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Daniel Stallworth makes 'American Idol' Top 11. See what 90s song he sang
Mississippi's Daniel Stallworth is in 'American Idol's' Top 11. Learn about his '90s week performance and how to vote this season.
Affordability and Preventive Public Health Policy
Affordability pressures increasingly shape health risk in the United States, influencing both the upstream conditions that sustain health and the downstream ability to access health promoting resources. Financial stability is a key driver of health, affecting patterns of health, health care use, and the tradeoffs people must make among competing needs. The economic policy landscape aimed at improving financial security for Americans is expansive, complex, and often difficult to organize, making it challenging to discuss how different policies influence financial resilience and population health. We propose the Earn–Keep–Grow framework as a practical way to organize and guide discussion of these policies in population health research and policy decision-making.
Inside Iowa Politics: Candidate Jim Carlin doesn’t want American troops on the ground in Iran
Jim Carlin, a former state senator who is running for the U.S. Senate, said that he supports the U.S. strikes on Iran but doesn't want to see the country engaged in a long war.
Inside Iowa Politics: Candidate Jim Carlin doesn’t want American troops on the ground in Iran
Jim Carlin, a former state senator who is running for the U.S. Senate, said that he supports the U.S. strikes on Iran but doesn't want to see the country engaged in a long war.
Inside Iowa Politics: Candidate Jim Carlin doesn’t want American troops on the ground in Iran
Jim Carlin, a former state senator who is running for the U.S. Senate, said that he supports the U.S. strikes on Iran but doesn't want to see the country engaged in a long war.
Together for Health: How the Inter-American Court Brings Science and Knowledge to the Climate Fight - Petrie-Flom Center
In July 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 on the climate emergency, one of the most comprehensive judicial pronouncements on climate change to date.
Together for Health: How the Inter-American Court Brings Science and Knowledge to the Climate Fight - Petrie-Flom Center
In July 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 on the climate emergency, one of the most comprehensive judicial pronouncements on climate change to date.
4 NYU faculty honored for STEM research by American Association for the Advancement of Science
Four NYU faculty members were recognized for their research in areas of biology, neuroscience and chemical and biomolecular engineering as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS — which aims to shape science policy and build a community for STEM researchers — elected 449 researchers across the United States for...
MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science
Source: NBER With all the other terrible news right now, you may not have noticed that Donald Trump is in the process of killing American science. OK, that’s an exaggeration — but not that much of an exaggeration. The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal calls for a gigantic increase in military spending combined with severe cuts to social programs. But as the chart above shows, it also calls for debilitating reductions in research funding. Furthermore, Trump appointees have already been strangling science by sharply reducing the rate at which research grants are approved. Here, for example, is the number of new grants approved by the National Science Foundation: Source: Nature Large numbers of existing grants have also been frozen or terminated, especially in the study of infectious diseases. Add to this a sharp drop in visas issued to foreign students, who often play a direct role in research and who help support academic departments that do research: Put all of this together, and much U.S. scientific research is set to come to a screeching halt — not a few years from now, but over the course of the next year or two. This new assault on U.S. science is taking place at a time when the role of American science in the world has already been greatly eroded. The chart below, based on research recently reported by the National Bureau of Economic Research, measures national strength in science by the share of publications in highly ranked journals. In the 1990s the United States had more such publications than the rest of the world combined. Since then we’ve dropped into third place — well behind China and slightly below the European Union. And this was before the Trump administration’s attack on science had time to take its full effect. Source Some erosion in U.S. scientific preeminence was inevitable given China’s growing sophistication and wealth. But we’ve also fallen behind Europe, even though everyone says that Europe is lagging economically and technologically. Claims about Europe’s underperformance are, in fact, dubious if one looks hard at the data. But it’s still striking to see America lagging. What’s going on? There are presumably multiple factors behind America’s scientific lag. But even before Trump II the growing hostility of the U.S. right to science surely had some negative effect. And since the rise of MAGA G.O.P. attitudes toward science in general have become overwhelmingly hostile. This is true even for the Republican rank and file: And while I haven’t been able to find good survey data, it’s obvious that the anti-science turn has been even more pronounced — and began earlier — among the Republican political elite. Chris Mooney published The Republican War on Science in 2005, and even then was describing a longstanding trend. Why have Republicans turned so anti-science? Part of the answer is that they believe that scientists don’t support them. And they’re right! A study of who scientists give money to shows that only a small percentage gave money to Republicans even 20 years ago, and that almost none of them donate to Republicans now: Social scientists have always been strongly pro-Democratic, while there used to be a significant number of physical, “hard” scientists supporting the GOP. But these days physicists are almost as uniformly Democratic, or at least non-Republican, as sociologists. Why are there almost no Republican scientists? It’s not a mystery. GOP political orthodoxy includes positions that are at odds with the scientific consensus on multiple issues, ranging from the validity of the theory of evolution, to the reality of climate change, to the efficacy and safety of vaccines. In each case the scientific consensus is solidly grounded in evidence. But even before the rise of MAGA the U.S. right was increasingly hostile to evidence-based policymaking — especially, of course, where the evidence is unfavorable to fossil fuel interests or quack medicine, both financial mainstays of right-wing politics. So scientists don’t support Republicans, and the feeling is mutual. Today’s Republican Party doesn’t like science or scientists. It doesn’t like having its preconceived views challenged by appeals to evidence. It knows that very few scientists are on its side electorally. In general, it sees scientific research as a threat to its grasp on political power. Add in MAGA’s combination of rabid anti-intellectualism and allergy to any hint of criticism, and one has the makings of a drastic anti-science turn in policy. “Ignorance is strength” might was well be an official MAGA motto. And as I said, we aren’t talking about something that will happen over the course of multiple years: The U.S. scientific enterprise is threatened with severe damage, even collapse, over just the next year. There are many reasons to find this prospect horrifying: Think of all the beneficial advances, affecting almost every part of life, that won’t happen because U.S. science — still crucial to the world — has been eviscerated. But think, also, of America’s international standing. Can a nation that has forfeited its role as a leader, or even a contender, in global science, still be a Great Power? No. MUSICAL CODA
Bourbon demand is down and tariffs aren't helping. But distillers keep building.
Like many whiskey distillers, Heaven Hill Brands is rolling back bourbon production this year, as demand lags. Yet, as the American spirit faced a tumultuous market in 2025, the Kentucky company built a new, $200 million distillery in the heart of bourbon country, adding 155,000 barrels of capacity.
Americans May Be Losing Trust for AI in Health Care: Survey
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 7, 2026 (HealthDay News) — The number of Americans who want artificial intelligence (AI) involved in their health care is declining, a new survey says. Only 42% are open to AI being used as part of their care, down from 52% in 2024, according to ...
‘Neighbors’ finds entertainment in the mundane
For fans of reality TV, a new series has entered the world of streaming services. “Neighbors,” an American television series, was released on Feb. 13. Directed by Harrison Fishman and Dylan Redford, “Neighbors” aims to bring out the world’s craziness by showcasing real-life conflicts over mundane topics between various neighbors and neighborhoods. At the moment,...
Charting a New Phase of Trump Administration's America First Global Health Strategy in Asia, Beginning with Cambodia - United States Department of State
On April 2, the United States signed a bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Royal Government of Cambodia through the Trump Administration’s America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS). This landmark five-year MOU is the first to be signed through the Trump Administration’s AFGHS in Asia, and advances shared global health goals, such […]
US sexual health report card: High pleasure, low testing, stark gender disparities
A new sexual health survey reveals a mix of progress and persistent gaps. Overall, many Americans report positive experiences—interest in having sex, sexual pleasure, and good communication with partners—yet ...
UA Professors Honored by American Association for the Advancement of Science
Two University of Alabama professors were named 2025 AAAS fellows for their contributions to scientific research.
FBI warns against foreign mobile apps like CapCut in new PSA
A new public service announcement from the FBI is warning Americans about apps based in China.
Rising healthcare costs, insurance premiums now worry Americans more than any other domestic issue: poll
Rising health insurance premiums and expired Obamacare subsidies are driving healthcare affordability to the top of Americans' domestic concerns in 2026.
World Health Day 2026: PAHO/WHO calls for renewed commitment to science to drive better health for all
6 April 2026, Geneva / Washington, DC-- The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) call on people everywhere to renew their commitment to science as the foundation for better health, under the World Health Day 2026 theme: “Together for health. Stand with science.” The campaign marks the anniversary of WHO’s founding on 7 April, launching a year-long public health campaign.
MLS leads North American men's sports with youngest & most diverse player pool
Major League Soccer features the most diverse and youthful player pool among the top men’s professional sports across North America, with players from 78 countries across six continents represented on 2026 rosters.
Student’s life experiences inform political science, media studies scholarship
Emily Danczyk, fourth-year Penn State student double-majoring in political science and media studies with a minor in legal studies, was recently named a diversity fellow for the American Political Science Association.
Student’s life experiences inform political science, media studies scholarship
Emily Danczyk, fourth-year Penn State student double-majoring in political science and media studies with a minor in legal studies, was recently named a diversity fellow for the American Political Science Association.
New Research Brings Joint Repair Closer for Millions With Osteoarthritis
DURHAM, N.C. — Osteoarthritis affects more than 32 million Americans, making it one of the leading causes of chronic pain, disability, and loss of mobility in the United States.For many people, treatment options are limited to managing pain with medications or repeated injections, and in severe cases, replacing the joint entirely through surgery.
Opening Doors to Opportunity: How Governors are Supporting Entrepreneurship
New businesses – including small businesses – are the backbone of the economy. They drive job growth, reduce poverty and strengthen GDP. Yet, the rate of new business formation in America has fallen by nearly half over 40+ years. It’s far more expensive to start a business in the U.S. than the U.K., China, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Sweden, […]
The Top Takeaways from Our 2026 Best of American Business Celebration
The day was defined by candor with seven fireside chats moderated by leading figures in American media.
Health care costs are Americans' top worry, a new poll finds
A new Gallup poll reveals health care access and affordability is Americans' top concern, surpassing the economy and inflation.
Why Some Black Women Say the Best Thing They Did for Their Health Was Leave America
Germany’s universal health care system, though far from perfect, has become a refuge for those seeking care and stability.
Melissa Gilbert says child abuse allegations ruined her life with Timothy Busfield: 'He's canceled'
Melissa Gilbert defended husband Timothy Busfield against child abuse allegations in her first TV interview on 'Good Morning America,' saying the 'traumatic' experience ruined their future: 'It's done. He's canceled.'
Vox Launches America, Actually, a New Video-First Podcast Hosted by Astead W. Herndon
The show offers a sharp, on-the-ground look at American politics, built for how audiences watch and engage today.
Vox Launches America, Actually, a New Video-First Podcast Hosted by Astead W. Herndon
The show offers a sharp, on-the-ground look at American politics, built for how audiences watch and engage today.
SK Life Science, Inc. to Present New Data and Epilepsy Insights at the 2026 American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting
Key Facts: SK Life Science, Inc. will present multiple posters at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting (April 18–22, 2026, Chicago, Illinois)...
America’s Diplomat Shortage Is a Self-Inflicted Wound
The White House’s struggles to negotiate an off-ramp in Iran are a reminder of how crucial skilled diplomacy can be. Yet the State Department appears intent on purging and politicizing the ranks of the nation’s top envoys. Congress has a duty to push back.
Trump administration’s secrecy on health deals alarms experts, governments
A dearth of information has been disclosed about the agreements, fueling speculation that the “America First” approach to foreign aid is exploitative.
Burcum: In walking away from a tanning ban for minors, FDA misses a chance to prevent melanoma
"How seriously are we supposed to take Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the guy who’s supposed to be making America healthy again, when he’s abandoning an opportunity to prevent a common, potentially deadly cancer for generations to come?" columnist Jill Burcum writes.
Why the U.S. Spends So Much on Healthcare
A big reason is the high prices Americans pay for surgeries and drugs.
How the US-Iran conflict impacts political opinion
Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Danielle Pletka discuss the political perception of the U.S.-Iran conflict on 'One Nation.'
UConn coach Dan Hurley is the most complicated man in American sports
He’s the guy who plugs lemongrass and eucalyptus oil infusers into his office walls, right next to the gladiator mask he keeps on hand.
Atria Chef Competes in Reality TV Show ‘America’s Culinary Cup’
Flagstaff Business News Atria Chef Competes in Reality TV Show ‘America’s Culinary Cup’
What the peptide craze reveals about Americans’ relationship with risk
Why do RFK Jr. and other health influencers embrace unproven peptides while calling for more research into well-studied vaccines?
US retirement age is changing: FIRE movement, Americans working longer
America's oldest workers and youngest retirees are challenging the standard US retirement age. They say age 65 is no longer the goal.
Detroit small businesses say tariff refunds could be a lifeline -- if they can clear the federal hurdles
Billions of dollars in tariff refunds could be on the way for American companies but getting that money back will be anything but simple. Experts also warn consumers probably won’t see a dime.
Why the controversy with mail-in ballots?
Most Coloradans enjoy the right to vote “by mail” at election time. Most Americans favor this process. But U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to federalize (nationalize) this practice and shift the supervision of voting from county clerks to the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service. He issued an executive order to […]
On plant health and embracing new plant-breeding techniques in South Africa
The major challenge currently confronting South Africa’s agriculture is the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. For many farmers across the country, the most urgent tasks are both securing sufficient vaccines and rolling them out quickly in the coming months, particularly as the beef and dairy industries continue to suffer big losses. There is also pressure on sheep, goats, and other livestock to prevent the disease from spreading. As efforts to get the country through this monumental challenge continue, I believe it is important to sharpen our focus on the broader task at hand: strengthening biosecurity. This covers both animal and plant health. In recent years, we haven’t focused much on plant health, except a few times, such as when we had a goss’s wilt scare in the maize industry, a few cases of citrus black spot, or cases of sclerotinia in sunflower seeds. But the fact that South Africa managed to control the outbreaks of these particular diseases when they occurred a few years ago was due to organized agricultural and government scientific capabilities, and, most importantly, the availability of crop protection or agrochemicals necessary to address some of them. Therefore, as the animal health division in the Department of Agriculture focuses on the pressing challenge of the day, the foot-and-mouth disease, there is an opportunity for the plant health division to assess if they have all the requirements to tackle any outbreak that may occur on fruits, vegetables or crops in future. The challenge with crop diseases is that they can spread quickly and cause much more rapid damage in the field than we typically see with livestock. Therefore, speed is everything in ensuring the appropriate controls are available. I raise this as an important area, particularly given the drastic climate variation we observe across the country. The production conditions in some areas have changed noticeably over time, which may introduce new risks. The other essential part is ensuring that South Africa has access to the best crop protection technology available in the market. Many technology developers worldwide have operations in South Africa. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture, along with the Agricultural Research Council, must continuously interact with technology developers to assess the various crop protection technologies they are releasing globally and determine their suitability and need in South Africa. This will require a proactive approach from the government, unlike the current approach, in which technology developers typically approach regulators with new technologies. The government, recognising the food security risks, must take a proactive approach to ensure that South African farmers have access to the latest crop protection technologies, thereby safeguarding the country’s food security. Beyond crop protection, we must never forget that South Africa’s agriculture is key to ensuring that the country is the most food-secure country at the national level in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa is also the only African country in the top-40 global agricultural exporters, having more than doubled since 1994 on the back of the adoption of high-yielding seed cultivars. South Africa has been the only African country to adopt a bold approach to embracing science and adopting genetically engineered seeds for grains and oilseeds in the early 2000s. Since then, we have seen crop yields improve noticeably, contributing to the gains we mentioned above. But ensuring that South Africa improves further is not a given. The key lies in South African regulators’ attitudes towards new technologies. We have to maintain a progressive approach and not give in to the politics of non-food and non-scientific voices that shout on the sidelines. Food security is national security, and the government must ensure we progress, leaning on science. Therefore, the registration of high-yielding new genomic techniques is required. South Africa cannot afford to fall behind the EU, the USA, South America, and many of its competitors in global agriculture. The Department of Agriculture’s crop science division must adopt a progress-and-science-embracing approach for the good of the country. Thanks for reading AgriView! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe Share
‘American Pickers’: Mike Wolfe Is Awestruck Meeting Disney Movie ‘Cars’ Designer
He was like a kid in a candy store.
‘American Pickers’: Mike Wolfe Is Awestruck Meeting Disney Movie ‘Cars’ Designer
He was like a kid in a candy store.
Doctors volunteer to help Americans cut off from health care by the cost
RAM pop-up clinics provide free medical, dental, and vision care to uninsured or underinsured Americans
Bridging Political Divides: How faith can help find common ground
About 80% of American adults believe our political divides run so deep that we cannot even agree on basic facts, according to the Pew Research Center. But some Utah leaders say faith is helping them to find the common ground needed to bridge those political divides and find a new path forward.
Trump Revels in Threats to Commit War Crimes in Iran
The president said he would bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” Until this administration, American leaders had insisted they were trying to follow international law in war.
Virtuosic American Roots Band Low Lily Returns to Williamsburg Library Theatre
Low Lily will return to WRL as part of the Dewey Decibel Concert Series. (Photo provided by Low Lily)
Pressure mounts on Ye to be pulled from his headline role at a summer festival in London
Pressure is mounting for the American rapper Ye to be pulled from his headline role at a London music festival this summer.
Canadians are boycotting U.S. travel over tariffs and politics — and it's already costing America billions
Here's the cost of Canadians boycotting U.S. travel.
10 Wickedly Cool Carroll Shelby Cars That Made The Man A Legend
Carroll Shelby was an iconic figure in American automotive culture whose cars spoke for themselves. Here are 10 of coolest car he helped create.
Inside the mission to recover a downed American airman
Hiding alone in a mountain crevice behind enemy lines, the injured American airman knew exactly what to do: survive and evade.
Low and slow meets forever: US postage stamps honor lowrider car culture
NEW MEXICO Stamps honor lowrider culture ALBUQUERQUE — From Mexican American and Chicano barrios in the American Southwest to the halls of the Smithsonian on the National Mall and even the streets of Japan, lowrider culture has become part of mainstream car culture around the globe. The U.S. Postal Service is joining the club with […]
Your ‘normal’ cholesterol and blood pressure may not be anymore
Americans should start guarding against heart disease earlier — and aim for lower cholesterol and blood pressure than ever before, according to new guidelines for heart health.
What Happened To Zenith TVs? Why The American Brand Disappeared
At its height, Zenith was a premier American TV manufacturer well known for top-of-the-line sets. So, what went wrong that caused the brand to disappear?
Can Hawaiʻi Deliver All Of America From Citizens United?
A state Senate bill proposes a novel approach that one legal expert says would make the controversial national campaign finance law irrelevant in the islands.
The billion-dollar bet that turned insurance into entertainment
Four companies in one of America’s least glamorous industries solved one of its hardest business problems—by stopping talking about their product entirely.
The billion-dollar bet that turned insurance into entertainment
Four companies in one of America’s least glamorous industries solved one of its hardest business problems—by stopping talking about their product entirely.
The billion-dollar bet that turned insurance into entertainment
Four companies in one of America’s least glamorous industries solved one of its hardest business problems—by stopping talking about their product entirely.
Opinion: Trumpification of American Politik has spawned incivility
Trump's Cabinet members treat every Congressional hearing as an audition before their watchful performance director.
Double Take -- Sisco: America needs universal health care
Since the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2010, millions of people were able to purchase health insurance. For many of these folks, though, making the monthly payments has
See a 360-degree view of the American Revolution at this new French Quarter exhibit
The HistoPads are back at the Historic New Orleans Collection — hand-held tablets that act as a portal to 360-degree views of the sites and events depicted in “American Revolution:
America’s Health Rankings puts Tennessee near bottom in blood pressure, cholesterol
America’s Health Rankings says...Tennessee ranks among the bottom ten states in several key health categroiesincluding 43rd in high blood pressure... and 45th i
China's Hypersonic Wind Tunnel Leaves America In The Dust
China is at the cutting edge of technology, and its strongest wind tunnel boasts wind speeds of Mach 30 — far greater than anything that the U.S. has made.
Dr. Oz calls out Newsom over California health care fraud allegations
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz discusses concerns over alleged health care fraud in California and its impact on costs on ‘Saturday in America.’
Steven McBee Jr. Shares a Behind-the-Scenes Update on the "Family Business" (PHOTO)
The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys' Steven McBee Jr. is sharing a behind-the-scenes look at running the family business.
Trump administration proposes massive budget cuts to science
The White House budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing
U.S.-Iran war 'tax' begins to hit American businesses and consumers
A U.S.-Iran war 'tax' is beginning to hit consumers as diesel and jet fuel prices rise and stress business profitability, and there is no relief in sight.
The war’s economic impact could get worse for Americans
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting economic activity across Asia and Europe. The U.S. may escape the worst effects, but it will not emerge unscathed.
When legal sports betting surges, so do Americans' financial problems
As online betting has grown in popularity, a new report from the New York Federal Reserve builds on the troubling link between legal sports wagering and financial health.
A month of war in Iran prompts clashing political views on Long Island
Polls show that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's launching of a military operation against Iran.
Examining why some Americans are skeptical of medical science [column]
We all owe a debt of gratitude to Drs. Pia Fenimore and Joan Thode, Lancaster pediatricians who recently authored a series of LNP | LancasterOnline columns about childhood vaccination.
Hollywood's narrative on UFOs and ETs reaches back many decades
Hollywood has driven how Americans envision little green men with big eyes and bigger heads. But fiction soon could be separated from — or revealed as — fact if government agencies release...
Hollywood\'s narrative on UFOs and ETs reaches back many decades
Hollywood has driven how Americans envision little green men with big eyes and bigger heads. But fiction soon could be separated from — or revealed as — fact if government
Pope Leo's political voice and how much influence he holds
Pope Leo XIV is the first American to lead the Catholic Church, and after nearly a year of advocating for the poor and cautiously opposing controversial U.S. policies, Leo is offering a more public contrast with Trump. Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses the pope's first year and what his recent criticism says with Joseph Capizzi, Father Thomas Reese, Annie Selak and Stephen White.
Trump's budget singles out L.A. homelessness agency as he proposes housing cuts
Trump’s proposed budget attacks L.A.'s homelessness agency in push to eliminate a federal program that funds housing and services for homeless Americans.
Downed fighter jet punctures Trump’s and Hegseth’s claims of air invulnerability
An Iran war that was already proving quite unpopular with the American people has entered a new, more problematic phase for President Donald Trump.
Animal Sciences Faculty Wendie Cohick Among Eight Rutgers Researchers Named 2026 AAAS Fellows
Wendie Cohick, Vice Provost and Vice Chancellor for Research, Rutgers-New Brunswick and faculty in the Department of Animal Sciences, is one of eight Rutgers faculty named to the 2026 class of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellows. Cohick and her Rutgers colleagues were among the 500 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning 24 scientific […]
A Nebraska hospital in peril shows how a Republican-led rural health fund is coming up short
It's a problem that millions of Americans in rural areas are awakening to as they realize there's no windfall coming for the vulnerable hospitals near their homes.
As fuel prices soar, United is raising bag fees
The carrier says it will charge $10 more for the first and second bags checked by passengers on flights in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
Gemma 4 and what makes an open model succeed
Having written a lot of model release blog posts, there’s something much harder about reviewing open models when they drop relative to closed models, especially in 2026. In recent years, there were so few open models, so when Llama 3 was released most people were still doing research on Llama 2 and super happy to get an update. When Qwen 3 was released, the Llama 4 fiasco had just gone down, and a whole research community was emerging to study RL on Qwen 2.5 — it was a no brainer to upgrade. Today, when an open model releases, it’s competing with Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-OSS, Arcee Large, Nemotron 3, Olmo 3, and others. The space is populated, but still feels full of hidden opportunity. The potential of open models feels like a dark matter, a potential we know is huge, but few clear recipes and examples for how to unlock it are out there. Agentic AI, OpenClaw, and everything brewing in that space is going to spur mass experimentation in open models to complement the likes of Claude and Codex, not replace them. Especially with open models, the benchmarks at release are an extremely incomplete story. In some ways this is exciting, as new open models have a much higher variance and ability to surprise, but it also points at some structural reasons that make building businesses and great AI experiences around open models harder than the closed alternatives. When a new Claude Opus or GPT drops, spending a few hours with them in my agentic workflows is genuinely a good vibe test. For open models, putting them through this test is a category error. Something else to be said about open models in the era of agents is that they get out of the debate of integration, harnesses, and tools and let us see close to the ground on what exactly is the ability of just a model. Of course, we can’t test some things like search abilities without some tool, but being able to measure exactly the pace of progress of the model alone is a welcome simplification to a systematically opaque AI space. Share The list of factors I’d use to assess a new open-weight model I’m considering investing in includes: Model performance (and size) — how this model performs on benchmarks I care about and how it compares to other models of a similar size. Country of origin — some businesses care deeply about provenance, and if a model was built in China or not. Model license — if a model needs legal approval for use, uptake will be slower at mid-sized and large companies. Tooling at release — many models release with half-broken, or at least substantially slower, implementations in popular software like vLLM, Transformers, SGLANG, etc due to pushing the envelope of architectures or tools. Model fine-tunability — how easy or hard it is to modify the given model to your use-case when you actually try and use it. The core problem is that some of these are immediately available at release, e.g. general performance, license, origin, etc. but others such as tooling take day(s) to week(s) to stabilize, and others are open research questions — with no group systematically monitoring fine-tunability. In the early era of open models, the days of Llama 2 or 3 and Qwen pre v3.5, the architectures were fairly simple and the models tended to work out of the box. Some of this was due to the extremely hard work of the Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc. developer teams. Some is due to the new models being genuinely harder to work with. When it comes to something like Qwen 3.5 or Nemotron 3, with hybrid models (either gated delta net or mamba layers), the tooling is very rough at release. Things you would expect to “just work” often don’t. I’ve been following this area closely since we released Olmo Hybrid with a similar architecture, and Qwen 3.5 is just starting to work well in the various open-source tools that need to all play nice together for RL research. That’s 1.5 months after the release date! This is just to start really investing more into understanding the behavior of the models. Of course, others started working on these models sooner by investing more engineering resources or relying on partially closed software. The fully open and distributed ecosystem takes a long time to get going on some new models. All of this is lead-in for the most important question for open models — how easy is it to adapt to specific use-cases? This is a different problem for different model sizes. Large MoE open-weight models may be used by entities like Cursor who need complex capabilities in their domain, e.g. Composer 2 trained on Kimi K2.5. Other applications can be built on much smaller models, such as Chroma’s Context-1 model for agentic search, built on GPT-OSS 20B. The question of “which models are fine-tunable” is largely background knowledge known by engineers across the industry. There should be a thriving research area here to support the open ecosystem model. The first step is to understand characteristics of different base and post-trained models to understand what they look like. The second step is to tune pretraining recipes for open models so they’re more flexible. Interconnects AI is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe For The ATOM Project and other Interconnects endeavors, we’ve put in substantial effort to measuring adoption trends in the open ecosystem. Everything takes a long time to unfold after a model is first publicly available — and adaptability is why. What we know for sure now, when Qwen has been going from strength to strength with its releases, is that technical staff across the industry has gotten comfortable working with Qwen models. Countless research methods and datasets were made to work with Qwen. It’ll take patience for any other model family to get to this point — a patience I’m not sure many open model builders have. This takes us to Gemma 4, Google’s latest open models. Gemma 3 was released more than a year ago, in March of 2025, and is a bit underrated. Gemma 4 comes in 4 sizes for now, with a bigger, MoE model of over 100B total parameters rumored but not released yet. The models we have today come in sizes of ~5B dense, 8B dense, 26B total 4B active MoE, and 31B dense. I’m most excited that they’re finally adopting a standard Apache 2.0 open source license. This’ll massively boost adoption. The standard of better licenses for strong open-weight LLMs was set by mostly Chinese open model labs in the last 1-2 years, and now U.S. companies are following suit. I will personally be so happy if the horrible Llama licenses and Gemma terms of service were an ~18-month transient dynamic of the industry being nervous about releasing strong open models. The Gemma 4 scores look very solid, the small models have incredible benchmark scores (especially in general domains like LMArena) and the 31B model rivals the recent Qwen 3.5 27B, which is the leading member of that class. The ~30B size range is an important one, as it’s accessible both to researchers and to enterprises looking to deploy the model in real use-cases. Where the 7B model scale is the default for tinkering and research, a 30B model is the default for seeing if an open model can unlock substantial value in your specific workflow — a good mix of intelligence, low price, tractability for downstream training, etc. This takes us back to the above adoption criteria I mentioned for open models and the bigger question — do I think Gemma 4 will be an overwhelming success? Previous Gemma models have been plagued by tooling issues and poorer performance when being finetuned. Gemma 4’s success is going to be entirely determined by ease of use, to a point where a 5-10% swing on benchmarks wouldn’t matter at all. It’s strong enough, small enough, with the right license, and from the U.S., so many companies are going to slot it in. I’m cautiously optimistic that Gemma 4 is going to work better here. Winds are shifting for open models built in America. We saw GPT-OSS go through a bumpy launch to become an overwhelming success. There’s a collective energy around the likes of Reflection, Arcee, Nemotron, Gemma, Olmo, and peers that show substantial demand for building new stacks around open models. There’s capital to be spent on AI stacks across the economy by those who want more ownership of everything, including the model. After launching The ATOM Project 240 days ago, the conversation is shifting into the next stage. Summer of 2025 was a crisis moment where the U.S. AI scene realized it can’t wait and figure out open models after building AGI. The two markets will capture different areas and proceed in parallel. Now that more companies in the U.S. are releasing strong models, we need to improve the ecosystem so that these models are easy to use, understand, and build value around. It’s the hard work to build another inflection point in these adoption plots I’ve been updating consistently, but that’s the work to be done. Join me in it. More data coming soon! Here’s a sneak peek:
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