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Skillet’s John Cooper claims he endured ‘brutal’ abuse from church of 30 years, depression that inspired ‘After the Storm’

Skillet frontman John Cooper has shared how a painful split from the church he served for nearly 30 years plunged him into one of the darkest periods of his life, triggering depression, anger,

Sep 7 • 8:49 AM EDT • Entertainment • christianpost.com

Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?

Some ethics experts are raising concerns that prediction markets are ripe for abuse from government insiders or bad faith actors looking to sway elections.

Sep 7 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • mcall.com

A2RL season 3 heads international

Watch highlights from the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League's first competitive race away from its Yas Marina home

Sep 7 • 4:01 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

From struggle to confidence: Parisa’s story of mental health recovery

Parisa receives counselling at the WHO-supported MHPSS Ward of Faizabad Provincial Hospital in Badakhshan Province. Photo credit: WHO Afghanistan.7 September 2026, Kabul, Afghanistan – Life had become increasingly...

Sep 6 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • emro.who.int

The core anti-Pangram constituency is phony writers

Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week. The Verdict, by Kelsey Piper A lot of people hate AI for drowning the internet in slop and displacing human creatives. You might think that these people would be thrilled by a program that can identify and flag AI-generated work. But many people who hate AI also hate Pangram, an impressively accurate AI detector that produces very few false positives, according to high-quality independent research. This loathing found its most recent expression in a bizarre Wired article that amplifies a wide range of false arguments from Pangram skeptics: that AI detectors are racist (they’re not) or ableist (they’re not)1 or don’t work (this one does)2. Rather than starting from the premise that it would be really valuable to have a working AI detector and scrutinizing Pangram to make sure it lives up to that promise, the article starts from the premise that Pangram obviously has bad vibes and sets out to discover why. (One answer: The CEO microwaved lunch during an interview!) Why aren’t writers who resent Pangram more eager to distinguish themselves from posters who are having ChatGPT ghostwrite all their work? There are a few different things at play, but I think one key dynamic is this: These are often the same people. A core constituency for arguments like Wired’s is “writers” who are using AI to write their posts but resent this fact being made public. They stand to lose from AI detectors because AI detectors call them out. Share When Substack announced a partnership with Pangram, a sizable fraction of the platform’s authors rose up in outrage. Some people had experience with other AI detectors that didn’t work, and some felt that AI writing ought to be encouraged — both of which are fair enough. But the fury was fueled by authors passionately insisting that Pangram kept wrongly accusing them on almost every post they published. Pangram can be wrong, especially on short passages. But in the overwhelming majority of cases where Pangram looked at a whole blog post rather than a single paragraph, the program correctly detected work as AI. Even if we can’t be 100% sure in any individual case, we can notice the trend in the aggregate. Wired quotes Sam Illingworth, a professor of critical AI literacy at Edinburgh Napier University, who said, “I don’t think [AI detectors] work. … I think that detectors are prejudiced against certain people.” This spring, he said that he used AI for research and editing; this summer he acknowledged that in addition to research and editing, he also uses it “now and then for a turn of phrase I keep.” Pangram informs us that most of his posts are 100% AI-written (some are mixed AI-and-human) and that 100% AI-written posts started appearing last year. The favorable interpretation is that, as someone whose recent work Pangram consistently mistakes for AI, Illingworth sees Pangram’s flaws firsthand. The unfavorable interpretation is that the tool’s credibility trades off against his own, because its account of who writes his posts is not consistent with his. Illingworth is not alone in insisting the detector does not work. “It’s a Monday night in late July, and I’m pasting my own Substack draft into an AI detector for the first time. Not because I’m worried. Because I’m curious. I wrote every word of it myself, the way I write everything, out loud in my head first, in a rhythm that still carries the accent of a language I learned to think in before I learned to write in this one,” begins one Substack post by an author indignant that Pangram flags her writing as AI. “That’s the part I had to sit with before I could write this.” If you, like me, have worked with AIs a lot, you won’t even need Pangram there. The author of that piece is AI. It is obviously AI! I checked 10 other posts on the blog, and they were also obviously AI! “I have spent 22 years as an award-winning author and essayist. And now this bullshit tool that learned from MY writing is going to accuse me of plagiarism,” popular Substack writer Carlyn Beccia wrote in an anti-Pangram post. “For the last and final time, AI DETECTORS DO NOT WORK.” Here’s what her writing sounded like in 2020: “Most success stories revolve around one person who believed enough in you to say — give it a try. We call these people muses, but they are so much more than that. They are the strong man giants whose shoulders we stand on so we can see the horizon. Throughout the editing process, I am sure my editor felt less like a giant of greatness and more like Atlas with the world on her shoulders.” Pangram says it was 100% human-written. (So were other articles of hers in 2020.) And here’s what it sounds like now: “And then there is the reshuffling, which sounds like paperwork until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork. The Trump regime recently moved special education oversight from the Education Department to HHS. That is not a minor bureaucratic transfer. It changes the frame.”3 Pangram says this is mostly AI. I am not convinced that Pangram is wrong. In my own experience, Pangram is very effective on long texts — if it marks a long essay as AI, the essay was either written by AI or deliberately written to sound like AI. On tweet-length or paragraph-length texts, it’s not perfectly reliable. It seems to work just as well for non-native English speakers as for native speakers. While I have seen dozens of claims of pre-2022 text returning a positive result on Pangram, I have tried repeatedly to corroborate those and have never once succeeded. To be clear, I’m absolutely not saying that complaining about Pangram suggests a writer is a cheat. There are plenty of other concerns. Most are mistakenly premised, such as the false claim that Pangram trains on work you put into it, but others are reasonable: It’s unreliable on sufficiently short text segments; it creates an internet witch-hunt mentality when there are defensible uses of AI; people who are open about their AI use are sometimes blamed, when the only people really doing something wrong are the ones who hide it; and it isn’t perfect, so a single positive result shouldn’t be taken as decisive proof of misconduct. I’m happy to concede that Pangram is imperfect and possible to over-rely on. If an author’s posts are mostly non-AI and one scans as partially AI, this could be a mistake. It’s also possible to defeat Pangram with intentional effort. If you think we need something more robust and more reliable, fine! But if you don’t like AI and don’t like Pangram, your attitude really ought to be that it’s a shame that our existing tools for AI detection are imperfect, and it’s important to invent better ones. If your stance is instead that AI is evil and so is looking for AI, then ultimately you’re contributing to the sloppification of the internet. You’re making it harder for people who write their own text to distinguish themselves, and providing cover for authors who are definitely not writing their own text. Subscribe Top stories this week, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs Commentators often worry that the decline of reading could mean the decline of liberal democracy — but deliberative governance actually predated widespread literacy. This week, Maibritt Henkel pointed out that many liberal cultures thrive on a culture of raucous, interactive debate, which can happen in-person as easily, if not more so, than in text. Read on, dear reader, to learn more. It may actually cheer you up: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) [ Reading won’t save liberalism ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) Maibritt Henkel · Sep 1 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) It used to be bad to downplay climate change (if we mean denying its reality). Today, it’s actually good to downplay climate change (if we mean keeping the issue out of political fights so we can make real progress). This counterintuitive view is called “climate hushing,” and contributor Alex Trembath argued that it’s the key to enacting good policy going forward. Get up to speed on the latest in climate politics: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) [ We won’t stop climate change by talking about it ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Alex Trembath · Sep 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing up for the forces of liberalism against Donald Trump’s assault on our closest ally. So, why is one prominent left-wing commenter attacking Carney? Columnist Matthew Yglesias explains: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) [ When "economic liberty" means central planning ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) Matthew Yglesias · Aug 31 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) 🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟 Shout out to my home state of California, whose legislature passed two housing bills this week. One requires a housing density minimum in transit-oriented areas of the state’s most transit-rich cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Long Beach). Another bill closes two common loopholes used by third parties to delay housing projects, including an opportunity to challenge maps of a given lot created by the developer after a project has been approved. Shout out to our big-state rival, Texas, where pro-housing SB 785 took effect this week. The new state law requires municipalities to have at least one district permitted for manufactured housing without a special permit. This will promote zoning changes in 44% of municipalities. The company Fervo Energy signed a deal with Google for what is set to be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility, proving a technology can work at a scale that could be crucial to a decarbonized, energy-abundant economy. Share Worth watching… This week, forecasting legend Nate Silver joined Jerusalem, Matt, and Jeremiah on a crowded episode of the pod. It was a party. And speaking of parties, our round table debated the factional lines within the Democratic Party: Is it possible to be center-left and also anti-establishment? Watch or listen to find out: The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the areas that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024, but musician Bobby Pulido is running to flip it back. Right now, The Argument/Split Ticket’s model has him running 1.1 points behind his Republican opponent in a district Trump won by 18 points. Tune in to find out how he differs from national Democrats and what he thinks he can to do win this seat. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders was among the first politicians to call for a ban on superintelligence. My guest this week, Andrea Miotti, has been lobbying to ban superintelligence for several years, most recently in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. I asked him how he gets legislators to take speculative risks seriously, and we dug into what plans might look like to actually pass a ban. Listen to learn more: What’s News with The Argument The Argument recommends, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs If we ever lose track of Justin Zuckerman, I’ll have the team split up and check all the movie theaters in the city. I’m shocked (and a little jealous) at how often he gets out to see good cinema. This week, he brings us It Ends, a “horror-ish movie,” which he described as a “Gen Z Waiting for Godot.” I was intrigued before he added that it was “funny, dark and existential” — at which point I was fully locked in. I guess I also had existential themes on the mind this week. One morning, a single line from a poem I read long ago just came to me: “Is death a stretch of time in which a life is just a flash?” The poem is called “From 20,000 Feet” by Heather McHugh. I suggest the version in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, which, by tradition, my best friend and I always bring backpacking, extra weight be damned. We’ll stay thematically dark for just one more rec from senior editor John Robert Thomason, whose upcoming trip to Baltimore reminded him to suggest Michael Clune’s memoir White Out (about being addicted to heroin in Baltimore in the 1990s). Ben Lerner’s blurb called it _“_Disturbing, brilliant, hilarious—it’s as if Proust had written Jesus’ Son.” John told me this “seems accurate, with the caveat that I’ve never read Proust.” I, personally, have also shelved Proust until retirement. At this point, I was a little concerned for the team since all of us tossed out such psychologically grim material — maybe we’re all down about the end of summer — but thankfully, at least a few of us were into more upbeat selections. Milan Singh recommended Made In’s 5-quart stainless clad saucier, suggesting he had some fun in the kitchen. Jeremiah Johnson asked if he could recommend yet more Carly Rae Jepsen. Once denied, he offered up Game Changer instead_,_ calling it “the most wildly creative game show, maybe in the entire history of the genre.” Eli Richman mentioned _Lucky, “_a B-tier show with an A-tier cast and an S-tier theme song.” I suppose he was recommending the song, Horns of a Bull. Still, despite these cheerier recs, I couldn’t help but be concerned that we were subconsciously worried about racing toward summer’s end — the end of swim trunks and splashing around. Then a message landed reminding me of the three-day weekend to come. A whole extra day for sunshine. One more swim in the lake. I was grateful this called to mind yet another line from a poem, one by Mary Oliver, the patron saint of every gorgeous summer day (and about whom a documentary is now out). Speaking to God in the poem “Thirst,” she wrote: grant me, in your mercy,a little more time. Love for the earthand love for you are having such a longconversation in my heart. We have merch! We have quarter-zips, keychains, hats, and stickers. Each one is a great conversation starter in its own way. Buy them here. Subscribe More to read: [ The Opening Argument ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite)[ Seeing like an elite ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) Kobe Yank-Jacobs · Sep 4 What do Americans hear when they watch Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President JD Vance rail against the elite? Are they thinking of right-wing tech billionaires? Imperious college professors? Liberal magazine writers? [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) [ The Weekly Scroll ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline)[ God is back on the timeline ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) Jeremiah Johnson · Sep 5 This week, we’re talking about Substack’s new religious debates, the continuing MAGA influencer scandal, how to retire from YouTube, and aura battles. [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) 1 This was a legitimate thing to worry about, but doesn’t seem to be a problem given the actual technology: Marijke Van Vlasselaer, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, and Bram Spruyt’s 2026 paper looks at whether Pangram is less accurate when evaluating the work of non-native speakers of English. It isn’t. That’s because Pangram isn’t really looking at how “unusual” a piece of writing is but whether it has the characteristic patterns of LLMs. The Wired article makes an odd gesture at a different Pangram-is-racist argument. There were several controversies this summer during which upcoming books were canceled after being discovered to be AI-written: “The three novels mentioned earlier — Shy Girl, Daggermouth, and Call Me, easily publishing’s biggest AI-detection scandals — were all written by writers of color.” But come on! As Zvi Mowshowitz put it: “They were not primarily written by people of color. They were primarily written by AIs.” That’s the whole problem! And as my colleague Jeremiah Johnson recently observed with respect to Cambridge’s Arday scandal, a community being unwilling to call out fraud if it’s perpetuated by people of color is not an anti-racist tendency; it is ultimately quite racist. 2 Many non-Pangram detectors don’t work, but many possible airplane designs also don’t work, and no one considers this a general argument against aviation; the thing that matters is whether any detection works. 3 The phrase “empires have always loved” mysteriously became all the rage in the last few years. See here, here, here, here and here. Before 2025, the only use of that phrase I have been able to find is a single Tweet. The logic of the sentence, too, is incoherent in an AI-characteristic way. “...sounds like paperwork, until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork”? Does remembering that make it sound less like paperwork? It’s a craft-ful sentence, but what is it actually saying??

Sep 6 • 6:05 PM EDT • Technology • theargumentmag.com

Science Hill Man Charged in Alleged Abuse of One-Year-Old Child | Laker Country 104.9 FM WJRS

A Science Hill man has been arrested following an investigation into the alleged abuse of a one-year-old child. Pulaski County Sheriff Bobby Jones says 32-year-old Lucas Q. Bradshaw was arrested without incident at his residence early Saturday morning. The investigation began after Pulaski County 911 received a call from the child’s father reporting a possible

Sep 6 • 12:15 PM EDT • Science • lakercountry.com

JoCo woman sues Genesis Health Clubs, says personal trainer sexually abused her at 16

The suit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, accuses the trainer of abusing the teen — referred to in records as Jane Doe — during the time period of January 2021 and March 2021.

Sep 6 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • kansascity.com

Anonymous sources can become powerful tools of political manipulation

Protecting sources is essential, but anonymity can be abused. Journalists must examine who is speaking, what they know and what they want.

Sep 6 • 3:42 AM EDT • Politics • jpost.com

Science Hill man accused of abusing, assaulting 1-year-old

Lexington and Central KY News, Weather, and Sports | WDKY

Sep 5 • 10:46 PM EDT • Science • fox56news.com

Science Hill man accused of abusing, assaulting 1-year-old

A Pulaski County father was arrested on Friday and charged with child abuse, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sep 5 • 5:31 PM EDT • Science • fox56news.com

Science Hill man charged after investigation into alleged abuse of 1-year-old child

A Science Hill man has been arrested after an investigation into the alleged abuse of a 1-year-old child, according to the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office.

Sep 5 • 1:02 PM EDT • Science • lex18.com

Chimpanzees once used for vaccine research get health checks as part of long-term care

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A group of chimpanzees that were once used for hepatitis B vaccine experiments in laboratories have received health checks at their new home in Liberia, in

Sep 5 • 5:48 AM EDT • Health • 2news.com

15 discouraging hours with Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and 10 brilliant ones with He Who Watches

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

Sep 4 • 6:23 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news

Ethics Cmte. deadine passes to take action against Max Miller before election

Amid national scrutiny on Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, over domestic abuse allegations, Congress appears unlikely to take any actions against Miller before the election.

Sep 4 • 5:00 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumnews1.com

Fairfax County’s Xpect Solutions acquires Reston security company

Fairfax County-based Xpect Solutions announced Thursday that it has acquired Reston-based security company Amivero.

Sep 4 • 2:59 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

2026 Healthcare Leadership Awards: BEST HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY & ADVANCEMENT PRODUCT OF THE YEAR HONOREE (TIE)

ASPIVIX is redefining the standard of care in gynecology through its mission to make routine procedures less painful, more dignified, and more respectful

Sep 4 • 1:04 PM EDT • Health • labusinessjournal.com

2026 Healthcare Leadership Awards: OUTSTANDING COMMUNITY OUTREACH HONOREE

USC Verdugo Hills Hospital (USC-VHH) has demonstrated an enduring commitment to community engagement through its Healthcare Day of Discovery program, an

Sep 4 • 12:54 PM EDT • Business • labusinessjournal.com

Drone business opens Winchester manufacturing facility

Sterling-based Heven AeroTech opens a 56,000-square-foot Winchester facility to manufacture hydrogen-powered drones

Sep 4 • 10:45 AM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

I'm a baklava bakery owner hustling through SF's AI boom

Tolgay Karabulut has run a small baklava bakery in San Francisco since 2022. The city's AI boom has made earning a living feel like an uphill battle.

Sep 4 • 3:42 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

‘Global force in pop culture’: Toy and entertainment company opens 1st Lehigh Valley store

The company behind the popular Labubu dolls and other designer toys is continuing to grow its brick-and-mortar footprint with a new store in Lehigh County.

Sep 3 • 6:32 PM EDT • Entertainment • wfmz.com

Loudoun seeks legal opinion before ending data center grandfather protections

Loudoun County supervisors are hitting a pause on potentially eliminating grandfather protections for 17 data center applications, instead seeking legal

Sep 3 • 4:26 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

UW pays $600K to settle lawsuit with computer science professor over parody land acknowledgment

Stuart Reges was disciplined by the University of Washington after including a parody land acknowledgment in a course syllabus. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found university officials violated Reges' academic freedom rights.

Sep 3 • 11:18 AM EDT • Science • geekwire.com

Victoria’s Secret embraces nostalgia, entertainment trends

The lingerie giant has also worked to improve core product like bras, which boosted Q2 sales growth across brands, categories and channels.

Sep 3 • 8:18 AM EDT • Entertainment • retaildive.com

How Silicon Valley used Main Street’s outrage against California privacy law

New changes to the California Internet Privacy Act promise to stop abusive wiretapping suits. They also quietly shield Big Tech from lawsuits.

Sep 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • calmatters.org

WHO highlights cybersecurity as a growing health security priority

3 September 2026, Cairo, Egypt – As health systems become increasingly dependent on digital technologies, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean is calling for stronger...

Sep 3 • 3:12 AM EDT • Health • emro.who.int

Sony and Microsoft say they’re not obligated to pass U.S. tariff refunds to consumers, echoing Nintendo

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

Sep 2 • 8:21 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news

Cornelius man abused children inside hidden room at his business, sheriff says

The Washington County Sheriff's Office is looking for more victims related to an investigation into a man accused of sexual abuse, attempted murder, and more.

Sep 2 • 2:58 PM EDT • Business • katu.com

Sheriff: Hidden room found in Cornelius shop after owner arrested for attempted murder, sex abuse

The owner of a jewelry business in Cornelius has been charged with attempted murder and sex abuse after an assault investigation and standoff last week, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

Sep 2 • 1:04 PM EDT • Business • kptv.com

Google defeats US bid to force ad tech sale

Google defeated the U.S. Department of Justice's effort to force a sale of its online advertising exchange in Virginia, marking a key antitrust ruling.

Sep 2 • 12:03 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Drought is deepening a health crisis among Peru’s recently contacted Indigenous Matsés

REQUENA, Peru — Until a century ago, few Matsés had ever been in contact with a white person before. The Indigenous people lived in a remote area of the Amazon Rainforest, along the border of Peru and Brazil, in seminomadic forest settlements between the Javari, Yaquerana and Gálvez rivers. There, wild meat was abundant — […]

Sep 2 • 11:50 AM EDT • Health • news.mongabay.com

Altria sues FDA over tobacco product review system

Altria sued the FDA to overhaul the tobacco product review system, citing delays that hinder growth in the U.S. tobacco market.

Sep 2 • 11:29 AM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Family Business Symposium to Be Held

The University of Mississippi Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship’s 5th Annual “It’s All Relative” Family Business Symposium is scheduled for Sept. 15-16, 2026 at the Sheraton Flowood Refuge Hotel & Conference Center in Flowood, MS. As a part of the UM CIE Legacy Leadership Program, the “It’s All Relative” Family Business Symposium is an open […]

Sep 1 • 2:17 PM EDT • Business • deltabusinessjournal.com

Lynchburg’s Delta Star to be acquired

Lynchburg-based Delta Star, a maker of power transformers and mobile transformer substations, announced plans to be acquired Tuesday.

Sep 1 • 12:54 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

LZ Sees Surprising Result in Search for Dark Matter

Key Takeaways Dark matter is the mysterious substance that accounts for the vast majority of matter in our universe. LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a world-leading dark matter detector and specializes in searching for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. A new LZ study found one particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known background processes and could potentially have been caused by a WIMP. LZ continues to run to see if additional data strengthens or weakens the hint of a dark matter interaction. For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected. Determining exactly what it is remains one of the biggest questions about our world. Now, a new analysis from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has recorded a single particle interaction that researchers have great difficulty explaining with known background signals from normal matter. The result does not yet meet the statistical threshold required to claim a discovery, but is the most compelling hint of dark matter reported by the experiment to date. LZ is an international collaboration of 250 scientists and engineers from 39 institutions. The detector is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and operates nearly one mile below ground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. The experiment uses 10 tonnes of ultrapure liquid xenon to search for dark matter and is optimized to look for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. The results were presented in a scientific talk at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan. The paper will be released on the online repository arXiv and submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters. “We’re very intrigued to see this event in the data, in the region where we expect dark matter to show up and the competing backgrounds are very low,” said Rick Gaitskell, a professor at Brown University and the spokesperson for LZ. “With only one event, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We are not claiming to have seen dark matter. But we have seen something interesting that we want to share with the scientific community for their input.” The LZ collaboration studies experimental data in batches. In the new result, researchers analyzed 220 live days of data collected between March 2023 and April 2024. The collaboration had previously searched this dataset for faint signals from the simplest kinds of WIMP interactions. The new analysis searched for a broader range of possible WIMP interactions that could deposit more energy in the detector. LZ is particularly sensitive to such signals while also minimizing false positives. “This was a detailed study in a region we hadn’t explored within this dataset, and we spent months of additional effort to understand all the possible causes of background events,” said Sam Eriksen, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and lead author of the study. “We understand our detector and the backgrounds so well that even a single outstanding event, like the one we found, is important. We expect dark matter events to be extremely rare, so only a handful could mark the first detection of WIMP dark matter.” If the anomalous event was caused by dark matter, the WIMP that generated it would likely have a mass of at least 200 GeV/c2 (gigaelectronvolts), or more than 200 times the mass of a proton. It would also suggest a specific type of interaction between WIMPs and ordinary matter beyond the simplest model. The LZ results have not reached “5-sigma” significance, the statistical threshold considered a discovery in physics. The new analysis is 2.6 sigma, meaning there is approximately a 0.5% chance that the event could be explained by known backgrounds. With additional data, researchers can test whether the finding continues to grow in significance or fades away. LZ has already accumulated the world’s largest dark matter dataset and will continue to accrue WIMP search data at SURF, substantially improving their search statistics. LZ searches for dark matter by looking for signature flashes of light from energy deposited in the detector. The collaboration leverages multiple methods to prevent or account for particle interactions caused by normal matter. This includes the mile of rock that shields the detector from cosmic rays from space, a water tank and outer detectors that protect the central detector from background neutrons, and a suite of computational tools that disentangle particle interactions and reject dark matter mimics. “Outlier events in the data are not unexpected, but they usually stand out as a background of some kind when you look at them deeper,” said Aaron Manalaysay, a physicist at Berkeley Lab and the chair of LZ’s Institutional Board. “This is the first example in any experiment I’ve worked on of an outlier that appears valid in every way. Of course, we’re still twisting our brains trying to think if there’s a rare background mechanism we could’ve missed, but it’s thrilling to wonder if this could be the first hint of a dark-matter observation.” LZ is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. LZ is also supported by the Science & Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics; and the Institute for Basic Science, Korea. Thirty-nine institutions of higher education and advanced research provided support to LZ. The LZ collaboration acknowledges the assistance of the Sanford Underground Research Facility. ### 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.

Sep 1 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • newscenter.lbl.gov

I helped build Obama's 2008 campaign. Democrats aren't ready for 2026.

The most dangerous political misinformation of the 2026 midterm election may not go viral. You may never see it at all.

Sep 1 • 5:07 AM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com

Help Us Investigate Abusive Coaches in Youth Sports

We’re continuing to report on abusive youth sports coaches and the gaps in the system that allow them to continue working with kids. If you have something to share on this topic, we want to hear from you.

Sep 1 • 5:05 AM EDT • Sports • propublica.org

Healthcare Heroes 2026

Celebrating the 2026 Healthcare Heroes in Nevada—honoring outstanding administrators, doctors, educators, and volunteers shaping Silver State healthcare.

Sep 1 • 4:53 AM EDT • Business • nevadabusiness.com

Recently patched PaperCut zero-days used in data theft attacks

Two security vulnerabilities in the PaperCut NG and MF print management software, patched last week after being exploited as zero-days, are now being abused in data theft attacks.

Sep 1 • 3:48 AM EDT • Technology • bleepingcomputer.com

Tackling lawsuit abuse on Inside West Virginia Politics

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) – On this week’s episode of Inside West Virginia Politics, our guests join Rick Johnson to discuss giving away water, lawsuit abuse, housing children and a congressional ru…

Aug 31 • 2:59 PM EDT • Politics • wowktv.com

Southwest inland port gets $20M state boost

The southwest Virginia inland port at Oak Park receives a $20 million state budget allocation to support site development and infrastructure.

Aug 31 • 12:29 AM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Data center growth could outpace power generation

Dominion Energy confronts rising power demand from nearly 650 data centers in Virginia, straining the grid and prompting infrastructure investments.

Aug 30 • 11:58 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Dominion lays groundwork for CVOW South

Dominion Energy secures land in Virginia Beach for CVOW South, a proposed offshore wind project off North Carolina with 800 megawatts capacity.

Aug 30 • 11:55 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

U.Va. expands Fontaine data center plans

The University of Virginia is expanding its Fontaine Data Center in Charlottesville with a revised $102 million budget to support UVa Health and research computing.

Aug 30 • 11:55 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Roanoke gets state funding injection for health sciences

Virginia allocates $174 million for Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine building and supports health sciences growth in Roanoke.

Aug 30 • 11:55 PM EDT • Health • virginiabusiness.com

I-81 widening aims to improve freight reliability

Virginia has started a $219 million project to widen I-81 through Harrisonburg and Rockingham counties, improving freight reliability and traffic flow.

Aug 30 • 11:55 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Banking

CEO AND CHAIR | NAVIENT | HERNDON

Aug 30 • 11:54 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Retail | Wholesale | Food

FOUNDER AND CEO | FIVE GUYS ENTERPRISES | ALEXANDRIA

Aug 30 • 11:42 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Government Contractors | Technology 2026: WILLIAM H. ‘BILL’ DEAN

CEO | M.C. DEAN | TYSONS/MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA

Aug 30 • 11:39 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Ray Winstone recalls defending costar groped by director: ‘It was dealt with’

Ray Winstone says he once spoke up for a costar on the set of a film after the director assaulted her. ‘He abused his power, took advantage, and she was a good kid,’ Winstone recalled. ‘Anyway, it was dealt with.’

Aug 30 • 11:01 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

When big business goes too far, government matters

Two corporate settlements show how regulators can protect children, preserve competition and restrain profit-driven abuses.

Aug 30 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • sfexaminer.com

Foster Fuels to be acquired by Ga. company

Brookneal-based wholesale fuel distributor Foster Fuels has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Georgia-based Colonial Group.

Aug 28 • 4:21 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Ohio Rep. running for reelection comes face-to-face in court with the senator whose daughter he’s accused of abusing

The senior US senator from Ohio sat with his daughter on a wooden bench in the hallway of the Cuyahoga County courthouse Wednesday, awaiting their turn as a judge in the room next door considered other domestic relations cases, then waiting again as that same judge swiftly declared a break in their case.

Aug 26 • 6:54 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Raquel Lee Bolleau reportedly reached settlement in 2015 with Mark Curry, who played her dad in Disney Channel movie

Raquel Lee Bolleau reportedly settled with former movie dad Mark Curry years before suing Disney on negligence in relation to alleged on-set sexual abuse.

Aug 26 • 6:24 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Reggie Watts dropped from festivals after abuse allegations

Reggie Watts has reportedly been dropped from the lineups of multiple festivals after being accused of 'reckless' and 'abusive' behavior.

Aug 26 • 3:28 PM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

Emerald AI reaches unicorn status with $1.05B valuation

Emerald AI announced Tuesday it has raised $150 million in a Series A funding round, vaulting the company to unicorn status.

Aug 26 • 2:30 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Strategies for how to quit smoking; free support services available through health coaching program and EAP

Employees and their spouses have access to free health and wellness coaching on smoking cessation as part of the My Wellness program. Additionally, employees and members of their immediate household can access support services for substance abuse and a variety of other concerns through the university’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Eligible employees can also use…

Aug 26 • 12:22 PM EDT • Health • today.marquette.edu

Spanberger: Trump’s trade war with Canada threatens Virginia businesses

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger warned the Trump administration that the escalating trade fight with Canada is hurting Virginia businesses.

Aug 25 • 12:27 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Why politicians are punchlines at the Edinburgh Fringe

There was a time when satire had an easier gig. Politicians said something ridiculous, comedians made fun of them, audiences laughed, and everyone went home. Subscribe Now the joke is often the headline. In a world where the unbelievable regularly makes the news, where politics can veer into parody before the comedians have had time to write the punchline, you might reasonably wonder: is satire running out of material? Not in Edinburgh. At the Fringe, I can confirm satire has a pulse, even in a relentless and rapid news cycle. Politicians as punchlines Take NewsRevue, the world’s longest-running live sketch show, where politicians are turned into punchlines at industrial speed. Its latest target? Andy Burnham - or, more accurately, his doppelganger, pictured below in the middle. The joke, he tells us, is that there have been so many politicians coming and going that even satire risks suffering from political fatigue. But perhaps that revolving door is precisely why comedy matters. When the news cycle moves faster than our ability to process it, comedians can hold up a mirror - and make us think twice. Small talk Take Ayoade Bamgboye, the Saturday Night Live UK star who won the Best Newcomer prize at last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Her Fringe debut was critically acclaimed; this year she is turning her attention to one of Britain’s most baffling social rituals: small talk. Share It’s a reminder that satire doesn’t always need a politician in its sights. Sometimes the target is simply us civilians - the strange little rules and rituals we have collectively agreed to pretend are normal. Politics and Palestinian identity For British-Palestinian comedian Sami Abu Wardeh, pictured below, comedy has a more urgent job. His new show, Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You, asks who gets to hate, and whether anger belongs to everyone, not just the far right. His comedy confronts politics and Palestinian identity while refusing to surrender the simple business of making people laugh. Shakespeare meets climate crisis And then there is HAM: an “eco-hijacking” of Hamlet, which its creators describe as “a sordid wrestle between a vegan and a sausage-lover”. Shakespeare meets the climate crisis. Meat meets moral panic. The end result? You’ll leave promising to become vegan and swiftly bulk buying Linda McCartney sausages. HAM was created by theatre company Hotter Project, aka Ell Potter and Mary Higgins, pictured below. They say comedy helped them avoid the preachiness sometimes associated with climate activism - using Shakespeare as a vessel for uncomfortable questions about the planet, politics and the way we live. Perhaps that is satire’s secret weapon. It doesn’t necessarily make the world less absurd. It makes the absurdity crystal clear. And at a moment when reality increasingly feels like it has been written by a sketch writer, the Fringe is proving there is still plenty to laugh and cry at. Satire isn’t dead. It’s alive, subletting and having the time of its life at the Fringe. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment

Aug 24 • 12:02 PM EDT • Politics • channel4news.substack.com

FDA digital health leader promises generative AI regulatory guidance is coming

FDA expects to issue guidance on policies regarding generative AI devices, according to Rick Abramson, the agency’s head of digital health policy.

Aug 24 • 4:30 AM EDT • Health • statnews.com

The ROI of resilience: The economic case for healing Israel’s traumatized children

There is no greater hidden liability than untreated childhood trauma, and no higher-yield investment than breaking the intergenerational cycle of abuse.

Aug 23 • 6:59 AM EDT • Health • jpost.com

Owner of rehabilitation business arrested after allegedly sexually abusing client

The owner of a rehabilitation business that helps people with sober living, was charged with two counts of sexual abuse, along with several drug possession charges.

Aug 21 • 1:23 PM EDT • Business • kwqc.com

Nonprofits

PRESIDENT AND CEO | CHILDFUND INTERNATIONAL | HENRICO COUNTY

Aug 20 • 11:54 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Nasr AbuOleim on Overcoming Entrepreneurship Challenges and Building a Statewide Business Portfolio

Discipline, humility, and a willingness to put in the hard work would ultimately reshape AbuOleim’s outlook on life. As he enrolled in the University of South Florida to study engineering, he chose not to let discomfort discourage him.

Aug 20 • 1:46 PM EDT • Business • usatoday.com

What Parents Need to Know About Sexual Abuse in Youth Sports

The public SafeSport list is one of the most powerful tools for parents looking to research their kids’ coaches. But many families have no idea it exists or how to use it. Critics also say the organization has serious flaws.

Aug 20 • 4:55 AM EDT • Sports • propublica.org

A Business in Kabul, A Business in Eugene

Cardamom, fennel, cumin and coriander are all frequently used spices in Tamana Ashor’s kitchen cabinet. She carried those spices with her to Eugene to preserve her Afghan roots and share with her…

Aug 20 • 3:00 AM EDT • Business • eugeneweekly.com

Why Manufacturers Are Paying Closer Attention to Building Envelopes

Site selection teams have to be meticulous. They model tax incentive schedules years into the future, track labor availability across competing markets, and negotiate access to highway interchanges and rail spurs.

Aug 19 • 9:56 PM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Owner of Las Vegas dog training business arrested after English Bulldog dies

The owner of a Las Vegas dog training business is facing animal abuse-related charges after the death of an English Bulldog, according to an arrest report.

Aug 19 • 8:25 PM EDT • Business • 8newsnow.com

Child Sexual Abuse Is Preventable | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

We could end CSA by focusing on solutions that work—and scaling them at a national level.

Aug 19 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • publichealth.jhu.edu

Guardians News: Hail Jo Adell!

The Guardians hosted the Giants last night. The Giants have had a terrible season, and they played like it last night. Their defense screwed up countless times, including an outfielder who Raburned a throw. But the Guardians would have beaten most opponents last night—because Jo Adell had a career night. The bad news is that […]

Aug 19 • 6:55 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Robin Williams’ kids reactivate his Instagram account to stop ‘rampant AI abuse’ of his likeness

Robin Williams’ three adult children reactivated his Instagram account to stop ‘rampant AI abuse’ of his likeness: ‘This is our way of sharing his unique talent and humor with the world.’

Aug 18 • 7:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Politics drove antisemitism probes against Ivy League schools, DOJ whistleblower says

A Trump administration task force on antisemitism pressured universities into punitive settlements despite turning up little to no evidence of systemic abuses, a whistleblower says.

Aug 18 • 4:27 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Smithsonian Brings Sandy Beach Scientists to Texas A&M Galveston

Scientists from the U.S. and South America are workshopping at Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) this week to expand sandy beach research and broaden collegiate learning opportunities.The Tides of Opportunity Project, co-led by the Smithsonian’s Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO) Program, TAMUG, the Smithsonian Marine Station, the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, and the University of Miami, is a collaborative monitoring project with marine science professors and their students.Tuesday, Aug. 18, through Friday, Aug. 21, 15 professors and marine science professionals from the United States, Brazil, Peru, and Urugay will co-design a sandy beaches monitoring protocol and associated course modules and test the protocol in the field.The goal is to incorporate sandy beach monitoring protocols into marine science courses, which college faculty and students can use to achieve learning goals while providing essential data can help researchers diagnose the health of an understudied critical coastal habitat.Dr. Guilherme Corte, an assistant professor of marine biology in the College of Marine Sciences and Maritime Studies at TAMUG, is a principal investigator for MarineGEO. Texas A&M University at Galveston students and faculty package samples collected on the beach to take to campus for study in the Benthic Ecology Lab. Credit: TAMUG Division of Marketing and Communications“One third of the world’s ice-free coastlines are made of sandy beaches, and they go from pole to pole,” Corte said.However, despite their abundance and place as one of the most accessible coastal ecosystems for college-level education and research, they remain critically understudied.The Tides of Opportunity Project recognized that accessibility makes sandy beaches uniquely suited for engaging professors and students, including those with limited resources.“Any students can do sandy beach research,” Corte said, encouraging instructors to help students take a break from typing questions into artificial intelligence tools and embrace opportunities to do real science. “Providing this hands-on experience is something unique.”Tides of Opportunity Project goals include:Training a cohort of professors from across the Americas in standardized sandy beach monitoring methods; Equipping participating faculty with classroom modules, field tools, and multilingual teaching materials; Expanding MarineGEO with new monitoring sites focused on the implementation of long-term sandy beach monitoring; Strengthening hands-on, college-level learning experiences; And cultivating interest, learning, and efficacy in science among college-level students.By the end of this week, workshop participants plan to have a final version of the protocol and associated course modules that we can share with professors shortly after the workshop ends to then test with their students in courses that take place between September 2026 and February 2027.The scheduleDay 1: Tuesday, Aug. 18Location: Aggie Special Events Center (ASEC), Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston 8:30 – 9 a.m. Breakfast9 – 9:30 am Welcome and brief group introductions9:30 – 10 a.m. Introduction to Tides of Opportunity Project, Design Workshop, MarineGEO, and the Connecting Coastlines to Campuses Program (presentation)10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Introduction to workshop participants and project coordination team (presentations by each participant)• Brief lunch break from 12-12:30 p.m.1 – 3 p.m. Discussion about why collaborative science matters (presentation and interactive group discussion)3 – 4:15 p.m. Introduction to sandy beaches (presentation and group discussion)Day 2: Wednesday, Aug.19Location:• Morning sessions: ASEC Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston • Afternoon sessions: Corte’s field site (location available upon request)8:30 – 9 a.m. Breakfast9 a.m. – noon Prep for fieldwork (presentation and interactive group discussion)• Finish conversation about importance of studying sandy beaches• Go through sandy beaches monitoring protocol and field sheetsNoon – 12:45 p.m. Lunch12:45 – 1:30 p.m Prep for field (including driving to the field site)1:30 – 5:30 p.m. Fieldwork & bring samples back to TAMUGDay 3: Thursday, Aug. 20Location:• Breakfast: ASEC Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston • Fieldwork: Guilherme’s field site (location available upon request)• Lab/afternoon sessions: TAMUG lab (location available upon request) and ASEC Rooms 102 B and C8:30 – 9 a.m . Breakfast9 – 11 a.m. Return to field• Shorter field trip – recovering samples left out overnight11 a.m. – noon Lab work12 – 12:45 p.m. Lunch12:45 – 2:45 p.m. Continue lab work3 – 5 p.m. Discuss with professors the feasibility of implementing protocol in their courses and where might need to make changes (discussion)Day 4: Friday, Aug. 21Location: ASEC Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston 8:30 – 9 a.m. Breakfast9 a.m. – noon Group Discussion• How to evaluate student learning and engagement• Course modules• Next steps

Aug 18 • 1:47 PM EDT • Science • news.galveston.tamu.edu

Matthew Yglesias on Abundance and the Politics of Energy - Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA

Hear in-depth conversations with the world’s top energy and climate leaders from government, business, academia, and civil society.

Aug 18 • 11:14 AM EDT • Politics • energypolicy.columbia.edu

Could GLP-1s help treat opioid use disorder? Vanderbilt Health study now enrolling

The study, Evaluation of Tirzepatide as an Adjunct to Buprenorphine for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (TAB), is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial conducted through the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Clinical Trials Network.

Aug 18 • 10:56 AM EDT • Health • news.vumc.org

HHS awards more than $96 million in behavioral health grants

The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday announced that it will award $96.7 million in grants through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for various behavioral health services.

Aug 18 • 10:54 AM EDT • Health • aha.org

The ultra rich are collecting fossils. And that’s bad for science

One of the UK’s best fossil collections has been sold overseas in what experts have called a loss to the nation. The collection, which is now on display at the Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi, was gathered on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. As dinosaur fossils sell to private collectors for increasingly large sums, scientists are worried that domestic museums are being priced out of the market, and in turn scientists are missing out on the opportunity to make new observations. To find out how fossils became big business and what it could mean for research, Madeleine Finlay hears from science correspondent Nicola Davis

Aug 18 • 9:44 AM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

Mike Caruso arrested on child sexual abuse charges

The arrest came one year to the day after Gov. DeSantis appointed Caruso as Clerk.

Aug 18 • 9:17 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

HHS Awards Over $96 Million to Strengthen Mental Health, Suicide Prevention, and Substance Use Disorder Services

HHS through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, announced $96.7 million in grants and cooperative agreements to strengthen behavioral health services.

Aug 17 • 3:06 PM EDT • Health • hhs.gov

Oh look, it’s the new 223mph, €1m+ Brabus Bodo Cabriolet

Liked the Brabus Bodo Coupe? Here’s the limited edition droptop

Aug 17 • 10:40 AM EDT • Technology • topgear.com

Globalinx to purchase Virginia Beach land for colocation data center

The Virginia Beach Development Authority on Tuesday agreed to sell 9 acres of land in Corporate Landing Business Park to Globalinx.

Aug 17 • 10:27 AM EDT • Business • virginiabusiness.com

Athens business owners revitalize storefronts with new city grant

Seven local small businesses are getting a big boost thanks to a new city grant program designed to spruce up properties and foster economic growth.

Aug 17 • 9:25 AM EDT • Business • waff.com

Sauer: Mass. must get ahead of health care fraud

If policymakers drag their feet, Medicare Advantage’s waste, fraud, and abuse problems could erode public trust, drive up taxpayer costs, and threaten the long-term viability of the program.

Aug 17 • 3:43 AM EDT • Health • bostonherald.com

A guide to Northwestern’s political scene, voting in the 2026 midterm election

Northwestern students have an abundance of ways to become politically involved this school year, with student groups and November midterm elections. Students across the aisle can find communities on campus, from the NU College Democrats to the NU College Republicans. NU Political Union, a nonpartisan student forum, and BridgeNU, an organization that aims to encourage...

Aug 16 • 9:30 PM EDT • Politics • dailynorthwestern.com

Six months after $147 million US health deal, Burkina Faso faces fresh sanctions threat from Washington

Burkina Faso is facing fresh pressure from Washington over alleged human rights abuses, just six months after the US agreed to provide up to $147 million in health assistance to the West African country

Aug 15 • 8:22 AM EDT • Health • africa.businessinsider.com

Brabus Bodo Cabriolet (2027)

Each Brabus Bodo Cabriolet will be individually manufactured in this limited series according to the wishes of its buyer. The base price is listed at 1,077,000 euros.

Aug 14 • 2:36 PM EDT • Technology • netcarshow.com

Richmond science company to lay off 68 employees

Eurofins Professional Scientific Services South plans to lay off 68 Richmond employees Oct. 9, according to a state notice.

Aug 13 • 3:17 PM EDT • Science • virginiabusiness.com

Rep. Mike Lawler defends $10,000 campaign donation from colleague Max Miller’s PAC, who’s accused of abuse

Aug 13 • 1:29 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Journalism is key to combating bad practices in science

Watchdog science journalism has become a fundamental tool to counter scientific malpractice, such as publication fraud, abuse and political and corporate manipulation of science. A study by the Universitat ...

Aug 13 • 12:20 PM EDT • Science • phys.org

Russia releases former US Marine reported in poor health

Robert Gilman, who was arrested in 2022, was left in "life-threatening condition" after being subjected to "harsh and abusive treatment", his family says.

Aug 11 • 7:33 PM EDT • Health • bbc.com

Former U.S. Marine held in Russia for more than 4 years has been released, advocates say

Before he was flown out of Russia, Robert Gilman had been in “a dissociative stupor” for 47 days due to the abuse he has suffered in prison.

Aug 11 • 11:44 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Blending Fusion Science, AI to Predict DIII-D Tokamak Behavior

Data scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and partner institutions have developed a deployable machine learning (ML) framework that can adaptively predict changes in a magnetic confinement fusion research machine’s hardware. The innovative method, recently published in the journal Machine Learning with Applications, promises to help make the operation of fusion devices more stable and accelerate humanity’s pursuit of a superabundant

Aug 11 • 8:40 AM EDT • Science • newswise.com

Democrats Plan New Push to Defeat Max Miller in Ohio After Abuse Accusations

The party’s congressional campaign arm added Mr. Miller’s opponent, Brian Poindexter, to its highly competitive “Red to Blue” list.

Aug 11 • 5:04 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

Democrats Plan New Push to Defeat Max Miller in Ohio After Abuse Accusations

The party’s congressional campaign arm added Mr. Miller’s opponent, Brian Poindexter, to its highly competitive “Red to Blue” list.

Aug 11 • 5:04 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

Deadline passes for Rep. Max Miller to be replaced on Ohio ballot as he faces domestic abuse claims

Embattled Republican Rep. Max Miller is staying in the race for his Ohio congressional district

Aug 10 • 7:36 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

North Dakota receives $6 million federal grant to expand children's behavioral health services | Health and Human Services North Dakota

North Dakota Health and Human Services (HHS) has been awarded a new $6 million federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to expand community-based behavioral health services for children, youth and families in north central and southeastern North Dakota.

Aug 10 • 5:00 PM EDT • Health • hhs.nd.gov

Judge orders ex-business manager to pay over $11,490 to school in Key West

A 60-year-old woman who was accused of stealing from a private school in Key West — as she allegedly abused her position as a business manager until 2014 — was behind bars on Monday in Monroe County, records show.

Aug 10 • 4:58 PM EDT • Business • local10.com