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Bladen Community College to host “So You Want to Start a Small Business” class and preview Pitch It Bladen 2027

The Small Business Center at Bladen Community College invites aspiring entrepreneurs to attend “So You Want to Start a Small Business” on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in Building 14, Room 104. This class will help participants explore what it takes to become an entrepreneur and take the first steps toward turning a business idea into reality.Participants will explore the entrepreneurial mindset and consider whether they have the interests, characteristics, motivation and willingness to take on the challenges of business ownership. The class will encourage attendees to examine their personal goals, expectations, strengths and readiness to pursue entrepreneurship.Attendees will also gain insight into the realities of starting and operating a small business, including the commitment, planning, decision-making and perseverance required to build a successful venture. Whether participants are just beginning to consider business ownership or already have an idea they want to pursue, this class will provide a foundation for determining their next steps.In addition to the class instruction, attendees will receive advance information about the upcoming Pitch It Bladen 2027 Business Competition, including the application form and details about the program. Individuals who are ready to move forward may submit their applications early and have the opportunity to receive advance acceptance into the program.Pitch It Bladen helps aspiring and emerging entrepreneurs develop their business ideas through structured instruction in business planning, financial management, cash-flow projections, marketing and operations. Participants work toward completing a business plan and preparing a business pitch, with the opportunity to compete for cash prizes.Last year's Pitch It Bladen program demonstrated the value of investing in local entrepreneurs by helping participants strengthen their business knowledge, develop their business plans and prepare to present their ideas. The competition showcased the creativity and potential of Bladen County's small-business community and provided participants with practical tools to move their business goals forward.Building on that success, Pitch It Bladen 2027 will provide another opportunity for local entrepreneurs to gain knowledge, build confidence and take meaningful steps toward launching or growing a business.“The Small Business Center wants to help individuals make informed decisions about entrepreneurship before they take the leap into business ownership,” said Theresa Dennison, Small Business Center director, in a press release. “This class gives participants an opportunity to evaluate whether entrepreneurship is right for them while also introducing them to Pitch It Bladen 2027 and the resources available to help them succeed.”Registration: Visit www.ncsbc.net and search for the class by name, or contact the Small Business Center at 910-879-5572 for additional information.

Oct 5 • 3:26 PM EDT • Business • bizfayetteville.com

Will R.I. voters, elected officials continue investing in life sciences?

Rhode Island starts in a strong position and has the ingredients needed for innovation and growth. What we don’t have yet is a long-term commitment, writes the CEO of the RI Life Science Hub.

Oct 5 • 2:22 PM EDT • Science • bostonglobe.com

Review: Metallica lives the dream on opening weekend of Sphere residency

LAS VEGAS — “I had a dream last night,” Metallica singer James Hetfield said. “We were playing the Sphere. “So cool.” Indeed, it was, James. Yet, it wasn’t a dream.

Oct 5 • 11:45 AM EDT • Entertainment • recorderonline.com

Behind the Seams | Wildwood

Go behind the scenes at LAIKA Studios for an up-close look at the extraordinary costumes of ‘Wildwood,’ the studio’s most intricately designed stop-motion film yet. Nearly 20 years after ‘Coraline,’ LAIKA’s artists and designers reveal how every tiny stitch, button and layer of fabric is handcrafted and engineered to help bring its puppets to life, combining costume design, fabrication and animation at an astonishing scale.

Oct 5 • 11:28 AM EDT • Entertainment • instyle.com

Fantastical’s long-awaited Android debut begins today on Googlebook

After 15 years, Fantastical's acclaimed calendar app is coming to Android, but it's not quite ready for every device just yet.

Oct 5 • 10:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

Apple's Newest Macs Just Got Their Biggest Price Cuts Yet on Amazon

Prime Big Deal Days sales are already starting, and have now hit Apple's brand new Mac mini and Mac Studio computers. You can get up to $199 off these 2026 devices with Amazon's latest savings. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Oct 5 • 9:23 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

DeSean Bishop Is the X-Factor Arkansas Must Contain

Arkansas knows exactly where Tennessee’s offensive plan begins. It begins with DeSean Bishop. The Volunteers running back enters Fayetteville after one of the best performances in the country this season. Bishop rushed 34 times for 220 yards and three touchdowns in Tennessee’s 24-14 win over Auburn, turning a game with quarterback uncertainty into a statement …

Oct 5 • 9:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Why your health insurance problem might not be over when you turn 65

Couples with an age gap have an extra consideration: How to continue coverage for the younger spouse who’s not yet eligible for Medicare.

Oct 5 • 8:46 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Here’s what Gen Z actually means by “socialism”

They’re interested. But don’t sign them up for the revolution just yet.

Oct 5 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • vox.com

Downtown Urbana entertainment venue/restaurant seeks extension on opening date

While an official opening date for Fernie’s High Horse has yet to be announced, at least two concerts are already booked for late 2026: Emo brand TRSH on Dec. 4

Oct 5 • 5:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • news-gazette.com

Arc Raiders is getting a free trial to celebrate its biggest update yet

Very soon, anyone who wants to play Arc Raiders without paying for it can do so for four days.

Oct 5 • 4:21 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

Liverpool give Florian Wirtz a €200m Michael Olise warning

Signed in summer 2025 for a fee that could reach £116m the Germany international has yet to hit the heights at Anfield which he reached at Bayer Leverkusen.The 23-year-old’s toils have now continue...

Oct 5 • 3:10 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Countries race to provide oral health care for all in 100-Day Sprint across Asia

Twenty Asian countries and areas across the WHO Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions vowed to strengthen essential oral health benefits as part of a “100-Day Sprint” initiative, during the 16th Asian Chief Dental Officers Meeting held from 27 to 29 September in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. The meeting marked the midpoint of the 100-day sprint bolstering support for countries to develop essential oral health benefit packages that can be integrated into national universal health coverage plans. Convened by the two WHO regional offices and the Malaysian Ministry of Health as the Secretariat, the meeting brought together national oral health leaders from 20 Asian countries, staff from all levels of WHO, WHO collaborating centres and other development partners. Participating countries and areas included: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (SAR) China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam. Participants reviewed progress and refined proposals using the WHO Service Package Delivery and Implementation (SPDI) Platform. Countries conducted bottleneck analyses across four key areas: service delivery, workforce, access to essential medicines and health products, and health financing. They identified practical actions to address implementation challenges and refined proposed revisions to their national oral health benefit packages. “There is no health without oral health. Through the 100-Day Sprint, countries are advancing the implementation of the Western Pacific regional implementation plan on oral health and strengthening progress towards universal health coverage,” noted WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Dr Saia Ma'u Piukala. Participants identified bottlenecks and proposed workable solutions to strengthen access to essential oral health care through primary health care, sharing experiences and discussing how best to translate policy commitments into feasible and sustainable action at the country level. Malaysian Minister of Health Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad highlighted the importance of prevention and primary health-care approaches to improve oral health: “Oral diseases can have lifelong consequences, yet many are preventable. By integrating essential oral health care into primary health care and promoting prevention in schools and communities, we can improve oral health across the life course.”The WHO team led by Dr Huong Tran, Director of the Division of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Control of the WHO Western Pacific Region and national oral health leads from over 20 Asian countries visited the SK Pekan Putatan School, Sabah for school oral health programme including flouride mouth rinsing. © WHO / V. ChaudharyDr Huong Tran, Director of the Division of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Control for the WHO Western Pacific Region, emphasized key collaborative roles WHO can play. “Oral diseases are the most common noncommunicable diseases, yet many can be prevented and treated through essential oral health services delivered at the primary health-care level,” she said. “By sharing experiences and using WHO tools such as the SPDI Platform, countries are accelerating progress towards universal health coverage for oral health.” “Integrating oral health into broader health services is essential for reducing inequities, expanding access and recognizing oral health as an integral component of overall health and well-being. The 100-Day Sprint provides an important opportunity to translate this commitment into practical action and ensure that quality oral health services reach all people, especially those most in need,” said Dr Suman Rijal, Director of the WHO South-East Asia regional Department of Healthier Populations and Noncommunicable Diseases. As host of the meeting, Malaysia showcased ongoing efforts to strengthen oral health care through primary health care and prevention-focused approaches, while providing a platform for countries across the two WHO regions to exchange experiences and accelerate progress towards universal health coverage for oral health. “WHO is encouraged by Malaysia's leadership in addressing the burden of oral diseases and advancing universal health coverage for oral health through practical, country-led action,” said Dr Rabi Abeyasinghe, WHO Representative to Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore. Countries will continue to refine and figure costs for national oral health benefits during the remaining sessions of the 100 days. These efforts support implementation of the WHO Global strategy and action plan on oral health 2023–2030, while also helping to expand access to essential oral health services through stronger and more equitable health systems across the WHO Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions.______________For more information, or to arrange media interviews, contact: WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific: wprocom@who.int WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia: SEMediaRelations@who.int

Oct 4 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • who.int

Man injured, businesses damaged following shooting in Arlington

Officers found shell casings and damaged windows at a shopping center lot. A man was shot in the leg and taken to a hospital. No arrests yet.

Oct 4 • 6:04 PM EDT • Business • nbcdfw.com

Boston 25 News

A local college student’s auto detailing business has grown from helping family and neighbors to servicing the vehicles of professional athletes across New England.

Oct 4 • 5:18 PM EDT • Business • facebook.com

VisionQuest and 6 other new fantasy & science fiction shows to watch in October 2026

It's the season of ghosts, ghouls, and pumpkin spice...yet while horror takes center stage in media, that doesn't mean there isn't still plenty of exciting new

Oct 4 • 3:27 PM EDT • Science • winteriscoming.net

Ripple Plans a Credit Business Backed With XRP. Does Lending Finally Give the Token a Use That Moves the Price?

Ripple's new credit service locks XRP as collateral for payment loans, a model that works very differently from the pass-through payments that have left many holders waiting for a price catalyst. Whether this finally creates sustained demand hinges on details Ripple has yet to reveal.

Oct 4 • 11:30 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

3 Reasons Beating Mexico Is Pochettino’s Biggest USMNT Win Yet

There is always the potential to get carried away with a satisfying victory. But this felt like a pivotal moment in the Argentine's tenure.

Oct 4 • 9:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy

Hey all, Jason here. Money20/20 is still two weeks away, but I’ve already started packing (not procrastinating for once!). My calendar is already filling up with various sessions I want to catch, meetings, and of course happy hours, dinners, and other side events. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to catch up, let me know by replying to this email, and we can try to find a time amidst the chaos of the Venetian. A big if not totally unexpected piece of news dropped on Friday: the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents smaller U.S. banks, filed a lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould, arguing that the regulator’s move to grant trust bank charters to firms seeking to use them to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authorities granted to the OCC by Congress. I haven’t had time to fully digest the legal filing or speak to folks in my network about it, but you can expect to see coverage and analysis on it in next week’s newsletter. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading The NerdCon agenda just dropped. It’s stacked. Partner content: Nubank built an AI-first bank. Chime built its own banking core. Figure and Valon are rebuilding the mortgage stack. At NerdCon, you’ll hear from the people behind those bets: what they chose, what they learned, and what they’re still figuring out. The agenda is live, with leaders from Nubank, Chime, OpenAI, Remitly, Mercury, Figure, Valon and more. Follow the mainstage conversations, bring the problem your team is wrestling with to a hands-on workshop, or pull up a chair at a roundtable. Pick your quests. Meet us in San Diego, November 18–20. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% with code FBW20. Explore the Agenda Things To Know & Other Good Reads Federal Reserve Board finalizes changes to enhance the transparency and public accountability of its stress test and reduce volatility in its stress test-related capital requirements (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) FDIC Announces Conclusion of Independent Monitorship (FDIC) Modernizing Financial Regulation: Initial Observations from eSLR (Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman) The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI (Fed Governor Christopher Waller) Financing the AI buildout (Brookings) Q3’26: Rules for Banks but Not for Crypto (Fintech Takes Banking) The Inevitability of Local Stablecoins (Lombard Notes) Delusions of AI Governance: The Human-in-the-Loop Comfort Blanket (Fintech Snark Tank) Stripe agrees to acquire Parafin to expand revenue opportunities for platforms and help small businesses grow (Stripe) Listen: Fighting Fraud in the Age of AI, with SEON’s Tamas Kadar (Fintech Business Weekly) How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy If there is one overarching theme across the economy and politics in the U.S. at the moment, it’s “affordability.” The term is vague enough to encompass a panoply of factors shaping Americans’ day-to-day lives: rising costs for the hallmarks of being “middle class,” including healthcare, housing, childcare, and education, inflation and rising interest rates, and a job market with the specter of AI hovering over it. At the same time, policy shifts under the Trump administration have resulted in reduced subsidies to those who get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and new restrictions on qualifying for Medicaid and SNAP, the impacts of which have yet to be fully felt. These factors are contributing to declining consumer confidence and general dissatisfaction with the economy, despite continuing GDP growth and stock market records. This divergence is encapsulated in the idea of the “K-shaped” economy, in which a small proportion of Americans have seen their wealth balloon, while the majority of American households struggle to preserve the lifestyle they have. Perhaps the greatest determinant of which branch of the “K” a household is on is whether their wealth and income are primarily derived from employment vs. from assets. Nearly two decades of low interest rates and, more recently, elevated rates of inflation have benefited asset owners, while those whose income is primarily or solely derived from labor have largely seen real purchasing power stagnate or decline. This is reflected in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that labor share of U.S. GDP — the fraction of economic output that accrues to workers as compensation in exchange for their labor — dropped to just 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since the BLS began keeping records. In 1947, approximately 2/3rds of economic output accrued to workers; even as recently as 2001, labor’s share of GDP was 64.1%. Against this backdrop, we’ve seen the rise of more credit and credit-like products: cash advance apps, “no-fee” overdraft, earned wage access, and buy now pay later, which are often used as small-dollar short-term borrowing mechanisms to meet immediate consumption needs or pay other bills (eg utilities, cell phone, other debt payments). With the markers of a middle class existence and, increasingly, basic financial stability seemingly out of reach for many, it should be no surprise there’s been an increase in “financial nihilism,” something industry peers like Alex Johnson and Frank Rotman have discussed and analyzed the roots of. The explosion of gambling and gambling-adjacent products and services — often marketed under the guise of being an “investment” — is inextricably intertwined with the rise of financial nihilism. Crypto, sports betting, and, more recently, prediction markets offer an escape or even hope of sorts, like a contemporary, digital version of a scratch-off lottery ticket, while leaving the overwhelming number of people who use such products worse off. Share of Households That Are Financially “Vulnerable” Ticks Up The Financial Health Network’s 2026 Financial Health Pulse® report adds context on how American households are faring. (I linked to this report in last week’s newsletter, but wanted to take time to further unpack the data in the report this week.) The Financial Health Network publishes the report annually, providing insight into how Americans’ financial circumstances are changing over time. The 2026 report is derived from a survey fielded in April and May 2026. The report leverages survey responses to assess indicators of financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning/protecting and to determine a zero to 100 “FinHealth” score. Those with scores between 0 and 39 are considered “Financially Vulnerable,” consumers with scores ranging between 40 and 79 are defined as “Financially Coping,” and those with scores of 80 to 100 are “Financially Healthy.” The report found that moderate improvements in 2025 were reversed, with the share of respondents considered financially “vulnerable” rebounding to 17%. The longitudinal data reflect the impact of pandemic-era programs, like expanded unemployment, cash stimulus payments, and pauses of federal student loan payments. The positive impacts of those programs, as reflected in the Financial Health Pulse reports, had largely disappeared by 2023. While pandemic-era inflation — to be fair, in part caused by the various support and stimulus measures — had come down from as high as 9% in 2022, it has rebounded since the start of Trump’s second term, with tariffs and energy market disruptions owing to the war in Iran pushing prices back up. Specific indicators in the survey that deteriorated from 2025 to 2026 include the share of respondents spending less than their income over the past 12 months, the share paying all bills on time over the past 12 months, the share that have a manageable amount or no debt, the share that are “moderately” or “very” confident their insurance is adequate to cover them in an emergency, and the share that “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that their household plans ahead financially. Unsurprisingly, lower- and moderate-income households are more likely to struggle to pay their bills on time and have any funds leftover to save. The share of low-income households whose income exceeded their spending dropped from 35% in 2025 to 31% in 2026, while the share of upper-income households whose income exceeded expenses remained unchanged at 63%. Households with student loans or revolving credit card debt reported having “a bit more” or “far more” debt than was manageable at rates far higher than those not carrying these types of debts. The share of those with student loan debt indicating their debt load was too high to manage increased from 50% in 2025 to 55% in 2026, while the share of those with revolving credit card debt saying the same ticked up from 51% in 2025 to 54% in 2026. Households that had student loans were markedly more likely to be financially “coping” or “vulnerable” vs. those without student loans. In 2026, 27% of households with student loans were considered financially vulnerable, a jump of 6% points vs. 2025. Households without student loans saw just a 1% point increase (not statistically significant) in those considered financially vulnerable. Households’ perception of the affordability of categories of goods and services paints a stark picture, with less than one-fourth considering higher education affordable, about a third deeming childcare affordable, and less than half viewing healthcare as affordable. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Democratic Senate Report Highlights How Iran Uses Tether to Evade U.S. Sanctions Iran uses stablecoins, specifically Tether, to evade sanctions, fund regional proxies, and to purchase military drones, a report released last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says. The report was authored by committee ranking member Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the minority staff. Crypto and stablecoin proponents will often push back on criticism that criminals make use of these assets by arguing that, on an absolute dollar basis, far more illicit funds flow through traditional banking systems and payment rails than via crypto and stablecoins. And while that is likely true, it elides the reality presented in news story after news story: whether state actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea — or criminal groups, those looking to engage in illicit transactions increasingly favor stablecoins and, specifically, Tether (USDT). The report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released last week adds context to how Iran uses Tether has a lynchpin in its shadow banking system. The report analyzed 846 wallets that have been sanctioned or targeted for seizure, finding that 84% of them transacted exclusively or primarily in Tether. The ability to create near limitless, anonymous wallets and to move funds effectively instantaneously and irreversibly have made crypto a favored financial mechanism for bad actors. Stablecoins solved key drawbacks of bitcoin, namely, the original cryptocurrency’s highly volatile value in dollars. And while Tether (the company) has the technical ability to “freeze” or destroy funds, the company is often limited and reactive in its approach to doing so, the Senate report argues. Tether, which is nominally based in crypto-friendly El Salvador, “has stated that its compliance with OFAC sanctions is ‘voluntary’ and that it follows ‘OFAC guidelines,’” the Senate report says. Owing to these favorable attributes, Tether “became a primary cryptocurrency for Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis beginning in 2023 and has expanded in scale since,” according to the report. Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking system, the report says, is enhanced by crypto exchanges like Bybit, Kyrrex, OKX, Gate, and Binance, and through “over the counter” exchanges and hawala networks. The consequences of these financial flows aren’t hypothetical. The Senate report links Tether as a funds transfer mechanism to Iranian proxies in the region, including Hizballah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Tether has also been used to make payments to secure components necessary to manufacture drones, the report says. The report concludes by arguing that “[s]tablecoin issuers with a significant nexus to the United States, particularly those that offer dollar-denominated stablecoins, should be subject to American sanctions law rather than being allowed to hide behind foreign jurisdictions.” Stablecoin issuers like Tether must be held accountable for repeated failures to prevent illicit finance and sanctions violations by law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OFAC, the report argues. [Paying Subscriber Exclusive] OUSD Goes Live, Make Your Own Neobank, U.S. Sanctions Russia’s A7 Network As “Transnational Criminal Organization” OpenUSD, the stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium that includes Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, core providers, crypto firms, and numerous banks, went live last week. Social commerce platform Whop raised eyebrows in fintech by offering creators on its platform the ability to launch their own neobanks, which the company describes as “great businesses that are easy to run,” in just 15 minutes. And OFAC and FinCEN target Russia’s “shadow banking” A7 Network — more on these stories after the paywall.

Oct 4 • 8:59 AM EDT • Health • fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com

Menopause is a major health milestone, yet health records barely track it, new research finds

The findings reveal a major gap in how clinicians capture basic information about women's health.

Oct 4 • 5:01 AM EDT • Health • phillyvoice.com

Roma interested in Endrick loan deal -report

Real Madrid striker Endrick might be forced to consider yet another loan deal out of the club this upcoming winter and Roma appear to have serious interest in that kind of move, according to a report published today on MARCA. Endrick has only played four minutes for Real Madrid this season and appears to be […]

Oct 4 • 3:38 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Is Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) A Bargain After The Fraud Lawsuit Claims?

Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) is back in focus after a proposed securities fraud class action accused the telehealth provider of misleading investors about data sharing practices and prescription billing workflows. Recent price action for Hims & Hers Health has been choppy, with the share price slipping about 1% over the past day and week, climbing 4.7% over the past month, yet falling 24.2% across 90 days. The 1-year total shareholder return is down 44.8%, despite a very large 3-year gain that...

Oct 4 • 2:18 AM EDT • Health • simplywall.st

Business People

Fayetteville-based Dallas Appraisal Group has announced the promotion of Mason Adams from appraisal associate to director of operations, as well as the hiring of Scotty Thurman as a real state agent.

Oct 4 • 2:00 AM EDT • Business • nwaonline.com

Austin Wells Mistake Costs Yankees ALDS Game 1

They teach you this in Little League. “Don’t make the third out at third base,” says a father coaching the team of kids young enough to not yet realize that their dreams of making it to the major leagues are probably far fetched. Occasionally, though, those players make it to Major League Baseball. And every […] The post Austin Wells Mistake Costs Yankees ALDS Game 1 appeared first on HEAVY.

Oct 4 • 12:40 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Grizzlies' Versatility Could Be Their Secret Weapon in 2026-27

Memphis may not be ready to contend yet, but its size, lineup flexibility, and positionless young core could make the Grizzlies surprisingly competitive.

Oct 3 • 9:52 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Marlins Season a Success but Left Much to be Desired

Record-setting home crowds and a historic June surge fueled Miami’s first positive run differential in sixteen years, yet a devastating July collapse ultimately derailed their postseason ambitions.

Oct 3 • 4:09 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

TST Best Bets: October 3, 2026

Mississippi State gets a chance to show how far it has come Saturday, welcoming No. 7 Alabama to Starkville for a matchup of unbeaten SEC teams. Kamario Taylor has helped turn the No. 16 Bulldogs into an early surprise, but keeping up with the Crimson Tide will be their biggest test yet.Over in the Big Ten, No. 14 Iowa returns home after its dramatic win at Michigan to face No. 6 Ohio State. The Hawkeyes will lean on their defense again, this time trying to slow down Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Sm

Oct 3 • 11:52 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Menopause is a major health milestone, yet health records barely track it—new research

Anyone with ovaries who lives long enough will experience menopause. While menopause is a natural transition in midlife, it can strongly affect a person's quality of life and their current and future ...

Oct 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • medicalxpress.com

In Texas, Talarico Inspires a Recurring Blue-Tinted Dream

After a dry spell of more than three decades, Democrats are daring (yet again) to believe they can win one or more top-of-the-ballot races in a vast and stubbornly red state.

Oct 3 • 5:45 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

Vote Game of the Week: See Week 6 nominees here

Oct 3 • 12:03 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds "Final Content Drop Of Year One" Arrives This Month

But the race isn't over yet...

Oct 2 • 8:30 PM EDT • Technology • nintendolife.com

AT&T and Apple Just Took Steps Toward Fixing iPhone 18 Pro Max Issue

AT&T and Apple are taking action today as they try to resolve iPhone 18 Pro Max cellular issues, according to MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. Thousands of iPhone 18 Pro Max users have been unable to connect to the AT&T network for phone calls, text messages, and data. The underlying cause has yet to be disclosed, but AT&T and Apple continue to work toward a resolution. First, Apple today released an AT&T carrier settings update (version 72.1, up from 72.0.2) for iPhones.

Oct 2 • 3:29 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Studying Science in an Anti-Scientific Time

This Chronicle Review Deep Cut was first published in 2025. By Julianne Werlin Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe The last two decades have not been kind to science studies. Already bruised and battered by the “science wars” of the 1990s, by the 2000s sociologists of science — who had long argued that science had to be understood in its human context — were encountering the funhouse-mirror version of their own views in right-wing critiques of climate scientists. It was enough to give some prominent scholars pause. “Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies?” asked Bruno Latour, the most famous sociologist of science in the world, in 2003. “Should we apologize for having been wrong all along? Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here: What were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts?” In response, Latour proposed a change of method and attitude. Science studies, now chastened and contrite, would no longer seek to strip facts of their authority, but to enrich and enhance them. What this meant in practice was never fully clear. But his diagnosis of problems resonated, even if his solutions did not. Latour’s exercise in public hand-wringing signaled a shift in mood. By 2016, with the first election of Donald Trump, the idea that skepticism of science was a right-wing position, not a left-wing one, had become a commonplace, discussed eagerly in The New York Times. For liberals, vaccine denial during the Covid era and Trump’s second-term attacks on the funding of scientific research, covered extensively in these pages, added a new urgency to the defense of science on both practical and principled grounds. There was little appetite for a sociology or philosophy of science that emphasized the messiness and missteps of the scientific process rather than its integrity and triumphs. The distinguished historian of science Peter Dear’s new book, The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science (Princeton University Press, 2025), which seeks to tell the story of 18th- and 19th-century science for a general public, may seem comfortably remote from these bitter contests. In its 16 short chapters, Dear draws swift, sure sketches of major discoveries from Newton to Einstein, ably guiding the reader through debates on stellar nebulae, animal taxonomy, atomic chemistry, evolution, and other flashpoints in the history of science. But though a work of history, Dear’s book must still negotiate our polarized present. In a blurb on its back cover, the historian of biology Lynn K. Nyhart alludes to the “present moment, when scientific knowledge is being swamped by misinformation and its institutions are under siege.” Dear himself, in his conclusion, refers to the “yard signs” and “bumper stickers” that proclaim “Science Is Real.” One antidote to both anti-science propaganda and to reductive slogans in science’s defense is a robust history and philosophy of science: exactly what Dear’s scholarship has long offered. But his new book illustrates how difficult such work has become. Dear, an emeritus professor of history at Cornell University, is best known as a creative and philosophically minded historian of the Scientific Revolution. His edited volume The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (1991) analyzed the rhetoric of Galileo’s thought experiments to brilliant effect. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (1995) was a major contribution to the analysis of scientific experiments in early modern Europe and beyond, while Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700 (2001), now in its third edition, remains one of the best overviews of the profound epistemological upheavals of 16th- and 17th-century science. But Dear has also ventured into later periods. Nearly two decades ago, in The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World (2006), he turned to the 18th and 19th centuries to sketch a history and theory of scientific knowledge. Aimed at a generalist audience, Dear’s simple prose belied serious philosophical ambitions. Science, Dear argued, has two aspects: “natural philosophy,” the quest to understand the true nature of the universe, and “instrumentality,” the applied skills and technologies that allow us to manipulate the world for human advantage. Both strands are ancient, but the innovation of the phenomenon we call “science” was to yoke them together. As Francis Bacon wrote, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced,” an insight typically abridged to “knowledge is power.” Or, in Bertrand Russell’s characteristically blunt phrase, science has two functions, “1. to enable us to know things, and 2., to enable us to do things.” So far, so conventional. But Dear took issue with this familiar story in one respect. Bacon’s formula implied that theory and practice could be fused in a single method. In fact, Dear argued, the quest to understand nature and the desire to manipulate it were coupled only loosely. They could come together, but they could also pull apart. Focusing on natural philosophy, the “knowing” half of the scientific circle, he used a series of case studies from cosmology, taxonomy, chemistry, electromagnetism, and quantum theory to show how theories changed over time, in dialogue with practice, but never reducible to it. Take the case of matter, the basic substrate of the physical world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists not only disagreed about what it was, but also about how well it could be known. In 1789, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier dismissed speculation about the atomic composition of chemicals as “discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature,” as he sought to orient chemistry away from philosophical abstraction and toward laboratory results. But in the 19th century, atoms returned with a vengeance in the atomic chemistry of John Dalton, who wanted to explain the underlying structure of nature. It was not just that Dalton and Lavoisier had a different set of experimental results, or even a different theory, Dear showed. What counted as an explanation had changed. In arguing that scientific theories depended on their intelligibility to human beings with complex arrays of beliefs and commitments, Dear was in sympathy with science studies. Key figures such as the sociologist Steven Shapin emphasized the importance of psychological mechanisms like trust in the formation and acceptance of scientific ideas. But in focusing on the scientific pursuit of knowledge, not its politics or economics, Dear resisted the more cynical perspective of some of his colleagues. The Intelligibility of Nature strikes a very different note than Shapin’s collection of a few years later, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If It Was Produced by People With Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (2010), to name just one example. Walking a very fine line, Dear depicted science as driven at once by complex social dynamics and by the intellectual power of real discoveries. It was a testament not only to his own acumen but also to the vitality of the field that he was able to do so. Nearly two decades later, The World as We Know It returns to the questions broached in The Intelligibility of Nature. Like Dear’s earlier study, it begins with the Newtonian cosmos and ends with debates between Einstein and Bohr on quantum physics. Beyond its terminal figures, many of the same characters appear in both studies, including the naturalists John Ray and the Comte de Buffon; the chemists Étienne François Geoffroy, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton; as well as Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, among others. Its subject is nearly identical: As in The Intelligibility of Nature, The World as We Know It considers natural philosophy as opposed to instrumentality, here defined as the “desire to create a picture of what the world is really like — the world as God knows it — rather than simply having instrumental or operational control over it.” The two books also overlap in insights — and sometimes even in language. The reader who has learned in The Intelligibility of Nature that Buffon’s method of classifying animals “reflected his belief in the importance of the senses and empiricism in learning about nature (a doctrine associated with Newton and the philosopher John Locke)” will experience a sense of déjà vu on reading, in The World as We Know It, that the classification “reflects Buffon’s commitment to the epistemological stance of Newton and his philosophical underlaborer John Locke, who stressed the role of the senses in creating natural knowledge.” Later in the passage, we read that, “because of its stress on understanding the ways of life of animals in their environments, Buffon’s approach could almost be labeled (anachronistically) as ‘ecological.’” And again, “an anachronistic way of putting it would be to say that Buffon recommends an ecological mode of understanding.” Likewise, in The Intelligibility of Nature we read of Dalton that he was initially drawn to meteorology, and that: He did a bit of experimental work on these things, especially having to do with the water-holding capacity of gases, but his real interest lay in understanding what, at an underlying natural-philosophical level, was really going on physically.” Whereas, in The World as We Know It: He did experimental work on these things, especially concerning the water-holding capacity of gases — although not at a very refined level quantitatively — but he was continually trying to develop a theoretical conception of what was happening physically. The final full chapter of each book closes on the same resigned note. Intelligibility: These days, most serious work on the natural philosophical underpinnings and implications of quantum mechanics is performed not by physicists but by philosophers of science. Among scientific practitioners themselves, Bohr’s attempt to use instrumentality as sufficient grounds for a respectable science has met with a high degree of success. And again, in The World as We Know It: Bohr’s and Einstein’s concerns are now questions that are mostly discussed by philosophers of science rather than by physicists themselves. The marginalization of these sorts of questions amounts to the demise of natural philosophy, at least in physics, in the 20th century. Quantum mechanics “works,” and that’s good enough for most scientists who encounter it. Examples could be multiplied. When handling the same subject matter, some echoes are inevitable. Scholars should not feel that because they have written “Isaac Newton died in 1727” in one book, in the next they must describe him as perishing, expiring, or meeting his maker. But the repetitions of language and arguments (not to mention six reproduced images) threaded throughout The World as We Know It are more extensive than that. They should have been caught by Princeton University Press or its reviewers, and revised. Because the two books have so much in common, it is easy to see where they diverge. The World as We Know It is a less theoretical work than its predecessor. The sociology of knowledge that organized The Intelligibility of Nature has been reduced in scale and folded into readings and examples. The taut interplay between history and theory, which gave the earlier study so much interest, is there, but it is subtle. In the earlier book, the case studies demonstrated theoretical claims about the character and development of science. In the later work, each narrative of discovery is an end in itself. Insights emerge from the history, but they do not control the organization of the study. With the theory muted, it can be hard to understand the logic uniting Dear’s sprawling history of more than two centuries of scientific knowledge. The 16 brisk chapters cover an enormous amount of material. But the closer the volume edges to comprehensiveness, the more obvious the missing elements become. A chapter on “Institutions and Pedagogy,” describing the birth of the research university, illustrates the problem. Inserted roughly halfway through the book, the unnumbered chapter is designed as an “entr’acte,” in acknowledgement that it does not fit the study’s organization around scientific discoveries. Yet as Dear is well aware, no general history of the development of modern science can bracket its 19th-century institutionalization and professionalization. It was the 19th-century university, after all, that gave us the “scientist,” a term coined by the Cambridge philosopher William Whewell. Dear’s history of scientific discoveries implies a wider social and institutional history, but it remains largely subterranean, only occasionally extruded under the pressure of the narrative. It must be said that the balance is not all on the side of the earlier study. There are some advantages to the more historical, less theoretical organization of The World as We Know It. Dear’s accounts of paradigm shifts are remarkably lucid, no small accomplishment given that they span fields and centuries. He makes excellent use of the wealth of new scholarship on Darwin and his influences, to which he has himself contributed. It is satisfying to see puzzle pieces from Buffon’s natural history, Georges Cuvier’s animal taxonomy, Thomas Robert Malthus’s demography, and Charles Lyell’s geology recombined seamlessly in the Darwinian jigsaw. Likewise, Dear’s discussion of stellar nebulae, divided between chapters two and 15, shows vividly how Newton, Kant, Herschel, and Hubble reimagined insights and observations as they sought to discover whether the diffuse light that filtered through early telescopes was a glowing, gaseous substance or discrete but distant stars. Yet despite such pleasures, the book remains a more modest work than The Intelligibility of Nature. Dear has clearly not changed his views about the history of science. But in the two decades that have elapsed, the discipline and the world around it have changed, making it harder to write a sociologically and philosophically ambitious history of science for the general reader. That is a shame, because in the age of Silicon Valley and biotechnology, both the reciprocity and the tensions Dear identified between the epistemological and instrumental ambitions of science are more evident than ever. In recent years, some of the most exciting new books on the history of science in early modernity have focused precisely on this pressure point. Important studies such as Pamela H. Smith’s From Lived Experience to the Written Word (2022), James Poskett’s Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (2022), and Vera Keller’s The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (2023) all shed new light on how early modern science negotiated the relationship between its instrumental and epistemological ambitions, or in Russell’s phrase, knowing and doing. There is every opportunity for a philosophically informed approach to draw new insights from this wealth of material. Dear, unfortunately, has not done so in The World as We Know It. But for future scholars of the history of science, his body of work over nearly four decades may provide just the model. Julianne Werlin is an associate professor of English at Duke University. Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe

Oct 2 • 2:52 PM EDT • Science • chronicleofhighereducation.substack.com

Mining her musical roots inspired Robin Barnes to make a docuseries about Louisiana culture

Native New Orleans artist Robin Barnes channels her heritage as a vocalist and songwriter in "Discovering Home," a docuseries celebrating Louisiana culture across Lafayette, Lake Charles, and New Orleans.

Oct 2 • 10:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • nola.com

Coastal forces shape building sciences practice

When Built Environments relocated to Wilmington, the firm’s partners weren’t looking for the lazy tranquility one hopes for when on vacation. Instead, they sought sultry heat. They wanted to understand whipping coastal winds and punishing precipitation – the kind that tropical storms produce. That’s because how materials degrade can reveal a lot about how they can be improved. “We specifically chose the Wilmington market because it does fall within Climate Zone 3A, which is a coastal warm-humid climate,” said Jarrett Davis, who joined Built Environments in 2023 to lead the company’s building science practice. “There’s not a lot of product research in that climate zone, but there are a lot of structures here that get weatherized pretty severely.” Built Environments has provided building science, material testing and code compliance consulting for 25 years, ever since principal materials scientist Steve Doggett founded the company in Minnesota. “There are very few manufacturers that understand fully how their own materials and products work, whereas we know their shortfalls and their benefits out in the real world on jobsites,” Doggett said. “That’s why the original Built Environments was formed, to make buildings better.” He said the 15-employee company is just as comfortable on a jobsite, retrofitting a high-end beachside property, for example, as it is recreating some of the coast’s most intense weather conditions in the great indoors. The company operates an A2LA-accredited ISO/IEC 17025 mechanical testing laboratory on Wright Street. The year-old facility has expanded Built Environments’ in-house capabilities, Doggett said. “We’re able to simulate that hurricane wind (and) rain and perform structural and impact testing on wall assemblies, roof assemblies and glazing assemblies,” he said. “There are certain requirements that those windows and doors need to meet as far as wind ratings and pressure ratings and things of that nature.” Standard Glass Co.-Glass Depots, of Wilmington, is currently testing a new glazing system using Built Environments’ stress testing, the partners said. One method involves what’s called a “large missile cannon.” “We take 8-foot two-by-fours, and we shoot them at assemblies, so they have to withstand that impact,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool to see, I’m not going to lie.” In many cases, the lab can run a full, wall-scale test of a product in a matter of weeks or months, whereas “it might take midrange manufacturers years,” Doggett said. “We’re nimble. We can cut that time in half.” The lab also develops intellectual property. Doggett, for example, shares a patent with Sustant LLC, of Minnesota, on a fastener patch to increase the air and water tightness within building envelopes. “We have too many ideas and not enough time,” he said. But the partners noted that they or their fellow principals – of which the company has four total, including a principal engineer and a principal codes and standards expert – could be anywhere on a given day, including in the courtroom providing expert testimony in contentious insurance cases. “Let’s say there is a fire on a structure,” Davis said. “We can analyze all the specific materials within that assembly – an exterior wall or something like that – because there are loads that require certain heat release. And so, we can measure each one of those materials, if need be, to say if this was likely or not a code-approved assembly.” Despite what can be inferred in a lab, the partners said nothing beats learning from how materials change over time under real-world strain. Take, for instance, the curious case of the creaking condo. “We recently had a customer that came to us trying to assess a sound issue of a roof. It was making noises that no one could explain or account for. How do you tackle something like that?” Doggett asked rhetorically. “There’s really no generally agreed-upon methodologies.” The problem turned out to be a faulty installation of a commercial roof system. “The building in this particular case was not local,” he said. “In the initial installation, the commercial roofing contractor installed the wrong fasteners in the wrong locations into the deck, and essentially the solar radiation was causing the building to move quite substantially early in the morning when the sun initially hit that assembly after a quite cool evening, causing the threads on the fasteners to kind of jump within the material, within the metal.” Built Environments designed an effective repair methodology that was within budget, the partners said. “We get the bizarre,” Doggett said. “I will say that’s something that has stayed the same over 25 years.” The partners said they are hiring, and that Cape Fear Community College is one of their main recruiting grounds. Davis and Doggett look for talented people who can understand traditional methodologies yet are open to on-the-job training and new understandings, they said. After all, it’s not just weather that can ruin a building. “My favorite saying is,” Davis said, “‘What are the eight most expensive words in construction? That’s how my daddy used to do it.’”

Oct 2 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • wilmingtonbiz.com

Coastal forces shape building sciences practice

When Built Environments relocated to Wilmington, the firm’s partners weren’t looking for the lazy tranquility one hopes for when on vacation. Instead, they sought sultry heat. They wanted to understand whipping coastal winds and punishing precipitation – the kind that tropical storms produce. That’s because how materials degrade can reveal a lot about how they can be improved. “We specifically chose the Wilmington market because it does fall within Climate Zone 3A, which is a coastal warm-humid climate,” said Jarrett Davis, who joined Built Environments in 2023 to lead the company’s building science practice. “There’s not a lot of product research in that climate zone, but there are a lot of structures here that get weatherized pretty severely.” Built Environments has provided building science, material testing and code compliance consulting for 25 years, ever since principal materials scientist Steve Doggett founded the company in Minnesota. “There are very few manufacturers that understand fully how their own materials and products work, whereas we know their shortfalls and their benefits out in the real world on jobsites,” Doggett said. “That’s why the original Built Environments was formed, to make buildings better.” He said the 15-employee company is just as comfortable on a jobsite, retrofitting a high-end beachside property, for example, as it is recreating some of the coast’s most intense weather conditions in the great indoors. The company operates an A2LA-accredited ISO/IEC 17025 mechanical testing laboratory on Wright Street. The year-old facility has expanded Built Environments’ in-house capabilities, Doggett said. “We’re able to simulate that hurricane wind (and) rain and perform structural and impact testing on wall assemblies, roof assemblies and glazing assemblies,” he said. “There are certain requirements that those windows and doors need to meet as far as wind ratings and pressure ratings and things of that nature.” Standard Glass Co.-Glass Depots, of Wilmington, is currently testing a new glazing system using Built Environments’ stress testing, the partners said. One method involves what’s called a “large missile cannon.” “We take 8-foot two-by-fours, and we shoot them at assemblies, so they have to withstand that impact,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool to see, I’m not going to lie.” In many cases, the lab can run a full, wall-scale test of a product in a matter of weeks or months, whereas “it might take midrange manufacturers years,” Doggett said. “We’re nimble. We can cut that time in half.” The lab also develops intellectual property. Doggett, for example, shares a patent with Sustant LLC, of Minnesota, on a fastener patch to increase the air and water tightness within building envelopes. “We have too many ideas and not enough time,” he said. But the partners noted that they or their fellow principals – of which the company has four total, including a principal engineer and a principal codes and standards expert – could be anywhere on a given day, including in the courtroom providing expert testimony in contentious insurance cases. “Let’s say there is a fire on a structure,” Davis said. “We can analyze all the specific materials within that assembly – an exterior wall or something like that – because there are loads that require certain heat release. And so, we can measure each one of those materials, if need be, to say if this was likely or not a code-approved assembly.” Despite what can be inferred in a lab, the partners said nothing beats learning from how materials change over time under real-world strain. Take, for instance, the curious case of the creaking condo. “We recently had a customer that came to us trying to assess a sound issue of a roof. It was making noises that no one could explain or account for. How do you tackle something like that?” Doggett asked rhetorically. “There’s really no generally agreed-upon methodologies.” The problem turned out to be a faulty installation of a commercial roof system. “The building in this particular case was not local,” he said. “In the initial installation, the commercial roofing contractor installed the wrong fasteners in the wrong locations into the deck, and essentially the solar radiation was causing the building to move quite substantially early in the morning when the sun initially hit that assembly after a quite cool evening, causing the threads on the fasteners to kind of jump within the material, within the metal.” Built Environments designed an effective repair methodology that was within budget, the partners said. “We get the bizarre,” Doggett said. “I will say that’s something that has stayed the same over 25 years.” The partners said they are hiring, and that Cape Fear Community College is one of their main recruiting grounds. Davis and Doggett look for talented people who can understand traditional methodologies yet are open to on-the-job training and new understandings, they said. After all, it’s not just weather that can ruin a building. “My favorite saying is,” Davis said, “‘What are the eight most expensive words in construction? That’s how my daddy used to do it.’”

Oct 2 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • wilmingtonbiz.com

In brief: 'Reacher' spinoff gets a second season and more

We’ve got an official trailer for NBC’s Newlyweds, the new sitcom starring real-life married couple Tim Daly and Téa Leoni. The show, co-created by Jamie Lee Curtis, follows a later-in-life love story between a free-spirited woman and a professor who marry after a quick courtship. It premieres on Oct. 23 …The Reacher spinoff Neagley is getting a second season, just two weeks after the first season debuted on Prime Video. Maria Sten stars as the fan-favorite character Frances Neagley, a private investigator from Chicago and the former protégé of Jack Reacher, in the action series. The original Reacher series, starring Alan Ritchson, was picked up for a sixth season earlier this week … TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Bradley Cooper is gearing up to star in Paramount’s new G.I. Joe film. He’ll be playing Duke, the leader of the Joes. Danny McBride is on board to direct. Further details on the project have not yet been revealed …Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Oct 2 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

The Mindsets Leaders Need as AI Accelerates the Pace of Business

AI is changing not only what leaders need to know, but how they need to think. Yet many are struggling to adapt to the speed, uncertainty, and emotional complexity of an AI-driven workplace. To keep pace, you need to shift the mindsets that shape your behavior in three important ways: from certainty to clarity, from expertise to exploration, and from emotional control to emotional insight. A simple four-step practice—pause, perceive, pivot, and practice—can help you start to recognize and change automatic reactions. By deliberately reshaping the assumptions and patterns that guide your behavior, you can become more adaptable, curious, and effective as the nature of work continues to change.

Oct 2 • 8:05 AM EDT • Business • hbr.org

Schedule Intel: Longhorns Incoming?

It’s a bit early, and nothing has been signed yet, but Texas coach Sean Miller says the Longhorns are close to scheduling a game with Duke next season. The teams last played in 2025-26 in Charlotte. Intriguingly, he says that the game might be played internationally, with Miller saying “[w]e’re going to play Duke, we’re […]

Oct 2 • 6:22 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

New Breast Cancer Survey Shows Concern not Always Leading to Screening in Women 40 and Over, According to MedStar Health

/PRNewswire/ -- A new national survey from MedStar Health reveals that three in four women are concerned about developing breast cancer in their lifetime, yet...

Oct 1 • 5:13 PM EDT • Health • prnewswire.com

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET

How can fans find joy amid the anxiety?

Oct 1 • 3:22 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Lawyer for Cornell accuser says university doctor was 'yet another failure'

Jane Doe told the school's doctor that she had contracted an infection "in a traumatic way", but they "didn't really follow up", according to the New York Times.

Oct 1 • 2:08 PM EDT • Health • bbc.com

'Worrying signs but not a crisis yet'

Paul: League form is not representative of actual form - the Champions League exit is still having an impact. Yes, European results have been bad but that is no surprise and nothing new. Patrick: Out of the Champions League and out of the League Cup, lost twice to Rangers in a week and seemingly have no consistent starting line-up.

Oct 1 • 10:45 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

How Washington Funded the Politicization of Science

Over the last half-decade, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on projects designed to influence academic policies, both in the sciences and other disciplines. The aim was to foster a progressive conception of social justice in these fields. In pursuit of this end, the foundation earmarked nearly a million dollars for a project titled “Creating Inclusive Scientific Societies through Policies and Practices,” over a million for a project on “Faculty Online Learning Communities for Gender Equity,” and over $2 million to foster “racial equity focused departmental change.” Through a public records request, I’ve obtained the proposals and progress reports for dozens of NSF grants designed to promote social justice. Although funding for these grants was eventually halted by the Trump administration, the projects illustrate an important facet of recent higher-education policy. Many of the university policies that promised “social transformation” didn’t arise in a vacuum. They were actively encouraged by outside funders—often by the federal government itself. Subscribe Accreditation—the peer-review process which enables universities to receive federal grants and student loans—has recently become a policy battleground, with accreditors wielding significant power over both universities and academic disciplines. In 2020, when Oregon Health and Science University’s medical school issued an extensive diversity action plan—which promised “consequences” for employees who failed to support “DEI, anti-racism and social justice”—it specifically pointed to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the medical-school accrediting body, to justify the overhaul. The NSF actively promoted DEI-focused accreditation policies. The proposal for a $1.2 million program on promoting “community engagement” in STEM, which I obtained through a records request, notes that the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology was exploring changes to its criteria “that would incorporate JEDI [justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion].” The proposal promised to “support broader JEDI efforts in the general criteria for engineering.” Another grant funded a conference designed to “identify and share best practices and strategies to integrate IDEA principles in accreditation criteria”—referring to an acronym that stands for “inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.” Scholarly societies have become another flashpoint in debates over higher education. Critics argue that many of these societies, which have the power to shape entire disciplines, have become increasingly politicized. Again, through its giving, the NSF played a role in promoting this politicization. In one million-dollar grant that received funding in 2024, a group of psychologists proposed a series of social-justice reforms to the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The proposal, which I obtained via a records request, asserts that “[r]edistributing resources (such as moving different people into leadership roles) is not enough” and that the society’s “governance structures do not yet reflect its stated values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Its solution: review and rework the society’s criteria for leadership development, academic awards, conferences, and publications. Adjusting review criteria informed by “intersectionality” designed to fight “epistemic exclusion” is an easy way to introduce de facto ideological litmus tests into the peer-review process. For many of the grants I obtained, such litmus tests seem to be the point. “Academic departments are racialized social systems that produce and sustain the byproducts of systemic racism,” a proposal for a $2.7 million project funded in 2024 asserts, promising to develop “departmentally-focused change efforts that cultivate values, assumptions, and behaviors that advance racial equity.” The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign’s million-dollar “I-ADVANCE” project, which effectively created a small DEI bureaucracy on campus, promised to Embed 28 ADVANCE faculty fellows in STEM departments” to amplify its equity goals. Another $1.2 million project promised to create “faculty online learning communities,” made up of scientists at universities around the country, that would eventually build department-level diversity action plans. “Ultimately,” the proposal asserts, perhaps more perceptively than its authors realized, “both organizational change and intersectionality frameworks deal with power.” Indeed, such grants confer a great deal of power to administrators and scholar-activists, who can even use the mere availability of funding as a tool to advance their causes. That history is worth remembering amid today’s debate over federal involvement in higher education: Washington has been shaping university priorities for years, including by financing efforts to instill progressive ideas about race, gender, and equity into academic institutions—and many of the policies those grants encouraged remain embedded within universities long after the federal money has stopped flowing. John D. Sailer is the director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at Manhattan Institute. Share

Oct 1 • 10:31 AM EDT • Science • cityjournal.substack.com

Rep. Young Kim for Real Clear Politics: California Turns Down Bipartisan Funding for VA

Originally Published in Real Clear Politics on October 1, 2026 Orange County is home to more than 100,000 U.S. veterans. Yet, despite our proud military heritage, it remains the largest county in California without a dedicated veterans cemetery. While neighboring cemeteries in Riverside and San Diego may seem nearby on a map, they actually aren’t.

Oct 1 • 10:20 AM EDT • Politics • youngkim.house.gov

Get to know: '28 Arkansas football target Braceson Mitchell

Searcy junior offensive lineman Braceson Mitchell received an offer from Arkansas last week following a recent visit to Fayetteville.

Oct 1 • 10:02 AM EDT • Sports • wholehogsports.com

For every two seconds of frustration, there are 10 seconds of euphoria: the Gears of War E-Day campaign is a satisfying, meaty return to form for The Coalition

Less a complete reset for the series, and more of an 'active reload', E-Day proves there's still life in these old Cogs yet.

Oct 1 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

Time lost to political haggling means lost momentum for research

While it’s not up to universities to set deadlines for EU institutions, “lost time” in the run-up to the launch of the next Horizon Europe would translate into “lost momentum” for universities, according to Dag Rune Olsen, president of the Young European Research Universities Network.“I think it's important to have [the EU budget] in place in order to be able to work on the research funding mechanisms, because we cannot afford to lose more momentum than we already have,” Olsen told Science|Business in an interview in September, just after EU research lobbies gathered in Brussels to push for a €200 billion budget for the next Horizon Europe programme.A funding gap would mean ramping down research activities, said Olsen. “You can do that quite swiftly, that’s not a problem, but ramping up again is much more difficult.”The last-minute push for an ambitious budget, and for a timely adoption of the research programme, comes at a time when the richest EU states have teamed up to call for significant cuts to European Commission’s proposal for the next multiannual budget, which allocates €175 billion for Horizon Europe. At the same gathering of research associations in September, the European Parliament’s budget rapporteur warned that the EU will need to raise its own taxes, otherwise political pressure and tighter national budgets will translate into a limited EU budget with a less ambitious envelope for research. The research sector hopes EU institutions will reach timely agreement on the budget and on Horizon Europe, but progress has been slow. Legislative progress has been delayed, partly because the European Parliament’s budget committee is still haggling over how to apply new EU-wide spending rules, known as the Performance Framework Regulation, and partly because EU governments have yet to agree on the size of the next EU budget. EU research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva told Science|Business in July that she was hoping for an agreement on Horizon Europe by the end of 2026, but the timelines have been pushed back significantly, with the Parliament now aiming to announce its official position on Horizon Europe only in November. Avoid the funding gapAccording to Olsen, delayed EU funds could prompt universities and researchers to move on and do something else, potentially jeopardising years of work building consortia and collaborations. “If funding is interrupted, the networks fall apart in just a few months,” he said. Olsen also noted that an interruption would affect junior researchers first. PhD students and postdocs are on shorter term contracts and universities risk losing them if funding for EU projects is interrupted. Related articlesEU own resources ‘essential’ for future research budget, says leading MEPParliament haggle over EU-wide spending rules delays vote on Horizon EuropeZaharieva hopes for a Horizon Europe deal in 2026Universities usually have more employees, permanent and short-term staff, than they can cover with national funding, and external funding is essential to keep them all on the payroll. In case of an EU funding gap, “there will be a huge number of people that might end up without any contracts,” he said. Apart from the money issue, Olsen said EU projects forces universities to collaborate more which, in turn, increases the quality of teaching and research. In case of a funding dip, people will look around for opportunities elsewhere, in the private sector or abroad. “And then then you have to recruit again, and it's a tedious business,” said Olsen. “A gap is not a good idea, it's actually a waste of money.”According to Olsen, the difficult political context should encourage universities to make a stronger case for the EU increasing research funding, as universities can deliver on competitiveness, technological sovereignty, security and defence. “The reason why we ask for substantial investments in research is exactly what the Commission, what Europe, the Parliament have been discussing,” he said. “You really need to invest in order to thrive in the longer run.”Focus on the member statesBut EU and national R&D expenditure hasn't kept up with the times. EU governments have failed to reach a spending target set almost 25 years ago. Only six EU countries spend 3% or more of their GDP on R&D. Asked whether universities should put more effort into convincing the governments to ramp up their own spending, but also to support a strong budget for Horizon Europe in the ongoing budget negotiations, Olsen said “the answer is yes.”“We are very actively encouraging our members to talk to their ministries in order to enlighten them about the joint effort,” he said. The network is made up of 25 universities from across Europe, all established in the past 60 years or so.Who will call the shots?Budget and timing issues aside, the Parliament’s research committee has been locked in behind-the-scenes negotiations over the future structure of Horizon Europe, with MEPs disagreeing on the degree to which its collaborative research should be governed by councils of experts.The European Parliament’s lead rapporteur on Horizon Europe wants councils of independent experts to decide on the funding agenda, but the Commission, the Council, and parts of the Parliament disagree. For Olsen, it is normal for politicians to point at the big challenges, but when they start detailing how those challenges should be solved, the endeavour “fails utterly.” He does not necessarily think that “bureaucrats who don’t know the field” would be “much better at it” either. “There has to be a combination” of broad political directions and bottom-up implementation, Olsen said.

Oct 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Good science requires much more than evidence

Empiricists believe that scientific theories are true only if they make correct empirical predictions: if we can't verify these predictions, then there is no reason to expect that they tell us anything about reality. However, Professor of Philosophy at King's College David Kyle Johnson argues that this is mistaken. In response to Bas van Fraassen, who has written on this subject for the IAI, he argues that we have many reasons for believing a theory to be true, such as it being parsimonious and having large scope — qualities which have been used throughout the history of science as criteria for judging theories. In 2024, Princeton philosopher Bas van Fraassen wrote a short article for IAI News entitled “Science Does not Describe Reality: The Limits and Benefits of Explanation.” At the time, I was working on two projects (a science book and a Great Course) that, when completed, would (among other things) defend science’s ability to describe reality. I wanted to write a response to van Fraassen, but the projects demanded too much of my attention. But now that those projects are complete, I am in a position to explain the objections to van Fraassen’s thesis. Summarizing van Fraassen’s argumentIn a nutshell, his argument is this: What scientists do is make predictions based on theories and then invite others to test to see whether those predictions are borne out. “If theory T is right, result R should happen in experimental condition C.” Many think that running an experiment that shows that R happens in condition C is proof that theory T is true (and should be believed). But, van Fraassen argues, that R happened in condition C is only a reason to think that R happens in condition C. That’s the only observable, or empirical, result we can actually see, so that is all that we are really justified in believing. (The underlying theory that made that prediction still may or may not be true.) That is why he calls those who accept his position “empiricists.”Before I explain what is wrong with this position, let me explain what it gets right. What van Fraassen Gets RightFirst, a theory correctly predicting the results of an experiment is not, strictly speaking, “proof” that the theory is correct. The basic line of reasoning is this:If the theory T is true, result R should happen. Result R did happen. Thus, theory T is true.In other words:“If T then R. R. Thus, T.”This is a deductively invalid, fallacious mode of reasoning, called “affirming the consequent.” Those premises do not guarantee that the conclusion follows. “If I am in Pennsylvania, then I am in the USA. I am in the USA. Thus, I am in Pennsylvania.” Clearly that argument doesn’t guarantee its conclusion; neither does the above argument.However, science is not a deductive method of reasoning; it is an inductive one. And inductive arguments merely try to raise the probability of their conclusion, not “prove” them for certain. Thus, the fact that an experimental result doesn’t prove a theory is true is irrelevant; it’s not supposed to. That is not what scientific reasoning is about.___If the hypothesis that something exists clearly provides the best explanation for what we can observe, then the belief that it exists is what is rational.___Second, it’s also true that a single experimental result doesn’t provide enough justification to believe that a theory is true. Scientists do not come to a consensus about whether a theory is true by looking at a single experiment; they look at all the evidence to determine where the preponderance of evidence points. The mere fact that I am in the USA raises the probability that I am in Pennsylvania, but not nearly enough to conclude that I am in Pennsylvania. However, if I am also regularly encountering people wearing Eagles and Phillies hats and seeing advertisements for Founding Father tours, I probably am. In the same way, a theory successfully predicting the outcome of one experiment is not enough to conclude that it is true; but if a theory makes a wide variety of predictions that are all vindicated by multiple experiments, performed by many different groups and people, all actively trying to prove the theory false (which is what good scientific experiments are designed to do)—that is a good reason to conclude that the theory is true. In other words, if you repeatedly try to prove something false but can’t, that is a very good indication that it isn’t. The problem of underdeterminationIn reply, those whom van Fraassen calls “empiricists” often point to the “problem of underdetermination.” For any given theory that makes successful predictions about what happens in experimental conditions, there are countless other possible theories that make exactly the same predictions—and since they do, the experimental evidence in question is just as much reason to accept any of those theories as it is to accept our original one. Thus, the argument goes, we have no way of knowing whether our original theory is true, or one of the other “predictively equivalent” theories is true. SUGGESTED VIEWING How Occam's Razor changed the world With Johnjoe McFadden As an example of underdetermination, philosophers often offer this example. The evidence of fossils seems to provide reason to conclude that the universe is quite old; ancient fossils are what the “ancient universe” hypothesis predicts. But it’s also possible that God created an ancient-looking universe 200 years ago, complete with a “fake” fossil record for us to find, to make it look old. The existence of fossils is what that theory predicts too. So, the argument goes, the fossil record can’t be used as evidence that the universe is ancient; the fossil record supports the “200-year-old ancient-looking universe” theory just as much. The problem of underdetermination points out that, for any theory with supporting evidence, we could invent another completely different theory that predicts exactly the same evidence, and thus undermine that evidence’s ability to support the original theory.But this “argument from underdetermination” betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what scientific reasoning is and how it works. To explain, let me use another rather strange (but very real and commonly discussed) philosophical thought experiment called “The Grue Problem.” The “Grue” ProblemSuppose I want to know what color emeralds are, so I observe a few, see that they all appear green, and form the theory that “all emeralds are green.” I thus predict that the next 100 emeralds I find will also appear to be green. And let’s say that happens, and so I thus conclude that my theory that all emeralds are green is true. Now, one might rightly point out that I don’t know for sure that all emeralds are green—I have not seen them all. Maybe some I haven’t found yet are blue. Fair enough. After all, we used to think that all swans were white, until we found some black ones. But let’s say that I go on a quest and collect every emerald in the universe—and, for the sake of the argument, let’s say I can do this, and can even know that I have every one of them. So, I collect them all, look at them all, and verify that they all appear green. Can’t I now rightly conclude that all emeralds are green?Inspired by the problem of underdetermination, a friend might argue that I cannot.Sure, they all appear green now—but there could be another kind of color called “grue.” Something is grue if it is green up to a certain point in time, but then spontaneously turns blue. And there could be an infinite number of “shades” of grue. Something that is one shade of grue will turn blue at noon today, but something that is another shade of grue will turn blue at noon tomorrow, etc. So yes, the emeralds appear green now; and since they haven’t turned blue yet, they are not some “past” shade of grue. But they might be some “future” shade of grue (e.g., they may turn blue at noon tomorrow). And since all future shades of grue are consistent with “being green up to this point in time,” the evidence you have is completely consistent with the notion that all emeralds are some future shade of grue, rather than green. Indeed, that they would appear green until now is what the “some future shade of grue” hypothesis predicts. So, we have just as much reason to conclude that all emeralds are some shade of grue as we do to conclude that they are green.You’re probably thinking “It’s not equally possible that the emeralds are grue; they are obviously green.” You are right! But explaining why your instinctive reaction to my friend’s argument is correct will help inform why van Fraassen’s “empiricist” is wrong and science actually does describe reality.The main mistake my friend makes is in thinking that the “empirical evidence” (of all the emeralds appearing green) is (or even should be) all I am using to draw the conclusion that all emeralds are green. It is not. I am also considering known facts about how colors typically work; things don’t usually change color, and when they do, they don’t do so suddenly, without cause, and all at once. So, even though the simple evidence of the emeralds all appearing green up to this point is consistent with them being some future shade of grue—that is even what the grue hypothesis “predicts”—it is still exceedingly unlikely that they are. The hypothesis that they are green is much more likely. Understanding science refutes the problem of underdetermination The misunderstanding about science that the “empiricist” pointing to “the problem of underdetermination” makes is similar to the one that my friend made. Science is not just about considering experimental evidence; in fact, it’s not even just about considering empirical evidence. As Ernan McMullin and many other philosophers of science have pointed out, the inference that makes science is “inference to the best explanation” (sometimes called “abduction” or “retroduction” by McMullin). While, depending on the circumstances, scientists use many different kinds of reasoning, science as a whole is, simply put, the process of considering multiple competing explanations and comparing them to certain criteria—explanatory criteria (the kinds of things explanations must be and do, by definition, to be a good explanation)—to see which explanation is the best.And these criteria do not deal only with empirical results. Yes, successful predictions raise the probability of a hypothesis, but it’s also the case that the more new assumptions a theory makes, the less likely it is to be true; every new assumption presents an opportunity for the theory to be false. (The fewer assumptions a theory makes, the simpler or “more parsimonious” it is said to be.) Likewise, the more existing evidence a theory contradicts, the less likely it is, because in order for a theory to be true, every piece of evidence it contradicts has to be somehow faulty. (The fewer established theories a new theory contradicts, the more “conservative” it is said to be.) And, obviously, the more something explains, the better explanation it is. (This is called having “scope.”) If a theory raises unanswerable questions, it’s not expanding our understanding, and thus is not wide-scoping. Scientists consider all these things when deciding which theory to accept, because the theory that adheres best to these explanatory criteria is most likely to be true.___the mere fact that a theory’s predictive success is why it “sticks around” or “becomes accepted” in the scientific community is not a reason to be skeptical about its truth.___The reason the grue hypothesis is no good is because it invents an entirely new kind of color—not just a new shade, but an entirely different category of color (a different way colors work)—and thus is not parsimonious. It raises unanswerable questions about how and why emeralds would just spontaneously change from green to blue (and thus does not have wide scope). And it contradicts what is already well established about how color works (and thus is unconservative).The theories that the problem of underdetermination points to do the same thing. Yes, the theory that God created an “ancient-looking universe” (complete with an ancient-looking fossil record) two hundred years ago is also consistent with the empirical evidence (of a fossil record) that presently exists; but that theory is monumentally unparsimonious (it requires many extra assumptions about infinite entities) and not wide-scoping (it raises unanswerable questions about why God would do such a thing). So, I can rationally conclude that it is false.Indeed, the history of science includes many examples of theories that were rejected because they lacked parsimony and/or scope, even before their falsity (and the truth of their competing theory) was confirmed by observation. As I point out in my book, geocentrism was rejected by the scientific community because it lacked parsimony, almost 200 years before the observation of parallax confirmed that the Earth moves around the sun. And the continuum theory of matter was completely rejected by 1860, because it couldn’t explain chemical reactions or organize matter into a periodic table, even though the experiments that eventually confirmed atomic theory weren’t even proposed until the 1870s. Solving the best of a bad lot problemIn response, the “empiricists” are likely to object, this time pointing to the “best of a bad lot” problem. “We have no reason to conclude that an explanation that has been shown to be better than others is true because we have no guarantee that the true theory was among those that we were considering.” If you have a “lot” (a collection) of poor explanations, even the best one is not true.The responses to this problem, however, are numerous. Peter Lipton argues that the set of hypotheses that scientists consider are not just randomly selected and thus unlikely to contain a theory that is true; they use existing knowledge to home in on what is most likely to be true. A doctor trying to explain abdominal pain is not going to bother wondering whether demons are causing it; they are going to stick with things like appendicitis and kidney stones, because they are most likely. Further, despite its name, inference to the best explanation is not just the process of comparing hypotheses and accepting the best one; we also want one that is a good explanation in its own right. If it’s not, we are going to keep looking until we find an explanation that is. And while that process does not guarantee that we will come across the exact truth, it’s very likely that the theory that emerges as the best will be at least approximately true, and thus we will be justified in believing it. And lastly, as I point out in my book, although many theories not based in scientific evidence (like geocentrism and continuum theory) have been completely overturned, science almost always progresses by the refinement of scientifically established theories—not their replacement. (Although our sun is not the center of the universe, heliocentrism was our first step in understanding the Earth’s true place in the universe.) So even if a theory we accept today may not be completely right, accepting it is a step on the journey toward the complete truth. The example of atomic theoryNow, it’s worth pointing out that most empiricists are not skeptical of all scientific theories; they are only skeptical of the ones that hypothesize the existence of “unobservables.” It’s not like they think that round Earth, heliocentrism, and germ theory are just useful (but untrue) “instruments” for making predictions about how to most efficiently navigate the seas, predict planetary motion, and treat diseases. They admit that the Earth actually is round, that the planets revolve around the sun, and that germs exist and cause disease. These facts and entities can be observed; the theories that suggest they exist are true. It’s only when theories start hypothesizing the existence of unobservables—like electrons, or quantum fields—that can’t be observed directly, that we should start doubting the theories’ truth. And to be fair to van Fraassen, in this published work, he doesn’t really say that we should doubt the truth of such theories. Only that scientific reasoning does not rationally force us to accept them as true. Skepticism, or agnosticism, he argues, is warranted. SUGGESTED READING Science is based in metaphor By Andrew Reynolds But the history of atomic theory throws a monkey wrench into that argument. Atoms used to be unobservable; again, scientists first accepted the theory that they exist because it had such grandiose explanatory power. But then atoms were seen with electron microscopes. They thus moved into the category of the observable. But this didn’t substantially change anything about what scientists were justified in believing; it certainly didn’t change any “atomic skeptics’” minds. It just confirmed what everyone already knew! If the hypothesis that something exists clearly provides the best explanation for what we can observe, then the belief that it exists is what is rational. The fact that the thing itself is not technically observable does not make doubting its existence rational.What’s more, the atoms were seen with an electron microscope. But electrons are themselves unobservable. How can an electron microscope reveal an atom if electrons are not real? This leads us to what is famously known as Hilary Putnam’s “miracle argument.” It’s (not) a miraclePhilosopher Hilary Putnam’s miracle argument is somewhat famous. Basically, he argued that a scientific theory being able to repeatedly make successful predictions—even about unobservables—without being at least approximately true would require a “miracle.” In other words, it would be such an improbable occurrence that it could not rationally be believed—the better explanation for why scientific theories about unobservables make the right predictions is because the unobservable entities and structures they hypothesize exist.Van Fraassen has addressed this argument. Indeed, in his original article, where he references Alison Gopnik’s point about orgasms not being “necessary for procreation” even though the desire for orgasm “drives the creation of progeny,” he is pointing to his own argument about how organisms are not naturally selected by evolution to get true beliefs; to the extent that belief-forming processes are selected for, the ones that are selected are the ones that are useful for survival—not the ones that produce true beliefs. In the same way, van Fraassen argues, scientific theories are accepted, not because they are true, but because they aren’t falsified; they make successful predictions; that’s what makes them “stick around.” So, the fact that they make successful predictions (and thus became accepted) is not a reason to think they are true.This argument is similar to C. S. Lewis’s “argument from reason,” which he used to argue against evolution: “The truth of evolution undercuts our ability to know that it is true.” Lewis’ argument famously failed; Elizabeth Anscombe, by Lewis’s own admission, demolished Lewis in a debate on the topic, and I have explained elsewhere why modified versions of the argument fail as well. In short, it’s because it fails to recognize that a belief-forming process can make an organism more likely to survive because it reliably produces true beliefs. It is therefore not the case that beliefs generated by naturally selected belief-forming processes are automatically false or unjustified.In the same way, the reason a theory “sticks around” could be because it’s not falsified, because it “makes correct predictions.” But the reason it makes correct predictions is most likely because it is true. (In pointing this out, I am echoing the arguments of Musgrave, Lipton, Psillos, and Kitcher, who refuted van Fraassen’s argument and analogy long before his 2024 article.) It would be a huge coincidence that it could do so without being true. And that is the point of Putnam’s miracle argument. Thus, contrary to van Fraassen’s suggestion, the mere fact that a theory’s predictive success is why it “sticks around” or “becomes accepted” in the scientific community is not a reason to be skeptical about its truth. ConclusionLet me close by saying something about the fact that empiricists don’t doubt the truth of all scientific theories, just the ones that hypothesize unobservables. In today’s society, this theory is dangerous to espouse publicly. The nuance between being skeptical about all of science, and just the highly technical theories about unobservables, is guaranteed to be lost to the average reader. And there is so much unjustified skepticism and doubt about the findings of science and experts that a headline like “Science Does Not Describe Reality” could easily fuel the anti-science movement, worsen climate change denial and cause the next pandemic.This is why I believe it was important to still respond to van Fraassen’s article, a full two years after he wrote it. Not only, as I have argued, does it represent a philosophically inaccurate view of how scientific reasoning works and what scientific reasoning can do, but it is a dangerous view to boot. It should thus be rejected.

Oct 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • iai.tv

Phillies News: Andrew Painter, J.T. Realmuto, Postseason

Not done yet

Oct 1 • 7:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Wesley to return to Gasperini’s disposal next week

Roma has started the season almost perfectly: four wins and a draw against Inter in the first five matchdays. Where can the team improve? Some individuals haven’t yet shown their best form, includin...

Oct 1 • 3:35 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

FOX16 Sports previews Arkansas vs Texas A&M

After a 34-6 win on Saturday night in Fayetteville, now it’s off to College Station for a tilt under the lights against a teetering Texas A&M team that just fell out of the top 25.

Oct 1 • 12:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Viewpoint: Kennedy’s ‘bad science’: MAGA embrace bolsters HHS secretary’s influence and popularity

Pennsylvania has recorded four measles deaths this year — the state’s first in 35 years — yet the federal government’s official measles death count still

Oct 1 • 12:01 AM EDT • Science • geneticliteracyproject.org

Mental health awareness is not reflected in college culture

Generation Z is the generation most open to discussing mental health experiences. Yet, despite advances in mental health awareness, including a greater willingness to share their struggles and access to diagnoses, college students today still face heightened challenges with depression and anxiety. This can be partially attributed to financial stress and barriers to accessing continued mental health resources, as well as being overwhelmed by news outside their immediate communities.

Sep 30 • 11:04 PM EDT • Health • michigandaily.com

Aaron Rodgers Dealing With Frustrating Stat From Steelers WRs

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers looked like his vintage self Sunday in a 30-27 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. The veteran found nine different pass-catchers in the game and the offense was humming.Yet one game does not change the overall product put on the field by the Steelers offense through three games. One stat highlights […] The post Aaron Rodgers Dealing With Frustrating Stat From Steelers WRs appeared first on HEAVY.

Sep 30 • 11:01 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Looking at the Ugly Side of the Paramount-Skydance Merger...And How I’d Fix It

A Message from Our Sponsor Certified Fresh with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, FX’s Adults is an ensemble comedy series about a group of twenty-somethings in New York leaning on each other to navigate love, work, friendship and family. Don’t sleep on “The Sitcom of the Moment” - Awards Buzz All Episodes now streaming on Hulu on Disney+. Watch The Teaser Trailer... (Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industr(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Before we dive in, I wanted to congratulate Broadcast Now for being the first to report that Netflix’s How to Get to Heaven from Belfast has been cancelled. (I saw this in a write-up by Kasey Moore of Whats-On-Netflix.) More importantly, I wanted to note that, as of yesterday, none of the other trades had reported the news yet. I have half a guess that eventually one of them will report this. Anyways, it’s time to take a break from my deluge of streaming ratings reports to continue my analysis of the Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery (PSWbD) saga. As I noted last week, a lot of times when folks use the (sometimes cliched) “the good, the bad and the ugly” framing for an article, “the ugly” section is just more bad. Or very, very bad. In this case, yeah, I do think it’s ugly. In more than one way. Unfortunately, we’re only going to have time to tackle one of those ways today: the ugly pile of debt to finance this deal. (In a future article, I may cover the entire process for how it went down, which was very, very ugly.) Last issue, I explained why I liked this deal in a vacuum. Unfortunately, “vacuums” don’t exist outside of space. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - The Ugliness of the Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger More than one person sent me a note speculating that the big problem with Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros. Discovery is the “Warner Bros.” portion of the deal. In fact, that’s a take I read a lot about Warner Bros., ever since they caught Netflix’s, and then Paramount-Skydance’s, eye. In short, multiple companies (Time, AOL, AT&T, Discovery) have bought and then regretted buying Warner Bros. Since it’s nearing Halloween, you could almost say it’s like the folks think WB is cursed! It’s a haunted studio—like the town of Derry in movie studio form—and whoever takes possession of it will fall into misery! Yet...I just don’t like that story, because it doesn’t explain the “why” behind why those deals fell through. Especially when Warner Bros. has continued to succeed as a TV and film studio in the intervening two decades. Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? Game of Thrones? Everything HBO? Considering it never fully owned a broadcast TV channel, this media company has done pretty well. So what went wrong? Well, in recent years, companies bought Warner Bros. instead of the other, smarter option. Explaining POCD (And Applying It to Mergers & Acquisitions) As I explained last issue, one of my favorite frameworks is the POCD tool for evaluating venture capital investments: People Opportunity Context Deal The bar to invest as a VC is high. (Or I might say “was” since cheap interest rates made life easier last decade.) You review a thousand prospectuses, get pitched by a hundred, and invest in the ten best, with the hopes that one of those ten would pay for the rest. That means every element of a deal needed to pay off: you needed the right people running the companies, who could capitalize on the right opportunity, in the context of an industry that was ripe for disruption. If you could then not overpay, you could make some money in a smart deal. The analogy isn’t perfect here, but close enough. For a merger or acquisition to work, you need the combined company (which is the opportunity) to make more than the price you need to pay (which is the deal). Note: the people and context still matter, but with M&A, it’s a little more straightforward: does the opportunity exceed the cost? And usually with Warner Bros., it hasn’t. If you want to find out the single biggest mistake made by the Warner Bros. suitors over the last few years (and my simple fix) become a paid subscriber. I’ll also touch on who I think Paramount-Skydance could (shockingly) consider buying next, TBD, and more. Sign up here.

Sep 30 • 6:41 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

13 scarily fun Denton Halloween events to check out this October

Halloween is here yet again, and with it an overwhelming amount of events and fun activities all month long. The sheer number of events this month makes it just about

Sep 30 • 5:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • dentonrc.com

Three Reasons to Keep The Faith

It’s been a tough start to the season for Manchester United. Here are three reasons why I’m keeping the faith and not jumping overboard just yet. Kobbie Mainoo The United midfielder has made a massive leap, and the data backs it up. When Kobbie Mainoo first broke through, we knew he was a talent: he […]

Sep 30 • 4:14 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Sandhills Community College Small Business Center expands to Moore and Hoke Counties

Small Business Center Director, Laura Kinsman. Photo provided by: SCCSandhills Community College (SCC) is launching a redesigned Small Business Center model that expands no-cost entrepreneurial support across Moore and Hoke Counties. Rooted in the College’s commitment to strengthening small businesses and entrepreneurship as drivers of economic growth, the enhanced model is led by recently appointed Small Business Center Director, Laura Kinsman. The model also includes two new Senior Business Advisors who will provide trusted expertise, stronger community connections, and individualized guidance to entrepreneurs and business owners throughout the region.Kinsman brings a unique perspective to the director’s role as both a local business owner, operating in downtown Southern Pines, and a former Moore County educator. “Her combination of education, business ownership, leadership, and community involvement make her a great fit for the Small Business Center and the work we are continuing to build across Moore and Hoke counties,” said Taylor L. McCaskill, senior director of Workforce Development & Corporate Partnerships in a press release.Kinsman is an active member of the Southern Pines Business Association and has been connected to the Sandhills Small Business Center since the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey. She looks forward to building on that experience by strengthening the Center’s partnerships and expanding its connections throughout the community.She will lead the Center's efforts to support entrepreneurs and business owners throughout Moore and Hoke County and be the connector to the North Carolina Community College System Small Business Center Network operations. The Center offers no-cost, confidential one-on-one counseling, practical workshops, and connections to the resources and partners that help local businesses start, grow, and create jobs.A key part of this new approach, only offered at SCC, is a network of Senior Business Advisors, experienced professionals who will provide individualized guidance in areas such as business planning, finance, marketing, operations, growth strategy, and problem-solving. These advisors will serve as trusted partners to entrepreneurs and business owners, helping them turn ideas into action, overcome barriers, strengthen existing businesses, and pursue new opportunities. This one-on-one counseling is available at no cost, ensuring that high-quality business support is accessible to entrepreneurs at every stage.Senior Business Advisor for Hoke County, Kenna Parks. Photo provided by: SCCKenna Parks has been named the senior business advisor for Hoke County. She is a business professional, entrepreneur, and educator who brings a unique combination of academic training and real-world business experience. She earned her Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 2017 and has built her career around entrepreneurship, marketing, business development, and helping others turn ideas into sustainable opportunities.Senior Business Advisor for Moore County, Katrin Henderson. Photo provided by: SCCAs a military spouse, she has successfully launched and operated businesses across five states, giving her firsthand experience in adapting to diverse markets, building new customer bases and understanding the importance of global reach in today’s business environment. Over the last decade, her areas of focus include business planning, marketing strategy, branding, customer development, financial preparedness, operational planning and connecting entrepreneurs with educational programs and community resources.Parks brings an especially valuable perspective to business advising because she is an entrepreneur herself. She is the owner of Glamo Society Bridal & Formal Wear in Raeford, N.C., giving her firsthand experience with the realities of launching, operating, marketing and growing a small business. She understands that entrepreneurship extends far beyond developing a great idea; it requires strategy, financial awareness, adaptability, strong customer relationships, and consistent execution.Katrin Henderson will serve as the senior business advisor for Moore County. Thriving in hospitality and retail, Henderson has enjoyed positions in Food & Beverage Management and Retail Management in various fine dining and retail establishments in the area, before opening her own children's shop in 2015, in the Village of Pinehurst. She is a native of Moore County.Quickly immersing herself in this new world of small business ownership, Henderson joined various boards and committees, including President Elect of Pinehurst Business Partners and Event Chair for the Holly Arts & Crafts Festival. She also partnered with local organizations such as Moore County Economic Development and Moore County Chamber of Commerce and Sandhills Community College Small Business Center in events and educational opportunities. In 2026, Henderson sold her shop and now offers full-time support to both new and seasoned entrepreneurs through freelance consulting mentorship and the SCC Small Business Center program.The Small Business Center team is passionate about making business resources more accessible, and ensuring entrepreneurs know they do not have to navigate business ownership alone. Through their work with SCC, they are committed to building meaningful relationships with local businesses, community organizations, and industry partners while helping entrepreneurs move from idea to strategy, strategy to action, and action to sustainable growth.“Sandhills Community College believes deeply in the power of small business and entrepreneurship because strong local businesses create jobs, spark innovation, generate investment, and strengthen the communities we serve,” said McCaskill in press release. “Through this new Small Business Center model, Sandhills is building a stronger ecosystem where entrepreneurs can connect, grow, and thrive, while helping drive long-term economic vitality throughout our region.”To learn more about the Center's services or to schedule a consultation, please contact Kinsman directly at kinsmanl@sandhills.edu or 910-695-3938.

Sep 30 • 3:46 PM EDT • Business • bizfayetteville.com

Why Lightning Never Strikes Straight: The Surprising Science Behind Each Bolt - Futura-Sciences

The Great Lightning Paradox If you think science has most things figured out, think again. As physicist John Lowke of the University of South Australia observes, we can predict lunar and solar eclipses down to the fractional second, yet large mysteries remain around something as everyday as lightning. Lowke’s research—published...

Sep 30 • 3:00 PM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com

Bethesda Maps Fallout 76’s Biggest Year Yet, Expanding the Map toward Fallout 3’s Capital Wasteland by Summer 2027

Bethesda has mapped out a truly exciting year of free updates for Fallout 76, including a new map expansion into the Capital Wasteland.

Sep 30 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com

Firefox 157: Could bold new look be just what Mozilla needs?*

Yet another new version of Firefox, with a significant reskin

Sep 30 • 9:44 AM EDT • Technology • theregister.com

North Carolina Man Caught On Camera Vandalizing Political Signs

Damaging political campaign signs at a busy North Carolina intersection might have seemed like something nobody would notice. Fayetteville Police say 35-year-old Jeffrey Allen Ivey had an audience he ...

Sep 30 • 8:36 AM EDT • Politics • yahoo.com

Astrology, homeopathy, vaccine rejectionism, creationism: Why pseudoscience thrives as science advances

Science has never known more, yet pseudoscience keeps gaining ground. Astrology, homeopathy, creationism and vaccine rejectionism all make

Sep 30 • 8:28 AM EDT • Science • geneticliteracyproject.org

AirJoule: Exciting Science, Decent Acquisition, But No Revenue Yet

AirJoule’s acquisition of BitSink adds $11M revenue and data center cooling distribution.

Sep 30 • 6:26 AM EDT • Science • seekingalpha.com

Marten De Roon ready to make first start for Roma

De Roon’s time is coming. The Dutch midfielder, nicknamed “the balancer” in Bergamo, has so far played little for Roma because he’s not yet at his best. He didn’t need much time to show what...

Sep 30 • 4:15 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Uncertain Future for Lahaina’s Front Street, Where Businesses Have Yet to Return

More than three years after a raging wildfire swept through Lahaina and turned most of the town to ashes, the main business artery, Front Street that runs

Sep 29 • 10:09 PM EDT • Business • hawaiibusiness.com

‘Godzilla’ of weight-loss drugs could provide other important health benefits

Though not yet approved by any regulatory agency, Retatrutide could help improve blood sugar levels and reduce inflammation

Sep 29 • 6:01 PM EDT • Health • theguardian.com

Fox News agrees to host Texas Senate debate; no word from Paxton yet

The last Senate race in Texas not to have a debate was in 2000.

Sep 29 • 5:15 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Gambit's Best of New Orleans 2026: Entertainment

Design by Dora Sison / Gambit Best Bounce Artist googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('ad-1492300'); }); 1. Big Freedia (Instagram: @bigfreedia)2. Ha Sizzle (Instagram: @hasizzlethevoice)3. Subtweet Shawn (Instagram: @subtweetshawn1) Trixie Minx Photo by Sophia Germer / The Times-Picayune Best Burlesque Performer1. Trixie Minx (Instagram: @trixienola)2. Bella Blue (Instagram: @bellablueforever)3. Miss Angie Z (Instagram: @missangiez) Best Casino1. Caesars New Orleans (8 Canal St., 800-427-7247; caesars.com/caesars-new-orleans)2. Treasure Chest Casino (4550 Williams Blvd., Kenner, 504-443-8000; treasurechest.com)3. Boomtown Casino (4132 Peters Road., Harvey, 504-366-7711; boomtownneworleans.com) Best Drag Performer1. Debbie with a D (Instagram: @debbiewithad)2. Katrina Waters (Instagram: @katrinawaters504)3. Laveau Contraire (Instagram: @laveaucontraire) Best Festival (that's still around)1. New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (nojazzfest.com)2. French Quarter Festival (frenchquarterfest.org)3. Hogs For The Cause (hogsfest.org) Best Food Festival1. New Orleans Fried Chicken Festival (friedchickenfestival.com)2. Oak Street Po-Boy Festival (poboyfest.com)3. New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (nojazzfest.com) Tipitina's Photo by Sophia Germer / The Times-Picayune Best Live Music Venue1. Tipitina’s (501 Napoleon Ave., 504-895-8477; tipitinas.com)2. The Broadside (600 N Broad St., 504-766-0871; broadsidenola.com)3. The Fillmore (6 Canal St., 504-881-1555; thefillmorenola.com) Best Live Music Club1. Maple Leaf Bar (8316 Oak St., 504-866-9359; mapleleafbar.com)2. Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro (626 Frenchmen St., 504-949-0696; snugjazz.com)3. Chickie Wah Wah (2828 Canal St., 504-541-2050; chickiewahwah.com)3. Blue Nile (532 Frenchmen St., 504-766-6193; bluenilelive.com) Best Local Blues Artist/Band1. Little Freddie King (littlefreddieking.com)2. Samantha Fish (samanthafish.com)3. Tab Benoit (tabbenoit.com) Best Local Brass Band1. Rebirth Brass Band (rebirthbrassband.com)2. Hot 8 Brass Band (hot8brassband.com)3. The Soul Rebels (thesoulrebels.com) Best Local DJ1. Paul Lakeway (Instagram: @paul_lakeway)2. DJ Soul Sister (Instagram: @djsoulsister)3. ANTWIGADEE! (Instagram: @antwigadee) Best Local Funk Band1. Dumpstaphunk (dumpstaphunk.com)2. Galactic (galacticfunk.com)3. Big Sam's Funky Nation (bigsamsfunkynation.com) Kaye the Beast Provided Photo by Catherine Debuys Best Local Hip-Hop Group/Artist1. Kaye the Beast (Instagram: @kayethebeast)2. La Reezy (Instagram: @lareezymusic)3. Pell (Instagram: @pellyeah) Best Local Movie Theater1. The Broad Theater (636 N. Broad St., 504-218-1008; thebroadtheater.com)2. The Prytania (5339 Prytania St., 504-891-2787; theprytania.com) googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('ad-1492297'); }); 3. The Prytania Theatre at Canal Place (333 Canal St., 3rd floor, 504-290-2658; theprytania.com) Best Local Music Artist/Band1. Robin Barnes & The Fiya Birds (robinbarnesmusic.com)2. Trombone Shorty (tromboneshorty.com)3. Sweet Crude (sweetcrudeband.com) Best Local Rock Band1. The Revivalists (therevivalists.com)2. Better Than Ezra (betterthanezra.com)3. Cowboy Mouth (cowboymouth.com) Best Wedding Band/ DJ1. The Mixed Nuts (themixednuts.com)2. Bucktown All-Stars (bucktownallstars.com)3. Warm Advice (warmadvice.com) Doreen Ketchens Provided photo Best Local Street Performer1. Doreen Ketchens (doreensjazz.org)2. Jourdan Blue (Instagram: @jourblue)3. Sariyah Idan (ariyahidan.com) Best Local Theater Company1. The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans (504-264-2580; twtheatrenola.com)2. Le Petit Theatre (616 St. Peter St., 504-522-2081; lepetittheatre.com)3. The NOLA Project (504-302-9117; nolaproject.com) Best Local Traditional Jazz Group/Artist1. Preservation Hall Jazz Band (preservationhalljazzband.com)2. Kermit Ruffins (@ruffinsbbq)3. Trombone Shorty (tromboneshorty.com) Best Marching Band1. St. Augustine High School Marching 100 (Instagram: @staugmarching100)2. Edna Karr High School Marching Band (Instagram: @theofficialkarrband)3. The Roots of Music Marching Crusaders (therootsofmusic.org) Best Mardi Gras Parade1. Muses (kreweofmuses.org)2. Iris (kreweofiris.org)3. Endymion (endymion.org) 610 Stompers Photo by Chris Granger / The Times-Picayune Best Mardi Gras Dance Krewe1. 610 Stompers (610stompers.com)2. Amelia EarHawts (aecabinkrewe.com)3. The Jamettes (Instagram: @thejametteskrewe) Best Place to See Burlesque/Drag1. The AllWays Lounge & Cabaret (2240 St. Claude Ave., 504-218-5778; theallwayslounge.net)2. The Original Nite Cap (1300 St. Bernard Ave., 2nd floor, 504-224-2854; Instagram: @originalnitecap)3. The Country Club (634 Louisa St., 504-945-0742; thecountryclubneworleans.com) Best Place to See Comedy1. Sports Drink (1042 Toledano St.; sportsdrink.org)2. The Howlin' Wolf (907 S. Peters St., 504-529-5844; thehowlinwolf.com)3. Big Couch New Orleans (1045 Desire St.; bigcouchnola.com) Best Local Comedian1. Ryan Rogers (ryanrogerscomedy.com)2. Mark Normand (marknormandcomedy.com)3. Cyrus Cooper (Instagram: @cyrusjcooper) Best Strip Club1. The Penthouse Club (727 Iberville St., 504-524-4354; penthouseclubneworleans.com)2. Rick’s Cabaret (315 Bourbon St., 504-524-4222; rickscabaretneworleans.com)3. Larry Flynt's Hustler Club (225 Bourbon St., 504-524-0010; neworleanshustlerclub.com) Best Performing Arts Center1. Jefferson Performing Arts Center (6400 Airline Dr., 504-731-4700; jeffersonpac.com)2. Saenger Theatre (1111 Canal St., 504-525-1052; saengertheatreneworleans.com)3. Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts (1419 Basin St., 504-525-1052; mahaliajacksontheater.com) .donate-gambit-article-module-container { text-align: center; padding: 10px; /* background-color: #24da6d; */ background-color: rgb(153, 0, 0); margin-bottom: 20px; } .donate-gambit-article-module-title { font-weight: bold; color: #fff; } .donate-gambit-article-module-copy { color: #fff !important; font-size: 16px; } .donate-gambit-article-module-button { background-color: black; width: 50%; border-color: black; font-size: 16px; } .donate-gambit-article-module-button:hover { background-color: black; } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .donate-gambit-article-module-button { font-size: 14px; width: 100%; } .donate-gambit-article-module-copy { font-size: 14px; } } BECOME A GAMBIT MEMBER AND JOIN OUR KREWE TODAY For more than 40 years, Gambit has covered New Orleans, for New Orleans. We’ve stood up to city hall with you, cheered the Saints with you, danced in the streets with you and cried over our collective loss with you. And we’re plannin’ on being here for 40 more. To do that, we need your help. Become a Gambit member today and help us continue our mission SUPPORT GAMBIT

Sep 29 • 5:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • nola.com

Cities keep shelling out taxpayer money for sports stadiums, yet the economics almost never makes sense

Communities almost never see a boost in job or income growth after taxpayers subsidize a new sports facility.

Sep 29 • 4:36 PM EDT • Sports • washingtonpost.com

The Family Business Advantage: Third Quarterly Power Breakfast of 2026 explores how family businesses balance legacy and innovation

Photo by GFBJAnother successful Power Breakfast is in the books. The Greater Fayetteville Business Journal hosted its third quarterly Power Breakfast of 2026 on Tuesday, Sept. 29. Local leaders and decision-makers gathered to network and learn from the panel about how established principles drive long-term stability while allowing for operational evolution. The panel featured Managing Partner of Luigi’s Italian Chophouse & Bar, Nate Ernst; Inside Sales at Hubbard Supplyhouse, Mary Grace Hurley; Chief Operations Officer for Copiers Plus, Drew Smith; and CEO of Holmes Security Systems, Stephen Wheeler. The panel was moderated by Lauren Willets, director of the Family Enterprise Center at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. Throughout the discussion, the panelists returned to a common idea: family businesses thrive when they preserve the relationships and values at their core while remaining open to change.Each panelist shared personal stories that carried practical lessons. Stephen Wheeler emphasized the role of relationships with customers and employees, saying, “What makes a family business successful today is relationships.” Mary Grace Hurley echoed Wheeler’s sentiment, describing relationships as a lasting inheritance, including a customer connection that began when she was young and continued into her working life. “If something’s given to you, that’s going to cost you too,” added Nate Ernst. He explained this philosophy by sharing that, in his view, earning responsibility builds credibility and confidence.Another hot topic was the idea of tradition versus change. For these businesses that have been around for a century or even more, it can be difficult to escape the “we’ve always done it this way” caveat, but these speakers emphasized how change has been an integral part of their growth and longevity. A family business can honor its history without being bound by it.“Innovation and tradition–they don’t have to be competing with one another,” shared Hurley. She pointed to changes in how businesses operate, including the adoption of computers and new management practices. Ernst stressed that adaptation is essential, while Wheeler described how his family’s electrical contracting business had evolved into a security-focused company. The details of the work may change, but identifying and upholding core values is key to embracing change while maintaining the character of a business. “I think it’s just important to remember why you started in the first place. What was your mission? What are your core values? And to reevaluate those,” shared Drew Smith.In addition to the first-hand accounts and wisdom shared by panelists, Moderator Lauren Willets recommended two novels during the panel for those seeking additional educational resources. Those two novels are “Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business with both Love and Logic”by Cathy Carroll and “In the Company of Family: How to Thrive When Business Is Personal” by Melissa Mitchell-Blitch. Preparing the next generation requires more than handing over a title or company. Wheeler argued that future leaders need genuine passion and a vested interest in the business. The panelists were in agreement that succession is a process, and there is not one clear answer for how to perfectly prepare for it. Leaders must cultivate readiness, keep communication open and make room for the next generation to earn responsibility while being sure not to neglect the business in the here and now. “Today’s Power Breakfast was one of our best events yet! Between the passion and in-depth knowledge of the panelists, the great audience questions and the guidance and expertise of Mrs. Willets, the conversation was both engaging and informative,” shared GFBJ Publisher Faith Hatton. “A lot of small businesses in Fayetteville are family-owned and grown, and it’s great to be able to spotlight some of the businesses that have stood the test of time by strengthening the next generation of leadership and preparing them for ownership. I hope everyone received some inspiration and ideas that they can bring back to their own businesses and organizations!”We thank everyone who attended this Power Breakfast and hope you’ll all join us for the next Power Breakfast on Dec. 8. Details about the event will be shared on our social media and in future email updates. To learn about becoming a Power Breakfast sponsor, contact the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal at 910.240.9697 or marketing@bizfayetteville.com.

Sep 29 • 3:42 PM EDT • Business • bizfayetteville.com

University Auto And Tire opens location in Elkins

Fayetteville-based University Auto and Tire recently opened its second location after acquiring a 6,500-square-foot vehicle maintenance shop on 3.2 acres in Elkins. Will and Bernadette Helton own University Auto and...

Sep 29 • 2:46 PM EDT • Politics • talkbusiness.net

University Auto And Tire opens location in Elkins

Fayetteville-based University Auto and Tire recently opened its second location after acquiring a 6,500-square-foot vehicle maintenance shop on 3.2 acres in Elkins. Will and Bernadette Helton own University Auto and...

Sep 29 • 2:46 PM EDT • Business • talkbusiness.net

Meta Plans VR Glasses Strap Accessory for Active VR Gaming

Meta VR Glasses can play all of the same games you might on Quest, whether it be through integrated hand-tracking or by pairing optional Touch Plus controllers. But if you’re planning on getting active, Meta says they’ll be selling an accessory for that. We haven’t seen any images yet, however at Connect 2026 last week […]

Sep 29 • 12:02 PM EDT • Technology • roadtovr.com

Don’t cancel the Chicago Bears’ season just yet

After Monday night’s win over the Eagles, the Bears and their fans can breathe a little easier about their postseason chances writes @kdthompson5.

Sep 29 • 12:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

A New Agenda for Small Business Support in an Age of Uncertainty

Entrepreneurship requires accepting uncertainty. Yet today’s small businesses face multiple, compounding, and, at times, unprecedented sources of uncertainty,

Sep 29 • 12:00 PM EDT • Business • milkeninstitute.org

Why young people are turning to peers for mental health support

OK Today reports that 47% of young people prefer talking to peers for mental health support, yet many lack the skills to handle such discussions.

Sep 29 • 10:30 AM EDT • Health • wyomingnewsnow.tv

Scientists discover how excess dietary salt drives 'lean MASH'

Fatty liver disease is commonly associated with obesity, yet a growing number of people with normal body weight develop a severe form of the condition.

Sep 29 • 9:57 AM EDT • Science • news-medical.net

Cities keep shelling out taxpayer money for sports stadiums, yet the economics almost never makes sense

Communities almost never see a boost in job or income growth after taxpayers subsidize a new sports facility.

Sep 29 • 8:43 AM EDT • Sports • theconversation.com

Lesbian Bar Project Co-Founder: Purity Politics Could Destroy Our Remaining Spaces

Subscribe As a professional lesbian and Massachusetts native, I’ve recently been asked by a lot of folks what I think about the saga unfolding at Last Ditch. The now-viral story, first reported by The Boston Globe, centers on a Western Massachusetts lesbian bar that lifted its mask requirement for one night a week to help drum up business. The decision ignited an intra-queer controversy that has been feasted on by media outlets across the political spectrum—from the New York Post to LGBTQ Nation—and is even reportedly being eyed for a Hollywood adaptation. Apparently nothing is more entertaining than a bunch of lesbians and queers fighting with each other over KN-95s. What has been lost in all of the chatter and media coverage is the very real possibility that Last Ditch, which just opened in April 2025, will have to close its doors. The venue’s one remaining founder, Jackie Matellian, revealed in a community Zoom meeting that she’s working four jobs, is now solely responsible for the bar’s $50,000 business loan and is struggling to keep up with the bills. So as we laugh about the controversy’s similarity to a “Portlandia” skit and how one of the bar’s founders left to enroll in clown school, we forget that yet another lesbian bar is facing an existential crisis—and this time the call is coming from inside the house. In 2020, my friend Elina Street and I created The Lesbian Bar Project, an Emmy-, Webby- and GLAAD Media Award-winning docuseries and initiative that tells the stories of lesbian queer bars around the world. We were moved to act because at the time there were only an estimated 16 lesbian bars in the United States, and the pandemic threatened to bring that number down even further. There are now more sapphic bars than there were just before the pandemic—about 36 of them in total—but this is down from approximately 200 in 1980. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but for the millions of sapphics living in the U.S., this number is calamitous. As the world laughs at lesbians and sapphics, I want to take a second and tell you what I feel when I walk into one of these bars, which are all unique and irreplaceable in their own way: I feel seen. Sometimes I think Cubbyhole in New York City’s West Village neighborhood knew I was gay before I did. When I walked in there for the first time, before I was even out, I was transfixed by the colorful array of tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling and how the women standing next to me were completely unafraid to express their desire for one another. I knew the minute I was ready to come out, I had a home. I also felt the joy of a new couple falling in love at Seattle’s Wildrose, the quiet confidence of a short king lining up her shot at the pool table at Ginger’s in Brooklyn and the kick of cayenne pepper in Julie Mabry’s crawfish at Houston’s Pearl Bar. Subscribe Lesbian bars don’t just serve lesbians; they serve queer folks across the spectrum, including bisexual, pansexual and trans people. As Elina and I traveled across the U.S. and Europe and to parts of Latin America to document the bar owners, staff and patrons that make up the ecosystems of these spaces, we also became uniquely acquainted with the factors that threaten their existence: gentrification, wage gaps, sexism, environmental disasters, gun violence, rising insurance premiums and political administrations working to annihilate queer people and their families. Lesbian bar owners, like all leaders and entrepreneurs, are imperfect. There have been significant issues over the years at lesbian bars: employee harassment, racism, lack of accessibility, sexual assault and transphobia. All bar owners should be held accountable and should listen to their communities to evolve into safer and more equitable spaces. I also acknowledge my privilege: I am able-bodied, white, cis and from a family system that loves me for who I am. Not everyone has that. Queer people, especially trans and bisexual people, are suffering from disproportionately high levels of depression, and our mental health system isn’t equipped to support them. Immunocompromised people and long COVID are real, and many of my friends are suffering to this day. The people with the least safety net are often the ones for whom a bar closing costs the most. And yet, as we’re seeing with Last Ditch, the queer community often lashes out at each other. It’s also the mainstream media taking the internal conflict and making a mockery out of it, distracting from the real possibility that this bar could close due to financial pressures. A bar that many people loved and needed is facing extinction. Perhaps it’s safer to dissent with one another than with the larger forces trying to eradicate us, but in doing so, we risk destroying the few spaces we have left. Due to the constraints of purity politics—some in good faith, some not so much—lesbian bar owners, almost all of whom are queer women themselves, are forced to be everything for everyone, similarly to how women are forced to be everything for everyone. By asking these bars to uphold impossible standards—standards very few other third spaces are asked to consider—we all end up losing. I want to move as a community toward dialogue, compassionate dissent and collaboration to make our spaces better with the goal of keeping them OPEN and thriving, rather than destroying them from the inside with expectations that are arguably unattainable. Subscribe While I have your attention—for this fleeting second of the news cycle—may I urge us to spearhead a way to keep these small businesses afloat without attacking our own community along the way? Bar owners are left with an impasse: They want to be community-centered, but they also have to make money to keep their doors open. Sometimes they might make business decisions that don’t work for everyone—and that’s partly because different patrons have different priorities and want different things—but these owners deserve the opportunity for productive dialogue**.** We have to work with them and with each other to keep our spaces open, to keep them growing. Lesbian bars raised me into the queer woman I am today. One thing I think about as I reflect on the six years of work we’ve done to document these spaces is that shared, unspoken language I have with a stranger the moment we both walk into one of these bars: the nod, the ease, the not having to explain ourselves. I don’t want to lose that, and neither should you. If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button: Donate

Sep 29 • 7:01 AM EDT • Politics • unclosetedmedia.com

The 795 HP Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC Is The Diabolical Reincarnation Of The Shelby GT500, But It Wasn't The Power That Surprised Me

The 795 HP Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC is the most ridiculous, most powerful car I've driven. Yet, the insane horsepower is not the crazy part

Sep 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Technology • theautopian.com

Rural Hospital Administrators: The Rural Health Transformation Program Isn’t Helping, Yet

The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) was supposed to help rural hospitals deal with cuts to federal funding as a result of H.R. 1, or the “One

Sep 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • dailyyonder.com

Tuesday ‘Dawg Bites Knows Effort Counts Twice

Welcome to Tuesday, Bulldog Fans! Your Bulldogs are 4-0, and undefeated in conference play. 40+ points in each win, each by 4 touchdowns, ranked #2 in the land, and yet (we know, we know). These are the first world problems UGA fans face in this golden era of Georgia football. A wise man once told […]

Sep 29 • 5:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Pochettino regrets lack of 'sporting justice' for his ex-Tottenham team amid Man City charges saga

U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino expressed sadness at an apparent failure of “sporting justice” in his response to reports that Manchester City has been found guilty of almost all of the 115 charges leveled against the club for alleged financial breaches. The alleged rule-breaking by City took place between 2009-18, during which period Pochettino was manager of Tottenham and turned the London team into a challenger for titles in English soccer despite operating on a relatively small budget. The Premier League has yet to officially confirm the verdict that, according to several media outlets, has been passed down by an independent commission following a long-running case.

Sep 29 • 5:25 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Cuba’s cherished ballet tradition endures through daily blackouts and shortages

Cuba is facing severe challenges, with blackouts and shortages affecting daily life. Yet classical ballet remains a cherished cultural institution. The National Ballet School in the capital of Havana continues

Sep 29 • 2:15 AM EDT • Entertainment • messenger-inquirer.com

Naughty Dog Will 'Fully Reveal' Intergalactic in 2027, but No Release Window Yet

Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann concluded this year's "The Last of Us Day" by giving updates on the developer's current projects, teasing two new The Last of Us projects that "will expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part I and Part II" without confirming whether or not either one of them is a game, as well as saying that its next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Project, will be "fully reveal[ed]" next year.

Sep 28 • 8:37 PM EDT • Technology • ign.com

Braves Postseason eve chat and discussion: September 28

Happy Wild Card eve to all who celebrate. How are we feeling? Firstly, a hype video for you. This year’s campaign theme and accompanying hashtag? LET IT FLY. Are you hype enough yet? Let us know the creative ways you’re playing hooky with work or school for tomorrow’s 2 pm ET contest. We can write […]

Sep 28 • 8:23 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Fayette hospital lease with DCH Health System won't continue as is

DCH Health System will end its lease at Fayette Medical Center in 2027, citing unsustainable financial conditions.

Sep 28 • 6:02 PM EDT • Health • tuscaloosanews.com

Does Short Week Mean No Joey Porter Jr. vs. Browns?

PITTSBURGH — Joey Porter Jr. has yet to play this season for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The fourth-year cornerback, who watched […]

Sep 28 • 4:27 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

White House to reopen part of Lafayette Square after eight months

Administration officials are still pursuing plans to build a permanent fence around the park.

Sep 28 • 4:10 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Meta's splashy new business AI hire offers yet another reason to bank on Zuckerberg

By poaching MongoDB's CJ Desai, Mark Zuckerberg shows he's serious about building an enterprise AI business.

Sep 28 • 4:01 PM EDT • Business • cnbc.com

Last year, business surged in the Tenderloin. How’s this year going?

Business in the Tenderloin is off to a slow start but if it's anything like last year, the peaks are yet to come.

Sep 28 • 3:30 PM EDT • Business • missionlocal.org

Tuchel says Czech Republic game 'not yet a must-win'

England coach Thomas Tuchel said Monday the upcoming Nations League game against the Czech Republic in Prague was "not yet a must-win" despite a 3-2 loss to Spain last weekend.The Czechs have not lost any of their last four home games against England, and they won the last encounter 2-1 in a Euro 2020 qualifier in Prague in 2019.

Sep 28 • 2:52 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Rams’ Super Bowl hopes might already be in jeopardy

Three games in and LA has yet to play like the contender they were expected to be

Sep 28 • 2:35 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Fun Spot America has many items up for auction. Here's what you could buy

Fun Spot America Atlanta is auctioning bumper cars, arcade games and other rides after the Fayetteville park permanently closed in July.

Sep 28 • 2:10 PM EDT • Entertainment • savannahnow.com