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Pharma bribery corrupts health care, puts patients at risk, new review warns

Sham clinical studies, slush funds and shell companies: A new review shows how pharma firms allegedly bribed their way to drug approvals and sales.

Mar 25 • 8:33 AM EDT • Health • usrtk.org

Professor motivates students to nurture their inner entrepreneur

Mercer University professor Dr. Briana Stenard approaches teaching with a spirit that demonstrates that the best learning prioritizes confidence and ingenuity.

Mar 25 • 8:30 AM EDT • Business • den.mercer.edu

This Week in Politics: Developments in the U.S. and Iran War

The U.S. war with Iran rages on and continues to draw mounting public opposition and to induce harsh economic impacts. The conflict has prompted substantial blowback for the Trump administration. A recent poll from Quinnipiac University found that a majority (53%) of U.S. voters disapproved of U.S. military action against Iran, with a larger percentage...

Mar 25 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • villanovan.com

Spotter report: YouTube-led shows are reaching legacy TV levels

A new Spotter report says creator shows are approaching the output of legacy TV. The startup wants advertisers to shift spending.

Mar 25 • 7:10 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Inside WPP’s new business approach under Cindy Rose

WPP has shown signs of life under new CEO Cindy Rose. Ad Age digs into what's working.

Mar 25 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • adage.com

Caldara overlooked facts in slamming utilities

Normally, I appreciate the variety of perspectives published on Colorado Politics. But regarding Jon Caldara’s recent column on Xcel, he irresponsibly neglects key facts to the point of annihilating credibility (“Are our overlords normalizing power outages?” March 15). He neglects any discussion regarding the nuance of safety (or fiduciary responsibility) versus inconvenience, for example: Is […]

Mar 25 • 2:30 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

The Student Entertainment Board to host their third drag show on March 27

SEB hosts various events throughout the school year, from all night parties and haunted houses to daily movie nights and more. As spring approaches and the clocks move forward, SEB shifts its focus to one of campuses most anticipated and vibrant events of the season: an Up All Night Drag Show. This year, the drag...

Mar 24 • 10:07 PM EDT • Entertainment • dailyevergreen.com

Belton approves development plan for Uptown Entertainment District, completion expected in 2032

The city of Belton approved a rezoning application and preliminary development plan for the Uptown Entertainment District, expected to bring 600 new homes and residents.

Mar 24 • 8:24 PM EDT • Entertainment • kshb.com

Report: Mental health and homelessness services are expanding in Sonoma County under Measure O

Access to mental health care, substance use treatment and homelessness services has expanded across Sonoma County as voter-approved Measure O approaches the midpoint of its 10-year term, according to a new report presented today to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Mar 24 • 7:19 PM EDT • Health • sonomacounty.gov

City says closing nuisance businesses cuts crime. Some residents question the approach

Some city leaders say shutting down nuisance businesses reduces crime, but some residents argue the closures just shift problems elsewhere.

Mar 24 • 5:16 PM EDT • Business • wcpo.com

Approximately 1,000 US soldiers preparing to deploy to the Middle East to be available for Iran operations

Approximately 1,000 US soldiers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are expecting to deploy in coming days to the Middle East, according to two sources familiar with the matter, adding to the growing military firepower in the region as the Trump administration says it is in talks with Iran to end the conflict

Mar 24 • 5:14 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Grifols approves IPO of its US biopharma business

Healthcare ​company Grifols ‌said ​on ​Tuesday it ⁠has ​approved ​a U.S. ​initial ​public offering of ‌its ⁠U.S. biopharma ​business.

Mar 24 • 5:11 PM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Board Approves Horvath Motion to Evaluate Warner Bros Acquisition and Protect LA Entertainment Jobs - Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath

Today, the Board approved a motion to analyze the potential economic impacts of the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger and advance efforts to protect the region’s entertainment workforce.

Mar 24 • 3:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • lindseyhorvath.lacounty.gov

Funding Uncertainty Has Consequences

We're asking the U.S. government to release holds on Congressionally-appropriated funding for scientific research, education, and critical activities at the earliest possible time.

Mar 24 • 2:25 PM EDT • Science • fas.org

Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox

Alinea Analytics estimates show that Marathon has generated gross revenues of $55M via 1.2M copies sold on Steam, PS5, and Xbox: Looking at the split between Steam, PS5, and Xbox, Steam is clearly the main platform for Marathon, accounting for a little under 70% of the audience (800K copies sold). Meanwhile, PS5 takes about 19% (217K) and Xbox (including console, PC, and cloud) accounts for a bit over 11% or 133K. Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate. PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases). Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe As for Marathon, the consensus among hardcore players who pushed through the awkward onboarding phase – myself included – is that it’s fantastic. The gunplay, aesthetic, and presentation are among the best in the shooter genre. A great game doesn’t always equal an immediate hit, though, as shown by our estimates. Things are looking lukewarm right now. But this might be one of those marathon-not-a-sprint situations. Had to, didn’t I? Why wasn’t Marathon a hit on the same level as Arc Raiders? One topic that came up in a lot of conversations at GDC this year was why Marathon hasn’t hit the same stratosphere as Arc Raiders. On paper, they’re both extraction shooters, and Marathon has the Bungie pedigree – the house that built the gold standard for gunplay in Halo and Destiny. Marathon’s neon-futuristic aesthetic also distinguishes itself from the gritty realism of Tarkov or the post-apocalyptic hope of ARC Raiders. But vibes can only get you so far for first impressions if the onboarding feels like a brick wall. Marathon is a sweaty PvP-focused experience with a first-time user experience and UI that I can only describe as dreadful. Players are dropped into a complex ecosystem where the UI, though visually striking, is functionally uninformative, forcing users to manually hover over nondescript, identical icons just to identify basic gear or weapon mods. This lack of clarity is compounded by punishing mechanics like a severe heat gauge for movement and a scarcity of vital resources, all without a clear tutorial or a low-stakes mode to learn the ropes. Most people – even top streamers and veteran shooter players – have no idea what’s going on in Marathon at first. Arc is on the complete other end of the spectrum. As we covered here and here, Arc Raiders offers a more collaborative, approachable loop where players often work together toward shared goals. And the objectives are instantly clear. To many players, this contrast only emphasised Marathon’s issues, especially during the testing period. Players understand the Arc Raiders loop within 30 minutes, while Marathon acts as a massive filter, chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they can experience the depth of Bungie’s signature gunplay. What I’m getting at here is that the poor first-time user experience of Marathon’s Server Slam likely stifled launch sales, while the opposite was true for Arc. Let’s look at the pre-launch copies sold for each game during their respective Server Slams (launch-aligned) : Looking at the trajectory: Arc Raiders saw a massive 80% jump in copies sold during its three-day Server Slam (day -13 to -11). Players jumped in, realised the water was fine, and immediately opened their wallets. Marathon, meanwhile, saw a 49% increase in the four days following its Slam (Day -7 to -3). At the time of each game’s respective launch, Arc Raiders had nearly double the Steam footprint of Marathon – and word of mouth only continued to grow. Bungie could have had more time to fix the onboarding process had the beta happened earlier. But Marathon launched three days after the beta finished. These factors limited the launch sales quite a bit, I reckon. Marathon has found a niche audience, though Despite the friction-heavy start, the data suggests that those who survived Marathon’s onboarding are loving life. We’ve been tracking cross-platform DAUs, and while there’s the expected post-launch leakage, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478K total DAUs on its first Saturday, Marathon has settled into a respectable rhythm, holding 345K DAUs as of yesterday and averaging 380K DAUs across the weekend. Steam continues to do the heavy lifting here, consistently accounting for the lion’s share of the daily players. Players have been putting in the hours, too: On Steam, Marathon’s average playtime has climbed to 27.8 hours, significantly outpacing the console averages on PS5 (16.5h) and Xbox (17.3h). Even more telling than the averages: 22% of the Steam audience has surged past the 50-hour mark, and nearly 7% have already logged over 100 hours. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe This data suggests that once the Bungie magic clicks, it hooks players deeper than the average extraction shooter. There’s also started to be a shift in the game’s discourse. Marathon launched as one of those games that’s cool to hate. But as Marathon’s 100-hour club grows, we’re seeing conversations around its mechanical merit outweigh the negativity. Several high-profile creators, who were initially vocal critics, have spent the last week coming around on the mechanical depth of the endgame. It’s a subtle but positive signal; the hate train is losing steam, and a new narrative about the game is emerging. Bungie faithfuls unite Another interesting metric in Marathon’s first few weeks is who, exactly, is playing. Bungie leans heavily on its prestige as the “makers of Halo and Destiny,” in its marketing, and that message has clearly hit the mark. On Steam, the gravity (hammer) of Bungie’s previous work is unavoidable. A staggering 78.2% of Marathon players also played Destiny 2. The trend carries across other platforms, with 74.2% of PS5 players and 82.7% of Xbox players also having played Destiny 2. The Halo legacy lives on, it seems. More on that in a bit. While Destiny 2 went free to play, these numbers still represent a high-intent migration of a fanbase that trusts Bungie’s specific brand of kinetic gunplay and cryptic world-building. The Xbox data adds another layer of legacy. About 85.7% of Marathon players on Xbox have played Halo Infinite, while over half of the Steam audience has spent time in Halo Infinite and 36.1% in the Master Chief Collection (a paid collection of the old Bungie-made legacy games). Interestingly, we see a 55.9% overlap with ARC Raiders on Steam. Overlap is even higher there on PlayStation (60.5%) and Xbox (66.5%). And there’s also significant crossover with Helldivers 2 on all platforms, too. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe Bungie has found some of its fans with Marathon, and the challenge now is keeping this engaged in a high-stakes PvP environment when they’ve spent the last decade primarily enjoying the power fantasies of PvE. On that note… Go the full 26 miles? Or cut and run? Time for some could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. These things would have improved Marathon’s performance at launch: A more robust onboarding process, perhaps in the form of a short single-player/PvE campaign. We know Bungie fans love this stuff. A traditional arena-based mode akin to Destiny’s Crucible could have been a bridge for the cautious players who’d have been otherwise deterred by the Server Slam. It’s also a great palate cleanser after getting merked. Introducing a dedicated PvE environment would have similarly diversified the conversation and lowered the barrier for the Bungie faithful who found the pure PvP extraction loop too abrasive. PvE is safer than PvP these days. There’s an argument that a thin PvE mode would have just felt like a budget Destiny, potentially hurting the brand more. But given how dire the FTUE is, I think it would have been a net positive. Any kind of tutorialised loop that demystifies the stakes, really. While there is merit in a studio sticking firmly to a singular creative vision, and going all in on the hardcore extraction loop. Less forgiving is the technical reality is that the user interface and first-time user experience (FTUE) were not at a commercial standard for launch. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe In a landscape where player time is oversaturated and the most contested currency, a flawed FTUE is a critical failure point. But it’s not all doom and gloom, as Marathon has an incredible, unique gameplay loop, suggesting that financial success is still attainable if Bungie can pivot effectively. Bungie and PlayStation now face a difficult strategic crossroads, though – one within a challenging games market. They could: Double down on Marathon with a long-term Rainbow Six Siege- or No Man’s Sky-style recovery plan, which is something I heard Last Stand Media’s Chris Maldonado mention last week. While this could be a sunk-cost fallacy in action, it could eventually yield the audience the game’s mechanical depth deserves. Shift focus toward the inevitable Destiny 3 or another project, mitigating the escalating opportunity cost and cutting their losses, so to speak. Doing both is an expensive proposition, given the high overhead and burn rate of operating out of Bellevue, Washington. With Sony recently demonstrating a lower threshold for underperforming studios and projects, the margin for error has vanished. Whatever happens, the next six months will determine whether Marathon becomes a cornerstone of Sony’s live-service portfolio or a cautionary tale of vision exceeding accessibility. I’m hoping it’s the former, because Marathon rocks. As always, hit subscribe to get updates on Marathon and other relevant games. Subscribe Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Mar 24 • 2:06 PM EDT • Technology • alineaanalytics.substack.com

Personnel note: Natalie Brown departs RSA, heads back to Senate as Danny Burgess Senior Aide

'During her time with us, she added significant value to our clients and brought a level of direction and strategy to our Session approach and appropriations process.'

Mar 24 • 9:02 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Optical Vortex Phase Masks for the Detection of Habitable Worlds

A team of NASA researchers is developing new types of optical masks that could help enable the many orders of magnitude of starlight suppression needed for future space observatories to pick out very faint habitable exoplanets from the far brighter glare of their stellar hosts.

Mar 24 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Pacers Sports & Entertainment Launches Fieldhouse Media Network, Delivering First-Of-Its-Kind Global Media Channel for Partners

Deloitte and Yieldmo help PS&E to grow market size through first-party fan data while producing convertible ROI INDIANAPOLIS (March 24, 2026) – Pacers Sports & Entertainment today launched the Fieldhouse Media Network, a first-of-its-kind global AI-powered media platform built on authenticated sports fandom, giving brands measurable access to one of the most engaged audiences – the fan. Developed in collaboration with Deloitte and Yieldmo, the network leverages Yieldmo’s Ymax.ai, an advertising platform with a dedicated sports vertical, and Converge™ by Deloitte for Sports fan data platform built on Deloitte Ascend™ to activate first-party, authenticated data from approximately 250 million sports and entertainment fans worldwide in a privacy-safe, cookieless […]

Mar 24 • 8:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • fever.wnba.com

Pacers Sports & Entertainment Launches Fieldhouse Media Network, Delivering First-Of-Its-Kind Global Media Channel for Partners

Deloitte and Yieldmo help PS&E to grow market size through first-party fan data while producing convertible ROI INDIANAPOLIS (March 24, 2026) – Pacers Sports & Entertainment today launched the Fieldhouse Media Network, a first-of-its-kind global AI-powered media platform built on authenticated sports fandom, giving brands measurable access to one of the most engaged audiences – the fan. Developed in collaboration with Deloitte and Yieldmo, the network leverages Yieldmo’s Ymax.ai, an advertising platform with a dedicated sports vertical, and Converge™ by Deloitte for Sports fan data platform built on Deloitte Ascend™ to activate first-party, authenticated data from approximately 250 million sports and entertainment fans worldwide in a privacy-safe, cookieless […]

Mar 24 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • fever.wnba.com

Sports Take: 4 things to watch as spring practice approaches

Baylor football’s spring practice opens Tuesday. Here are four major storylines to watch for.

Mar 24 • 12:45 AM EDT • Sports • baylorlariat.com

Segment: Financing Action on Extreme Heat and Maternal and Newborn Health: The Way Forward

The segment “Financing Action on Extreme Heat and Maternal and Newborn Health: The Way Forward” will examine how innovative and better-aligned financing approaches can respond to these growing risks. Discussions will highlight country experiences in mobilizing domestic resources, opportunities to unlock and scale climate finance, and the role of heat-smart innovations in building resilient health systems. Particular attention will be given to low- and middle-income countries, where exposure and vulnerability remain highest, and where integrated solutions can deliver the greatest impact.

Mar 23 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • pmnch.who.int

How Trump shifted from threatening Iran’s power plants to touting peace talks

President Donald Trump’s sudden turnabout and, according to him, rapidly advancing peace talks made for an abrupt shift in the administration’s approach to the Iran war.

Mar 23 • 6:08 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

After patient deaths, Idaho budget committee approves restoring cut Medicaid mental health programs

The Idaho Legislature will consider restoring mental health programs the state cut to comply with the governor’s order for budget cuts.

Mar 23 • 5:34 PM EDT • Health • idahocapitalsun.com

Funding restored for crucial behavioral health programs, leaving related services as is

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted to restore funding for two crucial behavioral health programs. Leaving other supplemental services on the table

Mar 23 • 3:53 PM EDT • Health • idahonews.com

New York approves cannabis for anxiety. Science says it may not help

A Lancet Psychiatry study found no evidence cannabinoids treat anxiety, PTSD. In NY, any practitioner can certify a patient for medical cannabis for any condition they deem appropriate.

Mar 23 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • timesunion.com

Ambani's Reliance Jio: businesses and investors of the IPO-bound firm

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Platforms is gearing up to file papers seeking regulatory approvals for a Mumbai listing, in what is likely to be the biggest-ever stock offering in the country.

Mar 23 • 5:39 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Your Thymus and Your Healthspan

Our thymus gland plays a central role in the development or our immune system, specifically for supporting T cell development (how these cells got their name, maturation and differentiation in the thymus) and discriminating between self and foreign, non-self antigen proteins with production of dendritic cells. As we age, our thymus gland shrinks—the process known as involution—with progressive change from spongy to fatty tissue, with loss of functionality. But this process, with respect to timeline and extent, markedly varies from one person to the next. And to make things even more complicated, our thymus gland anatomy and precise location in the chest also is highly variable. So the famous Frank Netter diagrams from the 1960s (such as at left below) don’t capture the remarkable heterogeneity that a random set of 12 chest CT scans (below at right). What I consider as 2 landmark papers in Nature this week (here and here) used AI to quantify health of the thymus in 2 large cohorts, and then correlate the metric to a broad array of health outcomes. In this edition of Ground Truths, I’m going to cover three questions: (1) How was thymus health determined by AI?; (2) How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? and (3) Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? Subscribe 1. How was thymus health determined by AI? This was accomplished by extensive work developing and validating an AI pipeline for 2 stages, the first for localization and segmentation of the thymus bed, and the second to quantify a digital marker, termed the thymic health score. There’s a lot to this algorithmic development, so I won’t go into all the details, but just provide a rudimentary outline of what was done. The 1st stage used supervised learning with 2 radiologists reviewing 2,461 chest CT scans. That work trained a 3D U-Net model to automatically identify the thymic bed’s 3D cropped region using center of mass coordinates, which reached 99.8% accuracy. The 2nd stage used a foundation model that was pre-trained with SwAV (which stands for Swapping Assignment between multiple Views), a self-supervised model, that generated a high-dimensional thymus representation of 4,096 features. That compares to the radiology reductionist and subjective scoring of 0 to 3 where 0 means the thymus is fully degenerated and fatty, and 3 is considered dense, intact glandular soft tissue. Notably, the self-supervised learning (SSL) performance was superior to supervised (AUC ~0.75 vs 0.55, respectively) reflecting the shallowness of the 0-3 classifier vs SSL’s holistic, self-taught AI. The thymic health score ranged from 0 to 100, with the highest number indexed to fully preserved thymic health. The algorithmic work extended to explainability with both Shapely value distribution, meaning the model was holistic not relying on any “magic” pixel, and occlusion sensitivity, demonstrating the model’s performance was not affected by ribs, sternum, lung tissue, but rather focused on the thymic bed directly. Below are a few saliency maps from the occlusion sensitivity that indicate the thymic bed focus, not affected by neighboring structures, using the jet color scale. Now the AI was ready for processing ~25,000 CT scans, each over 30 MB files, from the 2 large participant cohorts to provide a thymic health score, it did so in less than 14 hours, which is less than 2 seconds per scan! Share 2. How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? The two cohorts were the National Lung Screening Trial, NLST (N=25,031) and the Framingham Heart Study, FHS (N=2,581) each with baseline demographics and long term follow up of >12 years for health outcomes. From the NSLT, you can see below that increased age and body-mass index were correlated to reduced thymic health. And, overall, men had reduced thymic health scores compared with women. There are a lot of graphs in the paper for outcomes, for both the NLST and FHS cohorts. To simplify the major outcomes, below is a composite Figure with striking reduction of all-cause mortality and for the different causes of death. The results were consistent between the 2 cohorts. For example, the cardiovascular mortality hazard ratio average was 0.57 in NLST and 0.38 in FHS (weighted to be 0.53 for the aggregate). The reduction of mortality also extended to digestive diseases and pulmonary disease (data not shown below). Lung cancer incidence was reduced by 36% for high vs low thymic health (Figure below, with a panel -incidence and b panel-mortality, adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking status). Notably, there was a smoker’s paradox: lower incidence and improved survival for lung cancer in smokers who had a high thymus health score. Smoking was associated with lower thymic scores whereas alcohol was not. Higher thymic health was linked to higher HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, lower fasting blood glucose, and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Inflammation biomarkers, such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, were elevated in the people with lower thymic health scores. In their second paper, the same team looked at the relationship between thymic score and outcomes for 3,476 patients receiving cancer immunotherapy. The non-small cell lung cancer progression-free survival was reduced in patients with low thymic health score. A parallel relationship for survival was seen for other types of cancer including melanoma, breast, and kidney with a 44% lower risk among high thymic scores (Figure). A similar pattern was seen with different immune checkpoint inhibitors. The thymus health score outperformed programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1)and tumor mutation burden (TMB) assay of the tumor and was an independent prognostic marker of progression-free survival. In this dataset, a direct connect with thymus score and adaptive immune function was noted with a correlation before cancer treatment for both T-cell diversity and thymus T-cell production (a metric known as T cell receptor excision circles). Thymus Removal Study There is a highly relevant citation about thymus function before moving onto ways to rejuvenate it. In 2023, a very important study of thymus removal during cardiothoracic surgery was published, with 1146 patients undergoing thymus removal vs 1146 matched controls (mean age 55 years). The adverse outcomes for thymus removal were striking, with a 2.9 higher risk of all-cause mortality and doubling of cancer incidence, 1.5 fold increase in cancer mortality, and 1.5-fold increase in autoimmune diseases. The immune function showed marked compromise after thymus removal, as reflected by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (Figure below) Share Ground Truths 3. Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? In recent months we’ve learned a lot about the process of thymus involution and the pathways by which this may be modulated. Thymus involution is primarily due to loss to thymus epithelial cells (TECs) and there are 2 subtypes with different functions: the cortical, responsible for positive selection of T cells, and the medullary, for negative selection. When adipose tissue infiltrates the thymus, thymic adipocytes are pro-inflammatory, knocking out T-cell output. Likewise, systemic inflammation, or “inflammaging,” from smoking, obesity, and chronic stress promote thymic adipocytes. Now, from preclinical studies, we know about key pathways that account for these processes. Historically, back in 2014, FOXN1 was recognized as a single master transcription factor essential for TEC function, with studies in mice with forced FOXN1 upregulation leading to thymus regeneration. That laid the foundation for potential regrowth of quiescent thymus cells. It took awhile to find pathways to accomplish this goal and to even refute its role as the master regulator. The Liver-Thymus Axis Feng Zhang and his team recently showed that injection of an mRNA vaccine to the liver encoding DLL1, IL-7 and FLT3-L in combination, factors known to support thymopoiesis (Figure), successfully enhanced immune function in aged mice. However, the effect was transient. The FGF21 Story Two reports in 2025 addressed the thymus gland’s production of FGF21, a growth factor (fibroblast growth factor 21) and its control of thymus involution. This growth factor is also produced by the liver, but it doesn’t have impact on the thymus in aged rodent models. In contrast, The liver’s hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has been shown to reverse senescent TEC structural changes. Growth hormone stimulates production of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the liver and the thymus. Two small studies in human participants (TRIIM, for Thymus Regeneration, Immunorestoration, and Insulin Mitigation) of 6 and 50 people, respectively, treated with combined human growth hormone, metformin and DHEA, suggested the potential of slowing epigenetic aging and improving thymus mass and function. But the combination of drugs, small sample, and lack of controls make conclusions murky. Increased thymus FGF21 led to increased CD8 T cells in old mice and extended healthspan and improved physical performance. Building on the previous FOXN1 data, ablation of β-klotho, the obligatory co-receptor for FOXN1, accelerated thymic aging. The benefit to FGF21 was confirmed in a companion paper using an FGF21 knock-in mouse model showing thymus enlargement and increased TECs throughout the lifespan. (schematic Figure below). The accompanying editorial for these 2 papers speculated: “The proposed link between age-associated thymus involution and organismal aging is intriguing, and suggests we might seek to achieve systemic rejuvenation by counteracting thymic involution.” Other Factors Lessons from the Axolotl (Mexican Salamander) In an elegant set of experiments of the axolotl (Figure), known for its complete thymus regeneration after total surgical removal, mediators were identified. Surprisingly FOXN1 was dispensable. But midkine, a growth factor, appeared to be the driver, the initiator of thymus cell growth, survival, and repair. Other components that contributed were Postn+ (periostin-expressing mesenchymal niches) and Ccl19, a chemokine protein from the bloodstream. RANK and RANKL RANK (receptor activator of nuclear factor κB its ligand (RANKL) have been considered key regulators of medullary TECs. In a study of both aged mice and human thymus cell cultures, their key role was confirmed, with multiple benefits of resorting TEC function, recruitment of progenitor cells, and T cell development. Subscribe Summing Up This body of work strongly supports the health of the thymus gland as a critical regulator of human healthspan, not just a correlate or link. The new landmark studies are reinforced by the regenerative biology experimental models that have shown, via an array of mediators, that healthspan of aged mice is at least in part dependent on thymus gland function and its critical role for maintaining adaptive immunity. It sure seems that we’d be better off having an immune reservoir of naive T cells instead of a profile in older adults of exhausted, low quality, memory T cells, with a senescent phenotype. It is striking that we ignored the importance of the thymus gland for many decades. A wake-up call was the results of the thymectomy matched control study reviewed here, with the opposite of high thymic health score improved health outcomes. The convergence of AI and healthspan here is notable. The exceptional and laborious work for developing and validating (no less explaining) the AI to quantify thymus health set the foundation for probing the connect the major health outcomes in two cohorts with extensive follow-up. We’ve never had a way to meaningfully quantify the thymus gland before, so this represents important leverage of supervised, self-supervised, and transformer models. The study wouldn’t have been possible without AI. And it begs the question as to whether there are ways we can maintain our thymus at a high health score. But it’s not so simple to rejuvenate our thymus. There are multiple risks including the induction of autoimmunity, increasing the risk of cancer, and inducing a pro-inflammatory state. For example, factors that increase TEC proliferation could compromise the medulllary negative selection process and leak out auto-reactive (self-attacking) T cells. Thymic cells could be induced to proliferate, but we know, for example, that growth hormone and IGF-1 are associated with an increase risk of cancer. If thymus rejuvenation doesn’t clear out the accumulated senescent cells in older adults, then inflammation within the gland could block the production of TECs. Keeping these risks in mind, we now have identified many ways to keep our thymus healthy as we age that undoubtedly will be tested in clinical trials going forward. Ultimately, the benefit-to-risk tradeoffs will be defined. In the meantime, we have desperately needed an immunome. As I’ve stressed in multiple prior Ground Truths, we have no test in the clinic to assess a patient’s immune status! It was very encouraging for me to get an email from Hugo Aerts, the senior author of the landmark papers in the days after they were published: “I also wanted to say that your Substack on “Why We Need an Immunome” was inspiring for this work. We found it a very compelling perspective and greatly enjoyed reading it.” Just having an assessment of a person’s immune status via a chest CT scan, with millions of these performed per year, might help in guiding the right immunotherapy for cancer (e.g. more intensive, combinations for those with low thymic health scores) and help define people who are increased risk for age-related diseases of cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative. The main theme of Super Agers is that we now have many layers of data (genetics, proteins, biomarkers, organ clocks that can be integrated via multimodal AI) for us to define a person’s specific risk decades before one of these age-related diseases leads to symptoms, enabling prevention. From the new studies this week, we can add thymus health score as yet another way to understand a person’s risk, a window into their adaptive immune system and healthspan. And perhaps someday we will be able to safely rejuvenate the thymus, or maintain its health through one’s life, and use the thymus health score to monitor. NB: I wrote this post (No A.I.) A Quick Poll Loading... ********************************************************************* Thanks to Ground Truths subscribers (now > 200,000) from every US state and 212 countries. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. Please join! If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! Share Ground Truths Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don’t hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered. Leave a comment Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! We aim to accept even more of the several thousand who will apply for summer 2026.

Mar 22 • 2:18 PM EDT • Health • erictopol.substack.com

Kennedy’s latest MAHA-approved plan could supercharge peptide boom

He indicated that the FDA will soon widen access to the small proteins, which biohackers tout as therapies for a range of ills

Mar 22 • 12:00 PM EDT • Health • politico.com

VoidStealer malware steals Chrome master key via debugger trick

An information stealer called VoidStealer uses a new approach to bypass Chrome's Application-Bound Encryption (ABE) and extract the master key for decrypting sensitive data stored in the browser.

Mar 22 • 10:32 AM EDT • Technology • bleepingcomputer.com

Inflatable homes on the Moon? Scientists reveal how humans could live there sooner than expected - Futura-Sciences

How could humans live on the Moon? Although the Artemis program has taken a more cautious approach following recent delays, the goal remains the same: send astronauts back to the lunar surface. Doing so will require systems that allow crews to stay there for several days, or even several weeks....

Mar 22 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com

Prior authorization can delay needed health care. A new 'Gold Card' targets that bottleneck.

Getting approval for a medical procedure scan or medicine has become a frustrating hurdle in health care as insurers try to ensure that every test is appropriate...

Mar 22 • 4:00 AM EDT • Health • post-gazette.com

Politics: Iowa Senate majority leader outlines plans for coming weeks

Second funnel week concluded in the Iowa Legislature, meaning that lawmakers’ focus can return to funding, appropriations and other types of specific bills that don’t respond to the Legislature’s self-imposed

Mar 22 • 2:00 AM EDT • Politics • telegraphherald.com

Mainieri out as South Carolina's baseball coach in 2nd season

Paul Mainieri is out as South Carolina's baseball coach midway through his second season after he couldn't approach the level of success he had produced at LSU.

Mar 21 • 3:22 PM EDT • Sports • espn.com

Chicago spring equinox celebration highlights mental health, nature | ChicagoLIVE

Friends of Nature is hosting a spring equinox celebration on Chicago's Southeast Side that will highlight mental health, nature and community.

Mar 21 • 12:01 PM EDT • Health • fox32chicago.com

🗞️Today's headlines: Joan García, academy talent and much more

The call from Luis de la Fuente to Barça’s goalkeeper is one of the top stories of the day on this football-filled Saturday.A great weekend is approaching ahead of an international break, where the...

Mar 21 • 4:09 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Downtown Chico business owner voices concerns over street closures for events

A DOWNTOWN CHICO MERCHANT IS EXPRESSING CONCERN OVER THE IMPACT OF STREET CLOSURES FOR EVENTS -- ON THEIR BUSINESS. ACTION NEWS NOW REPORTER BELLA BARBOSA REPORTS FROM DOWNTOWN CHICO { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "VideoObject", "name": "Downtown Road Closure Dilemma", "description": "A DOWNTOWN CHICO MERCHANT IS EXPRESSING CONCERN OVER THE IMPACT OF STREET CLOSURES FOR EVENTS -- ON THEIR BUSINESS. ACTION NEWS NOW REPORTER BELLA BARBOSA REPORTS FROM DOWNTOWN CHICO", "thumbnailUrl": "https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/actionnewsnow.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/47/c47e26d6-03c3-5f35-bf49-37925ab603d7/69bdedc4eb57d.image.jpg", "uploadDate": "2026-03-20T17:45:00-07:00", "contentUrl": "https://cdn.field59.com/KHSL/1774053903-6e1ef36dd09fbebf020833aee86b60da3b3cca3f_fl9-720p.mp4" } CHICO, Calif. - A downtown Chico business owner is voicing concerns about the impact of street closures for events on local shops. Leann Powell, owner of The Peddler’s Closet, expressed concern about events closing down streets downtown and bringing in food trucks and other shops’ products that directly compete with the brick-and-mortar stores in downtown Chico.Powell said an upcoming event held on a Saturday has brought up concerns for her and other business owners downtown, due to it being a busy day for businesses. "We're already struggling, and then to bring in more businesses on top of our businesses and shut our streets down is absolutely devastating," said Powell.Powell noted a decline in business during events like the Thursday Night Market, where street closures allow outside vendors to set up shop. She shared that while organizers for these types of events often offer booths to local businesses, it does not alleviate the burden."I don't really feel like that's a solution because you're bringing in other businesses, you're shutting the streets down. Yes, we can go down and set up a space, but then you've gotta pay somebody to run that space, plus run your own business for the day, and it's really not, it's really not helpful for us," said Powell.Applying for a street closure permit in Chico involves approval from the Public Works Department, the Chief of Police, and the Fire Chief. Permits can be denied only under a handful of circumstances, such as interference with first responders, previously scheduled construction, or existing permits for the same space.Mayor Kasey Reynolds addressed the issue, saying the city council has tasked staff with reviewing the municipal code for street closure permits with the goal of finding ways to minimize negative impacts on local businesses during events.Reynolds mentioned that any recommended changes might require further direction from the city council, depending on the extent of any changes recommended. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('ad-1514992'); });

Mar 20 • 8:45 PM EDT • Business • actionnewsnow.com

Scientists turn probiotic bacteria into tumor-hunting cancer killers

Scientists have engineered probiotic bacteria to act as tumor-seeking drug factories. In mice, these bacteria infiltrated tumors and produced a cancer-fighting drug right where it was needed. This targeted approach could make treatments more effective and reduce side effects. More research is needed before it can be tested in people.

Mar 20 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved limiting money in politics. Then politicians had their say.

Oregon’s Democratic-controlled Legislature approved a bill that supporters described as containing little more than technical fixes to what they’d written two years ago.

Mar 20 • 1:00 PM EDT • Politics • oregoncapitalchronicle.com

Set appropriate state guidelines for critical surveillance technology

I admit it: I’m worried. I’m hearing a lot about surveillance in the public arena. I hear cameras are capturing my car’s license plate wherever I drive, my face as I go in and out of stores and health facilities, and that it’s all used to compile detailed information about me. I read news articles […]

Mar 20 • 3:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

Who Should Be England’s Number 10 at the World Cup?

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is fast approaching, and England manager Thomas Tuchel has some huge decisions to make. Former boss Gareth Southgate came in for major criticism from supporters for continually...

Mar 20 • 2:15 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Trump Told Inner Circle Some Mass Deportation Policies Went Too Far

The president is convinced that voters don’t like the term “mass deportation,” and has directed advisers to adopt a new approach on one of his central campaign promises.

Mar 19 • 8:30 PM EDT • Politics • wsj.com

Steve Hilton: The business model in California ‘depends on fraud’

California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton says he will be the ‘exact opposite’ of Gov. Gavin Newsom in his approach to fraud allegations on ‘The Bottom Line.’

Mar 19 • 8:04 PM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com

New dispute emerges around Subnautica 2’s early access release

Lawyers for the ousted—and now partially reinstated—leadership team of Unknown Worlds, the studio behind Subnautica 2, are crying foul over news that the game will be released into early access in May. The release announcement earlier this week was made improperly, potentially “damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community,” the lawyers said in a letter sent on Tuesday to Vice Chancellor Lori Will of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. In their letter, the lawyers also floated the idea of asking Will to find Krafton in contempt of the court’s ruling. The letter was sent just one day after Will’s bombshell ruling that publisher Krafton had breached its contract with Unknown Worlds’ executive team, when it fired them last June. The new issue isn’t necessarily the May early access timeframe, but how the news was announced. The letter and Krafton’s response have not been previously reported. A quick recap of prior events: Subnautica 2 is an unreleased, underwater survival adventure and the most-wishlisted game on Steam. Last year, longtime Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, along with studio co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, were fired by Krafton. They swiftly sued, saying the publisher had terminated them to avoid paying out up to $250 million in potential performance-based bonuses. The studio leaders had hoped to earn that with an early access release of the game, which Krafton had blocked. The publisher argued in court that Subnautica 2 wasn’t ready, which the ousted execs disputed. On Monday, Will ruled that Krafton had violated its contract, firing the execs to avoid the performance payouts, and that it had to reinstate Gill and give him full authority over any early access release for Subnautica 2. On Tuesday, IGN reported on a new memo issued that day to Unknown Worlds staff by Steve Papoutsis, the executive Krafton had put in charge of Unknown Worlds after the 2025 firings. In the note, Papoutsis said that Subnautica 2 had passed a key development milestone “last week” and that he and Krafton had determined the game “is ready for Early Access release in May.” This news appeared to catch the lawyers for Gill, Cleveland and McGuire by surprise. On Tuesday night, they sent a letter to Will expressing “serious concerns” about whether it would be possible to forge an agreement with Krafton consistent with the judge’s order. Papoutsis’ memo was a problem, they wrote. He didn’t have the authority to declare anything about Subnautica 2’s release. As of 9am ET on Monday, March 16, the effective date of Will’s order, Papoutsis wasn’t CEO of Unknown Worlds. Gill was. And, per Will’s order, only Gill could make Subnautica 2 release decisions. They continued: Krafton self-servingly announced the launch without any regard to its impact on the game, the team, or the community—let alone this Court’s Opinion. Announcing the release of a game is momentous, and it is typically accompanied by significant marketing activity, fanfare, and community coordination. And most importantly, the announcement is carefully designed to maximize excitement for the game. That entire process was supposed to be driven by Mr. Gill. However, in defiance of the Court’s Opinion, Krafton has now taken that away, further damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community. The lawyers speculated that Krafton had “intentionally leaked” Papoutsis’ memo and then issued an official statement to confirm the leak. Game File is a reader-supported publication. My reporting is only possible through support from readers like you. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe On Wednesday, lawyers for Krafton defended their client in their own letter to vice chancellor Will, saying nothing they did violated her order nor showed contempt: Papoutsis’s message was simply celebrating the UW employees’ efforts toward a past event: Krafton’s pre-Opinion determination that Subnautica 2 was ready for Early Access release. There was nothing improper about conveying the results of the milestone review or thanking the development team for their dedication and talent. They added that Gill could still make his own call about Subnautica 2’s release: In his role as CEO, Gill will be able to assess independently his views on the state of Subnautica 2 and the appropriate release schedule; nothing in Papoutsis’s message alters Gill’s authority or discretion. Vice chancellor Will has not responded to the letters and doesn’t necessarily have to. Both parties were previously ordered by Will to confer this week and submit a proposed judgment consistent with her ruling. The letter from Gill’s attorney’s this week doesn’t indicate whether he would or would not support a May release for Subnautica 2. But it could limit his options. And, if Gill’s lawyers are right, the lack of marketing fanfare around the leak of the May date could dull the launch of the game. Any harm to Subnautica 2’s launch is an extra sensitive issue given the context of the legal dispute: millions of dollars of payouts are on the line, tethered to the scale of the game’s initial performance. In her ruling on Monday, Will noted that there was obvious “bad blood” between Gill’s side and Krafton but that the two would need to work together: “They can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship.” Item 2: A new kind of couch co-op game A highlight of GDC each year is the Alt.Ctrl showcase that features games played with extremely experimental controllers. Perusing this year’s offerings last Friday, I found a game controlled with giant scissors, another with big toothbrushes and one that amounted to dumpster diving. My favorite was Pivot, a co-op game about collectively maneuvering a couch. It was developed by students at the University of Utah’s masters of arts and engineering games program. Players lift and tilt the physical couch in order to control the position of a virtual one. That virtual one is moving through an obstacle course on-screen, while being pursued by a giant skull. Developer Nishant Verma told me at GDC that the couch is made of styrofoam (this became more evident as I watched!) and that the name was a riff on an episode of the sitcom Friends. Item 3: In brief… 🚫 Ubisoft is laying off more than 100 workers at its Red Storm studio, as the North Carolina location known for decades for its Tom Clancy games, ceases in-house game development, VGC reports. 👀 On Monday, Nvidia’s revealed its DLSS 5 AI-driven graphics technology that purports to improve game graphics… and it has been roasted about it by the media and the online gaming public for the remainder of the week. The tech changed the faces of characters in footage from Resident Evil Requiem, Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC, drawing accusations of giving carefully art-directed games the generic look of AI “slop.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had said on Monday that “DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics—blending handcrafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression.” By mid-week, Huang was telling Tom’s Hardware that the new tech’s critics were “completely wrong” because game-makers could still “fine-tune the generative AI” to suit their game’s aesthetics.

Mar 19 • 5:28 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news

Florida GOP’s divisions, cancel culture and Alligator Alcatraz: IFP

Turns out Florida state lawmakers can't approve budget, but they do like cancel culture. And how much has the state spent on Alligator Alcatraz?

Mar 19 • 2:50 PM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com

CEO of $5B startup took 'shortcuts' to grow business—until 'alarm bells' went off: Without change, we wouldn't 'have a company'

Faire risked never turning its sky-high valuation into sustainable business — until a moment that caused CEO Max Rhodes to change his approach, he says.

Mar 19 • 12:34 PM EDT • Business • cnbc.com

Ballot measure to curtail dark money in San Diego politics gets initial vote

His District 9 office will now work with the city attorney's office to draft language for the ballot proposal, which must then be approved again by the Rules Committee and then the full City Council before being placed on the November 2026 ballot.

Mar 19 • 11:35 AM EDT • Politics • kpbs.org

NVIDIA DLSS 5 Gets 84% Dislikes on YouTube as Backlash Grows

NVIDIA's latest DLSS 5 technology has faced a significant community backlash, with its approval rating dropping considerably. On the published YouTube video, NVIDIA's official DLSS 5 announcement has received an overwhelming 83.7% dislikes, with only 16.3% likes. This is a substantial negative ratin...

Mar 19 • 10:16 AM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com

PENN Entertainment Sets June 24 as Grand Opening Date for New Hollywood Casino Aurora in Illinois

WYOMISSING, Penn. & AURORA, Ill., March 19, 2026--PENN Entertainment, Inc. ("PENN" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: PENN) announced today that it expects to open the new land-based Hollywood Casino Aurora to the public on Wednesday, June 24, pending customary regulatory approvals. This will be the second all-new PENN property to open in the Chicagoland region following the grand opening of the land-based Hollywood Casino Joliet in August 2025.

Mar 19 • 10:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com

The White House Is Lost in the ‘Weave’

The Trump administration has a coherence problem. This issue starts at the top with a fabulist president who is increasingly unfiltered and unfocused, offering up ping-ponging thoughts with little purpose or explanation. His approach to governing and to waging a war has itself become “the weave,” his term for the random asides that pepper his speeches. For much of his political life, Trump, 79, understood the importance of a simple and repetitive story, the need to keep the main thing the main t

Mar 19 • 9:10 AM EDT • Politics • bloomberg.com

Sangamon County voters approve new tax increase for mental health board

Murphy explained that the mental health board would act as a centralized organization that helps coordinate groups and providers in the Sangamon County area.

Mar 19 • 7:16 AM EDT • Health • capitolcitynow.com

Meet The Small Business Claiming To Have Cracked AI Software Testing

Sauce Labs says its approach to testing, based on business intent, can help enterprises break the logjam caused by the need for quality assurance in software development

Mar 19 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • forbes.com

Weight-loss treatment is on the verge of a dramatic shift

About 10 weeks after it was approved, the Wegovy pill is now estimated to be part of the daily regimen of about 400,000 Americans. And the field of weight-loss treatment is on the verge of even more head-spinning change.

Mar 19 • 6:45 AM EDT • Health • cnn.com

Molecule in python blood could pave way for new obesity drugs, scientists say

Researchers find snake metabolite that suppresses appetite of obese mice ‘without some of side-effects’ of GLP-1 drugs

Mar 19 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

Sandhills Calving System continues to protect calf health, ranch profitability

Twenty-five years ago, a collaboration between a Sandhills ranch family, a rural veterinarian and Husker researchers led to a management innovation that transformed how cattle producers prevent calf scours. Known today as the Sandhills Calving System, the approach has become one of the most widely recommended strategies for preventing neonatal calf diarrhea.

Mar 19 • 1:03 AM EDT • Health • news.unl.edu

In debate over sugary drinks, Colorado weighs health benefits and personal choice

Colorado received a waiver from the USDA to restrict the use of SNAP benefits to buy those sweetened beverages. But it needs the approval of the state human services board.

Mar 19 • 12:00 AM EDT • Health • cpr.org

Thai Leader Anutin Set to Extend Rule in Vote After Election Win

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is poised to win lawmaker approval for a new term less than six weeks after elections, potentially bringing stability to the country’s often volatile political landscape and allowing him to manage the fallout from the war in the Middle East.

Mar 18 • 5:00 PM EDT • Politics • bloomberg.com

Local Spotlight | ArchWell Health Brings a New Approach to Senior Care

Local spotlight is joined by Dr. Doron Schneider, Market Medical Director at ArchWell Health.

Mar 18 • 1:36 PM EDT • Health • 6abc.com

Sony Interactive Marks 200 Apprentices in Career Program

Sony Interactive Entertainment and its apprentice program have welcomed more than 200 individuals, opening doors for underrepresented and non-traditional backgrounds talent.

Mar 18 • 12:11 PM EDT • Entertainment • sonyinteractive.com

WNBA, players union reach agreement; season to start on time, reports say

In the early hours of Wednesday, the WNBA and its players union came together to reach a verbal agreement in the CBA, it will now be passed to the players and the league's Board of Governors for approval.

Mar 18 • 10:53 AM EDT • Sports • al.com

Pursuing a passion for public health

MIT senior Srihitha Dasari has embraced a holistic and community-informed approach to medicine and public health. She also co-founded a social impact venture, PuntoSalud, working with a hospital in rural Argentina.

Mar 18 • 10:00 AM EDT • Health • news.mit.edu

Trump nominee Mullin expected to get quick confirmation to replace Noem at DHS

Republicans almost certain to push through appointment following the ousting of Noem amid public backlash to her aggressive immigration approach

Mar 18 • 7:07 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Protalix BioTherapeutics Reports Fiscal Year 2025 Financial and Business Results

Company to host conference call and webcast today at 8:00 a.m. EDT The European Commission (EC) approved the 2mg/kg every-4-weeks (E4W) dosing regimen for...

Mar 18 • 6:50 AM EDT • Business • prnewswire.com

Protalix BioTherapeutics Reports Fiscal Year 2025 Financial and Business Results

Company to host conference call and webcast today at 8:00 a.m. EDT The European Commission (EC) approved the 2mg/kg every-4-weeks (E4W) dosing regimen for...

Mar 18 • 6:50 AM EDT • Business • prnewswire.com

Wisconsin lawmakers approve measure to allow tribes to offer online sports betting

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — As sports fans wager billions of dollars on the NCAA basketball tournaments, Wisconsin lawmakers are taking a shot at an expanded sports betting plan that could ...

Mar 18 • 1:16 AM EDT • Sports • pbswisconsin.org

Thymic health and immunotherapy outcomes in patients with cancer

Nature - A deep-learning approach applied to routine CT scans is used to quantify the health of the thymus in a cohort of patients with cancer, and shows that thymic function is associated with...

Mar 17 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • nature.com

Foxborough Select Board unanimously approves entertainment license for FIFA World Cup

The Foxborough Select Board unanimously approved an entertainment license for the FIFA World Cup matches at Gillette Stadium.

Mar 17 • 7:35 PM EDT • Entertainment • turnto10.com

Judge mocks White House East Wing ‘alteration’ as a ‘brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary’

The Trump administration’s arguments in defense of the massive White House ballroom project on Tuesday found virtually no purchase before a federal judge, who appears ready to rule that the president skirted the law by undertaking construction without congressional approval.

Mar 17 • 5:44 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Bipartisan Science of Reading Bill Passes House Committee

The legislation would prevent states from allowing what one member called ‘discredited approaches.’

Mar 17 • 4:41 PM EDT • Science • the74million.org

Allina Health to join Sutter Health in $26B proposed merger

Sutter Health and Minneapolis-based Allina Health unveiled plans to join and form a 39-hospital, $26 billion revenue nonprofit health system. | The cross-regional proposed deal would create a 39-hospital nonprofit system and is expected to close before the end of the year, pending a definitive agreement and regulatory approvals.

Mar 17 • 2:30 PM EDT • Health • fiercehealthcare.com

A Massive Midterm Wave Isn’t Forming Yet. Here’s Why.

This is an era not just of hyperpartisanship, but of negative partisanship, in which partisans often hate the other side even more than they love their own. Many voters thus tend to see everything on a binary basis. Any given election outcome is seen as either a landslide victory or an unmitigated disaster. There is little appreciation, or even tolerance, for gradations between those outcomes.

Mar 17 • 12:23 PM EDT • Politics • cookpolitical.com

Philip Morris International U.S. to Launch New Business Solutions Center, Creating 180 Jobs in Tampa Bay Area

Today, Philip Morris International's U.S. businesses ("PMI U.S.") announced an investment of approximately $50 million in a new Business Solutions Center in Tampa, Florida. The Center will create approximately 180 direct and indirect high-skilled jobs and represents a pivotal expansion of PMI U.S. operations, consolidating key functions—business solutions, distribution operations, and customer service—into a single hub. This investment is designed to enhance operational efficiency across these f

Mar 17 • 8:05 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Scientists used 7,000 GPUs to simulate a tiny quantum chip in extreme detail

Researchers have pushed quantum chip design into a new era by simulating every physical detail before fabrication. Using a supercomputer with nearly 7,000 GPUs, they modeled how signals travel and interact inside an ultra-tiny chip. Unlike earlier “black box” approaches, this method captures real materials, layouts, and qubit behavior. The result is a powerful new way to spot problems early and build better quantum hardware faster.

Mar 17 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

German infrastructure fund failed to spur extra investment, IW says

Germany's special fund for infrastructure has largely failed to generate additional investment one year ​after its approval, the German Economic Institute (IW) said ‌in a study seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Mar 17 • 2:40 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board approves two-year closure

Mar 16 • 6:39 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Rams Mock Draft: Post-Free agency edition

How the Rams could approach the 2026 NFL Draft after free agency and the Trent McDuffie trade.

Mar 16 • 5:44 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

This unified approach helps put effective healthcare AI into practice

Health systems can transition from small-scale artificial intelligence pilots to high-speed, validated rollouts that meaningfully improve patient outcomes by maintaining three key guardrails, according to presenters at HIMSS26.

Mar 16 • 5:11 PM EDT • Health • healthcareitnews.com

Cue Biopharma Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results and Business Highlights

Advanced research and development of CUE-401 for IND (Investigational New Drug) readiness –CUE-401 is the Company’s lead asset for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseasesAppointed industry veteran Lucinda Warren as Chief Financial and Business OfficerRaised net proceeds of $10.2M through an underwritten public offeringAnnounced strategic collaboration and license agreement with ImmunoScape to develop breakthrough cell therapy approach for solid tumors – Entitled to receive upfront

Mar 16 • 4:05 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board approves two-year closure

President Donald Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board of trustees voted Monday to close the storied performing arts institution for two years for renovations.

Mar 16 • 3:17 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Makes 27th Swing Around the Sun

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe completed its 27th close approach to the Sun on March 11, again matching its record distance of 3.8 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) from the solar surface.

Mar 16 • 2:10 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Bondholders Approve Saks Global’s Five-Year Business Plan

Saks Global Enterprises LLC said a key group of bondholders approved its five-year business plan, showing the operator of luxury department stores is progressing toward exiting bankruptcy.

Mar 16 • 11:00 AM EDT • Business • bloomberg.com

Alabama high school soccer: See the new private school alignments for 2027, 2028

The AHSAA's Central Board approved the new soccer alignments for the 2027, 2028 seasons on Friday.

Mar 16 • 10:00 AM EDT • Sports • al.com

Cheboygan High School spring sports team schedules for 2026

With spring sports season approaching, here's a look at schedules for each Cheboygan High School varsity spring sports squad.

Mar 16 • 4:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Strengthening One Health Field Epidemiology Capacity in the WHO South-East Asia Region

Recent public health emergencies—including the COVID-19 pandemic, recurrent zoonotic disease outbreaks, and the high level of antimicrobial resistance—have underscored the urgent need for strong, multisectoral field epidemiology capacities. This reinforces the importance of a workforce equipped with One Health field epidemiology competencies. To address this need, WHO works with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), as part of Quadripartite Alliance for One Health, to strengthen field epidemiology training programmes using a One Health approach.These efforts are aligned with WHO SEARO’s Strategic Framework for Action for Strengthening Surveillance, Risk Assessment and Field Epidemiology and the Regional Roadmap to Advance Field Epidemiology Capacities 2025–2029 emphasize workforce development, multisectoral collaboration, and enhanced preparedness for health emergencies. With funding from the Pandemic Fund, The Competency for One Health Field Epidemiology (COHFE) integration within Field Epidemiology Training Programmes (FETPs) or similar initiatives has been initiated in Bangladesh and India and is planned in Sri Lanka.BangladeshIn Bangladesh, COHFE is being adapted to strengthen the Field Epidemiology Training Programme, Bangladesh (FETP-B) Advanced programme. Initiated in July 2025 and led by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), the process brought together stakeholders from human, animal, and environmental health sectors, academia, and laboratories.A Multisectoral Working Group (MWG) was established to guide implementation, conduct readiness assessments, and identify opportunities to institutionalize One Health collaboration. Through national multisectoral consultations and a competency prioritization workshop held in Dhaka in November 2025, stakeholders identified priority technical competencies for surveillance, outbreak investigation, data analysis, and risk assessment, alongside functional competencies related to leadership, coordination, and the laboratory–epidemiology interface. The process also surfaced systemic barriers—such as challenges in data sharing and limited joint investigations—enabling targeted recommendations. These outcomes are guiding curriculum revision, the introduction of One Health simulations and joint field exercises, and the development of a national multisectoral mentorship pool, with updated training materials expected to be implemented in the upcoming cohort.Figure 1. Competency prioritization involving multisectoral stakeholders“COHFE represents a significant step forward in operationalizing the One Health approach. The collaboration between national institutions and the Quadripartite partners is critical for building resilient systems to address complex health challenges in the region.”, Prof. (Dr) Tahmina Sirin, Director, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), Bangladesh.Aligning India’s One Health Training with COHFEIn India, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has strengthened One Health workforce development through its SectorConnect initiative. WHO supported a comprehensive competency mapping and curriculum review to align the Field Epidemiology Programme in One Health (FEP-OH) with all 14 COHFE domains. The review identified strong foundations while generating actionable recommendations to strengthen One Health learning outcomes, expand joint field-based learning, and enhance competency-based assessment. These improvements are informing programme refinement and phased scale-up across additional states.Figure 2. Strengthening learning outcomes for the SectorConnect FEP OH CurriculumThrough these efforts, WHO SEARO will continue to support countries to move from separate sector-based training toward an integrated, impact-driven One Health field epidemiology workforce capable of addressing complex health threats at human-animal-environment interface.ReferencesFood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Health Organization, & World Organisation for Animal Health. (2024). Competencies for One Health field epidemiology (COHFE) framework. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240080058World Health Organization. (2023). Strategic framework for action for strengthening surveillance, risk assessment and field epidemiology for health security threats in the WHO South-East Asia Region. WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789290210030World Health Organization. (2024). Regional roadmap to advance field epidemiology capacities in the WHO South-East Asia Region 2025–2029. WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789290229544

Mar 15 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • who.int

Microsoft quietly scraps plans to bring Copilot to notifications and Settings on Windows 11 as it moves to reduce AI bloat across the OS

Originally announced in 2024, Microsoft's plan to integrate Copilot across various areas of the Windows 11 shell has been shelved as the company reevaluates its AI approach in the OS.

Mar 15 • 11:55 AM EDT • Technology • windowscentral.com

THOR AI solves a 100-year-old physics problem in seconds

A new AI framework called THOR is transforming how scientists calculate the behavior of atoms inside materials. Instead of relying on slow simulations that take weeks of supercomputer time, the system uses tensor network mathematics and machine-learning models to solve the problem directly. The approach can compute key thermodynamic properties hundreds of times faster while preserving accuracy. Researchers say this could accelerate discoveries in materials science, physics, and chemistry.

Mar 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com