Try to Reinstate Key 9/11 Confession Taken After Torture

The military’s lawyers said they feared an appeal could delay the trial of the man accused of masterminding the attacks, which is scheduled to start in mid-2028.

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Sep 4 • 4:43 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Former John Fetterman Aides Threaten to Expose Senator’s Internal Messages

The former aides started a social media account they said would publicize Senator John Fetterman’s communications, following a report detailing the Democrat’s disdain for doing his job.

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Sep 4 • 4:26 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Supreme Court Sides With Republicans in TV Ad Fight

Republican groups had asked the court to clear the way for political parties to pay the same low-cost ad rates as candidates, a move that could undercut a Democratic advantage in the midterms.

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Sep 4 • 4:02 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Homeland Security Dept. Asks for Inquiries Into Voting Machines

Critics of ballot-marking devices have claimed that hackers could manipulate digital codes on ballots. Election experts say the systems are safe to use.

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Sep 4 • 3:50 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
The Fierce Battle For Kids’ Eyeballs...Plus Two “Devils” Face Off

(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) During the week of this report, Spider-Man: Brand New Day hit theaters and went on to become one of the biggest films of all time. So, you know what that means! It’s time for a poll! Recently, Project Hail Mary came to Prime Video and became a top five film for them, but didn’t smash streaming records, a feat I cautiously thought it could accomplish. Can Spider-Man 4 do better? To set the stakes, some of the biggest films of all time do just okay on streaming. Wicked, Top Gun: Maverick, and Barbie come to mind... But unlike those films, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a Sony film which means it’s headed to Netflix, the world’s largest streamer. Now, per friend of the newsletter and my go-to Netflix expert, Kasey Moore of What’s on Netflix, Sony films usually appear on Netflix 120 days after they premiere, which means Spidey 4 would land on Netflix on, checks notes, 28-November, one of the two biggest streaming weekends of the year! But Sony occasionally delays its biggest hits for a bit longer, to give them more time to make money on PVOD, so Spider-Man: Brand New Day might not swing onto Netflix until late December or even February 2027. Loading... Okay, on to this week’s issue. Since The Super Mario Galaxy Movie made its way to Peacock, I’m looking at the true workhorse of streaming viewership: kids films. And the surprising film that bested most Netflix animated movies. All that, plus Hulu has a new show that might be a hit (for them…?), two “Devils” square off on streaming, Zendaya tries to find some streaming magic, Netflix’s I Will Find You continues to do well, House of the Dragon tries to break into the season three top ten, some big NBC sports and summer programs, what friendly neighborhood Spider-Man character actually generates the most viewership on streaming, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of July 27th to August 2nd, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - As The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Hits Peacock, How Have Kids Films Fared in 2026? Like Mario hopping on a Koopa, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie landed on Peacock on 30-July. (Yeah, I kinda forced that Mario reference.) How did it do? Great, just like the first film. It got 13.0 million hours on its opening, and that’s good enough to take second place among Peacock films on the Nielsen charts all time: As I mention all the time, Peacock just isn’t the world’s biggest streamer—in fact, nowhere close—so its films struggle to put up numbers like Netflix (or even Prime Video and Disney+). So this is a solid debut for that streamer. And as we saw last time, The Super Mario Bros. Movie had a HUGE second life on Netflix when it moved streamers. This chart doesn’t even show how long the first Mario lasted on Netflix: a whopping, KPop-esque 31 weeks. For NBCUniversal, though, the big win was the second Mario movie grossing $429 million in America and over $1 billion globally. But yeah, to add a very strong streaming performance only makes its success even greater. Illumination pretty clearly has another hit franchise on their hands. This is a good time, though, to check in on kids films so far in 2026. We’ve had a few big, big titles, a rare Netflix success, and some disappointments. Let’s start with the top animated films since November of 2025, over their first four weeks on the charts, along with a few of the “best all time” animated films: (As a reminder, if a film doesn’t make the Nielsen top ten lists, I don’t have data for it, so it gets a “zero” in terms of viewership. Now, it had some viewership, but I don’t know what it is, so it gets a zero.) I added a few titles to get an idea of what the best of the best looks like in terms of animation. And you can see, through four weeks, Zootopia 2 can now claim “one of the biggest streaming films of all time” titles. GOAT too did surprisingly well, besting Netflix’s biggest films (Swapped and In Your Dreams) through four weeks. When I’ve talked about how films can have varying performances on streaming compared to their box office, this is what I mean. Goat just managed to gross even $103 million at the box office—so it’s popular, but just barely—but did very well on streaming. Of course, what set Encanto and KPop Demon Hunters apart from the rest was their absolutely insane longevity. Here are the kids film charts through eight weeks to show that: And really KPop Demon Hunters just kept going, and no 2025 or 2026 kids films have had that sort of longevity. I can’t wait to see the sequel in theaters. Film - Two Devils and a Drama As I wrote last week, in the past, theatrical-first film flops weren’t eligible for “Miss of the Week” or “Miss of the Year” honors/dishonors, but since so many more films go to theaters first these days, I’ve made them eligible now! But it’s complicated. You see, this is a Streaming Ratings Report, emphasis on streaming, which makes analyzing this week’s two biggest streaming misses—The Drama on HBO Max (A24’s dramedy starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson) and Prime Video’s The Devil Mouth (a killer shark movie starring young attractive people)—somewhat tricky. The Drama isn’t eligible for Luminate, but The Devil’s Mouth only had 1.5 million hours in its first week: The Devil’s Mouth notched 5.2 million hours according to Nielsen. Meanwhile, The Drama missed the charts entirely. Not great! But Prime Video is a much bigger streamer than HBO Max. That said, HBO Max titles are on Prime Video, but I think Prime Video prioritizes their original/exclusive titles, which helps boost their viewership. Complicating this further, The Drama made $48 million in the US—while A24 sells foreign distribution; the $57 million of overseas grosses helps A24 sell overseas rights for money in the future—off of a $28 million budget (which seems low for Zendaya and Pattinson, so they might have backend). The Devil’s Mouth, though, had zero dollars at the box office. The other stats for The Devil’s Mouth are bleak, and by “bleak”, I mean horrendous: a 4.7 on 15K reviews on IMDb (yikes) and a 46 on Metacritic (double yikes). The Drama, though buzzy online, only has a solid (but far from elite) 7.1 IMDb score on 121K reviews and a 59 on Metacritic (which is far, far lower than I’d have guessed). So which film is the “Miss of the Week”? I’m giving it to The Devil’s Mouth for one simple reason: it’s a horror film. And almost all horror films, even poorly reviewed horror films, should get a shot in theaters to at least try to recoup some of their budgets. The Drama made money at the box office and The Devil’s Mouth didn’t. It’s just like the situation last issue with Obsession and Masters of the Universe. Sure, Obsession didn’t pop on the streaming charts, but at least it already made it money at the box office. And as we’ve been seeing for years now and we’ll see all fall, theatrical films just do better on streaming. After all, the big “devil” winner this week was actually The Devil Wears Prada 2 with 14.8 million hours according to Nielsen. That’s right, The Devil Wears Prada 2—one of the box office success stories of May—came to streaming and parlayed its $220 million box office into 14.8 million Nielsen hours. Disney also put out a datecdote that it had 15.2 million “views” globally in five days, but again we don’t have a lot of great context for what that means. Here’s how it stacks up to other Hulu films, since I’m categorizing this mainly as a Hulu title (though it was also on Disney+): Share Quick Notes on Film We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… Whether Hulu has a new hit show on its hands... The top first and third seasons of all time and which shows are climbing those charts… What version of Spidey is the most popular... What sport and TV show are performing better on NBC than the NBA... All the flops, bombs and misses... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, wow, things stay so busy. One of streaming’s biggest shows of all time, Ted Lasso, returns along with new YA-ish shows from Hulu (The Shards, from Ryan Murphy) and Prime Video (Sterling Point). The Challenge moves to Paramount+, plus My Life with the Walter Boys returns to Netflix and Futurama returns to Hulu. And Netflix has a new horror film, The Last House. Lots to talk about! All month, things stay busy. We’re talking Reacher on Prime Video! Outer Banks and Tires on Netflix! Lanterns on HBO Max! UFC 330 on Paramount+ and the MLB Field of Dreams game on Netflix. And a ton of smaller films come to streaming. Long term, the VMAs are back on 27-Sep! I feel like I haven’t heard much about this show in past years, but I’m seeing more news coverage and buzz for this show than in past years. I’m curious to see how it does.

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Sep 4 • 3:16 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com
Alix Earle finally addresses her falling out with Alex Cooper on her new reality show
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Sep 4 • 3:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
60 seconds in politics
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Sep 4 • 2:40 PM EDT • Politics • indystar.com
Adria Arjona hints at “Man of Tomorrow” role in training video, talks ‘excitement’ of ‘playing the woman I’m playing’

Now that’s a workout fit for an Amazon princess if we’ve ever seen one.

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Sep 4 • 1:40 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Old Maxwell's space in Redding 'Buzz'-ing, and a business on the move
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Sep 4 • 1:40 PM EDT • Business • redding.com
Pentagon Agreement With N.I.H. on Biodefense Draws Alarm From Democrats

Under a new partnership, the Defense Department would play a larger role in biodefense and pandemic preparedness. Democrats warned it could allow a Pentagon cash grab.

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Sep 4 • 12:24 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
The MacRumors Show: iPhone 18 Pro Event Expectations

Ahead of Apple's "Surprise and shine" event on September 9, we talk through everything to expect on this week's episode of The MacRumors Show. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos The event begins at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, and will be streamed on Apple's website, on YouTube, and through the Apple TV app.

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Sep 4 • 12:13 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Hideki Shirakawa, Who Helped Turn a Lab Error Into a Nobel, Dies at 90

The Japanese chemist played a key role in the discovery of electricity-conducting plastics, largely by accident.

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Sep 4 • 12:06 PM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
Gloria Steinem Stayed Positive, Even as the Manosphere Took Hold

The feminist icon thought many women would carry on her legacy. But at an unsteady time for feminism, how will the movement carry on?

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Sep 4 • 11:47 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Miley Cyrus releases new single, 'Bass Persuades,' and music video

Miley Cyrus performs onstage during the 66th GRAMMY Awards on February 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (John Shearer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

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Sep 4 • 11:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com
A More Confident Iran Emerges After Six Months of War With the U.S.

New intelligence reports have assessed that Iran now has a far better understanding of its capabilities and the limits of U.S. power.

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Sep 4 • 11:21 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Critical Public Health: Fiscal Reform Under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and It’s Public Health Implications

The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is framed by its proponents as the largest middle-class tax cut in U.S. history and a catalyst for economic growth. Yet, beneath the marketing of ‘jobs, tax cuts, and American prosperity’, the legislation conceals sweeping rollbacks of Medicaid, food assistance, education, reproductive care, and expanded immigration enforcement, alongside tax windfalls for venture capital and immigration enforcement.

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Sep 4 • 10:45 AM EDT • Health • itep.org
Television Academy and NATAS Announce 2026 Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award Recipients

The Television Academy and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences have announced the recipients of their 2026 Engineering, Science and Technology Emmy Awards. The ceremony will be held...

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Sep 4 • 10:25 AM EDT • Science • sportsvideo.org
'Dancing With the Stars' alum Sasha Farber speaks out on season 35 absence
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Sep 4 • 10:08 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
'Dancing With the Stars' alum Sasha Farber speaks out on season 35 absence
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Sep 4 • 10:04 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Gravity Media Appoints Alex Pannell as Chief Business Officer

Gravity Media has appointed Alex Pannell as Chief Business Officer. Pannell joins from Appear, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer. He will be based in London. In the newly...

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Sep 4 • 9:51 AM EDT • Business • sportsvideo.org
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New movies to watch this weekend: See 'Onslaught' in theaters, rent 'I Want Your Sex,' stream 'The Runner' on Prime Video

Adria Arjona's action horror flick "Onslaught" is the week's big movie release, while Mark Wahlberg and Gal Gadot helm new films of their own.

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Sep 4 • 8:38 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
'Just so much fun': Allentown Fair supports local agriculture, entertainment

Click here to view this video from wfmz.com.

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Sep 4 • 8:23 AM EDT • Entertainment • wfmz.com
Sony's PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90

Sony’s PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90 Sony won’t license disc pressing to anyone else, Microsoft does, and a former PlayStation boss thinks that’s the whole problem. When Sony DADC chief Dietmar Tanzer spoke with an Austrian broadcaster in July about PlayStation disc production at the Thalgau plant, a number of press outlets misunderstood the report, writing that production would fall to a tenth of current levels. It won’t. Sony DADC confirmed to Game this week that the figure is a 10 percent decline, not a decline to 10 percent. “To clarify and avoid any misleading information: in that statement Dietmar anticipated an overall product volume decline by 10 percent, not a decline down to 10 percent,” a spokesperson with Sony DADC told Game. That figure covers 2028. Tanzer didn’t put a number on the years after, and the spokesperson declined to comment further. What we do know is that on July 1, PlayStation announced that physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028 and that the transition has no impact on games that have already released in disc format or will be releasing in disc format prior to that month. “So, there will be reorders going to the market after January 2028,” the Sony DADC spokesperson said. “For details around that I would ask you to liaise with the PR team from PlayStation, as we can’t speak or comment on their behalf.” PlayStation officials did not respond to questions about reorders or other disc-related matters. But I did recently speak with Shawn Layden, Game Industry Strategic Advisor and former chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, who called a future without physical PlayStation discs “depressing, but solvable.” then added, “I think.” The chief hurdle to third-party manufacturing of collector’s editions or any other version of a PlayStation game disc is that Sony owns the proprietary process to press those discs, Layden said. “And unless they decide or determine a way to license that to some of these bespoke disc manufacturers, there’s no way to make it happen,” he said. Layden was careful to add that he understands the concept but doesn’t have “line of sight on the particulars.” “Depressing but solvable, I think.” — Shawn Layden Microsoft already licenses replication to outside plants. Xbox discs are pressed by manufacturers Microsoft certifies as Authorized Replicators, a term defined in its publisher agreements, with the approved list set at the company’s sole discretion and Microsoft retaining the right to halt manufacture. The structure is still in place today: publishers select an Authorized Replicator in Partner Center and submit a bill of materials created with a Microsoft representative. Sony, by contrast, presses PlayStation discs through Sony DADC, its own manufacturing subsidiary. No one I spoke with said they were in discussions with Sony about doing that, and PlayStation hasn’t responded to questions about whether it would be open to a licensing deal. There is an obvious reason Sony might not want to. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed it out on the day of the announcement: it’s a platform-led decision, he wrote, designed to cut costs, eliminate the resale market, and drive all revenue through the PlayStation Store. The math is not subtle. On a $70 third-party game sold through the PlayStation Store, Sony keeps $21. Sold at retail, Ahmad says, it earns about half that. Licensing disc replication to an outside manufacturer might not be worth it. And even if it were, it seems unlikely that such a deal would come from boutique companies like iam8bit, which sells collector’s editions of video games. “We would absolutely love to find a way forward to continue making physical PlayStation games,” said Jon Gibson, co-owner and co-creative director of the company. “We are big believers in giving humans the option to truly own media. If we can play a role in helping make that a reality for the future of PlayStation games, count iam8bit in!” If it were to happen, it would most likely be with a company like Conectiv Supply Chain Solutions, a Memphis-based manufacturer of optical discs and vinyl records that also runs third-party logistics, fulfillment and distribution for packaged media. The company, which was formed in 2025 when Los Angeles private equity firm Variant Equity Advisors purchased Vantiva’s Supply Chain Solutions division, traces its lineage back to Technicolor. When it sold the division, Vantiva described the business as having served video game creators for more than 25 years. Conectiv is also buying, not shrinking. Last month it acquired SDS, the distributor for Universal and Warner Bros. home entertainment, consolidating those studios’ packaged-media pipeline from pressing plant to retail shelf. I reached out to Conectiv and its CEO, but haven’t heard back. Layden pointed to music and books in our discussion about the ongoing value of physical media. “No one ever saw the comeback of cassette tape,” he said. “And vinyl didn’t so much come back. The flame went down, the fire’s dying, but the ember was always there, and it just kind of came back. Much like the book business. We thought we’d all be on Kindles right now. “I believe that physical media is crucial and important. One of the things that makes us gamers, one of the core game mechanics, going back to the beginning of time, is collecting stuff. “Did you get all the diamonds in Crash Bandicoot? Did you get all the stars in Mario? And we like to collect our games. And we have a game shelf. And we put all our boxes up there. And if you’re super hardcore, when you buy a game, you buy two copies, right? One stays in the shrink wrap, and you play the other one. What happens to that important cultural part of the gaming world? You know, we buy the steelbook and the three-disc Final Fantasy set and the figurine and, you know, you can’t download any of that. “What happens to that?” And Layden believes it shouldn’t have been a revenue question for PlayStation. “This was a core thing to the experience of our most devoted fans,” he said. “Yeah, it’s fan service. Why would we take that away? Well, we can’t afford to. It’s already 120 bucks, you know, limited edition special purchase onyx box version of whatever, and those sell at a higher rate than the box selling at $69.99 does. So yeah, the market has said they will continue to buy them. You’re just saying you just don’t want to make them anymore.” Layden said he was recently talking with someone about these sorts of business decisions and how they’re made. Too often, he said, it’s all about the financials and nothing else. “OK, we can do this and save this much money, or we can invest this to look at that outcome, or we can do this and have this happen over there, or move this team to Sri Lanka,” he said. “But each one of those, someone also has to have a ledger there saying, ‘OK, what is the brand impact from that move?’ “Iif you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” — Shawn Layden “If we do that, dollars and cents work out. I get it. That’s just math. But what’s the brand impact? Are people going to say, ‘Good move, you guys?’ Or are they going to say, ‘We hate you guys. Quit doing that.’ And sometimes they say, ‘We hate you.’ Then you take a note and say, OK, how much of that can we live with? How much ‘we hate you’ is OK. And when does it go over the line? “I see a lot of companies making decisions which, objectively speaking, I don’t know what the dollar end of that was for you, Mr. Company, but your brand value just dropped 30 percent. So I hope it was worth it.” Of course, shifting to a digital-only model for games raises other issues beyond simply wanting to collect. The biggest is ownership. Layden pointed out that once you go to a streaming-only or download-only model, it’s just a digital footprint on a hard drive. “What does ownership mean anymore?” he said. “It’s a genuine question. Well, in fact, it’s not even a question anymore. It’s like you are shifting the model from ownership to accessibility. “And what’s always been true, which people forget, is you’ve never been able to sell your iTunes library. And you can’t sell your PlayStation download library. So if you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” The touching tribute found in the credits for Star Wars Zero Company. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Interview and Hands-On with a Minoan Masterpiece Star Wars Zero Company hands-on: Attack Astromechs, permadeath, and delightfully fatal Rube Goldberg tactics Control Resonant opens up as you get stronger — and as characters start trusting you

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Sep 4 • 7:57 AM EDT • Technology • game.substack.com
RBL look to continue strong start against favourite opponents Werder

After successful starts in both the DFB-Pokal and Bundesliga, including the home win over Gladbach, RB Leipzig will be looking to keep that momentum going away to Werder Bremen, claim their first thre...

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Sep 4 • 6:40 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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A Surge of Russian Sabotage Attacks in Europe, and Musk’s Political War Chest

Plus, your Friday news quiz.

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Sep 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
AMD Threadripper Halo Station packs 96-core CPU and Instinct MI350P GPUs, up to 576GB GPU memory and 2TB system memory

AMD has shown its Threadripper Halo Station with a 96-core CPU, two Instinct MI350P GPUs and 2TB of system memory. The design is planned to support four GPUs with 576GB HBM3E.

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Sep 4 • 5:53 AM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com
VIDEO: Campbell Opens $15M Health and Community Development Center

Explore the new Campbell Health and Community Development Center, a $15 million investment uniting health care, education, and resources.

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Sep 4 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • businessjournaldaily.com
U.S. Diesel Prices Set New High

Because of the war in Iran, the cost has climbed past the record it reached in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Sep 4 • 3:41 AM EDT • Business • nytimes.com
Chicago sports stars witness PCA's latest heroic moment at Wrigley

CHICAGO – As more and more fans inside Wrigley Field looked to the video board beyond the left-field bleachers, the decibel level began to slowly climb. And when the camera panned to Pete Crow-Armstrong, waving to a few of his friends sitting in the first row behind the Cubs’ dugout,

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Sep 4 • 12:23 AM EDT • Sports • mlb.com
Special meeting on Williamson Health sale

The latest videos from WKRN News 2

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Sep 4 • 12:01 AM EDT • Health • wkrn.com
Judge Ends Federal Oversight of Teamsters

The union and federal prosecutors agreed that organized crime groups had been rooted out of union operations, the judge wrote.

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Sep 3 • 10:09 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Google Photos Picks Up New Superpower

Gemini Spark, a paid feature for Gemini that allows you to run very complex, multi-step tasks in the background, is getting a big new addition this week. Google Photos is now available to use with...

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Sep 3 • 8:10 PM EDT • Technology • droid-life.com
Trump Taps Army Engineering Official as Acting Secretary

The move came days after the resignation of Daniel P. Driscoll, who had clashed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the purge of top generals in the Army.

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Sep 3 • 7:37 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Central Florida judge resigns after political contribution allegations
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Sep 3 • 7:07 PM EDT • Politics • clickorlando.com
Houston’s mental health response faces long-term funding questions as demand grows
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Sep 3 • 6:28 PM EDT • Health • click2houston.com
White House website debuts 5 low-res arcade video games that promote Trump’s agenda

The White House website has unveiled Arcade, a collection of five low-resolution video games that promote different aspects of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

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Sep 3 • 6:11 PM EDT • Entertainment • seattletimes.com
Proposal for White House Visitor Screening Center Advances

A federal panel again paved the way for one of President Trump’s construction projects, even as it heard opposition to another proposal to fence in a park north of the White House.

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Sep 3 • 6:05 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
JD Vance Says He Wouldn’t Call Iran Conflict a War

In the first White House press briefing since Karoline Leavitt left as press secretary, the vice president suggested that when the conflict would end was up to Tehran.

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Sep 3 • 5:51 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Video: Opinion | The Joke That Started a Political Movement

“For more than a decade, the people in India were scared of questioning the government. Now, finally, people are no longer scared,” Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old Indian university graduate whose viral X post led to the creation of the Cockroach Janta Party, tells Opinion Video.

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Sep 3 • 4:57 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow Mail Voting Limits

The justices have been asked to weigh in again on the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict mail voting — this time on whether the plans violate the Constitution.

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Sep 3 • 4:39 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Foldable iPhone Ultra: The Latest Rumors Before Apple's Event

We're less than a week away from the debut of Apple's first foldable iPhone, and rumors have been picking up as the event date approaches. Here's the latest. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. MagSafe - Even though foldable iPhone dummies we saw earlier this year didn't have a MagSafe ring, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claims all signs indicate MagSafe charging will be supported.

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Sep 3 • 4:10 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
How Sports Science Impacts Iowa State Football Coaches' Preparation

One of the biggest coaching adaptations Jimmy Rogers has made since arriving in Ames is utilizing more sports-science resources to aid practice plans.

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Sep 3 • 3:29 PM EDT • Science • desmoinesregister.com
UK PS5 and Xbox sales tripled following GTA 6’s Netflix reveal

PS5 sales were up 33% on GTA 6’s reveal week…

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Sep 3 • 2:40 PM EDT • Technology • videogameschronicle.com
Maria Bartiromo Is Out at Fox News

The host, who appeared on Fox Business and Fox News, had been with the network for more than 12 years.

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Sep 3 • 2:18 PM EDT • Business • nytimes.com
'DWTS' pro Gleb Savchenko addresses his exclusion from season 35
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Sep 3 • 2:14 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Video: Why the N.B.A. Banned the Richest Owner in U.S. Sports

A yearlong league probe, sparked by Pablo Torre’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, found that the billionaire Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer helped to secure endorsement deals for star Kawhi Leonard, breaking salary cap rules.

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Sep 3 • 1:52 PM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition - Jacksonville growth draws Mesa Capital multifamily investment
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Sep 3 • 11:36 AM EDT • Business • news4jax.com
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Scientists Find More Than 1,000 DNA Variants Linked to Personality Traits

More than one million genomes helped identify DNA variants linked to extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and more. Researchers measured how those traits influenced how people lived.

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Sep 3 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
GTA 6 is getting two custom PS5 DualSense controllers

Both GTA 6 PS5 controllers will be available via PlayStation Direct…

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Sep 3 • 9:57 AM EDT • Technology • videogameschronicle.com
Video: Digital Foundry Delivers Its Tech Review For Onimusha: Way Of The Sword

"it holds up pretty darn well"

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Sep 3 • 9:15 AM EDT • Technology • nintendolife.com
Is a Disney Parks Tycoon Game Finally Happening? Disney Partners With Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Planet Coaster, & Planet Zoo Developer

Disney is partnering with Frontier, the developers behind RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo, and more on a new video game.

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Sep 3 • 8:20 AM EDT • Technology • wdwnt.com
Tacoma brewery caught in controversy as owners’ political donations surface

A political organizer accused the businesses of being “anti-trans” after owners donated to a PAC. The owners say it was about tax reform.

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Sep 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • thenewstribune.com
The tiny new features that make Android great

Good morning and happy Thursday. Today I’m watching every minute of M. Night Shyamalan’s new YouTube video on the making...

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Sep 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
PlayStation State of Play: Where to watch today’s presentations

A State of Play and State of Play Japan double-bill is taking place today…

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Sep 3 • 6:10 AM EDT • Technology • videogameschronicle.com
What Did Jurassic Forests Sound Like? Like This.

Scientists spent over a decade reconstructing the calls of nine species of ancient insects to create the first accurate Jurassic soundscape.

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Sep 3 • 5:03 AM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
What's new to streaming this week? (Sept. 4, 2026)

What’s new on Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and more? We've got you covered.

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Sep 3 • 5:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • mashable.com
Planet Coaster and Jurassic World developer Frontier partners with Disney for a new video game

Frontier, the developer behind Planet Coaster and Jurassic World, has announced a collaboration with Disney for a new video game using Disney's IP.

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Sep 3 • 4:53 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net
Anker's New MindBase Home Hub Runs AI Locally, Doubles as NAS

Anker today announced the launch of Anker MindBase, an AI home hub meant to work with almost 100 Anker devices and Matter-enabled smart home devices from other companies. It works alongside HomeKit, and is equipped with an AI Core compute card and the on-device Anker TrueSmart AI Agent. In addition to working as a smart home hub, the MindBase supports up to 48TB of local storage, and it functions as a NAS. It can be used for storing files, photos, and videos locally.

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Sep 3 • 3:30 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Sony and Microsoft say they’re not obligated to pass U.S. tariff refunds to consumers, echoing Nintendo

Back in July, Sony executives told investors that the company expected to receive $508 million in refunds from the U.S. government, after tariffs that the PlayStation-maker paid were ruled mostly in 2025 were found to be illegal. “Most” of the refund would by recouped by Sony’s gaming division, its chief financial officer said. This week, Sony’s lawyers are arguing that the company is not legally obligated to pass those proceeds on to consumers who paid for recently price-hiked PlayStation consoles. That’s in the face of a lawsuit from gamers calling on them to do exactly that. “Paying fair market price for voluntarily purchased consumer goods is not a legally cognizable injury in fact,” the lawyers wrote in a legal motion filed on Monday, as they asked a judge in California’s Northern District to dismiss a potential class action lawsuit over the tariff refunds. Microsoft made a similar argument two weeks ahead of Sony’s lawyers, in a similar lawsuit brought by a gamer in federal court in Washington State. As Microsoft’s legal team put it on August 21, in their request for a dismissal of that lawsuit: “There is nothing unjust about Plaintiff purchasing an Xbox at an advertised price and getting exactly what he paid for—regardless of whatever theory he devised months later about Microsoft’s cost structure.” Both legal fights are set to go on for some time. How things got to this point U.S. tariffs impacting a wide range of imported goods, including game consoles, had kicked off in early 2025. In May 2025, Microsoft raised the price of its Xbox consoles, citing “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” They raised them again that September. In August of that year, Sony raised the price of PlayStation 5 consoles, citing “a challenging economic environment.” Sony later told investors that its tariff fees for the fall quarter were nearly $200 million. in February of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the 2025 tariffs illegal, prompting impacted companies to begin to request refunds. In turn, consumers began suing the likes of Sony and Microsoft to get what they said was their share. The gamers in the Microsoft and Sony lawsuits argue that the 2025 price hikes of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, which added $50 or more to their sticker price, were due to illegal tariffs and should now be returned to consumers. The Sony suit started in May, when a group of gamers sued in federal court in California, saying Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation) would be unjustly enriching itself if it did not pass tariff refunds to its PS5 buyers. “Sony is poised to be paid twice for the same unlawful tariff burden: once by its customers (through elevated prices) and once by the U.S. government (through tariff refunds),” the gamers’ lawyers wrote at the time. They called for Sony to partially reimburse anyone who bought a PlayStation in the U.S. since August 1, 2025. The Microsoft suit, filed by gamer Trevor Hastings against the Xbox giant in July, made similar claims. The console makers push back In late July, Nintendo’s lawyers, facing a similar suit accusing them of double-dipping on tariffs and refunds, replied with arguments that previewed Microsoft’s and Sony’s: “Nintendo or one of its retailers set a price for each product, and consumers decided whether that price was worth paying,” they wrote. Sony has buttressed that Nintendo-style argument this week by saying that the gamers have failed to prove that tariffs were the reason for its August 2025 PS5 price hike. They call thatclaim “speculative and illogical.” Other factors, including “inflation, currency fluctuations, component costs, logistics, competitive dynamics, or demand,” could have played a role. (No, the Sony lawyers do not break down the costs and factors that officially triggered the price increases). Microsoft has also argued that there’s no proof in these lawsuits that tariffs drove all or some of the price increase, as it seeks to dismiss the tariff refund suit it’s facing: “Plaintiff provides no specific allegations that would establish any pricing differential attributable to tariffs or suggest any possibility that Microsoft applied then or could recreate now any dollar-for-dollar calculation of tariff-related pricing—any more than it could any other market factor that affects pricing.” To further skewer the gamer side’s argument in its case, Sony’s lawyers have pointed to what might be a surprising defense: yet another PlayStation 5 price hike from this past spring, after the tariffs were ruled illegal. “If the original price increase were attributable to tariffs, SIE [Sony Interactive Entertainment, aka PlayStation] would have had no reason to raise prices again after the Supreme Court invalidated the IEEPA tariffs.” … “If tariffs were the cause of the price increases, one would expect SIE to lower prices once the tariffs were eliminated—not raise them again. Instead, the timeline confirms that the pricing of PlayStation consoles includes a diverse and dynamic set of input costs.” Judges have not yet ruled on the arguments made by Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. Last week, Panic, the company behind the small, yellow Playdate handheld said it would be passing its tariff refunds on to consumers. It is the only gaming hardware maker to have made such a pledge. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my reporting, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: A reporter’s second Second Life Wagner James Au, who from 2003-2006 was paid by San Francisco-based tech company Linden Lab to be a full-time journalist embedded in their virtual world Second Life, is returning to the company. This time, he’ll be an editorial advisor and business development specialist, he tells Game File. The new role will involve trying to share the stories of people inhabiting Second Life’s ongoing online world with reporters and by extension the public. Au plans to continue to also chronicle some of that through his long-running blog New World Notes. I’ve known Au since the mid-2000s and featured him in a 2007 article for the Columbia Journalism Review about reporters like him opening up virtual news outlets within Second Life. As I wrote at the time: On April 22, 2003, writing as Hamlet Linden for the New World Notes blog on Second Life’s Web site, Au introduced himself. “For the next few months, Linden Lab has invited me to set aside my journalist cap, and instead, don the digital beanie of their in-house virtual correspondent.” He wasn’t paid to keep it positive. He wrote about builders and eccentrics, but then in August of that year, he reported on a tax revolt against Linden Lab (a complaint about the fees it charges users who build stuff) led by a resident whose avatar was a big cat. Second Life has always been less of a video game and more of a virtual world where people can live, hang out, make art, sell virtual items and flirt. Back in 2007, Au described touring it as “sort of like underwater lucid dreaming.” For the past two decades, Au has maintained New World Notes as an independent publication. But he said he’s been drawn back to Second Life and Linden Lab as a place to directly work. The virtual world has around 650,000 monthly active users, he said, “which is actually about what it was during the hype wave.” Au says he’s still finding rich stories in Second Life, the kind that keep him interested 20 years into the beat: “Over the last few months for instance, I wrote about an SL creator in Venezuela whose apartment was destroyed by the earthquakes, so the global SL community rallied to get him back on his feet,” he told me. “Then there’s the woman from a Middle Eastern country who explored her lesbian sexuality in SL, then earned enough from her virtual jewelry to escape her abusive family situation and country.” Au wants to beckon more reporters to give Second Life another look. He argues that it is often ahead of internet trends, noting, for example, an early backlash in the community against AI-made art. Now the platform is drawing curiosity from more of the user-generated content community who’ve grown up with the likes of Roblox, according to Au. “Second Life was too early during its hype wave in 2005-2010, but it now feels right for a new wave of interest,” he told me.

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Sep 2 • 8:21 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
As Midterms Loom, Democrats Feud Over Defections

The fight has highlighted party divisions and raised questions about how Democrats will run the House should they win the majority.

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Sep 2 • 8:17 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
John Peck's two-run double for first MLB hit
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Sep 2 • 8:05 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Judge Blocks Trump’s Second Try to Restrict Birthright Citizenship

The ruling raised concerns that babies already defined as citizens by the Supreme Court could have their citizenship revoked under an order the president signed in August.

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Sep 2 • 7:37 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas

The video board inside the American Airlines Center displays the logo for the upcoming Republican Midterm Convention during a media walkthrough in Dallas, Texas, U.S., August 5, 2026.

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Sep 2 • 7:26 PM EDT • Politics • galvnews.com
Opinion | Trump Ended My American Dream

America has closed its doors to too many students and entrepreneurs.

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Sep 2 • 7:00 PM EDT • Business • nytimes.com
In the Midterms, Will the Nepo-Baby Attack Work?

A New Hampshire senator’s daughter is running for office, and finds her name being used against her.

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Sep 2 • 6:55 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Sony Taps Acclaimed Video Game to Be Its Next Big Movie Adaptation After Resident Evil

Sony Pictures is turning to another acclaimed game for its next major movie adaptation after Resident Evil. The entertainment company’s new project brings an award-winning indie game to the big screen...

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Sep 2 • 5:55 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
USPS Is Building a Mail-In Ballot Screening System Despite Legal Battles Over Trump Order

Election officials warn that the creation of a new online portal for states to upload voter information is already fueling confusion and could ultimately disenfranchise voters.

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Sep 2 • 4:17 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Prime Video becomes local streaming home for six NHL teams

Prime Video will be the exclusive local streaming home for six NHL teams next season. Prime Video and the NHL jointly announced Wednesday that the streamer is now the local rights holder for the Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, and St. Louis Blues, each within that team’s own regional…

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Sep 2 • 4:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
A new way to read, watch, and listen to Business Insider

Business Insider is introducing a new homepage experience that brings our written, video, and audio coverage together in one place.

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Sep 2 • 3:39 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s new dog stars in Tommy Hilfiger campaign
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Sep 2 • 2:52 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
As Trump Throws a Midterm Party, Some Vulnerable Republicans Send Regrets

Many members of Congress in the most competitive re-election races are skipping the chance to share a pep rally stage with President Trump.

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Sep 2 • 2:38 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Women’s Sports Leagues Have Exploded Around the Nation

Money is flowing into start-ups in softball, baseball, volleyball and basketball, and TV viewership is following.

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Sep 2 • 2:31 PM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
Trump Administration Launches Blitz to Find Elusive Voter Fraud Ahead of Midterms

The practice is exceedingly rare, but President Trump has fixated on rooting it out this year, claiming without evidence that tens of thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote.

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Sep 2 • 2:25 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
David Brian Sanders debuts new book ‘The Heart of Entertainment’

Los Angeles news and live streaming video

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Sep 2 • 1:47 PM EDT • Entertainment • ktla.com
The Mandalorian and Grogu join the KTLA Entertainment Team

Los Angeles news and live streaming video

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Sep 2 • 1:47 PM EDT • Entertainment • ktla.com
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis takes on several hecklers at GOP event

Video shows Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticizing hecklers at a Republican unity event in Tampa.

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Sep 2 • 1:33 PM EDT • Politics • tallahassee.com
🧪 Science with Sarah: Make homemade ice cream 🍨
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Sep 2 • 12:53 PM EDT • Science • ksat.com
How to watch Anaheim Ducks games on TV and Prime Video in 2026-27

The Ducks will make 65 of their games free to watch on over-the-air networks.

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Sep 2 • 12:46 PM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
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How New York Times Reporters Traced Dark Money in Politics

About $1 billion in anonymous contributions is coursing through midterm races across the country. Figuring out where the funds are coming from is no easy task.

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Sep 2 • 12:32 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Columbus Blue Jackets, NHL reveal next step in TV, streaming plans

Columbus Blue Jackets games will air on a new network with streaming on Prime Video for $19.99 monthly or $99.99 annually.

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Sep 2 • 12:22 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
NASA Deep Space Network's new Goldstone antenna goes online
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Sep 2 • 11:54 AM EDT • Science • floridatoday.com
Google is sending MrBeast into the wilderness, armed with AI

MrBeast’s videos are about to feature a lot more Gemini.

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Sep 2 • 11:47 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
And They're Off! Sports Haven Tear-Down Begins

The last great race to the finish line began Wednesday morning at the former Sports Haven, where a crew began the long-awaited demolition of the storied Long Wharf video-betting complex. A crew from the Carabetta construction-affiliated J&J Demolition got to work around 10 a.m. attacking one side of the the oil drum-shaped, off-track betting venue […]

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Sep 2 • 11:24 AM EDT • Sports • newhavenindependent.org
NHL, Prime Video strike local streaming deal for 6 teams

The multiyear agreement makes Prime Video the exclusive local streamer for the Ducks, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Stars, Wild and Blues.

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Sep 2 • 11:00 AM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
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Federal Judge Declines to Break Up Google’s Ad Technology Business

In a long awaited ruling, the judge said Google must make some changes to its ad tech business to handle antitrust issues, but did not disclose the measures publicly.

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Sep 2 • 10:43 AM EDT • Business • nytimes.com
Video: Opinion | What A.O.C.’s Egg Freezing Says About Politics

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Karoline Leavitt may have very different politics, says Kristen Soltis Anderson, but they’re both publicly navigating similar realities: being young women in the public eye and navigating career ambition alongside questions of fertility and family.

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Sep 2 • 10:29 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Trump’s ‘Lightning Speed’ Threatens to Outpace the Courts

In his breakneck construction of a grand ballroom and in many other initiatives, critics say, the president has tried to outrun judicial review.

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Sep 2 • 10:25 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com