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Overwatch Season 5 skins and Mythics Revealed by Blizzard

Get ready for a spooky season in Overwatch

Oct 5 • 3:13 PM EDT • Technology • polygon.com

Overwatch’s Latest China Exclusive Has Fans Ready To Crash Out: ‘I Still Don’t Know How People Defend Blizzard For This’

Shion, Kiriko, Reaper, and more are the latest heroes to reap the benefits of Blizzard and NetEase’s partnership, but only in China

Oct 5 • 2:40 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

Massachusetts Governor Urges No Vote on Cannabis Prohibition Measure

Gov. Maura Healey said she opposes Question 8, a ballot measure that aims to wipe out the state’s adult-use legalization laws.

Oct 5 • 2:01 PM EDT • Business • cannabisbusinesstimes.com

Trump administration finalizes transparent healthcare pricing rules

The rules are intended to make healthcare pricing information more accurate, standardized and easy to use

Oct 5 • 1:43 PM EDT • Health • spectrumlocalnews.com

Banijay Entertainment Consolidates U.S. Operations to 'Banijay America' Under CEO Ben Samek

Banijay Entertainment Oct. 5 announced it is consolidating its U.S. operations under a new moniker, Banijay America, under the direction of CEO Ben Samek, who reports to Jane Turton, deputy CEO of Banijay Entertainment. The company is restructuring its operational footprint to centralize leadership and operational support while keeping its individual production labels creatively independent. … Continue reading "Banijay Entertainment Consolidates U.S. Operations to ‘Banijay America’ Under CEO Ben Samek"

Oct 5 • 1:33 PM EDT • Entertainment • mediaplaynews.com

Essentia Health-Virginia Clinic welcomes Emily Reed to practice family medicine

Emily Reed, an advanced practice registered nurse and certified nurse practitioner specializing in family medicine, is thrilled to join the Essentia Health-Virginia Clinic.

Oct 5 • 12:21 PM EDT • Health • essentiahealth.org

ER visits from foreign-born patients fell drastically during ICE raids, study finds

Those who did visit were more likely than U.S.-born patients to require hospitalization.

Oct 5 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • latimes.com

Nobel for medicine awarded to 3 scientists for work that helps map the brain

A method that controls nerve signals with light, developed by an American and two Germans, has provided greater understanding of Alzheimer’s and is used in efforts to restore sight.

Oct 5 • 9:54 AM EDT • Science • washingtonpost.com

Health Brief: Exclusive | Inside the new health price transparency rules

Plus: Trump’s checks to Medicare enrollees could complicate year-end health care negotiations,

Oct 5 • 8:45 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

The Hollywood hits filmed in Africa

Oct 5 • 7:58 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com

Bill's Prescription Center remains family business in Brandon

Bill's Prescription Center continues operating as a multi-generational family pharmacy in Brandon, maintaining its commitment to personalized care despite rapid regional growth.

Oct 5 • 7:51 AM EDT • Business • fox13news.com

The Co-op of Batesville

Serving the community for more than a decade Locally owned and operated businesses are a staple of the Delta economy, providing personalized service to their customers. The Co-Op of Batesville is a prime example. For 11 years, owners Steve and Kay Nickle have provided outdoor- themed supplies and apparel to citizens of Batesville, […]

Oct 5 • 7:44 AM EDT • Business • deltabusinessjournal.com

Medicare-for-all is back. Now comes the hard part.

Democrats are reviving an old idea. Now they have to define it and pay for it.

Oct 5 • 7:00 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Walworth County dairy farmer specializing in raw milk says state is unfairly fining his business

Chaz Self said his dairy farm is producing grade A milk under Wisconsin's state standards, but was still ordered to pay a hefty fine. An online fundraiser has been created to cover those fines.

Oct 5 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • tmj4.com

Yale School of Medicine On the Science of Childhood Anxiety, Say, Anxiety Disorders Are the Most Common Mental Health Challenges In Youth

Credit: Matt Bradbury October 5, 2026 - By Isabella Backman - Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health challenges in youth. Left untreated, they can disrupt the lives of both children and their families. The good news is that with intervention, most children will overcome these conditions. Across Yale School of Medicine, scientists are working to understand anxiety at every level, from common anxious behaviors to molecular biomarkers in the brain. They are using their findings to develop and disseminate new evidence-based treatments for childhood anxiety. Today, the go-to treatment for childhood anxiety disorders is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This is a form of psychotherapy that teaches children skills for confronting anxious thoughts and helps them practice managing situations that cause anxiety. While it is the gold-standard treatment backed by considerable scientific evidence, up to 50% of children will not see sufficient benefit from CBT alone. Wendy Silverman, PhD, Alfred A. Messer Professor in the Child Study Center, co-directs the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program alongside Eli Lebowitz, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center. One of their main interests is learning how to improve outcomes beyond CBT. “We’re developing cutting-edge, research-based knowledge that can reduce the suffering that anxiety causes children and their families,” says Silverman. Changing parent behavior YSM experts are investigating how to improve CBT outcomes for children by involving the parents. Silverman’s research has uncovered two main components of parent intervention that improve childhood anxiety: not enabling children to completely avoid the things that make them anxious and taking steps to enhance their autonomy. Parents may unintentionally reinforce their child’s anxiety by allowing them to avoid what makes them anxious. They also may unintentionally limit the children’s sense of autonomy by being overly intrusive. “One of the things that we take pride in is that we’ve focused on trying to understand what parents need to do, and to test our ideas and see if changing the parents’ behaviors is enhancing the effects of CBT,” Silverman says. “Our findings thus far suggest that they do." As much as CBT can be helpful, it can also be challenging to get one’s child to do the necessary steps for CBT to work. This is one important reason why Lebowitz created a novel intervention program for parents named Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). Existing intervention programs often teach parents to act as therapists for their child, such as training them on how to practice breathing exercises. “It makes sense, but this doesn’t work very well in practice,” says Lebowitz. “And part of the reason, I think, is that it’s not easy to get your kid to do things, especially if they’re not excited about doing it.” SPACE is unique because it focuses entirely on parent involvement and changing parental behavior—children are not involved in the sessions. For example, parents learn how to use supportive messages that convey confidence that their child can tolerate and manage distress. “It might sound like a parent saying to a child, ‘I get that this is really hard for you, but I know that you can handle it,’” Lebowitz says. The program also works with parents to identify the ways in which they are accommodating anxious behaviors. “We’ll pick one thing that parents are doing that is an accommodation and help them make a detailed plan for how they’re going to change that,” Lebowitz explains. Treating Anxiety in Children and Adolescents Much of the existing research on SPACE has focused on parents of children under age 14. Ongoing studies are now exploring its use with parents of older teens. “Both anxiety and accommodation can interfere with normative developmental shifts during the teen years, including increased autonomy and individuation from parents,” says Rebecca Etkin, PhD, associate research scientist in the Child Study Center. “In this sense, SPACE may be particularly well-suited for anxious teens and their parents. We want to see whether it is effective during this distinct developmental window.” Unfortunately, many families in need of CBT face barriers, including limited availability of services and geographic constraints. One way to improve access is digital interventions. Silverman and her team are developing an evidence-based digitized intervention program for parents that they can access directly from their computer or smart phone. “The work we’re doing will be one of the very few parent interventions that is digitized and importantly tested for effectiveness,” she says. Creating interventions for anxiety-related challenges Silverman and Lebowitz recently received a generous gift to develop and test other interventions that help parents reduce other child anxiety-related behavioral and emotional difficulties, such as restrictive eating and unexplained somatic symptoms. One of these projects in particular focuses on understanding the risks of social media and its potential benefits, including offering a sense of connection. “A lot of research has focused on the idea that social media is harmful and the less of it the better,” says Lebowitz. “But we actually see is that this is not quite right—there are negatives, but there are also positives. So, we’re trying to get a little bit more nuanced of a picture.” The team is working with teens with social anxiety and their parents over an extended period to better understand their social media habits and how their anxiety levels affect engagement with different platforms. The teens will answer questions sent to an app on their phones about mood and social media usage in an effort to capture emotional responses as they unfold. “We hope to develop interventions that can help make the best of social media while protecting against the more problematic effects,” Lebowitz says. The brain’s role in anxiety Researchers are also testing therapies to address anxiety at the neurological and molecular levels. In collaboration with Dylan Gee, PhD, professor of psychology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Hilary Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, Lebowitz and Silverman are using brain imaging to identify changes in a child’s brain before and after parents enroll in SPACE. In one study, children viewed anxiety-inducing images while undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); the researchers conducted scans with and without the children’s parents nearby. Before SPACE, children’s brains were better able to activate the regulatory circuitry needed to turn off an anxious response when their parents were nearby. But after SPACE, children could activate this circuitry even without the parent around. “As parents work on gradually reducing some of their accommodations, you can see a child get better at regulating their own fear system in the brain,” Lebowitz says. “It’s remarkable.” Research into the molecular underpinnings of anxiety can also inform new childhood anxiety treatments. In a recent study, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Flora Vaccarino, MD, Harris Professor in the Child Study Center, discovered that a protein known as fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) could be protective from the toxic effects of stress. FGF2 levels in children and their parents were linked to the children’s risk of developing anxiety and depression, the study showed. The findings could help explain why some children who are exposed to early life trauma such as poverty or abuse are more prone to developing mental health disorders. And FGF2 could be a target for treatment. “This is very novel because it starts to give a clue to what is the molecular chain that connects those lived experiences to the actual psychological outcomes,” Lebowitz says. New ways to study and treat childhood anxiety Michael Crowley, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center, collaborates with Silverman and Lebowitz to study the role that attention plays in development and maintenance of childhood anxiety. There is a large body of research that shows that anxious children, like anxious adults, are prone to focus on threatening stimuli such as angry faces compared with neutral faces. This has led to innovative interventions that involve attention retraining. The idea is that if experts train children to look away from threatening stimuli, it may reduce their anxiety—especially children with social anxiety who are most prone to attend to threats. The researchers have just completed a clinical trial for attention retraining with 10- to 14-year-olds with social anxiety disorders and are currently analyzing the findings. Besides this innovative attention retraining research, as Crowly notes, “I like to design tasks that are engaging to kids,” Crowley says. “My goal is to assess something without the kids knowing what we are assessing.” With this goal in mind, Crowley has created a virtual game, named Boom, to study threat processing in children with anxiety disorders. The game is similar to that of hot potato—the child and three digital players take turns virtually passing a ball to each other’s gloves. At some point, the ball turns into a bomb, and as the bomb lands in each player’s glove, the outline of the glove turns yellow. The goal is to avoid having the bomb go off in your glove. What isn’t obvious is that the game is designed to measure different types of threatening stimuli, both ambiguous and direct. In the game, the direct threat occurs as the bomb is traveling towards your glove. The ambiguous threat is the yellow outlined glove as it is unknown where the bomb will travel next. While children play the game, Crowley’s team measures their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). The researchers have discovered that in kids with anxiety, the brain reacts more strongly to ambiguous threats than it does in their peers, but less strongly to direct threats. They believe that the initial abnormally large brain response to not knowing where the bomb is going impairs the brain's ability to properly respond when the threat is actually traveling the child’s way. “The brains of children with anxiety are unable to differentiate between threats you need to do something about and those that are not your problem.” Michael Crowley, PhD, develops innovative games for studying anxiety in children and adolescents.Credit: Matt Bradbury Based on these insights, Crowley hopes to study whether interventions like attention training could restore appropriate threat processing. Crowley’s team is also working on a test called the Balloon Risk Avoidance Task, which evaluates risk-taking and avoidance behaviors. It features a digital balloon that is full of air and about to burst. Kids have six seconds to let air out of the balloon. The more air they let out, the less risk they face that the balloon will pop. But at the same time, the balloon becomes less valuable as it deflates. “The more air you keep in the balloon, the more points you get,” Crowley explains. So far, the researchers have found that when the balloons pop unexpectedly, teens with social anxiety show distinct brain responses. Studying these responses can help psychologists understand the underlying pathways driving the various manifestations of anxiety. The genetics of anxiety When Thomas Fernandez, MD, associate professor in the Child Study Center and of psychiatry, was still in training, there was a lot of excitement about understanding the genetics associated with autism spectrum disorder. Since then, scientists have identified around 250 genes associated with autism. The genetic contribution to anxiety disorders, on the other hand, has historically received less attention. Anxiety is less heritable than autism, but the genetic contribution for anxiety disorders that emerge in childhood may be higher than for anxiety disorders overall. While scientists estimate the heritability of anxiety disorders in general to be around 30% to 50%, some studies suggest higher heritability for certain childhood-onset anxiety presentations. “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism,” Fernandez says. “So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” “I saw firsthand how researchers in the field went about finding vulnerability genes for autism. So, we’re using a very similar playbook for childhood anxiety.” Thomas Fernandez, MD Associate Professor In the Child Study Center and in Psychiatry Now, Fernandez and Emily Olfson, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Child Study Center, are studying children and their parents to identify genetic changes that are present in the child but not the parents, known as “de novo mutations.” “All of us have some de novo mutations—maybe about 50 to 100 sprinkled throughout the genome,” Olfson says. “But when they occur within the coding regions of genes, they can be really disruptive.” Previous research shows that people with autism have higher rates of damaging de novo mutations than the general population. In 2022, Olfson, Lebowitz, Silverman, and Fernandez published a study on 68 children and their families that found that children with anxiety had similarly high levels of these mutations. Studying de novo mutations can help point the researchers to where they should be looking for genes associated with anxiety. “The end game is using the genes to steer us toward the right part of biology that we can then target to come up with better treatments,” Fernandez says. Building on those findings, the team is now studying more families to better understand how these de novo mutations, along with other genetic and environmental factors, shape pediatric anxiety disorders. They recently received a National Institutes of Health grant to enroll 750 new families over the next five years. Olfson is the principal investigator, with co-investigators Lebowitz, Fernandez, Silverman, and Shuangge Steven Ma, PhD, department chair and professor of biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health. Neurodevelopment, Risk Genes, and Mental Health Conditions - The Olfson Lab Joel Gelernter, MD, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry, is interested in how different anxiety disorders differ genomically. “We are studying social phobia, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, working to understand why people differ in their risk to these specific anxiety disorders and evaluating various risk factors,” he says. Gelernter was recently involved in one of the largest studies to date of the genomics underlying anxiety disorder. The study included around 122,000 people with anxiety disorders and around 730,000 without. It found that some genetic differences associated with anxiety were linked to signaling that helps reduce overactivity in the nervous system. Many anxiety medications available today work by targeting this process. “It’s nice when the biology that you get out of a large genome-wide study ratifies things that we already know because that can help increase confidence in further findings from the study,” Gelernter says. Uncovering the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders John Krystal, MD, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry, is interested in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of which anxiety is a major symptom. In the late 1980s, Krystal’s team discovered that the drug yohimbine activated symptoms in patients with PTSD. “This was the first time we could link a specific biological mechanism to the symptoms of PTSD,” Krystal says. At the time, he adds, this finding was highly controversial. “A lot of people felt that PTSD was a purely psychological syndrome that didn’t have an underlying biology.” Since then, Krystal has dived deep into understanding the neurobiology of PTSD to learn how to better treat it. His team is evaluating the use of ketamine and psychedelics. These would be among the first treatments to be developed specifically for PTSD. They may also be applicable for other disorders including anxiety disorders, Krystal adds. An important gap in PTSD treatment is the absence of biological tests that inform how to best help patients manage their PTSD symptoms. A doctor doesn’t diagnose cancer based on how they feel. Rather, they use tests of the biology of the cancer to determine the best course of treatment. “And we can’t do that in any psychiatric disorder other than Alzheimer’s disease,” Krystal says. “But now we are building a foundation for this approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders for the first time.” Source: Yale School of Medicine

Oct 5 • 6:44 AM EDT • Science • goldrushcam.com

Study finds a whole grain sweet spot for heart health

You know that whole grains are good for your heart. New research identifies how much it takes to notice improvements in cholesterol, blood pressure and more.

Oct 5 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Scientists uncover a clue that could hint at why we regain weight after diets

A chemical mechanism may cause weight regain by creating a “memory” of obesity in fat cells, a study suggests.

Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • washingtonpost.com

Governor’s advisory council discusses Youth Risk Behavior Survey ahead of final policy recommendations

Gov. Stein's advisory council is finalizing recommendations on youth well-being before the legislature decides how to use Meta settlement funds.

Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • ednc.org

Four ways the midterm elections could go, one month away

Democrats have polls and history on their side. Republicans have money.

Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

The breakthrough is only the beginning

Scientific advances are transforming what's possible in healthcare. But as therapies become more personalized and connected, success depends on what happens after the discovery.

Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • zurich.com

The breakthrough is only the beginning

Scientific advances are transforming what's possible in healthcare. But as therapies become more personalized and connected, success depends on what happens after the discovery.

Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • zurich.com

Digbi Health Study of Nearly 16,000 Members Finds Precision Biology GI Care Delivers IBS Relief at Scale

Combining Gut microbiome, genetic, and glucose signals delivers unprecedented personalized care to bring clinically meaningful relief to more than half of symptomatic membersMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digbi Health today released a real-world study of nearly 16,000 members of its precision biology program, which personalizes nutrition and lifestyle care to each person's gut microbiome, genetics, and glucose response. Among members followed for 12 weeks, i more than h

Oct 5 • 4:32 AM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com

Wahine Mālama ʻĀina

Mālama ‘āina is the Hawaiian values-based practice of caring for, protecting and honoring the natural world. For this year’s Wahine issue, Hawaii Business Magazine recognizes five women doing vital work to steward Hawai‘i’s land and ocean — from conserving culturally and ecologically significant sites and mitigating invasive pests to restoring coral reefs and revitalizing the traditional ahupua‘a system.

Oct 5 • 3:00 AM EDT • Business • hawaiibusiness.com

Visualizing Magnetism in 3D

Xiuzhen Yu, the first person to directly observe an individual skyrmion, explains how microscopy could shape the future of spintronics.

Oct 5 • 1:04 AM EDT • Science • advancedsciencenews.com

Russia hospitalizes almost 200 people after researcher's death from plague: reports

Nearly 200 people are under medical observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region over suspected exposure to plague, according to local media reports.

Oct 5 • 12:16 AM EDT • Health • cnbc.com

WHO joins Pre-COP31 to advance climate action that delivers for people’s health

The World Health Organization (WHO) is joining Pacific leaders, governments and partners at Pre-COP31 in Fiji from 5 to 8 October to advance health priorities in climate action and strengthen the Pacific voice ahead of the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).COP31, to be held next month in Antalya, Türkiye, marks an important step for global climate and health action. Health is one of the 10 priority themes of the COP31 Action Agenda, “Dynamic and Resilient Health Systems”, and a dedicated Health Day will take place on 9 November, the first day of COP31. The inclusion of health reflects growing global recognition that climate action and health are closely connected. The climate crisis is affecting population health globally. Across the WHO Western Pacific Region, which includes Pacific island countries and areas, the consequences of climate change include extreme heat, cyclones, floods, rising sea levels, food and water insecurity, infectious diseases and disruptions to essential health services. The Pacific in particular faces additional challenges. A recent review of 76 hospitals in 14 Pacific island countries found that 62% of health facilities are located within 500 metres of the sea or a river, leaving them particularly exposed to flooding, storm surges and sea-level rise.Bringing Pacific priorities to the global climate agendaThe Pacific Pre-COP31 provides an important opportunity for Pacific countries and partners to consolidate regional priorities and bring the experiences and leadership of Pacific communities into global climate discussions.Pacific countries have been advancing practical approaches to protect health in a changing climate, including strengthening climate-resilient health systems, improving preparedness for extreme weather events, building resilient health infrastructure and mobilizing climate finance for health. “This Pre-COP is an important moment for the Pacific, bringing global climate discussions to a region that has long been at the forefront of the climate crisis. It provides an opportunity for Pacific countries and areas to set their priorities, experiences and leadership on the global stage, and to ensure that the realities of Pacific communities are genuinely reflected in the decisions made on climate action,” said Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific.Throughout this week, WHO will co-convene and participate in high-level discussions and events focused on climate and health, climate resilience, adaptation, financing and implementation. “Climate finance is essential for resilient and healthy Pacific communities,” emphasized Dr Mark Jacobs, WHO Representative to the South Pacific and Director of Pacific Technical Support. “We must ensure that financing reaches the people, communities and essential services most exposed to climate risks, supporting locally defined priorities and investments.”WHO will work with partners to strengthen the integration of health considerations across climate policies and investments, including national climate plans and resilience initiatives.Health as a driver of climate actionAmid the risks to health and pressures on health systems, well-strategized and implemented climate action can deliver significant health benefits. Investments in clean energy, sustainable transport, resilient infrastructure, food systems and nature-based solutions have proven to reduce health risks while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation.“Climate action is truly an investment in health. Cleaner energy, healthier food systems and climate-resilient health services can protect lives while building stronger communities. We now need to turn these opportunities into action and make health a core part of climate investments,” said Dr Sandro Demaio, Director and Head of Office, WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region. “These benefits demonstrate that climate action is not only about reducing future risks. It is also an opportunity to improve lives today while building healthier, safer and more resilient societies.”At COP31 next month, WHO will also support the Health Pavilion, which will bring together the global health community and partners to advance health and equity within climate negotiations. With COP31 poised to move health higher on the global climate agenda, WHO will continue working with countries and partners across the Western Pacific Region and globally to strengthen climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems, and ensure that climate action protects and improves people’s health.____________________Media contactsElizabeth Bennett, WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region, elizabeth.bennett@who.intJulia Dongwhan Shin, WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region, dong.shin@who.intWHO Western Pacific Communications, wprocom@who.int

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

Patrick F. Szukics, D.O., Joins Baptist Health Orthopedic Care as Orthopedic Sports Medicine Surgeon

October 1, 2026 – Fellowship-trained orthopedic sports medicine surgeon Patrick F. Szukics, D.O., has joined Baptist Health Orthopedic Care. Dr. Szukics specializes in diagnosing and treating sports-related and orthopedic injuries of the hip, knee, shoulder and ankle. His expertise includes minimally invasive arthroscopic surgery, shoulder replacement, and the treatment of tendon and ligament injuries. He […]

Oct 4 • 7:02 PM EDT • Health • southfloridahospitalnews.com

Mid-Atlantic Farmers Seek Early Fertilizer Price Protection Now

Mid-Atlantic farmers are locking in 2027 fertilizer contracts now, as nitrogen imports and market uncertainty make input-cost planning a key risk-management concern.

Oct 4 • 7:00 PM EDT • Business • rfdtv.com

UCF's Defense Struggles to Close in 27-17 Loss

A dominant start crumbled as a relentless Houston ground game capitalized on short fields and a vanishing pass rush, leaving the Knights searching for answers before facing powerhouse ranked opponents.

Oct 4 • 2:51 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

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

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

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

How Democrats hope to reverse Trump’s changes to the presidency

As the midterms approach, some of the president’s foes are working to ensure his aggressive approach to executive power doesn’t outlast him.

Oct 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

How do I keep checks from being stolen in the mail?

Dear Liz: In response to a reader whose check to the IRS was stolen from the post office, you (again) warned readers that mail theft and check fraud have soared and that electronic payments are now the safest way to send money.

Oct 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • latimes.com

How to spot fake recruiters: Tips for job seekers on LinkedIn

Alyshia Hull thought she received a great opportunity from a recruiter. When he asked her to pay for a résumé service, she realized it was a scam.

Oct 4 • 5:05 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Why you should think about getting your flu shot right now

Flu is surging unusually early in some parts of the western United States, catching doctors by surprise.

Oct 4 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Johnson & Johnson, AOA Reveal Menopause Eye Health Gap

Global research by Johnson & Johnson and Ipsos finds vision is overlooked as a menopause symptom, revealing a gap in longevity care

Oct 4 • 4:00 AM EDT • Health • healthcare-digital.com

Austin Wells Mistake Costs Yankees ALDS Game 1

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

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

Suspect at large after man stabbed outside Northeast Side restaurant, police say

San Antonio police say a disturbance outside a business escalated into a stabbing Friday night. The victim was hospitalized as the suspect fled, briefly reentered the building, and remains at large.

Oct 3 • 9:59 PM EDT • Business • news4sanantonio.com

Is Sun Life (TSX:SLF) Quietly Redefining Its Health Ecosystem With Disability Care Navigation?

In late September 2026, Sun Life U.S. introduced Disability with Health Navigator, integrating personalized care navigation into disability coverage to help employees access specialized opinions, providers, and employer-specific benefits while facing major health conditions or seeking ongoing support. This move extends Health Navigator’s reach across disability, standalone offerings and medical stop-loss coverage, underlining Sun Life’s focus on year-round health support within employer...

Oct 3 • 8:12 PM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com

Elizabeth Berkley pays tribute to television principal Dennis Haskins

DETROIT — Elizabeth Berkley, who played Jessie Spano on TV's "Saved by the Bell," is paying tribute to her television principal, Dennis Haskins. Haskins, who played Mr. Belding on the

Oct 3 • 5:12 PM EDT • Entertainment • recorderonline.com

NCH Continues its Expansion of Cancer Program with New Specialists and Services

Naples Comprehensive Health (NCH) is expanding its cancer program through the recruitment of specialized physicians, the addition of new clinical services and the continued expansion of an integrated model of

Oct 3 • 4:40 PM EDT • Health • coastalbreezenews.com

Ray J suffers cardiac health scare, hospitalized for second time

Ray J remains hospitalized after experiencing another medical emergency – this time in the middle of a livestream.

Oct 3 • 4:28 PM EDT • Entertainment • centraloregondaily.com

Stanislaus County launches business one stop website to support entrepreneurs

MODESTO — Stanislaus County Workforce Development has launched a new online Business One Stop Services website, offering entrepreneurs and business owners a centralized hub for starting, running, expanding or transitioning a business.

Oct 3 • 4:05 PM EDT • Business • turlockjournal.com

Valorant Player Banned Due To Previous GPU Owner’s Cheating

In a wild coincidence a German player was penalized over the playing habits of their Ryzen 7's previous owner, claiming that nothing short of replacing the entire PC will overcome Riot's infamous anti-cheat detection

Oct 3 • 3:06 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

New Berlin West cruises past rival New Berlin Eisenhower

New Berlin West capitalized on turnovers and a key punt return to defeat rival New Berlin Eisenhower, 35-14.

Oct 3 • 12:32 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

I spent years reviewing hotels. Motherhood changed my standards.

Traveling with a baby changed my definition of five-star hospitality. Now that I'm a parent, personalized service matters more than fancy amenities.

Oct 3 • 11:36 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Cleveland Guardians Finalize ALDS Roster, Game 1 Starting Lineup

The Cleveland Guardians announce their ALDS roster and who will start Game 1 against the Chicago White Sox.

Oct 3 • 10:40 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Elizabeth Holmes dangled 'easy' service hours in front of students to boost her state House campaign

She dangled service hours in front of her students. Her district opened a file.

Oct 3 • 10:02 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Polk County vaccination services at risk under regionalization plan

Polk County health officials painted a somber picture of services at stake while explaining plans by Iowa HHS to regionalize public health.

Oct 3 • 9:02 AM EDT • Health • desmoinesregister.com

Polk County outlines services at stake under regionalization plan

Oct 3 • 9:02 AM EDT • Health • desmoinesregister.com

NY AG appointment to Cornell rape case ‘reeks of politics’: Defense attorney

Defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh voiced concerns on “Elizabeth Vargas Tonight” that politics could taint the investigation.

Oct 3 • 7:29 AM EDT • Politics • newsnationnow.com

NY AG appointment to Cornell rape case ‘reeks of politics’: Defense attorney

Defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh voiced concerns on “Elizabeth Vargas Tonight” that politics could taint the investigation.

Oct 3 • 7:29 AM EDT • Politics • newsnationnow.com

It’s “Mean Girls” Day! See 13 Rarely Seen Photos from the Making of “Mean Girls”, from Lindsay and Lizzy to the Iconic Mall Scene

Go behind-the-scenes and back to 2004 with these photos from the set of the forever-favorite film

Oct 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Ranchester artist’s work now in all 50 states

Two weeks ago, Katie Coyne realized her online store hit a milestone — she had shipped orders to customers in 48 states. The only two remaining states were New Jersey and Rhode Island. Suddenly, she had a mission.

Oct 3 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • thesheridanpress.com

Willi Orbán Helps Hungary Secure First Nations League Win

Milos Kerkez’s maiden international goal and a resolute defensive masterclass led by Willi Orbán silenced Georgia’s stars, revitalizing the Magyars’ promotion hopes with a crucial clean sheet.

Oct 3 • 5:11 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

A record number of Native Americans are running in the 2026 midterms

At least 355 Native American and Indigenous candidates ran or are running in local, state and federal primary and general elections this year — a record number.

Oct 3 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

In New Hampshire Senate race, the Democrat faces an unusually tough time

The race’s competitiveness is somewhat surprising in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris carried by 2.8 percentage points in 2024.

Oct 3 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

The Protect College Sports Act set out to stabilize conference membership, but the ACC is still at risk of being picked apart

The Senate has passed a bill that attempts to rein in spiraling costs, but it leaves room for half the ACC members to jump to other conferences.

Oct 3 • 4:15 AM EDT • Sports • cardinalnews.org

Late score boosts Mount Vernon over East Newton

Mount Vernon utilized a late score to find a win over East Newton. Check out the highlights!!

Oct 3 • 1:05 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

‘I didn’t realize he was this soft’: Dave Portnoy blames Ryan Day’s ‘temper tantrums’ for being removed from ‘Big Noon Kickoff’

Dave Portnoy and other top personalities at Barstool Sports have been a part of Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff college football pregame show for a little over a year. That is now over, with The Athletic reporting on Friday evening that Barstool Sports would no longer feature on the program. Sources told The Athletic that “there…

Oct 2 • 9:22 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Healthcare Has Normalized The Abnormal. Raj Panjabi’s New Book Explains Why.

A new book from former Biden official Raj Panjabi unpacks the notion of “normalcy bias.” It may help explain how we have come to accept our country’s underperforming healthcare system.

Oct 2 • 7:19 PM EDT • Health • forbes.com

Trump heads back to Texas on Wednesday as GOP fights to keep state red

Texas, long a safe Republican state, has emerged as a top battleground in midterm races up and down the ballot — but especially in the U.S. Senate race.

Oct 2 • 4:59 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Elon Musk splits with longtime business confidante, co-parent ‘with no warning’

Shivon Zilis, the mother of four children with Musk, said their breakup was sudden but wished him the best.

Oct 2 • 4:45 PM EDT • Business • washingtonpost.com

Ed Sheeran, Macklemore fallout shouldn't be personalized, Bono says

U2 frontman Bono has weighed in on the ongoing controversy involving Ed Sheeran after Macklemore was removed from the singer's tour when venues objected to the rapper's pro-Palestinian remarks.

Oct 2 • 4:23 PM EDT • Entertainment • centraloregondaily.com

O'Neill Institute Announces New Leadership and Two New Centers, Ushering in a Dynamic New Era for Health Law

Bert Brandenburg joins as Executive Director, Liz Stokes as Managing Director, alongside launch of new centers on AI and Women’s Health WASHINGTON, D.C... October 2, 2026 — The O’Neill Institute

Oct 2 • 4:00 PM EDT • Health • oneill.law.georgetown.edu

This week in health care policy: September 28 – October 2, 2026

Drug pricing CMS finalizes GLOBE pilot. On September 30, CMS finalized the Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing model, a program that ties Part B drug rebates to prices paid in 19 countries. It will cover physician-administered drugs in randomly selected communities throughout the US, representing about 25 percent of Part B beneficiaries. It runs […]

Oct 2 • 3:13 PM EDT • Health • cei.org

Studying Science in an Anti-Scientific Time

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

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

'This Morning' show host hospitalized after on-air health scare

Alison Hammond, host of the British morning show "This Morning," was hospitalized after she appeared to have a health scare during a live broadcast.

Oct 2 • 2:02 PM EDT • Entertainment • centraloregondaily.com

'This Morning' show host hospitalized after on-air health scare

Alison Hammond was hospitalized after a health scare during the live broadcast of the morning show "This Morning" on Oct. 2.

Oct 2 • 2:02 PM EDT • Health • yahoo.com

Top Senate GOP-aligned super PAC pauses N.C. spending, in sign of deepening woes

The Senate Leadership Fund’s pulling money from North Carolina is the latest signal the Republican Party is giving up hope of holding that Senate seat.

Oct 2 • 12:30 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

New business records emerge in case of woman accused of stealing ambulance

New federal court documents reveal prosecutors have another category of evidence to turn over to attorneys for Sarah Elizabeth George ahead of her November tria

Oct 2 • 11:26 AM EDT • Business • idahonews.com

Analysis | How Trump keeps embracing AI

And what else happened this week under his administration.

Oct 2 • 11:08 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Federal Agencies Lack Data to Track Small Business Research Awards

Federal agencies awarded $4.4 billion in SBIR and STTR grants, but missing commercialization data obscure results. See what GAO says needs to improve.

Oct 2 • 11:00 AM EDT • Business • legis1.com

I got better at my job when I stopped people-pleasing

I have a history of people-pleasing. When I realized it was more important to be direct and honest than to be liked, I changed my approach.

Oct 2 • 10:22 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

With the Expansion of Tampa General to DeSoto County, Florida’s Premier Academic Health System Strengthens Access to Exceptional Care in Rural Communities

DeSoto Memorial Hospital is Now TGH DeSoto OCTOBER 2, 2026 – Tampa General Hospital (TGH) today welcomes patients in Florida’s Heartland to TGH DeSoto, formerly DeSoto Memorial Hospital. As Florida’s premier academic health system, TGH continues to expand its reach across the state, bringing greater access to exceptional care and specialized services to rural communities. […]

Oct 2 • 10:16 AM EDT • Health • southfloridahospitalnews.com

Only one browser has this really helpful search tool

This is great for experimentation with a different search site, keeping a particular search out of your history at your usual site, or giving yourself a break from AI-first answers.

Oct 2 • 10:00 AM EDT • Technology • washingtonpost.com

Pacific Clinics Selected as New Provider for Nevada County Behavioral Health Crisis Services

Pacific Clinics now operates Nevada County's reopened Crisis Stabilization Unit, offering 24/7 support, peer partners, and upcoming Mobile Crisis services

Oct 2 • 9:33 AM EDT • Health • yubanet.com

UW-Milwaukee helps student grow her love of science – and her confidence

After she graduated from UW-Milwaukee in May, Ally Ruffino moved to the Washington area to take a fellowship conducting research at the National Institutes of Health. She recently was riding the Metro train around the city when she had a realization about this new phase of her life. “I was sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, younger […]

Oct 2 • 8:50 AM EDT • Science • wisconsin.edu

An ER wait can worsen a mental health crisis. Hampton offers another option.

Local responders say Riverside’s psychiatric emergency department helps people in crisis reach specialized care sooner, as Virginia expands options beyond medical emergency rooms.

Oct 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • whro.org

Democrats expand battleground for House, reaching into bloodred districts

The additions include Kansas’s 2nd, Michigan’s 1st, North Carolina’s 13th, New Jersey’s 2nd, Oklahoma’s 5th, Texas’s 9th, Virginia’s 6th and Washington’s 5th.

Oct 2 • 7:30 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Mayo Clinic Rhode Island deal puts giant on Boston's doorstep

Its new entry point is South County Health, a hospital that’s been trying to stabilize its finances in Wakefield, R.I.

Oct 2 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • bostonglobe.com

Open Machine CEO Allie K. Miller discusses using AI in her daily life

Allie K. Miller, the CEO of Open Machine, shares her daily routine, utilizing AI tools for productivity and personal lifestyle optimization.

Oct 2 • 5:05 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Trump administration shifts funds from human rights to supporting far-right causes

The US State Department directed millions of dollars originally earmarked to promote human rights to promote far-right causes including Afrikaner rights in South Africa, safeguarding “Western civilizational norms,” and documenting “backsliding” in Europe related to mass migration, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Oct 2 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Ochsner Health doubles the number of operating rooms at Ochsner Medical Complex

Patients across the Baton Rouge region now have greater access to specialized surgical care closer to home following an expansion of the surgical center at Ochsner Medical Complex - The Grove.

Oct 2 • 3:25 AM EDT • Health • newswise.com

Buccaneers QB Jalon Daniels on First Start: ‘It Means Everything’

Undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels is being thrust into an almost impossible situation, but he won't hide his excitement at realizing a dream come true.

Oct 2 • 2:05 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Jerome Tang, K-State finalizing $12 million settlement agreement: reports

MANHATTAN (KSNT) — Kansas State University and former men’s basketball head coach Jerome Tang are reportedly finalizing a settlement agreement. K-State will reportedly pay Tang $12 million between now and the end of 2027, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel. The university fired Tang ‘for cause’ on Feb. 15 before the end of the 2025-26 season following […]

Oct 1 • 6:56 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Pacific Clinics Selected as New Provider for Nevada County Behavioral Health Crisis Services

Nevada County Behavioral Health has selected Pacific Clinics as its new contracted provider for behavioral health crisis services, including the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU), which reopens today.Th

Oct 1 • 5:29 PM EDT • Health • nevadacountyca.gov

Ex-CEO Devin Nunes opens wine business in Pismo Beach

Devin Nunes transitioned from CEO of Trump Media to launching Nunes Wine Company, specializing in Portuguese and Bordeaux wines.

Oct 1 • 5:00 PM EDT • Business • mustangnews.net

Trump memecoin plans another gala amid backlash to self-enrichment

The latest event will take place next month at the president’s golf club in Northern Virginia.

Oct 1 • 4:44 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Campaign-style Trump ads use money meant for border security, memorials

The White House Office of Management and Budget added $20 million to the pot for commemorative events a day before DHS awarded an advertising contract of the same amount.

Oct 1 • 4:13 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Can Donalds convince Black voters to leave the Democratic Party, like he did?

Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor is hoping to capitalize on Black voters’ frustration with the Democratic Party.

Oct 1 • 3:49 PM EDT • Politics • miamiherald.com

Wes Moore forms bipartisan governors group on AI, citing federal inaction

Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland is forming a bipartisan group of governors to address concerns about artificial intelligence

Oct 1 • 3:40 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Trump sends out $500 ACA refunds and a letter promoting his record

The rebate checks are headed to nearly 1 million people President Donald Trump says were overcharged under the Affordable Care Act.

Oct 1 • 3:40 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Sanford Black Hills welcomes new women’s health clinician at Haines Ave. Clinic

Sanford Black Hills has expanded its regional healthcare team with the addition of Miranda Pray-Dede, M.D., who is now offering specialized women’s health services at the Sanford Health Haines Ave. Clinic in Rapid City. Dr. Pray-Dede brings more than two decades of dedicated medical experience to patients across the Black Hills region.

Oct 1 • 2:52 PM EDT • Health • kotatv.com

GOP hold on Florida and Texas governors’ races weakens, nonpartisan analyst says

President Donald Trump’s poor ratings contributed to the Cook Political Report shifting both races from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.”

Oct 1 • 2:30 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Judge permanently dismisses Trump administration's case charging ex-Olympian with Reflecting Pool vandalism

A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Donald Trump.

Oct 1 • 1:43 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Apartment developer Newstreet joins conversion boom with deal for Gold Coast office

Though the deal will be the firm’s first office-to-residential conversion, it joins a string of similarly sized deals by other developers capitalizing on rental demand.

Oct 1 • 1:23 PM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

Why Trump's crypto business wants to become a bank

Elizabeth Warren decries the first family's latest crypto play as a "clear conflict of interest and corruption."

Oct 1 • 1:19 PM EDT • Business • motherjones.com

Trump says Secret Service wants him to ‘take down’ Oval Office

The president also said he is looking into designating the White House room as a “federal landmark,” potentially preserving his changes.

Oct 1 • 12:30 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com