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August Monthly Review: ChatGPT In Epic

Death, taxes, another frontier lab healthcare launch inspiring truly insane LinkedIn takes. As much as I want to stay away, I repeatedly am the crewman unplugging his ears whenever we pass these sirens. So it’s not the first and probably not the last time we dial up the typewriter rather than tie ourselves to the mast. The full blow-by-blow timeline: Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe The End of the Standalone PHR (Jan 8): ChatGPT Health arrives for consumers, at the time powered by b.well. I was bullish on the approach in that the best way for the PHR to finally solve distribution was to meet consumers were they already are (i.e. When Horizontal Meets Healthcare (Jan 9): OpenAI for Healthcare puts out the shingle for enterprises, with SharePoint ingestion standing in for the EHR integration the product actually needed. Another One: Anthropic’s Healthcare Debut (Jan 16): Claude's version, on HealthEx rails instead of b.well, with Agent Skills for FHIR development as the one true vertical-specific investment. ChatGPT for Clinicians: The Trap Sprung (Apr 24): OpenAI filled in the missing GTM middle with a free product for verified clinicians, effectively peeling the enterprise wrapper off ChatGPT for Healthcare and taking the PLG fight directly to OpenEvidence. OpenAI’s Second Attempt at Health (Jul 31): a relaunch of their patient specific app, now branded Health in ChatGPT, where the privacy partition came out, the connectors thinned, and b.well disappeared in favor of first-party FHIR work against a smaller network Beyond a Shingle So what was announced now? Today, we’re introducing a new electronic health record integration that brings authorized patient context from Epic into ChatGPT for Healthcare, along with the Healthcare Public Data plugin for direct, structured access to official healthcare datasets like PubMed, DailyMed, and CMS Coverage. Together, these capabilities bring ChatGPT closer to the systems and sources healthcare teams trust, while supporting the controls and compliance healthcare work requires. The core portfolio is unchanged from prior announcements we delineated and discussed (aside from the relaunch of patient-facing). Since trade publications still seem to be confusing them by using the wrong names: Enterprise sales motion: ChatGPT for Healthcare Protecting their core product / PLG: ChatGPT for Clinicians Consumer/patient-facing product: Health in ChatGPT So really, this is a feature release (specifically for ChatGPT for Healthcare when it comes to EHR integration). What’s cool about it, though, is that we are moving beyond just putting out a shingle. Everything in the January enterprise launch was horizontalizable: Horizontal tech companies thus generally start verticalization with their “putting out a shingle phase”. Telling the world you’re open for business as a horizontal tech company reliably attracts early inbound interest from buyers who are already trying to force-fit horizontal tools into domain-specific workflows and are eager for any signal that the vendor intends to support their use case more directly. Nothing was really vertical specific, which is exactly what you'd expect from the ultimate hypergrowth horizontal company dipping their toes into specific industries. But eventually you have to stop changing the sign on the door and start changing the product. Can you guess where the horizontal product was going to run out of road? This is the core dilemma writ large: verticalization requires differentiation, while scale economics of consumer and horizontal push toward unification. I’ve buried the lede so deep here it will be painful to some readers, but what should be shocking to no one is that my perspective is that EHR integration is the only path that meaningfully resolves this tension for ChatGPT for Healthcare. Integration with Microsoft Sharepoint is fine, but it is categorically insufficient for any product that hopes to influence clinical decision-making. SMART Money Well here we are, eight months later! Real vertical investment has begun, which surprised a few people. One friend in the industry messaged me: “Absolutely no way Epic gave ChatGPT API access.” Looking forensically at the announcements, the integration is notably read-only across appointment notes, laboratory results, medications, and specialist documentation. So while I’m not a betting man, I'd wager the house this is a SMART on FHIR launch: That sounds a lot like USCDI! The recommended path for the workflow they outline would be SMART on FHIR Their Health AI lead’s post is evocative of both standalone and EHR launch SMART, which another termed “ChartGPT” and “EHR Plugin” The implementation burden for SMART on FHIR is the lowest of the available integrative paths This is the team who literally did patient-facing SMART on FHIR with Epic last month Most importantly, if you’re a horizontal company, you generally still haven’t taken the full plunge and thus (overly) value reusability. SMART on FHIR is the logical compromise: healthcare-specific enough to matter, but standardized enough to reuse. Nobody Asked Judy Another friend asked “I thought they had to go to each health system, or did they go direct to Epic and now health systems opt in?” Given the trust paradigms in healthcare, this functionally cannot be Epic hoovering up all the data for OpenAI and shoving ChatGPT in their customers’ faces (or they would revolt). However, I do believe the aforementioned terrible coverage by TechCrunch and other outlets is probably responsible for that question, given the 325 million reference. When using FHIR as a business associate to an Epic customer, there is no EHR gatekeeping to speak of, as that isn’t how fhir.epic.com works: You register an app You pick your APIs You test against the sandbox APIs You list as “Ready for Production” Hospitals pick your app You test and go live with them Bluntly, nobody had to say yes or no in Verona (nor were they given the chance). Vendor Services (their next developer tier up that I doubt OpenAI is using quite yet in this initial release) certainly has contractual paperwork that some resent, but even there, the twin pressures of mounting antitrust and information blocking make outright gatekeeping increasingly fraught. My friend’s sentiment is, to me, representative of a broader industry neurosis, perhaps a sort of scar tissue of prior eras: people assume the gate is still there and never actually try the door. There are certainly other ways Epic (and any EHR) can put its thumb on the scale, but they are not so dumb as to stand in front of a federally mandated API and play bouncer at this exact moment in time. So I think they can and probably should go deeper, as this release is at best parity and at worst behind vertical-specific competition. OpenEvidence did a basic SMART launch with Sutter Health in February, allowing for more convenient evidence search by providers. They then add patient-context (the equivalent SMART on FHIR flow to what we see here) when Cedars-Sinai went enterprise-wide in May. UpToDate has four distinct applications across deeper workflows like patient engagement listed in Epic Showroom and announced a partnership with Epic to power Art at UGM Abridge and other ambient scribes have invested deeply into the deepest bidirectional clinical copilot workflow with integrations well beyond SMART on FHIR. In that light, the “Who is OpenAI primarily targeting here?” is clear. This release brings them into striking distance of OpenEvidence, but not the others quite yet. They are the only one of the three you can reach without building something truly Epic-specific. When will they go further? Competition is a great motivator to overcome the horizontal demons and start building things that can’t be reused: not across industries, not across EHRs, maybe not past the customer you built them for. That’s the price of actually verticalizing. The question is if and when OpenAI will be willing to pay it. Month in Review Here is the monthly review. As a reminder, this is a regular round-up of the month’s posts and other content to surface things you may have missed across regulation, litigation, interoperability, and beyond. AI assistance is used in these bullet summaries so I can focus on articles. Articles Published: None this month Video Content: The Information Exchange: Standards-based Thruple Edition (Aug 14): Back to school for us too, with Brad reporting in from the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem’s one year anniversary in DC. We get into the January CMS-0057 deadline, the fall rulemaking reading list, and why enrollment still keeps most apps off FHIR. The Information Exchange: Epic Dúnadan Edition (Aug 25): A UGM roundup with Ryan Brickner joining for the first time to check our takes against what the building actually thinks. Rangers, Ergo sitting on top of EHI, and a down-market lineup that needs some cuts. Regulatory: Stacked Deck, Bad Hand (Aug 05): ONC’s website refresh took the entire HIT Policy Committee record with it, so I rebuilt the archive and went looking for the regulatory capture story everyone assumes is buried in there. Stacking the deck and winning the hand turn out to be very different things. The Sixth Generation of Patient Access (Aug 19): A quick catalog of the five generations of patient access we’ve layered on since HIPAA, and the two candidates now competing to be the sixth. One is planned. The other is the market routing around the plan entirely. Court cases: Three Cases Walk Into a Docket (Aug 06): Two surprise settlements cleared the board in a single week, and then Judge Maddox dropped ninety-four pages on Vyne v. Henry Schein. The sleeper is a DMCA holding that makes direct-to-database a considerably riskier business model. Epic v. Health Gorilla: Into the MDL (Aug 10): Nine class actions are headed to Miami, and the Panel signaled it wants to bring the case that spawned them along too. That would leave Epic arguing the requests were obviously fraudulent in one courtroom and unknowable in the other. Amazon v. Perplexity: Agents Are Legalized! (Aug 11): The Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction against Comet, holding that the user is the one accessing the servers rather than the company that built the agent. A real win for agentic access, and a much narrower one than the headline suggests. Veeva v. Epic: Come At Me, Bro (Aug 26): Epic’s response brief wants the dismissal affirmed and, unusually, wants the opinion published as precedent. Buried in it is Epic’s own description of what its non-competes actually prohibit, which current and former employees should read closely. EHRs: The Contract Epic Would Never Sign Today (Aug 04): A 1999 SEC exhibit catches Epic licensing nearly its entire product line, Tapestry included, to the company that became TriZetto. The marketing services menu attached to it is the part that will make you blink. Forecast from Verona (Aug 07): The Epic Almanac makes one argument six different ways: the AI is only as good as the networks behind it. Emmie headlines, Art’s context stack is the most ambitious part, and Penny finally gets an autonomous coding date on the calendar. Works With Epic MyChart (Aug 17): Epic’s first new Showroom category since the death of Workshop certifies hardware instead of software, badge on the box and all. Made for iPhone, but for blood pressure cuffs, and rough news for anyone selling the RPM stack sitting in between. UGM Hot Takes 2026 (Aug 20): Everyone else covered the AI announcements, so I went after Savvy deleting the payment gateway, Rangers as Boost with the timer removed, and a down-market lineup with too many entries. Plus the Health Grid tidbits I cannot help myself on. MyChart Central Grows Up (Aug 24): Device data and Emmie turn Epic’s identity hub into a full consumer platform, which is both a logical answer to ChatGPT and a bit of a mistake. It also happens to be the best scraping target Epic has ever shipped. Industry Analysis: The Wrong Yardstick (Aug 12): Vertical software keeps getting judged against Superhuman and Notion, which is the wrong bar entirely. Your user is comparing your product to a whiteboard and forty phone calls before lunch. Primitives vs. Abstractions (Aug 27): Developers want building blocks, systems of record prefer to hand out business logic, and both sides have a real case. There’s no test from the outside that separates the engineering reason from the competitive one, which is why this keeps ending up in court. Cross-industry Comparisons: The Two Kinds of Platform Power (Aug 18): Attention power and record power are different problems that keep getting handed the same regulatory toolkit. Congress’s latest swing at Big Tech shows both what’s possible and where it falls apart. The Dogs of (Platform) War (Aug 21): A CourtListener alert turned up a property management fight with healthcare’s exact shape and none of the Cures Act. Shell prospects, ghost accounts, a notetaker bot that came back to haunt someone, and a lawyer arguing both sides of the same theory in two states. Fractals All the Way Down (Aug 31): Yardi dominates property management right up until you zoom into one segment, where AppFolio owns it outright and Yardi doesn’t appear at all. Where you draw the line around a B2B software market is about to decide an awful lot of cases. Other News: If Judy Had the Courage (Aug 13): A short eulogy for the era when software was allowed to look insane: WinAMP, bold colors, and everything the grey chatbot era has taken from us. External Media: Portland Monthly Health Tech Meetup: Erin O’Brien channeled my own feelings - maybe it’s just because it’s August and beautiful, but the monthly edition of the PDX Health community meetup was a ripper. Make sure to reach out if interested to join for the next one. STAT’s Coverage of Epic This Month: Brittany Trang of STAT did a fantastic job of breaking the FTC investigation that’s been lurking, as well as UGM related coverage, so I had to give her her wish of a meme. Fall Conferences: I’m pumped to be kicking off my fall conference season in NYC at Nabla Accelerate next month, which Chrissy provided the link to apply for. Here’s the rest of my schedule in case you want to meet up: Commonwell (Redwood Shores, CA): Oct 13-14 Open@Epic (Madison, WI): Oct 21-22 eHealthExchange (Austin, TX): Oct 27 Sequoia Project (Austin, TX): Oct 28-29 HLTH (Vegas): Nov 15-18 RSNA (Chicago): Nov 29-Dec 3 Posts I Liked: HTI-6 Should Unbundle API Certification: Josh Mandel makes the case that HTI-6 should split (g)(10) into separate authorization and data certifications, so a PACS or a genomics platform can certify only the role it actually performs. Imaging is the urgent example, but the structure solves a much bigger problem. On implementing ePrior Auth with Epic: Scott Rossignol’s field notes from a live ePrior Auth build on Epic, including the two app registrations nobody warns you about and the CPT mapping problem waiting at the end. CMS-0057 implementations are going to be such a beast. Healthcare point solutions are starting to look a lot like streaming services: Spencer Dorn runs the cable-to-streaming arc against health IT and lands squarely on the bundling half of the cycle. Bundling can be good! It can also be bad! Life is nuanced. Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

Sep 2 • 5:05 AM EDT • Health • healthapiguy.substack.com

Jon-Eric Sullivan on Quinn Ewers: This is a performance business and it was not getting done

The Dolphins traded Ewers to the Jaguars for a 2028 sixth-round draft pick.

Sep 2 • 4:02 AM EDT • Business • nbcsports.com

Dell’s newest laptop sounds a lot like a MacBook Neo

Dude, you’re getting a turquoise Dell.

Sep 2 • 3:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Vikings Just Added a Familiar Face for Brian Flores: Report

The Minnesota Vikings are getting a new linebacker. Kyle Van Noy signed with the Vikings on Wednesday evening. The Ringer’s Tom Pelissero reported thisThe linebacker was linked to the Vikings earlier in the day. KSTP’s Darren Wolfson reported that the linebacker came in for a visit. There were indications that he may sign with the […] The post Vikings Just Added a Familiar Face for Brian Flores: Report appeared first on HEAVY.

Sep 2 • 2:09 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

What Box Office Bomb Crushed Obsession on Streaming?

(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get into this week’s issue, let me ask you for some suggestions. At the risk of coining too many names for too many things (hence my dictionary of terms...), I need a name for straight-to-streaming films that are too expensive to justify a straight-to-streaming release, but not big enough to justify a theatrical release. Like some of the films I highlighted in last week’s tally of the biggest film flops of 2026 so far: Hulu’s Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, Pizza Movie or Never Change! They don’t feel like “made for TV movies” (think Hallmark and Lifetime movies, cheap Netflix romcoms, or Disney Channel Original movies, for example) but they don’t feel big enough for the big screen. They’re not “cinematic” enough, so to speak. As I wrote... “I still need a name for this middle zone of film that’s too expensive to go straight-to-streaming but too small to justify a theatrical release (with all the PR, distribution, marketing and whatnot costs that go along with it), the Goldilocks zone of streaming film death.” Friend of the newsletter Brandon Katz has suggested the “Bermuda Budget Triangle”, “The Platform Gap” and “The Distribution Deadzone”. I love that first one. I’d offer up the much wordier “The Streaming Budget Dead Zone” or “the Goldilocks Zone of streaming film death” but that last one isn’t accurate since, unlike Goldilocks’ porridge, these films are the opposite of “just right”. That’s the problem! Anyway, if you have any suggestions, let me know! On to today’s Streaming Ratings Report. As you can tell by today’s headline, things are going to be spicy! I’m looking at a box office bomb that did really, really well on streaming, somewhat challenging a few different narratives. And another Netflix series declined in its second season. All that, plus Wicked: For Good switching streamers, The Hawk continuing its strong run, _The Bear’_s finale season finally dropping off the charts, the WNBA posting a big viewership number, “shallow libraries”, a sitcom spinoff failing to launch, more big budget IP flopping on Paramount+, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of July 20th to July 26th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - The Latest Theatrical Success Story on Streaming In the latest edition of “Flops, Bombs and Misses of the First Half of 2026”, I made a crucial change: I started including theatrical films with the streaming misses. The streamers have collectively—including Netflix, but not to as big of an extent—stopped making a lot of straight-to-streaming films, and the ones they do make aren’t as expensive as in the heyday of the streaming bubble. After the following two films bombed in theaters, you’d guess that they’ll be included in my next collection of flops, bombs and misses six months from now: Masters of the Universe on Prime Video (only $64 million domestic box office) Mortal Kombat II on HBO Max ($79 million domestic) But you’d be wrong! Masters of the Universe, a reboot of the He-Man franchise, a toy from the 1980s, came to streaming on 22-July and did great! This long-gestating project—it’s been at every studio for years, and came close to getting a greenlight at Netflix—then finally came to theaters in June, and showed up on streaming less than two months later. (I don’t love this short theatrical window.) It surprisingly grabbed nearly 20 million hours on its debut: That means, wait for it, Masters of the Universe is currently the eighth biggest film on streaming through two weeks. My rough bar for “hit” is shows or films in the top 15%. Ergo…Masters of the Universe is a legit, streaming hit! (One quick caveat: if it falls out of the top ten next week, it will move to 13th overall, just on the edge of the top 15.) Of course, that’s the data for just 2026. Here’s how it stacks up to Prime Video’s theatrical films: That drop into its second week is typical for Amazon films, but also a worrying sign. I have a feeling interest in this film is front-loaded and we’ll see it drop off after this. As for Mortal Kombat II, in this case, the viewership numbers roughly match the theatrical outing, with only 4.1 million hours in its first week. Here’s how it stacks up to other HBO Max films: The best defense of this number is that, as a relatively violent rated-R film, Mortal Kombat II never had a good chance at breaking out. So now it’s time for a little big of “Entertainment Nuance Guy”: First, yeah, my headline is obviously facetious, since Masters of the Universe besting Obsession says more about horror as a genre than it does that film. Second, I read and listened to quite a few “nobody wanted this IP” takes about Masters of the Universe, and that’s not really true. At least enough people wanted it to power a 20 million+ hour debut! Third, both this film and Mortal Kombat II were considered “average” by viewers, but not great films, with a 6.4 and 6.3 respectively on IMDb. That’s just shy of the level needed to be a word-of-mouth hit. Fourth, in the olden days, strong word of mouth could transform a box office miss into a cable/DVD hit, like Austin Powers or The Shawshank Redemption. We haven’t seen a lot of examples of that on streaming, though. And there are far fewer ways to monetize the post-theatrical life of a film these days. Fifth, Prime Video has shown an ability to push their own titles well, likely because they control the Amazon Fire TV ecosystem. Add it all up, and here’s my nuanced take on Masters of the Universe: it was a box office bomb, but, shockingly, a streaming hit. Unfortunately, while being a theatrical hit saves your film financially, being a streaming hit does not. Both Masters of the Universe and Mortal Kombat II had big budgets and needed to make more money in theaters to justify them. So…Straight-to-Streaming or Theaters? We’ve hit a really fun point in the streaming calendar, since the films that came out in theaters in April, May, and June are now arriving on streaming. So the “Do theatrical releases help streaming performances?” question is gonna get a fresh round of updates nearly every week. No single week will answer the question, but we may get some insights. For example, so far in 2026, it looks like theatrical films are lasting longer on the weekly Nielsen film charts. Here’s a list of films that have made the charts in their fourth or fifth week of release, separated by “for kids” and “general entertainment”: It certainly seems like theatrical films are lasting just a pinch longer on the charts, with Project Hail Mary being the current five-week champion. One Battle After Another did well for HBO Max too, and even The Sheep Detectives made it four weeks. The only exception to this trend? Obsession, which only lasted two weeks on the charts. You might tempted to overreact to this news. Don’t. Obsession is a huge horror hit, but horror just doesn’t do as well on streaming. By the way, here’s the Google Trends for various theatrical and stremaing films: Plus, when it comes to Netflix in four months, Obsession may have another big boost. Quick Notes on Film Note that when I write, “the streamers have pulled back on straight-to-streaming films” that doesn’t mean “abandoned” because Netflix is gonna Netflix. On 24-July, they released 72 Hours, a Kevin Hart comedy. Along with Eddie Murphy, Mark Wahlberg, John Cena and Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart is a streaming film star now. Did this latest one work? Not really. It only garnered two weeks of 13.2 and 12.2 million hours on its debut, well below the 20-million-hour hit threshold. It also was poorly received critically—a 44 on Metacritic—and by customers—a 5.4 on IMDb on 21K IMDb reviews. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The latest Netflix true crime doc to pop on the charts… How The Bear finished its run… Netflix’s latest Western to return to streaming… What Paramount+ animated film flopped… And what sitcom also missed… All the flops, bombs and misses… And a whole lot more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! I’m behind by a week, so we’ve got two issues coming your way this week, including one in a couple of days or so, then we’ll be all caught up**.** Next issue, inspired by The Super Mario Galaxy Movie coming to Peacock, I’m going to take a look at the workhouse of streaming TV: kids films. Plus The Devil Wears Prada 2 continues theatrical films’ big run on streaming. All that, plus another surprise hit on Hulu, Lioness on CBS, and a whole lot more. Long term, LeBron James is filming his own “Last Dance”-style docu-series, surprising no one. But as I’ve been writing about a lot this summer, this genre is really overrated, so whoever ends up buying it (reportedly ESPN) really shouldn’t pay too much for it.

Sep 1 • 6:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

JD Vance and Abdul El-Sayed Really Don’t Like Each Other

The vice president called the Michigan senate hopeful “evil” on Monday, but El-Sayed is giving as good as he’s getting in this feud.

Sep 1 • 4:37 PM EDT • Politics • nymag.com

Dwarf Fortress Creator Calls Out One Of AI's Biggest Issues: Bosses

'Everyone I know, their bosses are slowly getting psychosis'

Sep 1 • 1:45 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

gamescom 2026’s Steam wishlist winners

gamescom wrapped up last weekend, and it was bloody fantastic. It really felt like the industry had a spring in its step again. The show itself was BUZZING, with 368K attendees (+3% over last year), maxed-out exhibit space, and Opening Night Live pulling over 78M online views (+7.5%). Let’s have a look at the games at the event that brought in the most new Steam wishlists between August 23 and 30. One quick thing before we start, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but wishlists are NOT a barometer for launch sales (they’re bookmarks, not baskets is what we always say over here at Alinea). With that aside, wishlists are a nice gauge of hype, so let’s dive in. Witche(r)s and Warlocks take the top two spots The biggest game of the event (by new wishlists, anyways) wasn’t a game at all. It was an expansion. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, nabbed 451K Steam wishlists by the end of the weekend. It’s a big example of something we bang on about constantly: proven IP with built-in fandom is the most powerful force in this market. But said IP can also ripple into other external success stories (more on that later!). Anyway, Songs of the Past debuted at Opening Night Live, and it’s the first Witcher 3 expansion in over a decade, landing next year after a full Witcher 3 remaster (free for existing owners!) arrives next month. The Witcher 3 has sold around 66M copies, and I’ll be one of those owners jumping back in to refresh myself on the core game (like there isn’t enough to play!), then play the expansion next year. This is all part of CDPR’s plan. The studio is clearly whetting everyone’s appetite for The Witcher 4 in 2028 via a classic bridge strategy. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Releasing a free 4K remaster next month – followed by a proper expansion in 2027 – keeps IP top-of-mind across a huge gap between content (games-wise, anyway). It kind of echoes Capcom’s evergreen catalogue strategy. And outsourcing co-development to Fool’s Theory (a studio led by trusted Witcher 3 veterans) keeps CDPR’s internal headcount focused on The Witcher 4. #2 by wishlists between Aug 23 and 30 went to another giant IP: Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, published by Wizards of the Coast and developed by Invoke Studios (a team of ex-Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell devs). It’s due to launch in 2027, and it looks brilliant so far. It’s a dark-fantasy open world with third-person spell-slinging. It’s a very Witcher-ish aesthetic. As you might expect, 48% of Warlock’s Steam wishlisters have played Baldur’s Gate 3, and 46% have played The Witcher 3. One to watch. For sure! Mash-ups: Anime GTA (!?) and a city-builder for kids (and adults) Ananta took #3 with 302K new wishlists. It’s an open-world game that looks like GTA and Persona had a baby. It was published by NetEase, developed by Naked Rain, and got a trailer at Opening Night Live. I got hands-on at the show, and it wears its influences openly; there’s literal web-slinging (very Spider-Man) and a LOAD of mini-games (Like a Dragon). It’s free-to-play and out in January. For Ananta, Naked Rain is taking the free-to-play, cosmetics-only route. That’s certainly a choice for a single-player open-world game. Without gacha mechanics driving high ARPU, Ananta is betting purely on top-of-funnel reach and long-term retention. This puts pressure on skin appeal when there’s no multiplayer lobby to flex in (although, co-op is reportedly coming later). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Then there’s Lego Skylines (273K wishlists between Aug 23 and 30), which does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a cosy Lego twist on the city-builder genre, as shallow or as deep as you fancy (five min quick sesh or ten-hour no-lifer session; latter for me). There’s some family-friendly stuff in there like couch co-op, which is only really viable on console. Iceflake Studios, which Paradox acquired back in 2020 is developing this one. So Paradox is probably looking for a family-friendly onramp to its rad Cities: Skylines games. The overlap there is plain, with 33% of Lego Skylines wishlisters having played Cities: Skylines and 16% Skylines II. There’s no doubt plenty of parents here (and uncles, ahem) planning to indoctrinate the next gen of city-builders. I’ll definitely be playing with my youngest nephew. This one could be big and educational. I’m very curious to see more. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Mature IP, new and old, rounds out the list As for the rest of the list of gamescom games by new wishlists between Aug 23 and 30: Heroes of Might & Magic III Remake got 189K new wishlists. It remakes the iconic 1999 turn-based-strategy classic in full 3D and 4K. It follows this year’s Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era (~1.8M copies sold, as per our estimates), and around a quarter of the III Remake wishlisters have played Olden Era, including 7% of them this month. Wardogs – a $40 PvP shooter – added another 146K to an already massive pile (nearly 1.6M total). It’s published by Team17 and made by Bulkhead. It plays somewhere between the tactical squad stuff of … Squad and the all-out-chaos battlefield of … Battlefield. It’s up to 100 players, and it’s out in about 10 days. It’s already pre-sold over 500K copies on Steam ($16.6M), boosted by a pre-order-only beta. It sold another 70K copies during gamescom, too. Afterworld managed 121K new wishlists. It’s a Paradox-made post-apocalyptic grand-strategy game, and it was announced at the show. It’s a departure from Paradox’s usual historical stuff, and the studio’s first new setting in over a decade. The Paradox purists are into it, with over half its wishlisters having played Hearts of Iron IV (19% this month) and 41% Crusader Kings III (17% this month). Metro 2039 got 110K during the show, tunnelling its total past 1.3M. Nearly 40% of wishlisters have played 2020’s Metro Exodus, the previous mainline title in the series. The Metro novels are Russian, dev 4A Games is Ukrainian, and it’s set in Moscow, so it’s unsurprising that – after the US (17.3% of wishlisters) – the next two countries are Russia (12.7%) and Ukraine (10.0%). The Blood of the Dawnwalker drew in (the blood of) 108K new wishlisters, now totalling an impressive 1.7M (at a $70 price point, though). It’s an open-world dark-fantasy action-RPG set in 14th-century Europe (with vampires!), made by some former Witcher devs at Rebel Wolves. Again, it shows. Over half of Blood of the Dawnwalker’s wishlisters have played The Witcher 3, and its #2 market is Poland, home of Rebel Wolves. That’s that hometown-hero effect we keep banging on about again! And Blood of the Dawnwalker plays very well, by the way. While it looks like a Witcher clone on the surface, it actually brings a lot to the table mechanics-wise. I love the whole time-as-a-currency spin on RPG gameplay. It gives the game a different, refreshing pace. Essentially, you start Blood of the Dawnwalker with a pool of 480 action points spread across 30 days and 30 nights. As for how the game performs, we’ll be posting some numbers next week, so hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready. Subscribe The Witcher’s legacy ripples Make no mistake: on a high level, this was The Witcher‘s gamescom. The #1 game by wishlisters was a Witcher 3 DLC. Warlock is clearly Witcher-inspired – as is Blood of the Dawnwalker, which was made by ex-Witcher devs. There was a lot of other cool stuff on the floor that we’ll no doubt be covering in subsequent newsletters, though! As always, wishlists went through the roof for sequels, remakes, DLC, and licensed IP. As always, though, these wishlists will likely convert to about 5% to 10% of launch-day buyers, with the probable exception of The Witcher DLC – the exception that proves the rule. Either way, we’ve got a nice, diverse list here – one that is very Witcher-y, Paradox-y, and – if you’re a fan of great games on Steam – a bloody good list. We even got a bunch of new IP to get excited for. Great gamescom! Even if we are still processing that unfathomable number of mini Kölsch beers! One more thing: GTA 6 broke the internet (again) Move aside, Spider-Man and The Odyssey (I love you both, really). But the decade’s defining entertainment zeitgeist is round the corner. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Rockstar dropped an extended look at GTA 6 last week. It was INSANE, the most impressed I’ve ever been by a showcase like this. You can see the budget seeping through every second of the extended look, and this level of game is unobtainable for any other publisher. Everyone’s going nuts, and rightly so. GTA 6 is out in holiday 2026, and it’ll be the biggest entertainment release ever, full stop. For those without a PS5 or Xbox Series console, a $500-$900 console is a big ask in this economy, but GTA will pull a lot of last-generation-console fence sitters over the current-gen fence either way: The autumn timing puts GTA 6 on (digital) shelves for the holidays, meaning a PS5 or Xbox (let’s be honest, mostly the former) will be on many a Christmas and Hanukkah list. Demand will outweigh the struggling supply, though, and PS5 Pros are already sold out and being sold at a markup via scalpers. Every console that isn’t on a shelf is a sale deferred or lost, and worse, it hands scalpers the margin. GTA has cultural clout that reaches everyone. It’s been a mainstream fixture since 2001’s GTA III and its clout has only grown exponentially since then. There’s a touchpoint for every generation alive. The FOMO-word-of-mouth double punch does the rest. Loading... It’ll reactivate the lockdown cohort, the millions who picked up gaming in 2020-21 and churned. GTA 6 will bring them back. Remember when College Football 25 brought a bunch of US gamers to current-gen consoles? GTA will do that globally. Once they’re back (or upgraded), and all GTA’d out, the fresh current-gen-console folks will check out the rest of the current-gen catalogue they missed. GTA Online, if not free to play, will also lead to a boost for PS+ and Xbox Game Pass, another boost for the ecosystem players. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Even some of the smug PCMR 60FPS crew won’t be able to resist their FOMO and will bite the bullet on a console to play this one early (then double dip). The consoles cost the same as a decent stick of RAM these days anyway lmao… Don’t get me wrong, though. GTA 6 is no silver bullet for the mature console market, but it does prime the current gen for a couple of strong swan-song years. And it’ll also give the consoles more users from which to maximise ARPU. ‘’We are in the latter half of the lifetime cycle of [the PS5],’’ said Sony President and CEO Hiroki Totoki in a Wall Street Journal interview. ‘’That means we do not need to aggressively sell the console today; rather than that, we are focusing on the current revenue from the current user base.’’ The biggest, best premium games always arrive late in a console cycle, so getting more players aboard now, ahead of that content storm (the new current-gen-only Call of Duty included), is a clear win for the platforms. On the Netflix thing, though: let’s all chill out a bit, like. Half my LinkedIn feed was going bonkers treating the reveal debuting on Netflix like it’s the future of entertainment. It wasn’t. It was a six-hour head start, and Netflix left that detail out of the “first-of-its-kind partnership” press release. The extended look hit Netflix at 3pm ET on 27 August, then went up on YouTube and Rockstar’s site for everyone six hours later. And it was all over social immediately, anyways. This reveal was going to reach an untold number of people whether it debuted on Netflix, YouTube, a Times Square screen, or a group chat. The last trailer did nearly half a billion views in a day with no gatekeeper at all. Netflix just stood next to that audience for six hours, borrowing it. It’s was a tidy deal for Netflix, sure. But every outlet on earth was breaking the thing down frame by frame by the evening anyway. Anyway. I’m hype. And we’ll be covering some GTA numbers on the newsletter soon. So hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready! Subscribe The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Sep 1 • 10:27 AM EDT • Technology • alineaanalytics.substack.com

Postal Service plans may keep voters from getting ballots, whistleblower says

An anonymous federal official warns that a rushed USPS portal tied to Trump’s mail-voting order could reject large batches of ballots before the midterms.

Sep 1 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Caio Borralho Calls for Fight at UFC 334

UFC middleweight contender Caio Borralho called for a fight at the upcoming UFC 334 card in his return to the Octagon.Borralho, the No. 6-ranked middleweight in the Meta UFC Rankings, was supposed to fight Joe Pyfer at UFC 330 but was forced to pull out due to injury.He is now getting back to full health […] The post Caio Borralho Calls for Fight at UFC 334 appeared first on HEAVY.

Sep 1 • 1:48 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

How the Pentagon Is Getting Into the Venezuelan Oil Business Under Trump

The Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, founded by the Biden administration to give loans to bolster the U.S. defense industry, is helping lead President Trump’s oil deal.

Aug 31 • 9:56 PM EDT • Business • nytimes.com

AMC Theatres Gets Into Distribution Business, Launches Leawood Films

AMC Theatres, the world's largest exhibitor, is getting into the distribution business launching Leawood Films, a label for small and mid-sized films.

Aug 31 • 4:30 PM EDT • Business • deadline.com

Sony's next PlayStation State of Play coming this Thursday, followed by a Japan and Asia-dedicated showcase

We're due for another summer PlayStation State of Play, and we're getting two of them in one day.

Aug 31 • 8:50 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

CarPlay keeps getting better with three recent exciting app updates

CarPlay is about to get even better with iOS 27 in September. New features including a dedicated Siri app and...

Aug 31 • 8:11 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

Business Notes: New leader at Gloucester-Mathews Humane Society; $750K awarded for Norfolk rail project

See who’s getting promoted and which businesses are celebrating milestones in Hampton Roads.

Aug 31 • 7:18 AM EDT • Business • pilotonline.com

MLB power rankings: Baseball's worst division gets embarrassed again

Mariners continued their stunning downfall, getting swept in an ALCS rematch.

Aug 31 • 5:31 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

More Mail Ballots Are Arriving Late This Year, and They’re Getting Tossed

State officials say they worry about the Postal Service’s ability to deliver votes this fall. They are urging voters to mail their ballots early or use drop boxes so their votes count.

Aug 31 • 5:02 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

Google is getting flak for changing Lake Ontario name to Lake America

Canadian politicians are also scrubbing government websites that embed Google Maps to ensure the lake is labeled Lake Ontario.

Aug 31 • 1:02 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Staff editorial: GW students’ passion for politics must also apply to local DC government

At first glance, it may seem that the GW student body has earned its reputation as inordinately passionate about politics. Most of the student body spends their summers working for their senators and representatives and spends their school semesters at Capitol Hill. But while our student body focuses on national politics and issues, they are forgetting about something closer to home — our local government.

Aug 31 • 12:32 AM EDT • Politics • gwhatchet.com

Pirates Series Takeaways: Offense Needed to Compensate, Griffin’s Looming Return

The Pirates’ lengthy nine-game road trip that spanned 11 days and three cities is finally over. After getting swept by […]

Aug 30 • 6:15 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Microsoft Is Slowly Healing Windows 11, With OneDrive Finally Allowing Users To Fully Opt Out Of The Service, Getting Rid Of The Incessant Reminder

Microsoft is making it easier to opt out of OneDrive on Windows 11 by removing persistent backup prompts and improving user control

Aug 30 • 4:14 PM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com

Celebrity sightings in Connecticut in August 2026

In August, celebrities were seen getting married and taking the stage with local fans.

Aug 30 • 1:31 PM EDT • Entertainment • newstimes.com

Red Sox get massive double boost just in time for playoff push

The Red Sox are getting healthy at the perfect time, with Roman Anthony and Trevor Story returning from lengthy injury absences as Boston prepares for a crucial September playoff push.

Aug 30 • 1:05 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Dallas Cowboys trade for another offensive tackle

The Dallas Cowboys trade draft picks to add depth at tackle by getting the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Broderick Jones.

Aug 30 • 12:15 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Only Koby Howard Days Until Penn State Football

Penn State is less than a week away as the Lions will be at home in six days to take on Marshall. Wide receiver Koby Howard will be wearing No. 6 for Penn State this season. A year ago, Howard was getting buzz in camp about his play, but he didn’t really start seeing the […]

Aug 30 • 8:59 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Menus are getting AI-sloppified, and the images are terrifying

Horrifying Reubens and nauseating circle shrimp are hot new menu items.

Aug 30 • 4:31 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

What the Cowboys’ new offensive tackle brings to the team

Here is what the Cowboys are getting in Broderick Jones.

Aug 29 • 8:30 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

AI-generated videos are already displacing actors and livestreamers across China's entertainment industry

In China, 95 percent of the 128,000 short dramas released in Q1 2026 were AI-generated. Some actors are being forced to hand over their voice and likeness to AI tools before getting fired, the Financial Times reports. AI-related labor disputes are rising fast.

Aug 29 • 9:25 AM EDT • Entertainment • the-decoder.com

Miles Davis' TD run lifts Panthers to 16-13 win over Texans in preseason finale

The Panthers limited the Texans to 173 yards while getting four sacks and two interceptions.

Aug 29 • 9:10 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com

Top Stories: Apple's 'Surprise and Shine' Event, Plus New Mac mini and Mac Studio

It turned out to be a big week for Apple news this week, as we not only got an official announcement about the upcoming iPhone event but also several hardware announcements including updated Mac mini and Mac Studio models. Anticipation continues to build for Apple's first foldable iPhone coming at next month's event, while subscribers to the Apple TV streaming service are getting hit with another price increase, so read on below for all of the details.

Aug 29 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Siemens CEO Roland Busch's seven rules for getting things done

Roland Busch, the CEO of Siemens, manages work life balance by prioritizing email management and efficient meeting strategies, enhancing productivity.

Aug 29 • 5:05 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME), Why Is It Getting Fresh Attention?

Tencent Music Entertainment Group (NYSE:TME) is back in focus after forming STE, a joint venture with South Korea's SM Entertainment, to target the Greater China music market and develop a new Chinese idol group. For Tencent Music Entertainment Group, the share price has fallen 9.03% over the past 30 days and is down 51.51% year to date, while the 1 year total shareholder return has declined 64.32%. However, the 3 year total shareholder return of 33.04% points to longer term momentum that...

Aug 28 • 12:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st

Getting Started in STEM

Dartmouth Adventures in STEM introduces 27 incoming first-year students to the frontiers of science.

Aug 28 • 10:06 AM EDT • Science • home.dartmouth.edu

Josh Shapiro is battling RFK Jr. over measles, and the politics are getting messy

A feud between the Pennsylvania governor and health secretary sparked by this week's reports of measles-related deaths laid bare the increasingly polarized politics of public health.

Aug 28 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Josh Shapiro is battling RFK Jr. over measles, and the politics are getting messy

A feud between the Pennsylvania governor and health secretary sparked by this week's reports of measles-related deaths laid bare the increasingly polarized politics of public health.

Aug 28 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

The Literacy Crisis Reaches Dog-Bear Science

“New analysis of more than 300 bear encounters suggests our canine companions often increase odds of conflict and rarely serve as early warning systems many recreationists assume,” reads a subhead in Mountain Journal. The thing is, that study reaches no such conclusion. But you have to read beyond the abstract to understand that. Mountain Journal is not alone. Let’s look at a brief list of takeaways published elsewhere just to establish that none of them seem to know how to read science. Wes Siler’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Here’s CBC: “A new peer-reviewed study, The Canine Conundrum: Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country?, dug into conflicts similar to what the video depicts, by analyzing 326 reported human-bear conflicts from 1901 to 2023 involving dogs.” “The study found 54 per cent of conflicts were started by dogs. In the encounters researchers included in the study, five people and 56 dogs were killed, and 170 people were injured.” “Lana Ciarniello, an independent researcher who co-authored the study, said researchers found when a person goes hiking with at least one other person, the odds of a negative bear encounter decrease by 50 per cent.” “However, when a dog is involved, the chances of a negative bear encounter increase because ‘a dog really adds a chaotic factor into the mix of recreation,’ said Ciarniello.” Again, the study finds no data supporting that conclusion. “Hiking with your pet dog may make you feel safer in bear country—but a hiker’s recent encounter and a new study prove that the numbers don’t add up,” writes Backpacker, which is now part of Outside. The numbers don’t add up to support this take. There’s plenty more examples, but all are equally dumb, so I’ll stop there. How did so many people get this so wrong? Three reasons: 1) the study is published behind a paywall, with only the abstract freely available. 2) the methodology sets out to create work relevant to a hyper-specific audience, not the public. And 3) the dataset studied is almost absurdly limited and doesn’t bear (get it?!) comparison to wider information. Let’s work through all three. The Problem is Money I understand the irony, since I’m writing about this on a subscription-model newsletter, but information wants to be free. The study is published by The Wildlife Society and costs $16 to access. Reprinting it is specifically prohibited by the terms of use, so I can only share snippets and my conclusions with you here. Having worked as a journalist for 24 years, I can report with some authority that journalists are both lazy and cheap. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that much of the material you’re seeing written about this study is drawn from the freely-available abstract (above) only, and not a deep dive into its methodology or data. And that’s a problem, because abstracts are where researchers are able to break from their numbers and editorialize their opinions about conclusions. So what’s getting reported isn’t based on numbers, it’s based on an opinion designed for a specific audience, not the general public. Hell yeah ladies, kick that bear’s ass. The Methodology is Designed to Support a Predetermined Conclusion One of the biggest issues with the science that everyone likes to cite about bear spray’s efficacy is that no one understands that study was designed for a specific audience, looking for a specific answer. And since that audience is not the public, and our safety was not the question being asked, its conclusion is rendered irrelevant to our needs. Yes, I’m talking about Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, which was created by Tom Smith and Stephen Herrero, two of the same scientists who put together this dog-bear conflict analysis. In the spray study, the purpose was to present relevant agencies with the information they needed to issue their field workers with bear spray. As such, incidents where people were unable to access the spray or similarly failed to get it deployed in time were excluded from the results, and only incidents they deemed successful were included. Could a ranger roll down their vehicle’s window and scare a bear away from a dumpster by spraying it? Turns out the answer was yes, and that was good enough for the purposes of that study. The sample size of actual bear attacks—the thing you and I would want bear spray to provide a solution to, was too small to draw conclusions from, and didn’t indicate success in that role. Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country? has similar limitations. “Insights provided here are intended to help wildlife managers create effective guidelines regarding the presence of domestic dogs in bear habitat,” is explained clearly by the study’s text. To conduct the study, Smith and Herrero went looking for publicly available reports of dog-bear conflicts: “All incidents included in our analysis involved at least one bear, one dog, and one person who was at immediate risk of injury (e.g., not in a protective structure such as a cabin or vehicle), injured, or killed,” explains the report’s methodology. Why is that a problem? “We recognize that data used in this study are biased in that people generally only report adverse interactions with bears, not benign ones. Consequently, we assume that for the most part, people and their dogs pass through bear country without incident.” As was the problem with the bear spray study, people are drawing conclusions here from a study that was never intended to be relevant to the general public. The Smith-Herrero database famously excludes Alaska’s Defense of Life and Property records, which are elsewhere considered the largest and most authoritative source on human-bear conflict. The Dataset is Absurdly Limited A 2009 study conducted by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife estimates that each year there are at least 43,000 documented complaints of human-bear conflict across North America. Is a Dog a Help or Hindrance in Bear Country? Examined those reports for years ranging from 1901 to 2023, and only managed to find 326 such incidents that met the criteria explained above. Let’s do some quick math, poorly. 43,000 incidents x 122 years = 5,246,000 total incidents of documented human-bear conflict. Smith and Herrero were only able to find 326 incidents that met their criteria for dog+human+bear+risk or occurrence of injury. That means there’s a 0.006 percent chance that the study’s conclusion—that dogs make bear encounters more dangerous—even gets a chance of occurring. And remember, that’s only in documented conflicts. There’s no way to know how many people across North America run into a bear in any given year without any conflict, but it’s probably safe to assume that the total number is well in excess of 43,000. And, dig deeper into the study and you can find further restrictions that skew its conclusions even more. “While the people involved in these incidents did not report the level of training their dogs had received, it is our assumption that most were untrained companion dogs as opposed to well-trained bear dogs, such as Karelians and livestock guardian breeds that have proven to be significant aids in bear country,” the study’s methodology explains. And that’s a problem, because an ongoing study here in Montana is finding that the simple presence of a Kangal like our youngest dog Teddy can reduce visits to private property from grizzly bears by 87.8 percent. In addition to being a badass, Teddy is also a companion animal. And in my admittedly limited sample size of the three dogs currently present in our living room, she’s no more effective than her mutt brothers. Plenty of people own a dog capable of deterring bears, even if they didn’t set out to own a bear dog. The real purpose of this study appears to be a recommendation that leashes are mandated and recreationists pursue training in their deterrent of choice. But that doesn’t make for sensational headlines. Are There Any Real Takeaways Here? Let’s throw some numbers around, just to try and get our hands around what the larger picture might look like for bears and dogs here. The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 42.6 percent of American households own a dog. The Canadian Animal Health Institute says roughly 35 percent of households in Canuckistan own a dog. In an attempt to create the worst possible result for dogs, let’s run with that 35 percent number. And given that outdoorsy and rural people are more likely to both own a dog, and have bear encounters, let’s just make a giant assumption and apply that number to those 43,000 conflicts documented annually. If 35 percent of 43,000 human-bear encounters involve a dog, then we can assume that at least 15,050 dog-bear conflicts are occurring annually in North America. 15,050 x 122 = 1,836,100. Smith and Herrero were only able to find 326 incidents that met their human, dog, chance or occurrence of injury criteria across 122 years. And only 170 documented human injuries. So, with all the obvious caveats about these numbers in no way describing reality beyond narrow study parameters, what they actually found is that your risk of injury if your dog tangles with a bear is only 0.009 percent. I’ll take those odds next time I’m hiking my dogs in bear country. Top photo: “Superintendent Horace Albright, eating pancakes with bears, at Lake Lodge, Yellowstone National Park.” NPS. A journalist with more than two decades of experience working around the world, Wes Siler is here to cut through the outrage and disinformation to bring you the factual, insightful, actionable reporting you need to understand what’s going on. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports this reporting, and buys personal access to Wes, who will help you save money on gear, plan outdoor adventures, and prepare for real life, and who promises he’s less salty in real life than he sometimes comes across as on the Internet. Wes Siler’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

Aug 27 • 6:47 PM EDT • Science • wessiler.substack.com

This Is What Happens When 1,000 People Bury Their Underwear for Science

Talk about getting to the bottom of things

Aug 27 • 6:00 PM EDT • Science • nautil.us

Food science student lands research job with Hershey after two internships

Senior food science major Maggie Will is heading to The Hershey Co. after graduation. She's been a leader in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and completed two internships with Hershey prior to getting a job offer.

Aug 27 • 2:14 PM EDT • Science • psu.edu

Best practices for launching albums and series in a crowded entertainment marketplace

In this era of personalized algorithms and nonstop content, getting an audience to notice a particular album or debuting TV show, let alone keep coming back, is harder than ever. And the line between a release being a drop in the ocean and a cannonball splash is razor thin — yet not impossible, This new special […]

Aug 27 • 11:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • luminatedata.com

GLP-1s may have a host of other health benefits. Just ask these people

Here is what scientists currently know about GLP-1s, and where hype may be getting ahead of the evidence.

Aug 27 • 8:04 AM EDT • Health • usatoday.com

Samsung’s $700 Galaxy S26 FE Is Better, but It’s Getting Harder to Call It a Bargain

Samsung's best software features from 2026 are coming to the lower-cost S26 FE -- but at $700, it's certainly not cheap.

Aug 27 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • cnet.com

The iPhone Ultra surfaced in a gorgeous new Red color, but there's a wild twist

Is the iPhone Ultra also getting a hero color like the iPhone 18 Pro? Here's the truth.

Aug 27 • 2:02 AM EDT • Technology • phonearena.com

Is Saka getting back to his best at Arsenal?

Bukayo Saka has struggled to produce his best on a consistent basis in recent months, but could be getting back to top form this season.

Aug 27 • 1:20 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

City rescinds hundreds of pied-à-terre tax letters

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is still banking on getting $500 million a year from the surcharge being rolled out.

Aug 26 • 7:42 PM EDT • Politics • ny1.com

Mariners Announce Cole Young Decision Before Phillies Finale

For only the second time this season, second baseman Cole Young is not in the Seattle Mariners lineup. Instead, the Mariners will start J.P. Crawford at shortstop and Brock Rodden at second base against the Philadelphia Phillies. Cole Young might be getting a day off. https://t.co/WpCvbB70Z6 — Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) August 26, 2026 Young, 23, […] The post Mariners Announce Cole Young Decision Before Phillies Finale appeared first on HEAVY.

Aug 26 • 5:24 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

BJ poll: 77% say California business climate is getting worse

A Business Journal web poll found 77% of respondents believe California’s business climate is getting worse, while just 2% see improvement.

Aug 26 • 4:25 PM EDT • Business • thebusinessjournal.com

Trump-endorsed Mike Mazzei wins GOP nomination for Oklahoma governor

Tulsa businessman Mike Mazzei narrowly won the Republican nomination for Oklahoma governor on Tuesday after getting a boost from President Donald Trump’s social media attacks on Mazzei’s rival, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

Aug 26 • 2:57 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Trump scores federal court win against House progressive accused of assaulting ICE

A Biden-appointed judge sided with Trump's DOJ, rejecting House Democrat LaMonica McIver's legislative immunity argument for getting her case thrown out.

Aug 26 • 1:38 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com

Getting to the bottom of our bizarre war with Canada

Canadians had started to thaw out a bit from all the Trump insults, and were starting to visit Seattle again this summer. That seems over now.

Aug 26 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • seattletimes.com

4 Arizona Cardinals players who could get contract extensions

With Hjate Froholdt getting a new deal, a few other Cardinals now are in line for extensions.

Aug 26 • 8:43 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

State House approves getting money out of politics, Senate won’t vote on it

LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) - The Michigan House voted Tuesday approve a proposal that would limit corporations f...

Aug 26 • 6:44 AM EDT • Politics • wtvbam.com

A Mixed Bag from Jake Dickert at Wake Forest Practice

Getting a mixed bag from Jake Dickert on a Tuesday lends itself to some useful give-and-take with some interesting results. Dickert met with the media after practice early Tuesday. Fall camp was somewhat officially over. And game prep for week one was somewhat officially starting. Fall camp ended with last week’s scrimmage. There was a …

Aug 25 • 5:21 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

The Witcher 3 is getting a remaster

The Witcher 3, updated, again.

Aug 25 • 4:24 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Oh Hell Yes, We're Getting A Lego City Builder Game

Lego Skylines was announced at Gamescom ONL

Aug 25 • 3:51 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

Artists Want to Prove Their Work Was Stolen by AI. A New Study Says That’s Impossible

The black box keeps getting darker.

Aug 25 • 1:45 PM EDT • Technology • gizmodo.com

Coating stops tooth decay in children

A clinical trial found that a topical treatment called silver diamine fluoride stops cavities in young children from getting worse.

Aug 25 • 11:49 AM EDT • Health • nih.gov

Nintendo Reveals Its Latest Switch 2 Bundles Just Ahead Of The Console's Price Increase

Let this serve as a reminder that the Switch 2 is getting more expensive next week.

Aug 25 • 10:32 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Galaxy S27 Ultra’s major redesign detailed in new renders, price hike rumored

Samsung’s new Galaxy S27 Ultra is getting a massive redesign and, thanks to the latest leak, we’ve got a better...

Aug 25 • 10:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

Teen mental health advocate on getting ahead of back-to-school burnout

Aug 25 • 9:20 AM EDT • Health • 13wham.com

Nintendo announces new Switch 2 bundles featuring Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, Mario Kart World

Nintendo just unveiled a pair of new bundles, which will feature Nintendo Switch Sprots Resort as well as Mario Kart World. They will release in late September and October 22 respectively. Europe will also be getting the Nintendo Switch Sports Resort bundle on the same day. Both will include the system, a copy of the game, and a 3-month subscription...

Aug 25 • 9:07 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com

Tennessee Titans news: Training camp battles continue to heat up

The Tennessee Titans are getting closer to the final cut down, which means players have to be on their A game.

Aug 25 • 7:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Android is getting its own weird dots to cure car sickness

Goodbye motion-induced nausea.

Aug 25 • 4:36 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

The playbook for college sports revenue is expanding from logos and fees to entertainment districts

As college sports costs soar, universities are getting creative — from jersey patches and ticket fees to entertainment districts and corporate deals — in the race for new revenue.

Aug 25 • 12:02 AM EDT • Entertainment • theaugustapress.com

Tracking women candidates getting into office in N.Y.'s legislature

As the first Latina to be elected to represent upstate New York, Assemblymember Gabriella Romero was elected to the state Legislature in 2024.

Aug 24 • 7:46 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

‘Call My Agent’ Is Getting Its First Movie — Can the Beloved French Farce Delight Fans New and Old?

Six years after the series wrapped its fourth (and final?) season, the entertainment industry farce is back with a Netflix feature film all about the harrowing comedy of making (what else?) a feature ...

Aug 24 • 11:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Final Fantasy Resonance is getting a 120-song original soundtrack

The Final Fantasy Resonance Original Soundtrack will release on 28th October, pre-orders are now live.

Aug 24 • 5:03 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

Many parents face challenges getting kids to eat a healthy breakfast before school

Three-quarters of parents report at least one barrier to their child starting the day with a healthy meal on a typical school day, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

Aug 23 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • michiganmedicine.org

Man Had Massive Stroke That Left Him Paralyzed on the Floor. His Wife’s Random Decision That Day Led to ‘Miracle’ Recovery

Todd Meiklejohn was getting ready for his day the morning of Aug. 8, 2025, when he suddenly could no longer walk or see through one eye

Aug 23 • 6:00 PM EDT • Technology • uk.style.yahoo.com

Eastlake science students make district history

Three Eastlake High School students made Sweetwater Union High School District history this year when they became the first students from the district to qualify for the International Science and Engineering Fair, an international competition that brings together some of the top high school researchers from around the world. Ronald Wyatt, Giles Del Priore and Ihan Sung advanced to the competition after successful runs at regional and state science fairs. Sung went a step further, placing fourth in the chemistry category at ISEF. The students were recognized on Aug. 10 during a Sweetwater Union High School District board meeting at the district office in Chula Vista.For Wyatt and Del Priore, recent Eastlake graduates, the journey began with a shared concern about dementia and the challenges faced by families caring for loved ones with memory impairment. Their engineering project, “Design and Evaluation of a Behaviorally Grounded Caregiver-Governed AI Companion for Individuals with Memory Impairment,” earned the Sweepstakes Award at the Sweetwater District STEM Fair and first place in its division at the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair. The project explored whether Artificial Intelligence could provide companionship and support while helping reduce stress for people with dementia and their caregivers. “Our inspiration came from personal experience. Both of us have seen family members and loved ones affected by dementia, and we’ve witnessed how overwhelming the caregiving process can be,” Wyatt said. Del Priore said the students also wanted to address the high cost of third-party health care services while creating something that could potentially help their own families as well as people elsewhere. The students developed an AI system designed with safeguards intended to prevent misinformation reinforcement, emotional escalation and unsafe responses. In 240 controlled trials involving memory, identity, agitation and neutral scenarios, they said the system consistently prevented harmful incorrect reinforcement while using context-aware silence, de-escalation and caregiver verification. The project required the students to combine Artificial Intelligence, psychology, neuroscience and human-computer interaction. For Del Priore, one of the biggest technical challenges was getting the AI companion to communicate verbally with a patient. Hardware limitations required the students to collaborate with multiple Python libraries for speech-to-text and text-to-speech functions while keeping the cost of the companion low. “For us, the biggest challenge was translating complex behavioral and cognitive care principles into a functioning AI system,” Wyatt said.Qualifying for ISEF was a milestone that student expected. The international competition proved to be another milestone. “Competing at ISEF was an incredible experience and unlike anything we’ve ever done before,” Del Priore said. “Being surrounded by some of the most talented young researchers from around the world was both inspiring and motivating.” He said the experience stood out because of the emphasis on collaboration, innovation and scientific discovery. “The most memorable part was seeing how people from completely different backgrounds and disciplines approached solving real-world problems with creativity and passion,” he said. The students also credited teachers and mentors who supported their work. Del Priore said his sophomore-year AP Physics teacher, Dr. Price, was particularly influential. “Through all of my personal and academic struggles, Dr. Price always believed in me,” Del Priore said. “All of his faith in me really molded me into the person I am today and helped create my love for science even through tough times.” Wyatt is continuing his education at UC Santa Cruz, where he plans to study biomolecular engineering and bioinformatics, with an interest in research involving Artificial Intelligence, biology and health care. Del Priore plans to double major in chemistry and accounting. Sung, a rising Eastlake senior, qualified for ISEF after winning first place in the Engineering: Energy, Materials & Transport category at the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair and first place in chemistry at the California Science and Engineering Fair. His project, “Renewable Ammonia Electrochemical Synthesis by Glow Discharge with an Iron-Based Catalyst,” involved a device he designed and engineered to produce renewable ammonia, with potential applications in fertilizer production and energy storage. Sung became interested in the project after considering the relationship between food insecurity and fertilizer costs. His system uses plasma to break apart nitrogen molecules so they can interact with hydrogen and form ammonia. At ISEF, Sung competed against more than 1,700 students from 65 countries and earned fourth place in chemistry. “I am proud to become one of te first students in the district to qualify for ISEF because this milestone can inspire others in the district to attain similar goals,” Sung said.

Aug 23 • 1:00 PM EDT • Science • thestarnews.com

Pence says U.S.-Canada trade fight adds to affordability concerns for economy

“I think the last thing we need right now, as our economy is getting back on its feet, is a trade war with Canada,” the former vice president told CNN.

Aug 23 • 11:46 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

“Breath of Fresh Air”: Browns Fans Commend Todd Monken for Blunt Response to Deshaun Watson Getting Booed

It wasn’t a fun outing by any means for the Cleveland Browns and their fans as they took on the Buffalo Bills at home in the NFL preseason, with the home side beaten 31-7, but perhaps most notably, the reaction against quarterback Deshaun Watson came as a major setback to the QB as well as to head coach Todd Monken. Monken, who has consistently maintained that the QB1 spot is open to both Watson and Shedeur Sanders as the first game of the season approaches, was forced to admit during the postga

Aug 23 • 6:07 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

The CEO of $1.2 billion learning platform Preply says it all started with his online search for an English tutor

Kirill Bigai, the cofounder and CEO of learning platform Preply, had to take on a consulting gig while getting paid almost nothing building the business.

Aug 23 • 5:43 AM EDT • Business • fortune.com

Weekly poll results: a clear favorite emerges from the Google Pixel 11 family

And it certainly isn't the Pixel 11 Pro Fold - the pricey foldable is getting overlooked in favor of other foldables or other Pixel 11 models.

Aug 22 • 9:07 PM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com

Dodgers Get Double Dose of Good News on Shohei Ohtani

The Los Angeles Dodgers are getting close to getting Shohei Ohtani back on the mound, and he is seemingly ready to be fully unleashed.

Aug 22 • 5:45 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Friday Sports: High school sports getting ready to return

Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Friday.

Aug 22 • 1:26 PM EDT • Sports • wwnytv.com

Is Kelsey Plum playing tonight? Mercury vs. Dream injury report

The Phoenix Mercury will be playing the Atlanta Dream, and they may be getting one of their key players back on the court. Kelsey Plum has been sidelined for the past two games after suffering a left lower-leg injury against the Washington Mystics, and she’s on the injury report again ahead of their matchup with the Dream. Plum has only played in […] The post Is Kelsey Plum playing tonight? Mercury vs. Dream injury report appeared first on ClutchPoints.

Aug 22 • 12:35 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Gamescom Opening Night Live: Date, Start Times & What To Expect

We're getting close now!

Aug 22 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • purexbox.com

Divorce is getting a rebrand. These influencers are cashing in.

Influencers like Mikayla Noguiera, Jen Hamilton, Gabrielle Stone, and Meghan McTavish are reframing their divorces as empowering — and making money off it.

Aug 22 • 7:55 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

More small business workers are getting access to retirement plans

Gusto's analysis shows that the share of small businesses with active retirement plans has increased across 18 sectors from 2019 to 2026.

Aug 22 • 5:07 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Nearly $20 million in federal dollars help expand rural healthcare access in Marion, Polk

Marion and Polk counties are getting a slice of a $50 billion federal funding package to advance rural healthcare access.

Aug 21 • 8:18 PM EDT • Health • salemreporter.com

Ben Johnson explains how Bears can unlock Rome Odunze

The Chicago Bears have every reason for a high level of belief that Rome Odunze is getting ready to take a leap forward in the 2026 season

Aug 21 • 4:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Reimagining how scientists study the chemistry of the air

Professor Victoria Barber and doctoral student Cooper Crabtree are spearheading Keck Foundation-funded project charting a path toward better understanding atmospheric oxidation. by Álvaro Castillo, UCLA College of Letters and Science From the vantage point of Victoria Barber, a UCLA assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, understanding the chemical reactions that shape air quality and climate are among the most pressing scientific challenges of our time. And thanks to a recent grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, she and doctoral student Cooper Crabtree will spearhead a new research project exploring exactly how pollutants form in the atmosphere. Specifically, the project will examine how volatile organic compounds transform through atmospheric oxidation and explore how pollutants, like smog, form in the atmosphere. VOCs are released by sources ranging from trees and wildfires to vehicle exhaust pipes and consumer products such as cologne and perfume. As they undergo atmospheric oxidation, they can transform into a wide range of other compounds. Anyone in Southern California can attest to the urgency of this area of research — for example, in late July of this year, Los Angeles County was under an active ozone pollution advisory for almost a full week. While many people associate ozone with the protective ozone layer high in the stratosphere, ground-level or tropospheric ozone is a harmful secondary pollutant formed through atmospheric oxidation. Understanding how VOCs transform into pollutants like ozone is therefore critical to improving air-quality forecasts and informing strategies to reduce exposure. “My group is focused on trying accelerate our understanding of these networks of reactions so that we can do a better job of predicting how those pollutants form,” Barber said. “When we make decisions about how we might alter emissions, we can understand how that’s going to influence the production of these downstream pollutants.” With support from the W. M. Keck Foundation, Barber and Crabtree are developing new experimental approaches that will combine — and improve — techniques to study hundreds of chemical systems more efficiently than traditional methods allow. Instead of spending years decoding a single VOC, the project seeks to dramatically expand the pace and scale of discovery. The grant comes at a particularly important moment for environmental research. Barber, who joined UCLA in 2023, says funding for climate and air-quality research, especially for early career scientists, has become increasingly difficult to secure, a challenge compounded for ambitious projects that require building entirely new research infrastructure. The Keck Foundation’s support, Barber said, provides the flexibility to pursue bold early-stage, high-risk ideas that may be more difficult to fund using conventional federal funding sources. “It’s really, really hard to do environmental research under the current federal paradigm,” Barber said. “By stepping in and providing stable and flexible funding to explore this new idea, the Keck Foundation is making a huge difference to my research program.” In addition to funding early-career faculty, the Keck Foundation’s support is also focused on empowering graduate students like Crabtree in their scientific growth. The project gives Crabtree the opportunity to help develop an entirely new experimental approach to studying atmospheric chemistry — an experience that will provide him with valuable technical skills, scientific training and preparation for the next stage of his career. Stable funding also allows doctoral students like Crabtree to devote themselves more fully to research rather than balancing their scientific work with additional teaching responsibilities needed to cover funding gaps. “Getting to devote more of my time to research this past school year has greatly improved the pace and quality of our experiments, data analysis and planning for our future work,” said Crabtree, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry. “I feel very lucky — especially amid the current uncertainty surrounding scientific funding — to be able to continue exploring exciting knowledge gaps in our field and growing as a scientific researcher.” For Barber, mentorship is among the most rewarding and important aspects of her role as a faculty member. “Our jobs as faculty are to do good science and make good scientists,” she said. “I believe the Keck Foundation shares this belief and sees the potential positive impact this project can have.”

Aug 21 • 3:28 PM EDT • Science • chemistry.ucla.edu

Impinj Set To Revolutionize Logistics With Tracking Chips. CEO Eyes 'Gigantic Opportunity.'

Impinj, a maker of chips and systems for tracking assets, is just getting started in its growth trajectory, its CEO says. Impinj stock rose.

Aug 21 • 12:59 PM EDT • Business • investors.com

FSU hosts 2026 AI Bootcamp series to aid students, faculty, staff learning and research

Florida State University students, faculty and staff are getting an in-depth lesson on artificial intelligence and its applications in research, courtesy

Aug 21 • 11:38 AM EDT • Science • news.fsu.edu

Google Discover is getting an AI chatbot-tuned feed

You can get more control over your Discover feed.

Aug 20 • 5:50 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

The New Rat Horror Game Is Being Pirated A Week Before Launch

This is getting old

Aug 20 • 4:15 PM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

The playbook for college sports revenue is expanding from logos, fees

Universities are getting creative to keep up with the expensive world of college athletics

Aug 20 • 1:18 PM EDT • Sports • abcnews.com

AI is widening the gap between high and low performers

New research on small business owners in Kenya finds that getting value from AI depends not just on access, but on how users evaluate and apply its advice.

Aug 20 • 10:30 AM EDT • Business • business.columbia.edu

Best Way To Reduce Heart Disease Risk Is Getting This 1 Health Factor Under Control, Doctor Says

In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, a doctor reveals “the most important modifiable risk factor for heart disease” and how to get it to a healthy level if it’s too high.

Aug 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • today.com

The original Xbox is getting a gorgeous building block set for its 25th anniversary

To celebrate the console's 25th Anniversary, the original Xbox is getting a building block set from Mattel that's set to launch in October.

Aug 20 • 6:59 AM EDT • Technology • trueachievements.com

The top three spots in Evanston’s entertainment scene

There is no shortage of great art being performed by Northwestern students. From recitals and plays to dance and a cappella shows, Wildcats will have no trouble getting their entertainment fix. But staying inside the campus bubble can sometimes get a bit repetitive, so here are three spots around Evanston that will scratch that same...

Aug 19 • 8:49 PM EDT • Entertainment • dailynorthwestern.com

How Lin Shaye, 82, is fighting Hollywood ageism with 'Insidious' role

Getting killed off in the first installment of a film series would traditionally prevent an actor from playing that role five more times in the next 15 years. But not

Aug 19 • 7:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • centraloregondaily.com

Hayden Panettiere death investigation involves DEA, reports say

Days after Hayden Panettiere's death at 36, federal law enforcement is reportedly getting involved in the case. As first reported by TMZ on Aug. 19, the U.S.

Aug 19 • 7:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • centraloregondaily.com