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Vanderbilt's Candice Storey Lee named athletic director of year
Sports Business Journal cites extensive work on school's athletic facilities, as well as impressive sports results
MIT science writing students collaborate with The Associated Press
MIT student reporters say that the opportunity to directly work with journalists from the Associated Press’ climate team and have their own stories published has been a highlight of their time in the Graduate Program in Science Writing.
OPM’s top official for healthcare and insurance resigns
Shane Stevens, who has been serving as associate director of healthcare and insurance at OPM since last summer, is voluntarily resigning from the role.
Galaxy Z Fold 8 Is Proof Samsung Has Lost The Foldable Smartphone Battle Against Apple Before The iPhone Fold’s Arrival
The direction that Samsung is taking with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is strong evidence that Apple’s iPhone Fold has won the foldable smartphone battle
UNK invites high school students to explore space science this summer
KEARNEY - The University of Nebraska at Kearney will launch students into the exciting science of space travel...
Talking sports with Channel 3 sports director Joe Zone
Channel 3 sports director Joe Zone tackles the top sports stories in the state on Thursday, May 21, 2026.
Introducing the PlayStation Studios Accessibility Community Council
Learn how PlayStation is helping developers build more accessible and inclusive games through direct collaboration with accessibility experts and players.
RWJBarnabas Health Launches NJ’s First Ever Street Medicine Program to Serve Unhoused Population, Deliver Critical Care and Lowe
RWJBarnabas Health today launched New Jersey’s first Street Medicine Program at Trinitas Regional Medical Center (TRMC) to bring essential care and services directly to unhoused individuals across the City of Elizabeth with the goal of expanding to other areas in the state to improve access to care among a particularly vulnerable population.
Cyprus: YouTuber takes direct democracy push to polls
Cypriot YouTuber and MEP Fidias Panayiotou wants to disrupt his country's political system. His digital-first Direct Democracy movement is seen by some as democratic renewal, by others as social media populism.
AI & Science: What Is the Future of Discovery?
Continued progress in artificial intelligence, its expanding usefulness in science, and its contributions to landmark advances suggest that we may have entered a new era of AI for science.The breakthroughs so far—such as predicting the structure of practically every known protein, with profound implications for our understanding of biology, health, and the treatment of disease—are notable not only for what was achieved but also how it was achieved and what that suggests for scientific progress. This special double issue of Dædalus poses the question: What is the future of scientific discovery in this new age of AI? Thirty-three scientists responded. Bringing perspectives from life sciences and medicine, cognitive science and neuroscience, the physical and earth sciences, chemistry and materials science, computer science, mathematics and the social sciences—they draw on their work at the frontier of AI and science. The authors write with an eye to the future, not just the present. They explore what is being achieved and what possibilities lie ahead; examine AI’s limitations and efforts to move forward; and investigate the larger implications of AI-assisted science—on how science is done, the role of the scientist, and the scientific method, as well as the challenges and complexities involved.The authors together exemplify a long-standing bidirectional relationship: AI advancing science, while science advances AI. Where that relationship will take us—a golden age of discovery? New scientist-machine collaborations? Autonomous labs? Discoveries without human understanding?—is a future we are only beginning to imagine, and one we must also shape if the beneficial possibilities are to be realized.Image: UMAP sculptures visualizing three Dædalus volumes on artificial intelligence. © 2026 by Refik Anadol.
Former Splinter Cell Creative Director Says Realistic Graphics Are Causing Problems for Modern Stealth Games
The former creative director of one of gaming's most influential stealth franchises, Splinter Cell, has suggested that advancements in lighting and shadow have made it more difficult than ever for the fans — and creators — of the genre.
Ward and Smith Co-Managing Director Devon Williams Named to Triangle Business Journal “40 Under 40 Leadership Award”
The Triangle Business Journal (TBJ) recently selected Devon Williams as a “40 Under 40 Leadership Award” recipient for 2026. The honor recognizes ou
⚖️ Referees' union denounces Florentino Pérez and Real Madrid
The Spanish Association of Football Referees (AESAF) has taken a firm step in defense of the group. The union has filed two complaints with the Anti-Violence Commission, aimed directly at Florentino P...
Councilwoman Jurado Calls for Exploration of Entertainment Zone for DTLA
In a bid to support night life and economic development in downtown Los Angeles, Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion Wednesday calling for a report on the feasibility of establishing a so-called “entertainment zone.” If approved by the full City Council, the motion would direct city departments to analyze state law and evaluate potential implementation […]
Jurado Calls for Exploration of Entertainment Zones for DTLA
In a bid to support night life and economic development in downtown Los Angeles, Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion Wednesday calling for a report on the feasibility of establishing so-called “entertainment zones.” If approved by the full City Council, the motion would direct city departments to analyze state law and evaluate potential implementation requirements […]
Senate Hearing on Sports Betting Shows CFTC Should Not Regulate Gambling
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Benjamin Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy for Better Markets, issued the following statement following a Senate hearing on sports betting: “When Americans wager on Kalshi and Polymarket on the outcome of hockey or football games, they overwhelmingly view it as sports betting, not trading in financial derivatives. They recently made this view known to
Scientists improve knowledge on sea level rise—and confirm it has been accelerating since 1960
Sea level rise is a direct consequence of human-induced climate change: global warming. It is relentless and very hard to stop. It arises from human-induced warming and the consequential expansion of ...
Enzo Maresca working on transfer, pre-season plans ahead of Manchester City job
The Italian has already been collaborating closely with sporting director Hugo Viana for pre-season, the new campaign and beyond.
When Did Crabs Evolve Their Iconic Sideways Scuttle? Scientists Traced It to a 200-Million-Year-Old Common Ancestor
The findings suggest that their famous lateral movement evolved just once. It may have helped the animals rapidly spread and diversify because traveling in two directions meant they could easily escape predators
Xbox expands leadership team with major hires
Xbox has added two big names to its leadership team: Matthew Ball and Scott Van Vliet. The new recruits are part of an on-going drive from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma to move faster, build better products, and make more focused business decisions. The Game Business can reveal that Ball is joining as Chief Strategy Officer. He is a popular industry analyst who is responsible for the annual The State of Video Gaming report, which is widely read across the business. His first job will be to strengthen the console side of Xbox, which is facing significant pressures, not least from the rising costs of memory and storage. In an interview with The Game Business earlier in the year, he admitted he was “pretty frightened” by the situation for the console sector. Ball had previously worked as head of strategy and planning for Amazon Studios, and wrote the 2022 international best-seller The Metaverse. He is currently CEO of Epyllion, a venture partner at investment group Makers Fund and senior advisor at KKR & Co. Meanwhile, Scott Van Vliet joins as Chief Technology Officer. He was previously in charge of Azure OpenAI and AI Core infrastructure at Microsoft, and he also led engineering for Microsoft Teams during the COVID 19 pandemic. But he has a games background. He previously worked across games for Amazon, including Alexa, Amazon Game Studios and the Amazon App Store. He directly worked on the Minecraft: Fire TV Edition. Prior to that, he was VP of Digital Play at Mattel, and worked across brands such as Batman, Barbie, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Cut The Rope. His job will be to improve how Xbox builds products so teams can move faster and deliver stronger results. For more breaking stories, sign-up to The Game Business today Subscribe In addition to these new hires, Xbox has promoted Chris Schnakenberg to Corporate Vice President, Partnerships & Business Development. He was previously VP of partnerships and business development, and joined from Activision Blizzard, where he spent 12 years in various strategy, business development and partner relations role. His focus is on third-party games, publishers and developers working with Xbox. The news follows a number of new hires and promotions earlier in the month, including Jason Ronald taking leadership over Xbox’s upcoming Project Helix console. “These changes are about strengthening our foundation by creating more clarity and improving execution,” Sharma said in an email to staff. “As we head toward Showcase and beyond, we’ll continue making the changes needed to position XBOX for the future.” Matthew Ball is speaking with Christopher Dring at The Game Business Live on Monday, June 8. More details on the event can be found here.
Xbox expands leadership team with major hires
Xbox has added two big names to its leadership team: Matthew Ball and Scott Van Vliet. The new recruits are part of an on-going drive from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma to move faster, build better products, and make more focused business decisions. The Game Business can reveal that Ball is joining as Chief Strategy Officer. He is a popular industry analyst who is responsible for the annual The State of Video Gaming report, which is widely read across the business. His first job will be to strengthen the console side of Xbox, which is facing significant pressures, not least from the rising costs of memory and storage. In an interview with The Game Business earlier in the year, he admitted he was “pretty frightened” by the situation for the console sector. Ball had previously worked as head of strategy and planning for Amazon Studios, and wrote the 2022 international best-seller The Metaverse. He is currently CEO of Epyllion, a venture partner at investment group Makers Fund and senior advisor at KKR & Co. Meanwhile, Scott Van Vliet joins as Chief Technology Officer. He was previously in charge of Azure OpenAI and AI Core infrastructure at Microsoft, and he also led engineering for Microsoft Teams during the COVID 19 pandemic. But he has a games background. He previously worked across games for Amazon, including Alexa, Amazon Game Studios and the Amazon App Store. He directly worked on the Minecraft: Fire TV Edition. Prior to that, he was VP of Digital Play at Mattel, and worked across brands such as Batman, Barbie, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Cut The Rope. His job will be to improve how Xbox builds products so teams can move faster and deliver stronger results. For more breaking stories, sign-up to The Game Business today Subscribe In addition to these new hires, Xbox has promoted Chris Schnakenberg to Corporate Vice President, Partnerships & Business Development. He was previously VP of partnerships and business development, and joined from Activision Blizzard, where he spent 12 years in various strategy, business development and partner relations role. His focus is on third-party games, publishers and developers working with Xbox. The news follows a number of new hires and promotions earlier in the month, including Jason Ronald taking leadership over Xbox’s upcoming Project Helix console. “These changes are about strengthening our foundation by creating more clarity and improving execution,” Sharma said in an email to staff. “As we head toward Showcase and beyond, we’ll continue making the changes needed to position XBOX for the future.” Matthew Ball is speaking with Christopher Dring at The Game Business Live on Monday, June 8. More details on the event can be found here.
Job allows South Milwaukee's AD to combine passion for sports, helping people
South Milwaukee School District athletics and activities director Ante Udovicic shares his passion for sports and helping people.
Bills' Keon Coleman gives 'make or break' outlook for 2026
Keon Coleman looks ahead to 2026 with the Bills in a direct manner.
Democratic governor candidate Ethan Corson joins forces with Salina business director
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ethan Corson will run with Salina Chamber of Commerce president Renee Duxler as his running mate.
Google expands AI push at I/O with enterprise-focused Gemini upgrades and smarter search tools
Alphabet Inc. ’s Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) on Tuesday introduced a range of new artificial intelligence tools at its annual I/O developer conference, including AI agents integrated directly into Search and a faster, lower-cost Gemini model aimed at enterprise customers.
Health chief warns of high child poverty rates in NHS Highland area
Public health director Jennifer Davies says of the 12,834 under-fives in the area, almost 22% lived in relative poverty.
Embracer Group announces its intention to spin off Fellowship Entertainment on Nasdaq Stockholm
INSIDE INFORMATION: The Board of Directors of Embracer Group AB (“Embracer Group”) today announces the intention to separate the group into two publicly listed companies, through the spin-off of Fellowship Entertainment with a listing on Nasdaq Stockholm planned for calendar year 2027. The main rat…
S. ‘Soma’ Somasegar, 1966-2026: Microsoft and Madrona leader was a champion of developers and startups
Friends and colleagues remembered S. "Soma" Somasegar, the longtime Microsoft developer leader and Madrona managing director, as a generous mentor to developers and founders, and a fixture of Seattle's tech community.
Materials scientist gains valuable research experience
The opportunities at the College of Engineering and Applied Science are what attracted Ananth Balasubramanian to the University of Cincinnati. He came to UC as a master's student and after two years, transitioned to a direct PhD program in materials science and engineering. Here, he works in the Digital Fabrication Laboratory and recently was named Graduate Student Engineer of the Month by CEAS.
Channel 9 Sports Director Alex Walker goes 1-on-1 with Florida head football coach Jon Sumrall
Channel 9 Sports Director Alex Walker goes 1-on-1 with Florida head football coach Jon Sumrall
Central District Health announces new director, Kristin Ryan
The Central District Health (CDH) Board announced that Kristin Ryan was chosen as the agency's new director.CDH says Ryan most recently worked at the City of Bo
Back in Business? The IRS Revives “Significant Issue” Rulings for Corporate Transactions
On May 5, 2026, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) released Revenue Procedure 2026-21 (the “Rev. Proc.”), which reinstates a program under which
How political parties took control of the EU Parliament’s bureaucracy — and sparked a staff rebellion
The Parliament’s administrative staff are supposed to be non-political, but unions say that’s not the case.
Digital Media and Entertainment Executive Michael Lambert Joins Kaleidescape Board of Directors
Kaleidescape, provider of the world's only high-fidelity movie library, today announced that veteran media executive Michael Lambert has joined its board of directors.
Digital Media and Entertainment Executive Michael Lambert Joins Kaleidescape Board of Directors
/PRNewswire/ -- Kaleidescape, provider of the world's only high-fidelity movie library, today announced that veteran media executive Michael Lambert has joined...
John Travolta Explains His New Look at the Cannes Film Festival: ‘I’m Going to Play the Part’
John Travolta was in costume at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood icon, 72, raised eyebrows wearing round glasses and a series of jaunty berets while in France to promote his directorial debut, ...
Dudamel on his life as he prepares to leave L.A. Phil for New York
As Gustavo Dudamel begins his final weeks in Walt Disney Concert Hall as L.A. Phil music director, he talks about what lies ahead and how he got there.
VIDEO: NFIB’s Josh McLeod Discusses Top Small Business Issues on C-SPAN
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 19, 2026) – NFIB Director of Federal Government Relations Josh McLeod joined C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Monday to discuss the current state of the small business economy and the top issues that are impacting Main Street. McLeod explains how the 20% Small Business Deduction
Electric Entertainment acquires exclusive North American rights to feature film All There Is
Directed by Emmy Award-winner Kit Williamson, the award-winning coming-of-age feature stars Jason Priestley, Mena Suvari, Elsie Fisher, and breakout actress Laurel Marsden.
MICC kicks off 2026 small business engagement, offers one-on-one sessions
The U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command kicks off its 2026 Advanced Planning Briefing for Industry May 18, bringing together contracting professionals, small business representatives and industry partners for a week long engagement focused on transparency, innovation and Army readiness. Hosted May 18-22 virtually by MICC’s Office of Small Business Programs, the 2026 APBI began with day one briefings from senior Army and MICC leaders, including MICC Commanding General Brig. Gen. Freddy Adams and MICC Deputy to the Commanding General Clay Cole. Attendees also heard from the Department of the Army Office of Small Business Programs, representatives from MICC’s Office of Small Business Programs and leaders from the 418th Contracting Support Brigade, 419th Contracting Support Brigade, the Field Directorate Office at Fort Eustis and the Field Directorate Office at Fort Sam Houston.
China's hottest brands like Luckin, Pop Mart aim to win over Americans
From Luckin to Pop Mart, China's hottest companies are trying to become cool, build stores in the US, and sell directly to Americans.
Dr. Francesca L. Beaudoin named School of Public Health dean at Brown
Currently serving as interim dean, the accomplished physician and scholar will advance academic excellence, expand research and provide strategic direction for the school.
Kudos to Cheer Club, College of Business faculty, Cybersecurity team and more
Becky Cottrell, Ph.D., Department of Social Work, and Bridget Arend, Ph.D., School of Education Becky Cottrell from the Department of Social Work and Bridget Arend, Ph.D., from the School of Education co-authored an article recently published in an international journal. Read the article. Biff Baker, Ph.D., College of Business Biff Baker, Ph.D., received a Best in Track award from the Society for Advancement of Management for research examining bureaucratic inefficiencies within Section 8 subsidized housing programs. The study focuses on how administrative delays and communication breakdowns can create housing instability for families and discourage landlord participation. It also offers recommendations to improve accountability and trust in public housing systems. Brendan Fry, Ph.D., Department of Mathematics and Statistics Brendan Fry, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, co-authored the article “Modeling the Impact of Venous Collapsibility on Retinal Oxygenation,” published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The interdisciplinary research brought together scholars from the University of Delaware, Indiana University Indianapolis, McGill University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. Access the article. Bridget Arend, Ph.D., School of Education Bridget Arend, Ph.D., professor in the School of Education, co-published the book “Facilitating Seven Ways of Learning: A Resource for More Purposeful, Effective, and Enjoyable College Teaching, Second Edition” with James R. Davis. The book explores practical approaches to improving college teaching and student learning experiences. Buy the book. College of Business Faculty At the 2026 Western Decision Sciences Institute international conference, Sally Baalbaki-Yassine, Ph.D., Debora Gilliard, Ph.D., and David Lynn Hoffman, Ph.D., from the College of Business received the Best Case Study Paper Award for “Oreo: A Global Success Story in Brand Evolution and Market Leadership.” Lisa McVicker, Ph.D., and Apryl Brodersen, Ph.D., also had their paper, “Electronic Performance Monitoring: Employer Panacea or Legal Quagmire?” accepted for publication in the Journal of Business Leadership. Community Engagement Exchange Program Metropolitan State University of Denver was selected to host international Fellow Aleja Henao Espitia of Bogotá, Colombia through the Community Engagement Exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State. View Espitia's LinkedIn profile. David Varel, Ph.D., College of Letters, Arts and Sciences MSU Denver historian David Varel, Ph.D., has been awarded a 2026 ACLS Fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies. The fellowship program supports outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, and selected just 63 scholars from more than 2,000 applicants this year. Varel’s project, “The Black Chicago School: Academic Activism in the Age of American Apartheid,” explores the work of Black scholars who challenged scientific racism, built alternative institutions and helped lay the foundation for the modern civil rights movement. The fellowship provides up to $60,000 to support full-time research and writing. Learn more about the fellowship. MSU Denver Office of Financial Aid Team Several MSU Denver employees were recognized for leadership and service during the Colorado Association of Financial Aid Administrators (CAFAA) conference held in May in Crested Butte. Don Holtzen, interim associate director of systems, chaired the conference and was recognized for his service as CAFAA conference chair and technology chair during the 2025-26 term. Holtzen also received the Postsecondary Institution Professional of the Year award, which recognizes financial-aid professionals who have made significant contributions to their institutions and to CAFAA. Tori Pacheco, associate director of Student Services, helped design décor and facilitate the conference and was recognized for her service as CAFAA secretary during the 2025-26 term. Destiny Candelaria, call center coordinator, served on the conference planning committee and presented on One Stops during the event. Michael Nguyen, executive director of Financial Aid and Scholarships, assisted as a CAFAA board member and was recognized for serving as president-elect during the 2025-26 term. Richard Balbag, program assistant I, received the Distinguished Support Staff Member of the Year award, honoring staff members who have made exceptional contributions to their financial-aid offices. Military Friendly Recognition Military Friendly has awarded MSU Denver Gold Status as a military-friendly university and ranked the University No. 7 nationally for military spouses. The recognition reflects MSU Denver’s strong support systems for veterans and military spouses, including transfer credit assistance and retention-focused resources. As of 2026, 1,050 military-connected students are enrolled at the University, advancing institutional priorities around serving veterans and supporting student retention. MSU Denver Cheer Club The MSU Denver Cheer Club earned third place in the 4-Year College Small Coed Intermediate division at the USA Spirit Nationals. Celebrate the win on Instagram. MSU Denver Cybersecurity Team An MSU Denver cybersecurity team earned first place in the Strategist category at the 2026 CYBER RECon National Competition hosted at Fort Meade, Maryland, by U.S. Cyber Command. Led by Jeffrey London, Ph.D., and undergraduate student Matthew Bopp, the team competed against universities and law schools nationwide with its 30-page legal analysis on cybersecurity and free speech titled “Freedom of Speech and MDM: Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation.” The paper also earned Bopp a personal invitation to apply to the University of Maryland School of Law. MSU Denver Debate Team MSU Denver Debate won the 2026 Sierra Sustainability Summit hosted at Yosemite National Park in April. Students Kat Conte and Simon Bernhard bested teams from George Washington University, Gallaudet University, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the University of San Francisco and Tennessee Tech in the modified present-and-defend style competition. Their proposal recommended adapting Colorado’s Keep Colorado Wild Pass model to support California state parks facing budget constraints. Learn about the summit. MSU Denver Women’s Golf MSU Denver Women’s Golf was represented on the national stage this month as junior Neige Dunn competed as an individual at the NCAA West Regional. She became the first Roadrunner in 10 years to qualify for NCAA Regionals as an individual. Get the details.
This unsealed Apollo 17 photo is the 'most significant evidence' in new UAP release, says doc director
'The Age of Disclosure' director Dan Farah reacts to the new tranche of UAP files released by the Department of War, singling out one image from the Apollo 17 moon landing as the 'most significant evidence.'
TXSE pulls from Jane Street, blockchain, D-FW business for new leaders
The upstart exchange announced its board of directors, while its parent company TXSE Group named a CFO.
‘Barefoot in the Park’ provides the laughs at Taproot Theatre
“Barefoot in the Park,” directed by Producing Artistic Director Karen Lund, is currently onstage at Taproot Theatre.
Whoa! Netflix is Sending Narnia Heading to Theaters...What This Means for the Future of Film
(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.) Here’s a funny thing about the debate over whether streamers should release their movies in theaters first: Both sides think the other side represents the “conventional wisdom”. If you’ve been reading me for any amount of time, or even just scanned my front page, you know I think movies make more money by having a robust theatrical window compared to going straight-to-streaming. I’ve published thousands of words on this topic. And for years, I felt like I was standing up to a wave of opposition. See, while the “put your films in theaters to make money” take was obvious at any point before 2019, post-streaming revolution, most of the trendy thinkers took the opposite point of view. Big names argued that Netflix putting their film straight-to-streaming (“S-to-S” from here on out) actually made more money. Netflix was “disrupting” theaters, just as they disrupted Blockbuster Video, and since innovation is always good, this too was a great idea. This thinking then leaked into the mainstream business outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. I read many articles whose take boiled down to “Netflix makes tons of money from S-to-S releases” and “theaters were in structural decline” anyways. Covid-19 shutting down theaters and the 2023 strikes shutting down film production seemingly justified this point of view, as the box office struggled to return to 2017-2019 heights. Yet I’ve also read folks arguing the opposite point: the conventional wisdom says to put films in theaters! From some writers’ points of view, “everyone” actually agrees/agreed with my “send your films to theaters” take—especially the stodgy traditional studios—and folks still didn’t understand Netflix’s genius. I feel like, for the last two years, many people have argued this point as if it’s conventional wisdom. You know what? I may have been wrong. At this point, the “S-to-S strategy makes money” might be the minority viewpoint. Especially with the news this month that Netflix will put at least one film—Greta Gerwig’s Narnia film The Magician’s Nephew—in theaters in 2027 for a full 49-day run is big news. So that’s the story of the week, but I’ll also explain why they’re making this move now and why Netflix may not completely embrace theaters, along with other topics, like how I don’t buy Disney’s “super app” strategy, the latest good news out of the unions, my take on the latest attacks against free speech, and a whole lot more. Let’s get started. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Netflix Goes to Theaters! Listen, I promise not to victory lap too hard today. As I just wrote, I’ve argued against sending films straight-to-streaming for—checks calendar—eight years now. Since 2018. Yikes. That’s a long time. And for years, others painted my thinking as “conventional” in that I was standing up for the status quo against trendy, cool disruption. And that’s not cool! But math is math, and I never could make the S-to-S numbers work. The only thing that ever enabled that model was Wall Street’s brief exuberance for it. It seems like the heads of Netflix now agree with me. (There were always rumors that former head of film for Netflix Scott Stuber argued internally for theatrical releases as well.) As they announced: “The Magician’s Nephew_—the first film in a Narnia series of films—will open on 12-Feb-2027, with a 49 day theatrical exclusive run.”_ I’m a little surprised at how little coverage this big change actually got. Credit to Bloomberg for leading with it and Matt Belloni’s The Town for highlighting it with the provocatively titled podcast “Hell Hath Frozen Over”. But after that? Instead of getting as much coverage as, say, the FCC’s latest egregious crackdown on free speech, this news story got crickets. But it’s massively more important for the future business of entertainment. So let’s start with the obvious question… Why Put Your Movies in Theaters? So…why should Netflix put (some!) of their movies in theaters? Well, I’ve already written that in a very, very, very long article from 2022: [ ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) [ The Data Is In: Theatrical Films Massively Outperform Straight-To-Streaming Films ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) Entertainment Strategy Guy · April 5, 2023 [ Read full story ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) To summarize, theatrical runs make much more money, especially blockbusters, because they earn more money per viewing,1 and that helps boost home entertainment sales. Theatrical films also perform as well or better than the streaming-only films. Now, partially this is driven by increased marketing for said films, but said marketing ultimately boosts the awareness of the movies and drives improved streaming and library performance as well. Again, I’ve made this case after reviewing the economic models and streaming data for years. Just last week, Emily Horgan also made the case for kids films! Yes, it is probably conventional wisdom, but that’s also because it’s true! I’d also argue we’ve seen a lot of data in the various studios’ behavior. As I’ve noted before, the more a studio needs to make money, the likelier they are to put films in theaters. As such, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony all send their major films to theaters. Even if they once made a big S-to-S push (*cough* Disney *cough*), they’ve since relented and returned to theaters. The tech companies don’t need to make money, per se, so it took them years to embrace theaters. Apple doesn’t need to make money because it doesn’t disclose their (likely) Quibi-sized losses each year. (They fear bad press more than losing money.) Amazon announced two years ago that they planned to make Amazon-MGM Studios/Prime Video profitable on its own, and guess what? Now they’re putting films in theaters. That leaves Netflix. They’re in between the “no need to make money at all” and the “desperately need to make money to offset linear TV declines”, so they had less pressure to put some films in theaters. Plus, for years, they were the sexy disruptor, and Wall Street rewarded them for that. (Honestly, they still do.) Yet, even Netflix likely saw the money they were leaving on the table (I’ve estimated it at an easy billion dollars before) so they changed their course. I heard one pundit argue that, because Netflix already makes so much money, they don’t need to make more money, which sort of goes against everything I’ve ever learned about business and economics. Again, to be super-nuanced, sending “films to theaters” does not mean EVERY film. TV movies have been a thing for decades. Lifetime films, Hallmark holiday films, Disney Channel Original Movies, and so on, don’t need theatrical runs. But films above a certain budget level (say $25 to 50 million) almost certainly need theaters to maximize their revenue. The Scenarios (with a Dose of Skepticism) Now time for some skepticism: it won’t surprise me at all if Netflix re-changes course. Specifically, Netflix announced that their Narnia film will go to theaters. And I’d bet anything we see KPop Demon Hunters 2: The Huntering2 also goes to theaters, cause it’s the surest hit outside of a Disney animated sequel right now. But how much does Netflix truly commit to theaters? They’ve already tried to emphasize that this is a one-off move. I see three broad scenarios:
Mike Murphy explains the budget and small business awards
CEO Of The Chamber, Mike Murphy was on The WTAX Morning NewsWatch to discuss everything that's happening in our capitol city.
Slumping Austin FC fires coach, sporting director before World Cup break
Slumping Austin FC fired head coach Nico Estévez and sporting director Rodolfo Borrell on Monday as the team sits near the bottom of the MLS standings just one season after returning to the playoffs.
Tom Brady gives commencement speech to Georgetown University business school graduates
Former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady urged the graduates to fight through adversity as he often did on the gridiron.
Austin FC fires coach Nico Estevez, sporting director Rodolfo Borrell
Austin FC fired both manager Nico Estevez and sporting director Rodolfo Borrell after the team's struggles came to a head in a 2-1 loss to Sporting Kansas City.
Delaware Division of Public Health Director Announces Retirement - State of Delaware News
DOVER, Del. (May 18, 2026) — After 32 years of dedicated service, Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) Director Steven Blessing announced his retirement effective July 1, 2026. The first non-physician DPH Director in state history, Blessing led the organization through many changes during his tenure and leaves a legacy of meaningful initiatives that have, […]
Austin FC fires head coach, sporting director as MLS struggles continue
Austin follows Orlando, Montreal, Miami and Columbus in becoming the fifth MLS team to make an early-season coaching change
Austin FC fires sporting director Rodolfo Borrell, head coach Nico Estevez
Precourt fired sporting director Rodolfo Borrell and head coach Nico Estevez, he announced Monday. Davy Arnaud will take over as the interim head coach, and the search to fill both positions will b…
Austin FC Parts Ways with Sporting Director Rodolfo Borrell and Head Coach Nico Estévez
Austin FC today announced that the Club has parted ways with Sporting Director Rodolfo Borrell and Head Coach Nico Estévez, effective immediately. The Club has begun searches for its next Sporting Director and Head Coach while implementing an interim leadership structure for Soccer Operations. Davy Arnaud has been appointed Interim
New MatterChat Model Helps AI to ‘See’ the Language of Science
From writing emails to generating computer code, much of the artificial intelligence prevalent in our daily lives has succeeded by mastering one domain: text. However, this leaves a major blind spot in the physical sciences, where models depend on the high-resolution, three-dimensional data of the physical world, like the intricate lattice of atoms in a crystal. Delivering on the promise of using AI for science requires teaching these data-driven text models to seamlessly “talk to” physics-based models. Now, a new AI framework from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), called MatterChat, solves this problem by creating a specialized “bridge.” It connects the conversational power of a Large Language Model (LLM) with a physics-based AI that models “interatomic potentials”: the complex physical forces between atoms. The resulting system already significantly outperforms general-purpose AI tools like GPT-4 at predicting material properties, and the team hopes it can accelerate scientific discovery by serving as a robust research partner that provides grounded insights and generates step-by-step instructions for synthesizing novel materials. A paper describing this work was recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence. “Traditional simulations can provide the physical rigor required for materials science, yet their computational cost remains prohibitive for high-throughput screening. Conversely, while LLMs excel at rapid knowledge synthesis, they inherently lack the ‘structural vision’ to interpret materials directly from their underlying atomic coordinates,” said Yingheng Tang, a postdoctoral researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Applied Math and Computational Research Division (AMCR) and lead author on the paper. “MatterChat was built to solve this dilemma, empowering LLMs with a structural ‘vision’ that allows researchers to leverage their full potential for solving complex, real-world materials challenges.” Empowering language models to solve complex challenges in materials science To build MatterChat, the Berkeley Lab team drew inspiration from technologies like Vision Question Answering (VQA) and Text-to-Image (T2I) generation. In these tasks, AI must translate high-level text concepts into visual images, or vice versa. Doing so requires developers to build tools that “bridge” two fundamentally different forms of data. The researchers adapted this concept to the physical sciences. With MatterChat, they created a “bridge model” that successfully connects an LLM’s general knowledge with the deep understanding of the atomic-scale world encoded in scientific interatomic potentials. Until now, researchers using LLMs to solve materials problems usually had to feed them raw data files as if they were just strings of text. It’s like asking an AI to understand a complex 3D engine based only on a parts list: the LLM can read the names, but it can’t “see” how the atoms fit together in space. MatterChat solves this by training a specialized AI bridge model, pre-trained on millions of crystal structures and an LLM, to align the LLM’s representation of the world with the interatomic potential’s representation of the world. The bridge model can translate physical insights into a format the LLM can actually understand. By giving the LLM these “scientific eyes”— a scientific “inductive bias” in the terminology of AI — the Berkeley Lab team has transformed it into a robust research tool capable of providing grounded scientific insights into complex materials challenges, such as predicting thermal stability or analyzing electronic band gaps. “We think of atoms as living in a physical space, but from a machine learning perspective, they are just vectors living in some very non-trivially structured manifold in a high-dimensional Euclidean space; and, of course, the same is true for the sentences and paragraphs that we use to express our ideas about those atoms,” said co-author Michael Mahoney, Berkeley Lab’s Scientific Data Division (SDD) AI Initiative Research Lead. “The bridge model basically gets those two structures to ‘talk with’ each other.” As a proof-of-concept of this general approach, the team trained their bridge model on a dataset curated by pairing nearly 143,000 stable atomic structures from the Materials Project with their corresponding physical properties. This training data was automatically assembled using the Materials Project’s API and deliberately enriched with properties fundamental to microelectronics design — like formation energy and bandgap — allowing MatterChat to learn the complex patterns connecting a material’s atomic blueprint to its functional performance. To validate their model, the researchers benchmarked MatterChat against a suite of other AI systems, from general-purpose LLMs to other specialized scientific AI methods. The results show that MatterChat consistently outperformed its competitors across a range of tasks. The model was more accurate in classifying material types and demonstrated superior precision in predicting numerical properties. For example, it excelled at predicting a material’s bandgap, a property critical for designing new electronics from high-capacity energy storage to next-generation computer chips. “Our design is significantly more efficient because we don’t have to build a massive AI model from the ground up,” said co-author Zhi (Jackie) Yao, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s AMCR. “Instead, we take two powerful, pre-trained models — a structural encoder for materials physics and an open-source LLM — and use them off-the-shelf. The only component we actually train is the lightweight ‘bridge model’ that translates between them. It’s the difference between building an entire car factory and simply designing a smart adapter that connects a world-class engine to a world-class navigation system. This approach is not only computationally efficient, but also makes the system modular, so we can easily upgrade components or adapt the bridge for other scientific domains in the future.” Crucially, this modular design highlights exactly how institutions like Berkeley Lab and the Department of Energy are carving out a highly valuable niche in the booming AI landscape. Rather than competing with Silicon Valley tech giants to build ever-larger language models from scratch, the lab is focusing on the specialized connective tissue that makes commercial AI useful for hardcore science. Because the bridge model approach underlying MatterChat is forward-compatible, it is perfectly positioned to leverage these parallel tracks of innovation. As Mahoney pointed out, “We expect that industry will continue to develop improved LLMs, and we expect domain scientists and facilities will continue to generate new data. An important part of scientific machine learning is not simply to solve problems on today’s data, but instead to develop general methods that will be forward-compatible with orders of magnitude more data, whether from scientific domains or from LLMs.” According to Yao, the MatterChat project, which was initially developed and enhanced with funding from a Berkeley Lab Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) Program, will now expand its capabilities. In a collaboration with Fermilab, MatterChat is already contributing to a U.S. Department of Energy Genesis Mission project — called Accelerating eXtreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon (AXESS) — that aims to speed up the development of next-generation, high-speed, radiation-hardened detectors for challenging particle physics experiments by using advanced 3D integrated circuits (chiplets) and AI-driven data analysis. In addition to the LDRD support, the team also credits supercomputing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), located at Berkeley Lab, with MatterChat’s success. “We are incredibly grateful to NERSC; this research simply would not have happened without access to the Perlmutter supercomputer through their AI for Science program,” said Tang. Wenbin Xu, a NERSC postdoctoral fellow at the time, was also a major co-author of the work, as was Benjamin Erichson, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s SDD, highlighting the benefits of AMCR-SDD collaboration on AI for science. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Bahamian public health leader Dr. Merceline Dahl-Regis receives WHO Global Health Leaders Award at 79th World Health Assembly
Geneva, Switzerland, 18 May 2026 (PAHO) — Dr. Merceline Dahl-Regis of The Bahamas was recognized today with the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General’s Global Health Leaders Award during the High-Level Welcome of the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly (WHA79), honoring her lifelong contribution to public health in the Americas and globally.
Director-General presents Award for Global Health to four distinguished leaders
At the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has presented four distinguished leaders with the Award for Global Health, recognizing their lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to improving the health and well-being of communities worldwide.
Indianapolis Tabbed No. 3 Best Sports Business City by Sports Business Journal
CHARLOTTE – Sports Business Journal (SBJ) has named Indianapolis as the No. 3 Best Sports Business City in the United States, the organization announced on Monday. The Best Sports Business Cities™ list highlights the top 50 cities for businesses operating in and around sports and influences strategic direction for sports business professionals across the United States. Started in 2023, Best Sports Business Cities™ is an editorial initiative developed by Sports Business Journal, the industry’s leading news source on the business of sports. Using extensive data from dozens of sources and insights from nearly 120 influential sports business executives, SBJ evaluated more than 2,000 markets to identify the top cities based on opportunity, economic environment and industry sentiment to identify cities with strong business presence, hiring potential and long-term investment viability.
Indianapolis Tabbed No. 3 Best Sports Business City by Sports Business Journal
CHARLOTTE – Sports Business Journal (SBJ) has named Indianapolis as the No. 3 Best Sports Business City in the United States, the organization announced on Monday. The Best Sports Business Cities™ list highlights the top 50 cities for businesses operating in and around sports and influences strategic direction for sports business professionals across the United States. Started in 2023, Best Sports Business Cities™ is an editorial initiative developed by Sports Business Journal, the industry’s leading news source on the business of sports. Using extensive data from dozens of sources and insights from nearly 120 influential sports business executives, SBJ evaluated more than 2,000 markets to identify the top cities based on opportunity, economic environment and industry sentiment to identify cities with strong business presence, hiring potential and long-term investment viability.
Sports Business Journal Announces the 2026 Best Sports Business Cities™ in the U.S.
Atlanta has been named the No. 1 Sports Business City in Sports Business Journal's annual rankings. The Best Sports Business Cities™ list highlights the top 50 cities for businesses operating in and around sports and influences strategic direction for sports business professionals across the United States.
How Dallas Clinics Overcome Mental Health Stigma
Counselors passed out art supplies at a Dallas mental health workshop last month, encouraging participants to express their emotions. One woman held up a collage with an image of a bare tree, witho…
Bristol City recruit Ellis as sporting director
Bristol City name former Arsenal technical director James Ellis as sporting director and reveal he has already been involved in the head coach search.
Jewish lawmakers face an explosion of antisemitism
The hate is direct, explicit and shockingly casual.
‘It’s not supposed to look like you’re going to dive in’: Historians criticize Trump’s Reflecting Pool makeover as group sues
Workers with boots dyed an “American Flag Blue” have painted over about two-thirds of the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, covering the dull gray with bright azure following a directive by President Donald Trump to expedite the pace of the project.
Exploit available for new DirtyDecrypt Linux root escalation flaw
A recently patched local privilege escalation vulnerability in the Linux kernel's rxgk module now has a proof-of-concept exploit that allows attackers to gain root access on some Linux systems.
UK-registered firms linked to payments for small-boat crossings, BBC finds
Smugglers are directing migrants to pay using a network of British businesses, secret filming reveals.
MarketInk: After 50 years of covering politicians, ex-KUSI news director Steve Cohen is running for Congress
Cohen is challenging longtime incumbent Scott Peters in California’s 50th Congressional District.
Rossview High boys’ soccer falls in tight battle with Houston, 2026 spring sports season officially ends
The Houston Mustangs traveled to Exit 8 at Rossview High School for a sectional soccer match against the Hawks, with the right to go to the state tournament on the line.
Quantum ghost imaging works using only sunlight in stunning new experiment
Scientists have achieved something that once sounded almost impossible: using ordinary sunlight to create quantum-linked photon pairs, a phenomenon normally dependent on precise laboratory lasers. By building a sun-tracking system that funnels sunlight through optical fiber into a special crystal, researchers generated strongly correlated photons capable of performing “ghost imaging,” where images are reconstructed indirectly through quantum correlations. Remarkably, the sunlight-powered setup produced image quality close to that of a traditional laser system, even recreating detailed images like a “ghost face.”
Paratici: Fiorentina director plays down Milan rumours
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Barcelona sporting director working on fixing overreliance on Spanish international
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Conte set for showdown talks with Napoli within 10 days
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WHO declares global health emergency over rare variant of Ebola outbreak in Africa
WHO Director-General declared the Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak
The Ebola outbreak has killed a suspected 80 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Opinion | ‘Ghost networks’ make finding mental health care harder
State should enforce law requiring insurers to maintain accurate provider directories
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared the Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths. In a post on X on Sunday, the World Health Organization said the outbreak of the diseas...
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreaks in Congo and Uganda
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared the Ebola disease outbreaks in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths.
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreaks in Congo and Uganda
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared the Ebola disease outbreaks in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths.
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared the Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths.
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared the Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths.
I-285 shutdown impacts SW Atlanta businesses during construction project: ‘It’s been very slow’
GDOT shut down a two-mile stretch of I-285 in both directions between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Cascade Road from Friday night through Monday morning.
Steam Controller gains SDL support for games outside Steam
Steam Controller mappings are now part of SDL Simple DirectMedia Layer, better known as SDL, is a cross-platform software library used by games,
Scientists discover why some cancers survive chemotherapy
Scientists have uncovered a surprising new trick used by one of cancer’s most notorious proteins. MYC, already infamous for fueling runaway tumor growth, also appears to help cancer cells survive by repairing their damaged DNA — including damage caused by chemotherapy and radiation. Researchers found that MYC can rush directly to broken DNA and recruit repair machinery, effectively helping tumors recover from treatments meant to destroy them.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
Cannes Critics' Week Yemen Film Interview: Sara Ishaq on 'The Station'
Oscar-nominated Yemeni-Scottish director Sara Ishaq wants to "change the narrative" with her fiction feature debut, set at a women-only gas station, which is premiering in the Cannes Critics’ Week lineup.
America In Focus: Hotter inflation doesn’t stop consumers, investors
American consumers are keeping a close eye on economic data, as gas prices fueled an inflation surge of 3.8% in the U.S. last month.
Scientists reversed memory loss by recharging the brain’s tiny engines
Researchers have shown for the first time that malfunctioning mitochondria — the cell’s energy generators — may directly cause cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases. By creating a new tool that temporarily boosts mitochondrial activity in the brain, scientists restored memory performance in mouse models of dementia. The discovery hints that energy failure inside neurons could happen before brain cells die, potentially offering a new target for future Alzheimer’s treatments.
First-ever direct image of the cosmic web reveals the Universe’s hidden highways
Astronomers have revealed the sharpest image ever captured of a filament in the cosmic web — the enormous hidden structure connecting galaxies across the Universe. The glowing strand stretches 3 million light-years and links two galaxies from nearly 12 billion years ago. By observing this faint intergalactic gas directly for the first time in such detail, scientists gained new insight into how galaxies are fueled and formed.
Supercool Brings Fortune 500 Video Ads to Small Businesses
Famous Labs' creative AI platform has released a new video production feature that allows small business owners to create professional video ads without a crew, a director, or editing software.Miami, FL, May 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Supercool, a creative AI platform developed by Famous Labs, has announced the launch of Advanced Movie Maker, a new feature that allows small business owners to produce cinematic video ads by simply describing what they want. No production crew. No studio. No edi
Andalusia election offers clues to Spain’s political trajectory
Contest in the most populous Spanish region will help determine whether the conservative People’s Party will take a moderate or hard-line approach in the 2027 general election.
Joao Pedro transfer news: Barcelona sporting director Deco meets with Chelsea striker's agent
Former medical director of Ames health spa faces more sanctions
The former medical director of an Ames health spa is facing sanctions from a second state licensing board.
With Possible Raúl Castro Indictment, U.S. Eyes Venezuela Playbook
Amid stepped-up surveillance flights, a visit of the C.I.A. director and an energy embargo, the White House is trying to increase pressure on Cuba.
Alexi: IL must be good for business
In a family business, "there's no such thing as a weekend. There's no such thing as nights off."
Feature: Moore ’26 Keeps Busy with Double Science Major and Music
Luke Moore ’26 came to Kansas Wesleyan on a music scholarship. He’s graduating this weekend (May 16) with a double major in Chemistry and Physics. He’s as active on the music side as he is with his science activities — he’s played the cello for 10 years, including four years at Kansas Wesleyan. It’s common, he said, for scientists and musicians to share those interests. “I’ve spoken to plenty of musicians who would have done science if they weren’t musicians, and I’ve talked to plenty of scientists who would have done music if they weren’t scientists,” Mooresaid. He played the cello in the string orchestra, which he’s done since his first year, and as a junior and senior, sang in the Philharmonic Choir as a bass. He hadn’t sung in a choir since middle schoolin Garden City, but he found he really enjoys that aspect of his college career. Also as a junior, Moore helped re-activate the STEM Club as vice president. For two years, he helped build the club’s battlebot. Last year the bot came home from battles in Kansas City in pieces, lots of pieces. This year it came home with the first-place trophy. He’s helped make frozen nitrogen ice cream at Homecoming and other events and helped organize the STEM Club’s first gingerbread house competition for the holidays. Willing to get his hands – and face – dirty for science, he encouraged fellow musicians and scientists to smash him in the face with whipped cream pies on Pi Day (March 14) as a fundraiser for the STEM Club. His capstone project involved developing a metallic organic framework (MOF) that takes a methylene blue dye out of water. “I’m proud that I was able to design this project, and I was proud that I did end up making the MOF,” Moore said. The professors and attitudes at KWU have made all this possible. “I don’t actually have time for everything,” Moore said. “I have to prioritize things. Things inevitably fall through the cracks, but it’s hard for me to choose one over the other, because I like a lot of things. And I don’t want to not do music, and I don’t want to not do science.” Moore said that Kansas Wesleyan, as a smaller university, gives students the opportunity to try things. “If I were to want to be in a music ensemble, it would probably be a bit harder in a larger school. One nice thing about this school is that everyone’s involved in something,” he said. “Professors know that you have other things going on, and they are flexible and understanding.” Moore has applied to grad schools, with an goal of earning his Ph.D. and landing at a university big enough to allow for a small research team that also gives him an opportunity to teach. He’s off to a good start. Moore is receiving the award for Outstanding Research in the Math, Physics and Computer Studies Department at Commencement this year. Story by Jean Kozubowski
‘We really need this science’: Here’s some of the research happening at NH’s experimental forests
Simulating ice storms, the discovery of acid rain and more. Hubbard Brook’s executive director Anthea Lavallee spoke with NHPR’s Julia Barnett on what New Hampshire’s experimental forests do and what she’s keeping an eye on moving forward as the Forest Service continues its nationwide reorganization.
SC health director out of the job after failing to receive Senate approval
A 1993 law that let the governor hire and fire agency heads meant Edward Simmer's tenure ended with the regular legislative session.
Saints Jamie Meeks awarded ASPDA Service Award
Director of Sports Nutrition honored at American Sports and Performance Dietitians Association’s 18th Annual Conference
Andreas Rettig: 'You can't separate sports and politics'
The World Cup in the USA, Canada, and Mexico is sparking discussions beyond the realm of football. DFB Director Andreas Rettig discusses the Germany team and the geopolitical situation in an interview with DW.