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May's top PlayStation games by copies sold

Yesterday’s State of Play gave us an idea of where PlayStation’s heading next. But we’ve had our May estimates for a couple of days now (we always update our data daily for clients), so it’s time to look at what performed best on PlayStation last month. We’ve got a new IP at the top, two evergreens doing their evergreen thing, FC26 smashing it ahead of the World Cup Plus pivot, and a quiet but promising result for Lego Batman. Let’s have a look at the state of Play…Station’s top games for May. 007 takes #001 007 First Light sold 1M copies on PS5 in May, easily making it the month’s top PS5 game by copies sold. Over 80% of those May copies were digital, which is broadly in line with where PlayStation’s digital share has settled for new releases this year. To date, 007 First Light has sold through 2.2M copies across platforms (so no unsold retail copies in that figure). The platform split is 55.1% PS5, 33.1% Steam, and 11.8% Xbox (console, Windows, and cloud combined). In gross revenue terms, 007 First Light has generated $150M. Owing to regional pricing and audience composition differences, the consoles make up a higher share of revenue than they do copies. Of the $150M, 60.5% came via PlayStation, 27.6% via Steam, and 12.9% via Xbox. Part of this is because over two-thirds of 007 First Light‘s PlayStation audience is in North America (43.4%) or Western Europe (23.2%), where local currency means the game generates more revenue per player. On Steam, under half of First Light‘s audience is from those same regions (31.8% North America, 15.1% Western Europe). As we covered in last week’s 007 Steam piece, the Steam version is pulling in higher-than-expected numbers in China, which now accounts for 17.3% of First Light‘s Steam audience. 007 is the equivalent of $44 USD in China, which is roughly 37% cheaper than the US price and about 44% cheaper than Western Europe. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The crossover data backs up what we’ve seen all year about launch-window cohorts. 11% of PS5 players who played 007 First Light in May also played Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which launched just a few days before. Last month was a great month for Denmark! IO Interactive is Copenhagen-based, and Lego Group is headquartered in Billund (TT Games is UK-based but produces work under Lego Group licence and direction). Speaking of which… A very blocky #2 and #3 Minecraft sold another 788K copies on PlayStation consoles last month. Business as usual, since Minecraft hasn’t sold fewer than 760K copies in a single month all year. With over 350M copies sold across all platforms, Minecraft is the best-selling game in history and one of the strongest brands in the world. Every month, a new cohort of children reaches Minecraft age, which guarantees a constant volume of new sales regardless of what the broader market is up to. The demographic refresh rate is truly impressive, with the audience renewing itself faster than it’s churning. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight shifted 757K copies on PS5 last month, bringing its lifetime total on the platform to over 800K. Across all platforms, Legacy of the Dark Knight has now passed 1.5M sold through, so PlayStation accounts for over half of the game’s players. The May crossover data for Legacy of the Dark Knight on PS5 is also useful. 27% of those players also played Fortnite, 16% Roblox, 16% FC 26, and 14% NBA 2K. That’s the household-and-family cohort showing up, plus the launch-window cohort of core gamers who buy practically everything. FC 26 gets players through the door ahead of the World Cup FC 26 sold 411K copies on PlayStation last month (90% via PS5), the fewest copies FC 26 has sold all year and down heavily from April’s 700K. Part of this dropoff is because FC 26 has been available as a PlayStation Plus monthly game since 6 May, cannibalising premium sales. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The strategic logic is straightforward for EA, which is sacrificing premium unit sales in May to build up the player base ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 11 June. Obviously, a bigger player pool going into the tournament means a bigger pool of potential Ultimate Team spenders during the period when football attention is at its peak. The early returns are around what you’d expect, with 4.4M new players accessing FC 26 via PS Plus last month – a substantial new spender pool. Anecdotally, a few of my mates who were ‘’skipping FIFA and Ultimate Team this year’’, were drawn back in via PS Plus. Lo and behold, one of them is buying packs like it’s going out of fashion. Whether this is all a smart trade for EA depends entirely on the Ultimate Team conversion rate over the next six weeks. Either way, the short-term engagement impact on the game as a whole is evident. FC 26‘s MAUs hit a record 24M on PlayStation in May, up 30% from the previous record set in April. GTA V does what GTA V always does Rounding out the top five is another evergreen title. Grand Theft Auto V shifted another 387K copies on PlayStation last month. No matter what else is happening in the industry, GTA V keeps pulling players in. It’s sold another 1.8M copies on PS5 in the first half of this year alone, helping the franchise pass the 230M-sold milestone across all platforms. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe I have a theory that Minecraft and GTA V are doing the same thing at different demographic levels. Both are functioning as generational gateway games that the audience ages into faster than it ages out of. Minecraft captures kids around age 6-10, GTA V captures much of the same audience around age 12-15 (unofficially, of course). The crossover data suggests this: 40% of GTA V‘s monthly PlayStation players typically play Fortnite in any given month, while 30% play Roblox. Household accounts aside, that’s not the original GTA V audience from 2013. Of course, the under-12 audience would love to get their hands on GTA, too. It’s always been the way of things, and some parents are happy to oblige. Mine did too back in the day, and I turned out just fine. Right? Right!? Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Jun 3 • 10:49 AM EDT • Technology • alineaanalytics.substack.com

Merricks & Bitting publish reflective writing rubric in Journal of College Science Teaching

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Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • elon.edu

The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science

With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!

Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • iai.tv

Macquarie Sees World Cup Boost Driving Betting Growth, Favors Flutter Entertainment (FLUT)

Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT) stands out as one of the biggest potential beneficiaries of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, according to Macquarie, which expects the expanded tournament to generate a substantial increase in global sports betting activity and provide a meaningful earnings tailwind for leading operators. The investment bank estimates that betting volumes tied to the competition could exceed $50 billion worldwide, creating a favorable backdrop for major sportsbook and online gaming comp

Jun 3 • 7:04 AM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com

Carolyn Bessette 'urged' JFK Jr. to call Princes William and Harry after Princess Diana's death, new book claims

Carolyn Bessette 'urged' JFK Jr. to call Princes William and Harry after their mother Princess Diana died following a car crash, a new book claims. The Kennedys and the Windsors had both experienced profound loss publicly.

Jun 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Arsenal learn Aston Villa stance on Morgan Rogers transfer

Arsenal are interested in signing Aston Villa star Morgan Rogers in the summer transfer window.But The Telegraph report the Midlands club have no intention of parting with their prized asset.Rogers en...

Jun 3 • 1:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Microsoft Build 2026: Everything Microsoft is Unveiling Today Live

We're attending Microsoft's annual Build Conference in person, covering all the Windows announcements, demos, and surprises. AI is sure to be a huge focus, and we might get some more details on the latest Surface hardware. Stay tuned for all the Build news as it happens.

Jun 2 • 8:30 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Microsoft plans Linux tools and an RTX Spark desktop for Windows developers

One hardware announcement and several software highlights from Microsoft Build.

Jun 2 • 6:51 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

September 2026 Is Packed With Games Trying To Avoid GTA 6

Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to finally arrive (and very quickly break every video game sales record ever recorded) on November 19. That’s exciting if you’re looking forward to playing it, but quite a threat if you’re trying to release any other games in that window. It seems the whole industry got the memo:...

Jun 2 • 6:28 PM EDT • Technology • gamespot.com

New York, 6 other states sues over the Trump administration's deal to end an offshore wind project

The federal goverment is giving French company TotalEnergies $1 billion — essentially a refund of its leases for offshore wind projects off New York and North Carolina — if it invests the money in fossil fuel projects instead.

Jun 2 • 5:51 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler Enhances Behavioral Health Services for Long-Term Care Residents - NYC Health + Hospitals

New York, NY — Today, the NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler skilled nursing facility announced two initiatives to serve residents with a behavioral health

Jun 2 • 4:53 PM EDT • Health • nychealthandhospitals.org

Packers rookie kicker Trey Smack struggles at Tuesday's OTA practice

Packers rookie Trey Smack missed four field goal attempts during a windy OTA session on Tuesday.

Jun 2 • 4:13 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

N.Y. sues over the Trump administration's deal to end an offshore wind project

State attorneys general from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont joined New York in challenging the cancellation of the lease off of New York.

Jun 2 • 3:46 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Customers out thousands of dollars after Central Florida business takes money and closes

A Titusville homeowner says she lost $5,000 after American Made Windows of Central Florida closed its doors before completing a promised sliding glass door installation.

Jun 2 • 2:29 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com

Customers out thousands of dollars after Central Florida business takes money and closes

Brevard County homeowner says a Central Florida window company took thousands for new sliding glass doors, only to see the company cease operations

Jun 2 • 2:28 PM EDT • Business • wftv.com

Inside Microsoft’s Project Solara: A new platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps

A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building Project Solara, a platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, based on Android instead of Windows. The first two concept devices, a desktop hub and a wearable badge, are headed to pilots with companies including AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi's, and Target.

Jun 2 • 1:11 PM EDT • Technology • geekwire.com

Microsoft launches MXC, an OS-level sandbox for AI agents, with OpenAI and Nvidia already on board

Microsoft launches MXC, an OS-level sandbox for AI agents in Windows, giving enterprises secure runtime controls, identity, and policy enforcement.

Jun 2 • 12:30 PM EDT • Technology • venturebeat.com

How Science Works

The 2nd Weather and Climate Livestream is now underway. It is organized by a group of early-career researchers concerned about declining funding for the field and eager to demonstrate how weather and climate research makes a difference in our lives. Last year’s event was a great success, drawing terrific press coverage including a piece in the NY Times. This year features a strong lineup of talks aimed at a general audience — I highly recommend tuning in. Share I gave a talk yesterday about How Science Works in Three Steps. You can see the short presentation here (I’ve appended a transcript below): And please tune into the livestream here. It runs through tomorrow at 6 pm ET. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Cleaned up transcript: Thank you, and thanks to everyone tuning in. I want to talk about something I think a lot of people don’t really understand: how science actually works. Arguments over any scientific topic — climate change, vaccines, you name it — revolve around competing claims. For climate change, the claims are: Is the Earth warming? Are humans to blame? What will the impacts be? Over the last 150 years, the scientific community has developed a remarkably robust method for sorting out which claims are true and which aren’t. That method is what I want to walk through. So how does science generate knowledge? If you ask a high schooler, they’ll give you the version they learned in ninth grade: an individual scientist forms a hypothesis, runs an experiment, and draws a conclusion. That’s more or less what happens at the individual level, though in practice it’s more iterative — you design, test, and refine all at once, landing on a slightly different idea each time until you reach a conclusion about whatever hypothesis you’ve ended up with. But this isn’t science. It’s only step one. Any individual scientist can make mistakes — scientists are human. Maybe there’s a bug in the code, maybe there’s an error in the experiment. Just because someone ran an experiment and reached a conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right, and scientists don’t treat a single result as settled truth. Step two is peer review, the first layer of quality control. The scientist writes up what they did and submits it to a journal, which sends the paper to other experts in the field. Those experts judge whether the methods are sound, whether it properly references prior work, and whether the conclusions actually follow from the data. Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you peer review is miserable — the comments come back brutal, often harsh, and you have to revise and resubmit, sometimes multiple times, before an editor finally accepts the paper. Peer review catches an immense amount of bad science, but it can’t catch all of it. Reviewers get sloppy or overworked, they miss obvious mistakes, and they can’t catch hidden errors — a bug in the code, a misread instrument. So a peer-reviewed paper making it into a journal doesn’t mean the paper is right. Nobody treats a single paper as the final word. That’s where step three comes in: the crucible of science. Important results get retested by the broader community. If you publish something interesting, it gets dissected. Sometimes people try to reproduce your work directly but more often they test its implications. If someone claims X is true, and that implies that Y is also true, then scientists will go check Y. If a claim survives this gauntlet long enough, it becomes accepted. That’s how we generate knowledge. Let me give an example: the ozone hole. In 1985 — and I doubt many people watching were around then, but I remember it well — Joe Farman and his colleagues published observations from Antarctica showing that a huge chunk of ozone was disappearing every year. This was shocking because most atmospheric chemists had expected ozone loss to occur at mid-latitudes and high altitudes, not over the South Pole. When scientists see something they don’t understand, they rush to explain it, and several competing hypotheses quickly appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One pointed to chlorine chemistry from chlorofluorocarbons. A second blamed nitrogen chemistry, possibly driven by solar proton events — meaning the sun was responsible. A third argued it wasn’t chemistry at all but dynamics: winds were carrying naturally low-ozone air from the lower atmosphere up into the stratosphere. Then the community went to work testing which theory could survive the crucible. Aircraft flew into the ozone hole and found no nitrogen, ruling out the nitrogen theory. Measurements showed the air in the polar vortex was descending, not rising — which would bring high-ozone air down, eliminating the dynamics theory. Meanwhile, those same flights measured enormous amounts of chlorine, strongly correlated with exactly the regions where ozone was being destroyed. That became known as the “smoking gun” paper, and it established that chlorine chemistry was the cause. Through this process, a consensus emerged. And it’s worth being clear that this consensus is organic. There’s no vote, no poll, no meeting where it gets decided. Scientists go to conferences, talk to one another, and independently arrived at the same answer. It’s the ultimate free market of ideas. After the consensus was established, the peer-reviewed literature doesn’t even mention the rival theories — it simply takes chlorine chemistry as given. That’s what a consensus looks like. It doesn’t mean every single scientist agrees, but it does mean there’s no longer any legitimate debate. So where can you see what scientists actually think? It’s all in the peer-reviewed literature, which contains the entire historical record of the argument: the discovery, the competing theories, the debate, the testing, and finally the community coalescing around one answer. But there’s a lot of room for misrepresentation. You can dig up an old paper claiming the ozone hole was caused by dynamics and wave it around as if there still was a debate about the cause of the ozone hole — without mentioning that the idea was disproven long ago and that even its own authors no longer believe it. There’s a bigger problem, though: the peer-reviewed literature is written in a language I call “nerd.” It’s extremely hard to read — honestly, some of it is hard for me to follow. It takes graduate students years to work through the literature in a single field, so we can’t expect policymakers or ordinary people to do it. This is where scientific assessments come in. The most famous is the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The job of an assessment is to read and summarize the peer-reviewed literature, synthesizing what’s settled, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely debated. To ensure the assessments accurately summarize the peer-reviewed literature, assessments are written by large teams, which are far less prone to bias than individuals and which dilute the influence of any one scientist with an axe to grind. The teams are deliberately assembled to avoid stacking the deck, and the reports themselves go through multiple rounds of peer review. That rigorous process is exactly why you can trust them and why people consider the IPCC to be the gold standard of what we know about the climate system. An assessment produced through a different process may well not be credible. You can even watch the consensus evolve across assessments. Take the attribution of warming. The 1990 IPCC report said the observed warming was broadly consistent with model predictions but also comparable to natural variability — in other words, we don’t know whether humans are responsible. By 1995, it concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence — a sentence only a committee could write, and one that barely commits to anything. By 2001, most of the warming over the previous 50 years was judged “likely” due to greenhouse gases; by 2007, “very likely”; by 2013, “extremely likely.” The 2023 report says essentially the same as 2013 — there’s not much stronger language available. So, to wrap up: science is our ultimate tool for deciphering the universe — the most successful method we’ve ever developed for determining what’s true and what isn’t. Our understanding is written into the peer-reviewed literature, so if you want to know what scientists think, that’s where to look. And for those of us who don’t speak nerd, scientific assessments are the Rosetta Stone — they translate nerd into English. Let me open the floor to questions. Thank you.

Jun 2 • 10:35 AM EDT • Science • theclimatebrink.com

Live Results: New Mexico midterm primaries

The election takes place as the war in Iran continues to send gas prices soaring, creating an unanticipated windfall in the nation’s No. 2 oil-producing state that the new governor will play a key role in managing.

Jun 2 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

President Trump’s pet projects facing serious headwinds

Jun 1 • 8:59 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

PSG's summer transfer business ✍️

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Jun 1 • 4:01 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

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New York, NY – MetroPlusHealth today announced that Tribeca Pediatrics, one of New York City’s most trusted pediatric providers, has officially joined its

Jun 1 • 11:47 AM EDT • Health • nychealthandhospitals.org

NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,202 29 May 2026 (Space Life Science Research Results)

The abstract in PubMed or at the publisher's site is linked when available and will open in a new window

Jun 1 • 11:04 AM EDT • Science • astrobiology.com

MacBook Neo rival launched at $599; Nvidia PC chip announced

It was clear that the launch of the MacBook Neo at just $599 took most Windows PC makers by surprise....

Jun 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

From Awareness to Action: How Physicians Can Lead the Charge on Health Equity

From embedding equity into everyday practice to rebuilding trust with underserved communities, Monique Nugent, MD, MPH, outlines sustainable strategies for change.

Jun 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • docwirenews.com

Nvidia launches ‘superchip’ putting AI power into laptops and PCs

Firm says its RTX Spark PC chip for Microsoft Windows will let AI agents replace the mouse and keyboard

Jun 1 • 7:01 AM EDT • Technology • theguardian.com

Former staffer: Platner Platner sexted women while married

Graham Platner's wife called the media reports that her husband had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women "shameful" over the weekend, the latest controversy to hit the Maine Democrat's whirlwind Senate campaign.

Jun 1 • 6:42 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Inter put off by Roma’s asking price for Kone

Manu Koné could leave the capital during the next transfer window. Roma needs to make capital gains by June 30th, and the French midfielder is one of the likely candidates to leave no later than that...

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

Science Group And 2 Other Undiscovered Gems in the United Kingdom

As the United Kingdom's FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 indices face headwinds from weak global cues and faltering trade data from China, investors are increasingly seeking opportunities in less prominent areas of the market. In this environment, discovering small-cap stocks with strong fundamentals and potential for growth can be a rewarding strategy, as these companies often operate under the radar yet possess unique attributes that may offer resilience amid broader market challenges.

Jun 1 • 2:33 AM EDT • Science • finance.yahoo.com

Nvidia Shows Off First Windows Laptops And Desktops Powered Entirely By Its Own Chip

The new line of Windows laptops and desktops will be the first ever to run solely on an Nvidia-made chip, the RTX Spark, as the AI giant looks to take on rivals Intel and AMD.

Jun 1 • 2:01 AM EDT • Technology • forbes.com

Windows 11 is getting new Start menu customizations, here is a closer look

Windows 11's Start menu is getting a bunch of long-requested features, which are already available for testing. Here is a closer look.

May 31 • 8:46 PM EDT • Technology • neowin.net

NVIDIA confirms RTX Spark roadmap with Rubin in 2027 and Rosa Feynman in 2029

RTX Spark gets a multi-generation roadmap NVIDIA confirms RTX Spark roadmap through Rubin and Rosa Feynman NVIDIA has confirmed that RTX Spark and DGX

May 31 • 8:00 PM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com

Platner's wife calls reports about Senate candidate's explicit texts with women 'shameful'

Graham Platner’s wife called reports that her husband had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women “shameful" over the weekend, the latest controversy to hit the Maine Democrat’s whirlwind campaign.

May 31 • 5:10 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

What's next for Arsenal? With Premier League secured and UCL window open, Gunners eye 'another level'

The elite individual magic in attack needed to conquer Europe may not be there in abundance, but the foundation is there to contend on all fronts again next season, especially if they make the right moves this summer

May 31 • 3:39 PM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com

Community Health launches Executive Physical program

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May 31 • 10:02 AM EDT • Health • insideindianabusiness.com

FULL SHOW: Inside INdiana Business 5/31/26

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May 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • insideindianabusiness.com

Pay raises for incompetence at the Colorado Capitol

By Jon Caldara I am personally responsible for helping overpay socialists to make Colorado unaffordable, overregulated and one windstorm away from a power blackout. I failed you. Colorado legislators already get automatic inflation raises. You know, just like your job (I’m assuming the sarcasm bled through that one). No private-sector worker has that kind of […]

May 31 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

The Future of Windows 11 Is Already Here: 9 Insider Features You Need to See

You don't have to wait for the next big update—these Windows 11 changes are already being tested in Insider builds right now.

May 30 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

More than 1,000 homes, businesses still without power in Central NY due to storms

High winds from a storm that moved through the region Friday night had knocked out power to 12,000.

May 30 • 9:27 AM EDT • Business • syracuse.com

First Windows PC powered by Nvidia chips to debut next week, Axios reports

Nvidia and Microsoft are ​expected next week ‌to debut the first Windows OS ​computers that ​use Nvidia's chips ⁠as the main ​processor, Axios ​reported on Saturday, citing sources.

May 30 • 8:50 AM EDT • Technology • reuters.com

If Google nails the Googlebook, I'm gonna ditch my Windows laptop

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May 30 • 8:30 AM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com

Tested: Windows 11's new Start menu lets you fully customize it, and it works surprisingly well

Windows 11’s new Start menu finally adds smaller layouts, removable sections, and deeper customization after years of user complaints.

May 29 • 9:47 PM EDT • Technology • windowslatest.com

Illinois cannabis businesses push for regulatory changes as legislative session winds down

Illinois cannabis dispensary owners are urging lawmakers to ease security and surveillance requirements, arguing the costly regulations are outdated and should be modernized as the state's legal cannabis industry matures.

May 29 • 8:24 PM EDT • Business • fox32chicago.com

Nvidia Dropped a Cryptic Clue About Its Next Big Move Ahead of GTC Event

The post seemed to give credence to rumors that the company will make a chip for Windows PCs and announce it at the chipmaker’s GTC Taipei convention next week.

May 29 • 5:24 PM EDT • Technology • barrons.com

Lucky Strike permanently closes Wrigleyville location

The bowling alley and bar didn’t give a reason for the closure, but the CEO of its parent company recently acknowledged headwinds.

May 29 • 2:14 PM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

Trump’s inconsistent rhetoric about getting Iran’s nuclear stockpile

As the United States and Iran try to hammer out a deal to start winding down the war, few particulars loom as large as what happens with Iran’s nuclear stockpile.

May 29 • 1:51 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Windows 11 gets big Start menu update with modular, resizable design in new build

Windows 11 is getting more Start menu customization, with the latest build now allowing you to toggle on or off specific parts of it.

May 29 • 1:19 PM EDT • Technology • neowin.net

Windows PC Industry Reacts to Apple's Most Affordable MacBook Ever

A few months ago, Apple released the MacBook Neo, its most affordable MacBook ever. At the time, an ASUS executive admitted that the laptop came as a "shock" to the Windows PC industry, which is now in the process of responding. Acer today introduced a Swift Air 14 laptop, with U.S. pricing starting at $699. By comparison, the MacBook Neo starts at $599 with a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM, or at $499 for college students and educational staff.

May 29 • 11:30 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

The Lowest-Cost Player Doesn’t Always Win — A Market Lesson From Batteries

Solar and wind look like they have a cost advantage, but batteries show why the most flexible actors often capture the economic surplus instead.

May 29 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • entrepreneur.com

The $900 Billion Giant: How Anthropic Got So Big, So Fast

The artificial intelligence giant was just valued at $900 billion, surpassing OpenAI. Here are the numbers behind its rise — and headwinds it faces.

May 29 • 8:23 AM EDT • Business • nytimes.com

Astronomers finally solve Saturn’s decades-long spin mystery

A decades-old mystery about Saturn has finally been solved thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. Scientists discovered that Saturn’s changing “rotation rate” was never caused by the planet speeding up or slowing down, but by powerful winds high in its atmosphere. Webb’s unprecedented observations revealed that Saturn’s northern lights actively heat the atmosphere, creating winds that generate electrical currents, which then power the aurora all over again in a self-sustaining cycle.

May 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Friday morning sports: South Jeff, Potsdam, Massena score big wins

They all all notched key wins Thursday in girls lacrosse, as the spring sports season winds to a close.

May 29 • 7:39 AM EDT • Sports • wwnytv.com

Rafael Nadal Netflix series “Rafa” offers introspection that sports documentaries can lack

The window into the 22-time Grand Slam champion's final season is more unsparing than many sports documentaries.

May 29 • 5:02 AM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com

The Chrome browser is getting a big safety upgrade — if you use Windows

Chrome is making it safer to browse the web after logging in.

May 28 • 4:56 PM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com

How to use ambient AI in healthcare as litigious winds begin to blow: 10 tips from experienced attorneys

As a class-action lawsuit gets rolling in California over the use of ambient AI in healthcare, a national law firm is drawing takeaways for hospitals and other provider organizations. Makes sense: All AI-equipped providers are potential targets for similar litigation now.

May 28 • 4:26 PM EDT • Health • healthexec.com

Microsoft 0-day feud escalates as researcher threatens another Windows exploit dump

Six 0-days, three under active exploitation, more to come on July 14?

May 28 • 4:19 PM EDT • Technology • theregister.com

Microsoft Threatens Researcher Over Bug Reports, Triggers Cybersecurity Uproar

Microsoft says it will coordinate 'as needed with law enforcement' after a disgruntled researcher exposed Windows bugs without proper coordination.

May 28 • 4:18 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Intel Arc G3 CPU Family Officially Released for Handheld Gaming PCs

Following a series of leaks about an upcoming Intel Panther Lake CPU for gaming handhelds, the hardware giant has officially announced the Intel Arc G3 CPU series, which features the powerful Arc B390 iGPU and optimizations for the Windows Xbox mode that started rolling out to gaming handhelds and W...

May 28 • 12:06 PM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com

NYC Health + Hospitals System Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Services and Population Health Dr. Ted Long Receives 2026 Sloan Public Service Award - NYC Health + Hospitals

New York, NY — NYC Health + Hospitals and the Fund for the City of New York today announced that Ted Long, MD, MHS, Senior Vice President, System Chief

May 28 • 11:49 AM EDT • Health • nychealthandhospitals.org

Democrats question payments to kill offshore wind projects

House Democrats say the Trump administration’s recent payments to stop offshore wind projects are a “bribe.”

May 28 • 10:00 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Snapdragon C wants to be Windows’ answer to the MacBook Neo, targeting $300 laptops

Apple’s launch of the MacBook Neo has sent the world of Windows spiraling as, in the midst of global RAM/storage...

May 28 • 9:45 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon C for entry-level Windows laptops

Qualcomm's Snapdragon C chip is designed for Windows laptops targeting a $300 price point.

May 28 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Qualcomm promises $300 Windows laptops with new Snapdragon C

Will they be any good?

May 28 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Wind energy is not bad for your health, new research shows

In this study, Osea Giuntella and his colleagues found no adverse physical or mental health affects after the installation of nearby turbines.

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • pittwire.pitt.edu

Qualcomm announces Snapdragon C for budget Windows 11 ARM laptops targetting $300 and up

Qualcomm Snapdragon C targets $300 entry-level laptops Snapdragon below Snapdragon X. Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon C Platform, a new Arm-based

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com

Headwinds are putting New Hampshire’s health, environment, and economy even more at risk

New Hampshire faces growing environmental and public health headwinds that threaten natural resources.

May 28 • 4:55 AM EDT • Health • newhampshirebulletin.com

Is The Market Mispricing Flutter Entertainment On FanDuel Concerns?

Flutter Entertainment faces headwinds from prediction markets and declining US sports betting revenues. Learn why FLUT stock is a buy.

May 28 • 3:40 AM EDT • Entertainment • seekingalpha.com

LPD: Man arrested after breaking windows at downtown Laredo business

A man was arrested after breaking windows and entering a business on Matamoros Street in the downtown area, Laredo Police said.

May 27 • 4:26 PM EDT • Business • lmtonline.com

U.S. Supreme Court settles long-running water dispute over dwindling Rio Grande

In a brief order Tuesday, the court accepted the recommendation of a special master to move forward with agreements first proposed last year by New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.

May 27 • 2:58 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Microsoft is Rolling Out Windows 11 Performance Boosting Update

If readers recall, Microsoft was preparing a "Low Latency Profile" feature as part of the Windows K2 effort, which boosts the system's CPU to its maximum frequency for 1-3 seconds to ensure smoother app launches. Today, Microsoft is gradually rolling out this feature as part of the KB5089573 update ...

May 27 • 2:12 PM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com

Longtime retailer closes, entertainment center expansion coming soon at Wind Creek outlets

General Store, offering a wide array of gifts, greeting cards, holiday decor and more, closed this past weekend at The Outlets at Wind Creek Bethlehem.

May 27 • 12:48 PM EDT • Entertainment • wfmz.com

Nvidia kills Windows XP-era Control Panel "after 20 years of dedicated service"

Nvidia says the Control Panel's features have been migrated to the Nvidia app.

May 27 • 11:06 AM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

Windows 11's new update actually makes your PC faster. Here's how to get it

Windows 11's new optional May update KB5089573 reduces app launch lag and UI stutters. Here's what it does and how to get it early.

May 27 • 10:57 AM EDT • Technology • pcworld.com

Hideo Kojima and Nicolas Winding Refn have teamed up for a Prada mode event teaser exploring "new creative possibilities through AI technology"

The latest collaboration between game developer Hideo Kojima and film director Nicolas Winding Refn is an AI short for a Prada mode event.

May 27 • 10:11 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

Microsoft's Windows 11 CPU boost is rolling out, and here's how to enable it right now

Windows 11’s hidden Low Latency Profile boosts CPU responsiveness for smoother UI and faster app launches. Here’s how to enable it now.

May 27 • 9:25 AM EDT • Technology • windowslatest.com

View from the Sideline: They’re still standing

The end of the school year is here, and high school spring sports are winding down. Now, only athletes who have qualified for the NorCal or state tournaments and meets

May 27 • 9:07 AM EDT • Sports • davisenterprise.com

Ebola, chemical plants and health, hantavirus, common colds, heat and more

As they say, bugs have ears. Public health has had a relentless May. Chemical plant (near) explosions, Ebola, hantavirus, and that's before you even get to the usual suspects: common colds, heat, and ticks. Here’s an attempt to keep you up to speed and, more importantly, what it means for you and your community. But first, an announcement: World Cup The World Cup starts in 15 days (not like anyone is counting down), and we are hanging TVs in the Health Security Operations Center. It’s going to be a gorgeous, chaotic celebration of basically every culture on earth. And it’s going to take a team effort—from communities to individuals, from public health to health care—to keep people healthy. That’s where you come in. If you’re going to the games or live within 30 miles of a stadium, we would love to hear from you. Sign up for a weekly survey here. Thanks to the more than 1,280 people who have already signed up…you will be hearing from us soon!! Global disease “weather report” Hantavirus: Two more cases The global count of cruise ship passengers with hantavirus has now increased to 13 cases (11 confirmed), with three deaths. The two new cases are overseas and among people who were already quarantining: A crew member in the Netherlands. A Spanish national passenger who was quarantining at home tested positive through daily monitoring. They are now in a biocontainment unit. In the U.S., everyone remains negative. There may be more cases, given that the incubation period of hantavirus (the time from exposure to infection) is 45 days. But this week, we will reach a major milestone: the median incubation window is 18 days, and that will pass on May 29. What this means for you: Your risk from this cruise ship outbreak remains essentially nil at this point. Ebola rages on in Central Africa Big thanks to Dr. Craig Spencer, a humanitarian physician who has treated and survived Ebola, for jumping in to provide the YLE community with an update. Craig, take it from here… The combined confirmed and suspected Ebola cases in DRC are now more than 1,000. All signs are pointing to a very long and catastrophic outbreak in Central Africa: This is a vast undercount. We know this because the test positivity rate is hovering around 50%, only 20% of contacts are being traced (and in some areas, no contacts at all), and more cases keep popping up with no known connection. This all points to widespread and undetected community transmission. This is in only a week of detection. Compared to previous outbreaks, the growth is very fast, as the huge West Africa outbreak in 2016 was first detected at 49 cases and rose to 208 cases a month later. It took four months for that outbreak to reach the size of the current one in the DR Congo. The cases are spread out across 16 health zones. There are now multiple epicenters, making containment very difficult. Next door in Uganda, the case count is seven. While this number is low compared to DRC, a concerning development is that two health care workers recently tested positive with uncertain exposure histories. If they weren’t treating known Ebola cases, this means it’s spreading undetected in Uganda as well. On the ground, backlash, including the burning of health centers, has emerged, a pattern seen in nearly every outbreak and rooted in deep community distrust. It often stems from outside actors working in communities without fully understanding or addressing local priorities. Affected populations may recognize the severity of Ebola while still holding other concerns as more pressing, such as where their loved ones are buried. Community trust is essential to an effective response, but difficult to build during an active emergency. It is best established long before a crisis begins. U.S. priorities are made clear, and may backfire. The U.S. Administration has shown that its first priority is keeping Ebola out, with helping end the outbreak in the DRC a secondary concern. That's meant travel restrictions broader than anything we've imposed before — covering travelers from across the region, and reportedly some green card holders and permanent residents as well. For example, just these past two days, news broke that high-risk American travelers will be subject to a mandatory quarantine in Kenya before they are allowed to return. If an American is infected, the U.S. government plans to send them to a hospital it is standing up from scratch in Kenya. (Currently, Americans who were in the area are allowed to return but are diverted to three airports—Houston, Atlanta, and DC—for further screening.) Past administrations have used travel notices and stepped-up screening; this goes much further. At first blush, these strict precautions may sound prudent. But this approach could backfire in three ways: Restrictions this blunt give people every reason to hide where they’ve been and whom they’ve been near — making the people we most need to find harder to track, not easier. They also breed a false sense that this is someone else’s problem. But diseases are humbling. They find the small cracks in even the most impenetrable-seeming defenses. Lives lost. There is no treatment for this Ebola strain, which means survival depends heavily on the quality of the health system. We have that system in the States, but we are choosing not to use it for infected Americans. This is unbelievable and infuriating. (See a deeper dive from me here.) The only real way to lower the risk to Americans — and everyone else — is to end the outbreak in the DRC and across the region. What this means for you: If you have travel plans to this region, it’s time to cancel them. This is a high-risk situation in Central Africa, and CDC released a Level 4 Travel Advisory. There is also great uncertainty if and when the Administration will let you back in. To the general public in the U.S., your risk remains very, very low right now. U.S. disease “weather report” Ticks: past peak season? Good news, especially for people in the Northeast and Midwest: tick numbers continue to decline. Though we are at the peak of the season, this unusually early year is trending favorably. Heat-related illnesses in the North Heat risk is certainly not blanketing the entire country yet, but this week it will be moderate in the Midwest and the Southeast. What this means for you: Be sure to check the CDC HeatRisk tool. A red day isn’t the best day for that soccer game for a kid with asthma, and a stretch of orange days is a great time to check on your elderly neighbor. Common colds surging As far as respiratory viruses go, the only thing really going around right now is the common cold. It is higher this year than last year, but should peak very soon before returning this fall. Spotlight: Chemical plants Over the weekend, YLE California covered the serious situation that unfolded around a chemical plant in Orange County, California. Thankfully, the worst-case scenario (a chemical explosion) was mitigated, but only through luck. The health implications in a densely populated area could have been catastrophic. As the situation was winding down, another chemical explosion struck Washington State. This one was fatal. Health officials say the risk to surrounding residents from chemicals in the air and ground remains low, though the community deserves far greater clarity. Clean air and clean water consistently rank as Americans’ top public health concerns — yet when chemical disasters strike, communities are too often met with reassurances rather than transparency and accountability. Residents near the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, for example, are still waiting to understand the long-term impact on their health, with few clear answers. What this means for you: Many are wondering if facilities processing potentially dangerous materials are in their neighborhoods. This interactive map allows you to enter your ZIP code and see all facilities monitored by the EPA, including any violations. Good news Ebola vaccines and treatment for the Bundibugyo species are in development. Two vaccine platforms are being explored, at least one of which may be deployable in as little as 2 months. One vaccine is being developed by Oxford, and the other uses the same biotechnology as the FDA-approved Zaire species of Ebola. (It may provide cross-protection, but it’s unclear at this point.) On the treatment side, two promising monoclonal antibody cocktails are likely to be deployed, though doses are limited and logistical hurdles remain significant challenges. Anni over at The Biotech Tea had a great explainer about the Ebola vaccine gap, if you want to read more. [ The Biotech Tea The Ebola vaccine gap, reading vessel damage, & the Makary exit 🗝️ Paid subscribers get the Biotech Term of the Week at $30/year (~$2.50/month). I try to keep it intentionally accessible, but if cost is ever a barrier, send me a message. A few people asked about expensing your subscription, so I put together a short email template… Read more 6 days ago · 10 likes · Annicka Evans, PhD ](https://www.thebiotechtea.com/p/the-ebola-vaccine-gap-reading-vessel?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been officially renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), following more than a decade of debate and input from roughly 22,000 clinicians, researchers, and patients worldwide. This is good because the old name was medically misleading, leading to patients without visible cysts being dismissed or overlooked entirely. The WHO estimates that 70% of people with the condition remain undiagnosed. A more accurate name should improve recognition, reduce stigma, and ultimately help the millions of people living with this condition get diagnosed and treated sooner. Poll Loading... Bottom line Public health situations are everywhere right now. Staying healthy takes public health professionals and systems working tirelessly behind the scenes and each of us showing up for our neighbors and communities. Love, YLE Big thanks to Ed Nirenberg for staying on top of the Ebola vaccines, Hannah Totte for all the figures, Dr. Craig Spencer for the Ebola insight, and Dr. Matt Willis for covering the chemical situation in CA. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “Translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

May 27 • 7:43 AM EDT • Health • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Microsoft rolls out Windows 11 KB5089573 update that makes your PC genuinely faster and more responsive

Windows 11 update KB5089573 is now generally available as Microsoft's non-security preview update for May, and is packing genuinely notable performance improvements.

May 26 • 5:57 PM EDT • Technology • windowscentral.com

PlayStation Delists and Shuts Down Servers for Destruction AllStars

PlayStation has unexpectedly pulled the plug on Destruction AllStars, a live-service game released during the PS5's launch window.

May 26 • 4:14 PM EDT • Technology • ign.com

Julian Alvarez informs Atletico Madrid of desire for summer exit

For months, Atletico Madrid have been clear that Julian Alvarez will not be allowed to leave for Barcelona or any other club during the upcoming summer transfer window, but they may now need to consid...

May 26 • 1:40 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Windows' classic 3D Space Cadet pinball is getting a physical re-creation

But there are some real-world constraints that virtual pinball could easily ignore.

May 26 • 12:24 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

The World’s Fastest Four-Banger Just Got Faster

The new Emira 420 Sport sharpens Lotus’s coupe with extra power and Esprit Turbo-style window louvres

May 26 • 9:05 AM EDT • Technology • carscoops.com

Scientists create global treasure map pointing to hidden rare earth deposits

Scientists have created a global “treasure map” for rare earth elements by uncovering where the strange volcanic rocks that contain them are most likely to form. By combining thousands of rock samples with seismic images of Earth’s deep interior, the team discovered that these metal-rich rocks tend to appear along the ancient, thick roots of continents. These unusual rocks, once seen as geological oddities, are now incredibly important because they hold many of the materials used in smartphones, electric vehicles, and wind turbines.

May 26 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

GTA 6 Was Supposed to Come Out Today, May 26 — and According to Rockstar's Official Twitter Account, It Still Does

“Grand Theft Auto VI is now set to release on May 26, 2026.” That was the announcement Rockstar Games issued on May 2, 2025, confirming a delay from the game’s original fall 2025 release window. Today is May 26, and fans are marking the occasion with memes, jokes, and plenty of hope for a fresh update.

May 26 • 7:57 AM EDT • Technology • ign.com

Down to Earth - Count the dead bugs on your windshield and contribute to science

May 26 • 7:41 AM EDT • Science • france24.com

Microsoft: Domain Controller lookup may fail on Windows Server 2016

Microsoft has confirmed a new known issue affecting Windows Server 2016 systems that causes domain controller lookups to fail after installing the KB5087537 May 2026 security update.

May 26 • 3:41 AM EDT • Technology • bleepingcomputer.com

‘Restart Multiple Times’—Microsoft Changes Windows Next Week

Microsoft starts expiring critical Secure Boot certificates next week — "the clock is ticking" on a billion PCs.

May 26 • 2:49 AM EDT • Technology • forbes.com

Optima Health Leads These 3 Undiscovered Gems in the United Kingdom

As the United Kingdom's major indices, including the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250, face headwinds from weak global cues and faltering trade data from China, investors are increasingly looking beyond blue-chip stocks to uncover opportunities in smaller companies. In this climate of uncertainty, identifying undiscovered gems like Optima Health involves focusing on firms with strong fundamentals and growth potential that can weather broader market challenges.

May 26 • 2:32 AM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com

Microsoft reveals what happens to Windows 11 PCs if you ignore the Secure Boot deadline in June 2026

Microsoft warns Windows 11 PCs without the new Secure Boot certificates may lose future protections, boot security updates, and upgrades.

May 25 • 3:05 PM EDT • Technology • windowslatest.com

Bitcoin Depot declares bankruptcy, lays off more than 100 staff at corporate office

The company said it will undertake an "orderly wind-down" and sell off its assets.

May 25 • 11:44 AM EDT • Business • wsbtv.com