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Will the Dome be deflated? Anchorage sports facility launches fundraising campaign.
The Dome has been the home of the state's largest indoor field for nearly 20 years. The facility's operators are asking for help funding the replacement of its exterior.
2001-02 Men's Basketball Team To Be Inducted Into Washington DC Sports Hall of Fame
The Washington DC Sports Hall of Fame announced today that the 2001-02 NCAA National Champion Maryland men's basketball team will be part of its Class of 202...
Men’s Basketball’s Amaker to be Inducted into Washington DC Sports Hall of Fame
Tommy Amaker, The Thomas G. Stemberg '71 Family Endowed Coach for Harvard Men's Basketball, will be inducted into the Washington DC Sports Hall of Fame as part of its Class of 2026, it was announced today.
Hemp businesses ask federal judge to block Virginia’s new THC cap
Seven Virginia hemp businesses are asking a federal judge to block new restrictions on consumable hemp products, arguing the changes will wipe out much of their inventory, trigger layoffs and force some companies to close when they take effect on Aug. 15.
UNCW Business School Students Travel to Prague for Real-Life Consulting Experience by David Glew
This article was contributed by Kestrel Smoot, International Programs Coordinator for UNCW’s Cameron School of Business. During the most recent spring semester, 33 upper-level finance and marketing students from the UNCW’s Cameron School of Business traveled to Prague, Czechia, to participate in an intensive international consulting project. Unlike traditional study-abroad programs, the Prague consultancy project focuses on real client engagement. Each year’s project is entirely new, designed through collaboration between faculty and industry partners to identify a current business challenge that students will address. This year, students worked with MAMS-Champi, a Czech non-alcoholic beverage company that is seeking to expand into other global markets. Throughout the first half of the semester, students attend class at UNCW and prepare for their time abroad by conducting preliminary research, developing analytical frameworks, and organizing themselves into specialized teams responsible for tasks such as marketing strategy, industry analysis, consumer segmentation, and competitive evaluation. The course emphasizes independence and teamwork, requiring students to take ownership of their work, manage deadlines, and collaborate across functional groups. Additionally, faculty serve as advisors, allowing students to navigate the complexities of the project much as they would in a professional consulting environment. Once in Prague, students met with company leadership, toured facilities, and refined their recommendations based on real-time feedback. The in-person component is widely regarded as the most transformative aspect of the program because students must synthesize weeks of work into a cohesive presentation and deliver it to the client, demonstrating professionalism, strategic thinking, and adaptability. Beyond the consulting work, students participated in cultural and educational activities that broadened their understanding of global business environments. They explored Prague’s historic districts, learned about Czech culture, and engaged with local professionals. These experiences helped students understand how economic, regulatory, and social factors shape market opportunities. The Prague consultancy project stands as a defining example of the Cameron School of Business’s commitment to experiential learning, consistently strengthening students’ confidence, enhancing their resumes, and serving as a focal point in job interviews. Employers recognize the value of the hands-on experience and transferable skills students gain, underscoring the program’s role in preparing industry-ready graduates for today’s fast-moving business landscape.
A Blog, If We Could Keep It
In 1797, a Philadelphia socialite asked Benjamin Franklin, of the new American nation, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Reader, Off Tackle Empire makes no claim to be important; rather, it is a silly place on the internet. But I hope you’ll indulge me at least that introduction in the hopes of […]
Cook County survey seeks input on public health vending machine
Cook County Public Health and Human Services is seeking public input on its public health vending machine initiative. In a survey, the department is asking residents for feedback on what items should be stocked in the machine, where it should be located and their level of support for the initiative. Public health vending machines have...
YouTube Gold: Don Nelson’s Biggest Moment As An NBA Player
Don Nelson, who died Sunday, was an unlikely candidate for a historical basketball figure. He was not particularly gifted. He didn’t run fast or jump high. At 6-6, in his day, he was kind of too tall for a guard and verging on too small for a forward. Nonetheless, he built a remarkable career, first […]
Is Goodwin's time up at United?
United fans, we asked for your views after Sunday's Scottish Premiership defeat to Hearts. Gary: I listened to Jim Goodwin's post-match assessment, he's either lying or delusional because he says he saw and what actually took place on that Tynecastle pitch are worlds apart. Dave: Jim Goodwin said the people who weren't at the match may have thought that Hearts gave us a good hiding, well I was there and can confirm that they did give us a good hiding.
There’s life beyond Aussie super pace trio: Tony Dodemaide
Tony Dodemaide, who is managing Australia’s development squad that is currently training in Chennai, and is also part of the national selection group, explained that the tight international schedule leaves little room for a conventional warm-up fixture. Australia’s fourth Test against New Zealand is scheduled to finish on Jan 8, while the first Test of Border-Gavaskar Trophy is slated to begin on Jan 21.
Hemp businesses ask federal judge to block Virginia’s new THC cap
Seven Virginia hemp businesses are asking a federal judge to block new restrictions on consumable hemp products, arguing the changes will wipe out much of their inventory, trigger layoffs and force some companies to close when they take effect on Aug. 15. The lawsuit, filed July 31 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, challenges a new provision in the state budget that will eliminate an exception for products containing more than 2 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per package when they also contain at least 25 times as much cannabidiol (CBD).
What is Political Courage?
It’s more complicated than just bucking one’s party or president. What I learned from Representatives Peter Meijer, Tom Suozzi, Don Bacon, and Jamie Raskin.
How should states reach out to Medicaid enrollees affected by changes? Our research gives a hint
Experts ask: How can we better reach out to people facing Medicaid renewal deadlines and support them through the paperwork requirements?
Asking Eric: My parents are ditching the family for Florida - I’m not happy about it
Why should the rest of us have to bear the burden of their decision?
Gibsonburg's Elly Evarts verbally commits to Kent State for basketball
Elly Evarts can play senior season with a weight off her shoulders after verbal commitment to Kent State for basketball.
New Orleans Pelicans Working Out South Korean Basketball Star
The New Orleans Pelicans are working out South Korean star Hyunjung Lee this minicamp.
Basketball world pays tribute to Hall of Famer Don Nelson
Don Nelson left an indelible mark on the NBA as both a player and coach. Here are some of the tributes that are flowing in remembrance.
Patient stabbed home health aide in fight over oxygen mask inside posh NYC apartment: sources
California Politics 360 full episode | CA Forever asks lawmakers to help move project forward
The backers of a new proposed town called California Forever are asking lawmakers to cut regulations to attract a major business to the area to help with development.
Panthers sign QB Kyle Trask with Hall of Fame game hero Haynes King sidelined
Trask gives the Panthers a third QB behind starter Bryce Young and backup Kenny Pickett.
Asking Eric: Mother says ‘no politics’ but keeps talking politics
Mom shuts down political conversations with the letter writer attempts to rebut her.
Basketball Hall of Famer Dick Vitale Issues Health Update After 5th Cancer Diagnosis
Beloved ESPN college basketball analyst and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Dick Vitale had personal news that was bound to affect millions of basketball fans over the globe. The 87-year-old announced in April, earlier this year, that he was diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time… Fortunately, Vitale, affectionately known as Dickie V, is on his way to becoming cancer-free for the fifth time.
Cowboys Legend Troy Aikman Announces Honest CTE Health Update After Admitting Concussion Concerns Still Linger
Once considered one of the toughest quarterbacks in Dallas Cowboys history, Troy Aikman has long been questioned about whether his health has taken setbacks because of the sport. With more cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) coming to light, Aikman was asked about his concerns.
Asking Eric: My mom says ‘no politics’ but doesn’t take her own advice
Advice from R. Eric Thomas.
Unmasking London City's Spanish superstar
Alexia Putellas' arrival at London City Lionesses was the biggest transfer in WSL history - but who is the person behind the global stardom?
Alexia Putellas: Unmasking London City's Spanish superstar
Alexia Putellas' arrival at London City Lionesses was the biggest transfer in WSL history - but who is the person behind the global stardom?
Asking Eric: Mother says ‘no politics’ but keeps talking politics
Dear Eric: I’m a 58-year-old daughter to a 94-year-old father and an 83-year-old mother. I love my parents dearly, but we have had no contact for...
Asking Eric: Mother says ‘no politics’ but keeps talking politics
Dear Eric: I’m a 58-year-old daughter to a 94-year-old father and an 83-year-old mother. I love my parents dearly, but we have had no contact for nearly a year. I know that at any time my father and/or mother could pass. This is the one s…
Can Science Applications International (SAIC) Justify Its Valuation After New Defense Contract Wins?
Science Applications International (SAIC) recently announced a $400 million recompete contract with a U.S. Intelligence Agency, along with a $70 million U.S. Navy radar task order. These deals underscore fresh contract momentum in government and defense work. See our latest analysis for Science Applications International. These fresh contract wins come as Science Applications International shares trade at US$126.54, with a 90-day share price return of 36.58% and a 5-year total shareholder...
Asking Eric: Mother says ‘no politics’ but keeps talking politics
Dear Eric: I’m a 58-year-old daughter to a 94-year-old father and an 83-year-old mother. I love my parents dearly, but we have had no contact for nearly a year. I know that at any time my father and/or mother could pass. This is the one stressor in my life – that I will lose one or both of my parents when we are at odds.
Alaska Sports Scoreboard: Aug. 8, 2026
Scores and results from competitions across the state.
Report: Panthers are expected to sign QB Kyle Trask
Panthers quarterback Haynes King injured his hamstring in the Hall of Fame Game this week and they are set to add another quarterback to the roster for the coming practice week.
“No, it’s what we call the business of basketball,” …
“No, it’s what we call the business of basketball,” …
How do Alaska animals sleep in the summer?
The way an animal sleeps during the Arctic summer depends on a number of factors.
GungHo Online Entertainment (TSE:3765) P/E Premium Clashes With Shrinking Margins
GungHo Online Entertainment stock came into this earnings release with a muted setup, slightly weaker over the past week but modestly higher over the past month. The headline today is not a revenue story. It is the squeeze between a rich P/E of 52.1x and a thin 2.5% trailing net margin that keeps slipping from the 5.8% level a year earlier. The market is being asked to pay up for future growth while living with weaker profitability and a dividend yield of 3.77% that is not well covered. That...
SB Nation Reacts Results: We still believe!
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Arizona Diamondbacks fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys. It’s hard to argue that the 2026 trade deadline was anything other than underwhelming for […]
Miami Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis talks to team before practice
Malik Willis talks to his offensive teammates at Hard Rock Stadium, asking if they are doing everything they can and doing the right thing.
2 men charged after robbing Davie County business at gunpoint, deputies say
Investigators obtained surveillance video that authorities said showed two masked suspects armed with pistols entering the business and forcing people back inside.
AI framework rooted in cognitive science could complete tasks more efficiently
In recent years, computer scientists have developed a wide range of artificial intelligence (AI) models that can rapidly recognize patterns in data, generate content and solve other computational problems. ...
Sophie Cunningham and the Fever are focusing on basketball. Does anyone care?
The Fever and Aces played a highly entertaining basketball game Thursday night. Though other things happened around the basketball part.
Burcum: Putting Flanagan and Craig to the test on health care
Columnist Jill Burcum asked the DFL candidates for their positions on several pressing Minnesota health care issues to provide a more detailed look at how they’d approach the job in the U.S. Senate.
Alaska officials award less than 2% of rural healthcare funding, postponing decision on remainder
The state Department of Health awarded $4.5 million out of $272 million in federal funds available.
A mom asked for a free business-class upgrade for her son — and the Delta flight attendant nailed the reply
Reddit users cringed, but it took a true professional to nail the response.
MURKOWSKI CONGRATULATES INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE DIRECTOR MARK CRUZ ON SENATE CONFIRMATION
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, congratulated the Senate’s confirmation of Mark Cruz to serve as Director of the Indian Health Service (IHS) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of an en bloc package of nominations on August 7, 2026. “I congratulate Mark […]
WNBPA issues statement embracing diversity and inclusion amid trans athlete debate in women's sports
The Women's National Basketball Players Association praised diversity and inclusion while condemning hate against transgender people in a new statement.
WNBPA emphasizes inclusion amidst focus on transgender athletes
The Women's National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) released a statement, emphasizing diversity and inclusion while saying the organization "will not be used as political pawns."
Watchdogs press House panel over decades of missing spending investigations
A coalition of groups is asking the Appropriations Committee to account for more than 80 years of work.
Trump warned that Congress is trying to regulate the AI industry "out of business"
NIST separately proposed new federal guidelines Friday for evaluating AI systems, asking for public comment
Cloudflare launches Kitesurf, a browser built for AI agents
Cloudflare has introduced Kitesurf, a cloud-hosted browser designed for AI agents instead of people. The company says the browser uses less computing power than Chromium for common automation tasks, helping developers build browser-based AI agents more efficiently.
Mamdani Wants to Form Business Panel With Ex-Lazard, UBS Bankers
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is asking a former top executive for UBS Group AG in the US, an ex-global head of investment banking at Lazard Inc. and Bank of America Corp.’s New York City president to be among the business leaders joining his administration’s advisory council.
Murkowski will oppose Blanche nomination, narrowing his path to confirmation
The Alaska Republican said the country needs an Attorney General who will "check the worst impulses of this administration," adding that she doesn't have confidence that Todd Blanche can achieve that.
Murkowski Will Oppose Blanche as Attorney General, Putting His Confirmation at Risk
The Alaska senator is the second Republican to announce plans to vote against Todd Blanche. He likely cannot afford any other G.O.P. defections and still win approval.
Ask the Tax Editor, August 7: Is It a Hobby or a Business?
In this week's Ask the Editor Q&A, Joy Taylor explains the income tax differences between a hobby and a Schedule C business engaged in for profit.
Google's AI somehow knew a game secret that existed only in a private Google Doc
The issue began in the game's Discord server, where a player was asking Google's AI questions about Operation Octo. The answers sometimes included details the developer considered...
Employee versus entrepreneur mentality: Is the wealth management business 'dying comfortably'?
As the industry logs record-high profits alongside anemic organic growth, it's time to ask whether firms have permanently lost their business development muscle.
Ask Ethan: Can "following the science" save the Earth?
Between war, disease, environmental destruction, and resource overconsumption, our civilization's future is uncertain. Can science save us?
Alibaba plans to charge big users of its next open-source AI model, sources say
Chinese technology giant Alibaba plans to ask major users of the next version of its Qwen open-source AI model for a share of revenue they make from the hotly anticipated offering, according to two people familiar with the company's plans.
Michigan Supreme Court is asked to block money-out-of-politics question
A business-backed group is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to invalidate a campaign finance petition over a dispute about signature certification.
In the Sport-light: Roundup of news from Hull's wide world of sports
Compiled by Matt Haraden • Registration for the 2026-27 Hull Pirates Youth Basketball Travel season (boys and girls entering grades 3 -8) is now open. Families are encouraged to register early to help with team planning and ensure players are ready for the upcoming season. The
INTEGRIS Health awards community giving grant to boost Blessing Baskets distribution
INTEGRIS Health is supporting El Reno Blessing Baskets, a non-profit fighting food insecurity, through its community giving fund.Each year INTEGRIS Health gives
Bennett calls on Pingree, Charles to disclose donors
Maine State Senator and independent candidate for governor Rick Bennett is demanding more transparency in campaign finance, asking opponents Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republicam Bobby Charles to disclose the names of who he said are anonymous donors funding their campaigns.
A socialist candidate criticized Thanksgiving — and unearthed a deeper debate on the left
Some of Francesca Hong’s fans are gently asking: Does she have a “woke 1.0” problem?
Four Kentucky natives selected for 2026 Sports Hall of Fame class
Four Kentucky natives representing baseball, basketball, track and field, and officiating have been selected as the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026, the Louisville Sports Commission announced Thursday.
This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature
Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.
Versant earnings show digital growth, buyback strategy
Turning cable TV businesses like MS NOW and CNBC into something else is difficult task.
Republican-led Senate panel will ask Justice Department to charge Dr. Anthony Fauci with contempt of Congress
A Senate committee voted Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, advancing an audacious effort by Republicans to prosecute the well-known scientist over his role in the US government response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
NASA Tests Featherweight Radar Antenna for SkyFall Mars Helicopters
When the trio of NASA’s SkyFall helicopters takes to the Martian skies, one of their tasks will be to hunt for frozen water — a critical resource for future
Coco Gauff addresses transgender athlete debate with powerful statement
Coco Gauff, the No. 4-ranked women’s singles player in the world, is also universally regarded as one of the most authentic, outspoken athletes in the world. She just showed why yet again. Fewer than three minutes into her post-match press conference at the National Bank Open in Toronto, Gauff was asked about the WTA’s newly…
Team USA Basketball roster: Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese to make FIBA Women's World Cup debut
Team USA will go for the gold next month in Berlin with a star-studded roster
Google Maps adds agentic features, including food ordering and hotel bookings
The launch of these new features reflects Google’s ambitions to transform Google Maps from a navigation tool into an assistant that's capable of helping users complete real-world tasks.
Ask Maps in Google Maps rolling out Personal Intelligence, real-time transit, global launch
The Gemini-powered Ask Maps chat in Google Maps is getting a number of big updates today, including a global launch.
US Stand Up for Science movement expands to Europe
A grassroots movement by scientists in the US pushing back against threats to academic freedom is setting up a Swiss outpost to take the movement global. Stand Up for Science started in February 2025 to protest against politically-motivated grant cancellations by the Trump administration. Since then, it has organised numerous rallies by scientists and turned into a broader campaigning organisation, supporting “pro-science” political candidates and attempting to impeach Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the health and human services secretary the group accuses of advancing “quack” science. Now, Stand Up for Science is establishing a Swiss office to take some of its campaigning beyond the US, and its leader is urging European academics to organise similar pro-science groups in case they face similar threats in Europe. There will likely be “spillover” to Europe from what the Trump administration is attempting in the US, said Colette Delawalla, chief executive of Stand Up for Science, who last month returned from a tour of Europe. “Are we going to see a Trump-style scientific [. . .] take over in the same way?” she asked.Delawalla, who is doing a PhD in clinical psychology, said she was driven to help found the organisation after the Trump administration started cancelling health research grants in politically taboo topics, such as transgender people, diversity and HIV, in early 2025. Since then, the administration has introduced several other measures that infringe academic and institutional autonomy.It threatened to cut Harvard University’s federal funding unless the university accepted a “critical mass” of new faculty and students to create “viewpoint diversity.” And this year, it proposed explosive new rules that would allow political appointees at research funders to screen grants to make sure they “advance the president's policy priorities.”US scientists have been at times stunned by the volume of announcements, and the country’s researchers were relatively unprepared. “We sit in front of the fire hose every day,” said Delawalla. For this reason, European scientists need to prepare now for similar assaults. “If you've got a little bit of extra time to start thinking through, and making those preparations and building community and solidarity,” then European researchers will “start five steps ahead of where we were.” She plans to return to Paris in September to share experiences with concerned French academics. Is Le Pen the same?During her European tour, Delawalla said that French academics were beginning to worry about a National Rally (RN) victory in presidential elections next year. She said there were “chilling similarities” between Trump and Marine Le Pen, the RN’s likely candidate. However, so far, the RN hasn’t proposed anything nearly as radical as the Trump administration has carried out. Its current manifesto is all but silent on university and research policy. Le Pen’s 2022 manifesto bemoaned a lack of French R&D spending, including in fundamental research, and promised to modernise labs and strip away grant bureaucracy. The party’s 2024 European election manifesto explicitly supported the Erasmus+ student exchange programme, scientific exchange and joint European technology projects. However, a Le Pen victory next year could see France drastically cut its contribution to the EU, which would hit the budget for science and innovation. Meanwhile, more restrictive immigration policies could hit university recruitment of faculty and students. Climate science denial?As heatwaves and wildfires have ravaged France, the RN has sought to distance itself from previous comments casting doubt on climate science.In the UK, the radical-right party Reform UK, now second in the polls, denied climate research in a draft of its 2024 election manifesto, but its leader, Nigel Farage, then appeared to quietly U-turn and said he was “not arguing the science.” By contrast, Trump has repeatedly and explicitly denied climate change science, in 2025 calling it “the greatest con job.” Like the RN, Reform UK has been light on research and university policy. However, it did say in its 2024 manifesto that universities should suffer “heavy financial penalties” for allowing “political bias or cancel culture” on campus, building on laws brought in by a previous Conservative government. Ahead of September state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, the poll-leading Alternative for Germany has proposed abolishing gender studies and postcolonial studies, and promised money for “critical” climate research and studies of Islam. Starts with rhetoricEven if European radical right parties aren’t currently planning the draconian policy measures of the Trump administration, Delawalla said that academics should not be complacent, and fight even small funding restrictions or anti-science talk from the start. “It starts off with sowing distrust about institutions,” she said. “It starts off with these small things, and then all of a sudden it's there.” There are other, more established science and university advocacy groups in the US aside from Stand Up for Science. But the group stands out because of Delawalla’s refusal to attempt to appear politically bipartisan or conciliatory. “I firmly believe that the US is experiencing fascism,” she said. “We’re not trying to win over the super Maga people,” she said, “and we never have been.” The lesson of the US is that even if universities or other institutions capitulate to government demands, this doesn’t save them from cuts and restrictions. “It doesn’t matter what people do,” she said. Global “pseudoscience”Another aim of Stand Up for Science’s push into Europe is to better coordinate a campaign to protect people in poorer countries from what the group describes as “pseudoscientific exploitation,” trials outside the US used to build a case against things like vaccines. Earlier this year, the group sent an investigator to Guinea-Bissau to investigate a controversial, Danish-run Hepatitis B vaccine project funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The study would have withheld a proven vaccine from newborns, Stand Up for Science argued in a briefing it presented to Congress, risking their health. Significantly, the research group based in Guinea-Bissau, known as Bandim, focuses on the “non-specific effects” of vaccines: impacts on health beyond preventing the target disease. Related articlesEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationData corner: which fields of health science is the US curbing? The US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to know The suspicion is that the study was funded as part of an attempt to shop around for results that could help build a case against vaccines in the US, said Delawalla. “This is just code for vaccines cause autism,” she said.Bandim has put out a rebuttal of Stand Up for Science’s criticisms, arguing its work has uncovered a number of vaccine side effects, both positive and negative, which need to be taken into account in public health. However, Congressional Democrats took up the Stand Up for Science cause, and in February, Guinea-Bissau said it had permanently halted the study. WatchdogBut for Delawalla, this is not the end of the fight. Kennedy has made a number of health claims that scientists think lack evidence, such as the idea that seed oils cause inflammation, for example. Delawalla worries that more studies could be launched in poorer countries to fish around for evidence to support this agenda. Stand Up for Science is talking to African science organisations to create a kind of “watchdog” to scrutinise any further trials. “Outsourcing the investigation to some of the most vulnerable children in the world who are desperate [. . .] is fundamentally wrong,” she said.
Entertainment briefs | Backstreet to play at Mad River Brewery
Backstreet will perform tonight (Aug. 6) from 6 to 8 p.m. at Paskenta Mad River Brewery, 101 Taylor Way in Blue Lake.
Former Holy Cross Hospital CEO Kevin Sexton tapped to lead HSCRC
Kevin Sexton, former president and CEO of Holy Cross Health hospitals, has been tapped to chair a powerful state commission charged with setting hospital rates in Maryland, the Moore administration announced Thursday.
What’s working in the sports collectibles world: Industry leaders share what they’re seeing
Sports collectibles records are being shattered on a near daily basis. We asked industry leaders what's driving that success.
IU Indy building ‘jewel box’ of an arena it sees as staple of Indianapolis sports
A sneak peek at construction of a cozy arena on IU Indy's campus will be home to a high-scoring basketball team and top setter in the Horizon League.
Coco Gauff says she supports trans community and fairness in women’s sports amid new WTA policy
Gauff was asked about a new eligibility policy in professional women's tennis, which is based on a one-off gene test.
Stop asking if AI is good for medicine
Overgeneralizations about AI can slow down the adoption of tools that work.
Another huge Pixel Watch 5 leak showcases everything from design to health features
New Pixel Watch 5 leak showcases health features such as heart rate variability tracking, "Ask Coach," and more alongside Gemini Intelligence.
With nothing to run on, Republicans return to low road ‘gutter’ politics
Donald Trump's disastrous time in office has left campaigning Republicans with very little to boast about to constituents back home. What they are left with instead is their familiar playbook of culture war scare tactics and divisive distortions to try to scare voters into supporting them. Senator Ted Cruz wasted no time to resort to absurd smears when asked about Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.
Viewpoint: Europe needs a new scientific contract
The White House's new science strategy should be required reading in the Berlaymont and every European capital.Not because Europe should copy it. Parts of it should concern Europeans deeply. But because it asks the question Europe has so far avoided while steadily losing ground in the global race for technological leadership.Europe already possesses many of the world's finest universities, scientists and research-intensive companies. It produces world-leading research in fields ranging from quantum technologies and biotechnology to climate science. Yet time and again Europe generates the scientific breakthroughs while others build the companies, industries and strategic advantages around them, particularly in digital technologies. Increasingly, we find ourselves regulating technologies whose underlying capabilities were developed elsewhere.This is not primarily a scientific failure. It is an institutional one.The settlement that shaped modern science policy emerged after the Second World War. In Science, the Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush argued that governments should invest in fundamental research while protecting scientists from political direction. Public investment was justified precisely because no government, university or company could predict where the next transformative discovery would emerge.That scientific contract served liberal democracies extraordinarily well. It underpinned decades of advances in medicine, computing, energy and communications, but the world for which it was designed no longer exists.Artificial intelligence is transforming not only technology but the production of knowledge itself. Advanced chips, computing power, data and scientific instruments have become strategic assets. Scientific knowledge now diffuses globally almost instantly. Competitive advantage increasingly lies not in making discoveries first, but in possessing the infrastructure, capital, engineering capability and institutions required to translate those ideas into products, industries and strategic advantage.The old boundaries between science, industrial policy, national security and geopolitics have largely disappeared. Dual-use technologies now underpin both economic power and military deterrence.The US has recognised this shift. In July, the White House published Science: A New Golden Age, a comprehensive attempt to rethink the relationship between science and national power. The report builds on Bush's legacy, but departs from his framework in important ways. Science is no longer treated simply as the source of future discoveries. It is presented as the foundation of economic resilience, technological leadership and national security. AI, advanced infrastructure and the capacity to build become as important as discovery itself.Yet the report also reveals a striking paradox. The same administration calling for “a new golden age” of US science has simultaneously proposed deep cuts to the federal research enterprise while expanding political influence over the allocation of public research funding. Europe should therefore distinguish between the report's diagnosis and its prescription. The diagnosis, that science has become a strategic asset, is compelling. But the prescription is self-defeating. Long-term technological leadership depends on strong universities, academic freedom and the institutional autonomy that makes scientific discovery possible. This distinction matters. Bush's achievement was never simply to make science serve national strength. It was to establish a division of labour in which governments invested in research without attempting to direct discovery itself. Scientific breakthroughs emerge precisely because researchers retain the freedom to pursue questions whose value cannot yet be demonstrated and whose conclusions cannot be anticipated.Neither China, nor the USAs science becomes more strategically important, the temptation to politicise it inevitably grows. But scientific freedom is not an obstacle to technological leadership, it is an essential precondition.China represents the opposite model. For decades it has integrated science, manufacturing, infrastructure and industrial policy into a single national strategy. Its ability to mobilise resources around critical technologies is formidable. But it does so within an authoritarian system where scientific priorities are increasingly inseparable from political power.Europe should imitate neither model. It should learn from the strategic ambition of the US without importing its growing politicisation of science. And it should learn from China's capacity to build without adopting its concentration of power.Instead, Europe needs a scientific contract of its own. Bush's scientific contract protected the freedom to discover because the defining challenge of the 20th century was producing new knowledge. Europe's next scientific contract must preserve that freedom while ensuring that scientific discoveries can be converted into technological, industrial and strategic capability. Because in a transactional world, Europe's freedom to shape its own future depends on its capacity to build it.Related articlesThe US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to knowEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationNIH turmoil risks reciprocal EU-US access to health research fundingThis does not mean subordinating free science to competitiveness or industrial policy. On the contrary. Scientific autonomy remains the first principle of Europe's next scientific contract. Governments should not direct scientific discovery. Their responsibility is to ensure that Europe's scientific, industrial, financial and regulatory institutions work together rather than in isolation.Meeting that responsibility requires far more than research funding. European researchers need access to world-class computing infrastructure, advanced laboratories, shared datasets and scientific facilities. Innovative companies need patient capital, testing environments and a genuine single market in which they can scale without facing 27 different regulatory regimes. Public procurement must evolve from purchasing existing technologies to creating markets for new ones. Regulators must become partners in experimentation rather than guardians of yesterday's rules.A connecting architectureEurope does not need to invent the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) model from scratch. Britain's Aria, Germany's Sprind and Wellcome Leap already show that Europe can build institutions capable of taking high-risk, mission-oriented bets while preserving democratic accountability. The challenge now is not to create more isolated initiatives, but to connect them to Europe's broader scientific, industrial and financial system so that breakthrough discoveries can scale.Above all, Europe must stop treating research, innovation, industrial policy, finance and security as separate policy domains. The challenge is no longer to create excellent institutions in each of these fields, but to make them work as one European innovation system. Europe's strength will increasingly depend not on excellence within institutions, but on excellence across them.Europe's ambition should be neither to imitate the US nor to emulate China. It should demonstrate that scientific freedom, democratic legitimacy and technological capability are not competing objectives, but mutually reinforcing strengths. In an age of geopolitical rivalry, Europe's greatest advantage may ultimately be its ability to attract the world's best talent by combining scientific freedom, democratic openness and technological ambition.Bush's scientific contract helped define the 20th century because it protected the freedom to discover. Europe's challenge is not to abandon that achievement but to extend it. The defining task of Europe's next scientific contract is to preserve the freedom to discover while building Europe's capacity to translate scientific discovery into technological power.Kaare Nielsen is founder of Pomus, a Danish think tank on science and innovation.
Science|Business summer reads of 2026
As most people in the European research and innovation policy bubble are going on a well-deserved summer break, we have come up with a list of our favourite books, podcasts and essays from the past year that ask deeper questions about science, technology and politics.BooksPasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation, by Donald StokesIf you haven’t read Pasteur’s Quadrant yet, now is the time. In the EU and elsewhere, we’re living through a period of dwindling faith that curiosity-driven research automatically leads to economic growth and technological progress. Pasteur’s Quadrant, published in 1997 by the Princeton academic Donald Stokes, is the most influential critique of the standard “linear model” of R&D: the idea that new discoveries made in ivory-tower labs get neatly passed on for commercialisation by start-ups. In reality, Stokes argues, practical applications often inspire more theorical lines of inquiry. Of course, we have long known that things are more complex than the linear model, but even today, it’s still often assumed in Brussels discourse. The book is a useful corrective, and is being used now to argue for new types of scientific institutions. David MatthewsThe Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism, by Jacob Hale Russel and Dennis PattersonAre society’s problems solvable by technical expertise alone? “If only the benighted would listen,” say Jacob Hale Russel and Dennis Patterson, two professors at Rutgers Law School who got frustrated with how scientists and politicians handled public health communication during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the book, they argue that clichéd mantras about scientific evidence and expertise perpetrated by academics, journalists and politicians have harmed public trust in the very institutions they were trying to defend. Paradoxically, slogans such as “we believe in science,” “follow the science” and “defer to the experts” can fuel mistrust in science, experts and democratic institutions. The authors criticise “condescension” and “technocratic paternalism” in the public discourse and make the case for a more nuanced approach to scientific and expert policy advice that rests on humility, doubt, scepticism and open dialogue. “Most complex social questions in fact revolve around values, not the recitation of unambiguous facts,” they say. Florin ZubascuBreakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan WangIn this book, Dan Wang compares the structural differences between the US and Chinese industrial policies, but raises a very timely question for innovation policy wonks: how can advanced manufacturing know-how contribute to technology-intensive economic growth? Wang says technology has three components: the tools, the blueprints and patents, and the process knowledge. The third component represents the “proficiency gained from practical experience, which isn’t easily communicated and requires years of implementation.” According to Wang, rather than seeing tools and blueprints as the ultimate ends of technological progress, policymakers should see them as milestones in the training of better scientists and manufacturers. Over the past decades, China has amassed “process knowledge” because capital flowed to complex fabrication facilities, while investors in the West have parked their money in capital-light businesses such as digital platforms or chip companies that focus on design. As it turns out, thanks to its oversized focus on manufacturing, China has gained remarkable advantages in the global technology race. Florin ZubascuBaltic: The Future of Europe, by Oliver MoodyWhat can Europe learn from the nine countries surrounding the Baltic Sea? Alongside the familiar stories about Estonia's digital transformation, the book examines how the region has used technology, resilience, education, governance and long-term thinking to respond to geopolitical, economic and security challenges. Innovation policy wonks might find fresh perspectives on how innovation can strengthen defence, societal resilience and Europe's capacity to adapt in an uncertain world. Whether or not you agree with all of Oliver Moody's conclusions, the book is a useful guide to a region that is increasingly shaping European debates on security, competitiveness and technology. Goda NaujokaityteThe Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf This book chronicles the wild and adventurous life of natural science pioneer Alexander von Humboldt who at some point in the 19th century seems to have been just about the most famous person in the world. Through scientific expeditions to the Andes Mountains and to the depths of Siberia, von Humboldt contributed a host of discoveries and concepts. During his life he met and formed relationships with historical figures as different as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simon Bolivar, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles Darwin. He is also claimed to be the person in the world with most things named after him, a list that includes an ocean current, a penguin and a region of the Moon. Still venerated in Germany, with numerous scientific institutions named after him, von Humboldt has slipped out of public consciousness in most of the rest of the world. For anyone not familiar with him, this book does a good job of describing his fascinating life. Ole EllekrogCareless People, by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsYou may have heard this referred to as the book Meta doesn’t want you to read. The 2025 memoir from Sarah Wynn-Williams, former director of global public policy at Meta, then just called Facebook, includes explosive claims about everything from a toxic workplace culture to how the company worked with advertisers to target vulnerable teens, and the lengths it was prepared to go to in order to break into China. It’s a fascinating insight into how and why the tech company gradually shifted its approach to policy, whether in the US, Europe or Asia. Meta has denied the allegations in the book, and last year won an emergency ruling to prevent Wynn-Williams from promoting it. In response, the author is now suing her former employer. If that doesn’t make you want to read it. Martin GreenacrePodcastsThe Europeans: Europe’s anti-ElonThis podcast is a great choice for a light-hearted dose of European policy and culture news. Most of it has little to do with research, innovation and technology, but this particular podcast features an interview with Mastadon’s founder Eugen Rochko. He talks about his experience running an open-source, federated, European-made social media platform, and leaving it all behind. The conversation, which starts 14 minutes in, gently encourages us to reflect on what kind of technology we, as Europeans, want to make. Goda NaujokaityteSolarpunk and how we escape dystopiaNew technologies are very often taken from science fiction. Alberto Santos-Dumont, inventor the airship, was inspired as a child by the adventure stories of Jules Verne. OpenAI’s attempt to build a personal assistant with the voice of Scarlett Johansson was lifted from the 2013 film Her, completely ignoring the movie’s cautionary message. So if we want better tech, we need to imagine it first. Unfortunately, the state of current sci-fi is relentlessly dystopian, giving inventors precious few ideas or hope. However, a new genre, Solarpunk, which envisages a technologically advanced but ecologically harmonious future, is now taking off. The actual tech the genre imagines, such as permaculture, renewable energy or community repair workshops, while nice, isn’t all that inspiring or ambitious. But it’s a first step towards rescuing sci-fi from its pessimistic Blade Runner rut. David MatthewsEveryday AbundanceLaunched in June, Everyday Abundance is a podcast that tells the stories of the inventions we now take so for granted that we barely given them a second thought. For example, the washing machine, which liberated women from a lifetime “bent over washtubs and washboards.” Or modern dentistry, which ended the reality that “tooth pain was simply part of human life.” Historians of technology, Virginia Postrel and Charles C Mann are very much on the optimistic end of the spectrum when it comes to the capacity of invention to improve human life. Here, they set out their case: if it wasn’t for progress, you might be hunched over a washtub with toothache rather than reading these words. David Matthews‘We will not know what we lost’: Conservation fallout a year after USAID shutdownSince his return to the White House, Donald Trump has been on a mission to undermine science. He slashed jobs at federal agencies, terminated grants in some research areas, took unprecedented control over university affairs and, within hours of his inauguration, suspended the US Agency for International Development. While its initial focus was to administer health and food aid around the world, it had since expanded to conservation projects. The result? Some of these projects were stopped abruptly. In this Mongabay podcast, environmental reporter Michelle Nijhuis tells the story of the EcoGuard conservation programme in Liberia, whose local patrols had helped protect rainforests, monitor endangered wildlife and track illegal threats. From one day to the next, these were left without salaries. Luckily, she notes, the initiative was able to get emergency funding from international NGOs, but its future remains “incredibly uncertain.” Juliette PortalaEssaysThe Mars Delusion, by Henry WismayerWhy is humankind so fixated on establishing a colony on Mars? asks London-based writer Henry Wismayer. From space evangelists promoting Martian settlement as an insurance policy, to billionaire Jeff Bezos, who said humans should settle on Mars “because it’s cool,” the mission is not running short of advocates. However, in this essay, Wismayer reminds us that some critics expect any future Mars pioneer to end up “irradiated, sick, mad and dead.” Scientists have already looked into the possible effects of prolonged exposure to Martian gravity, and it’s not pretty: muscle shrinking, bones weakening, changes to the central nervous system and other biological modifications to make us all reconsider the journey. “Some researchers have forecast that the future settler, after generations of evolutionary conditioning, will look less like an Übermensch and more like ET,” Wismayer writes. Juliette Portala
Perez Hilton's family offers health update after disturbing TikTok
Perez Hilton's family has asked for privacy and confirmed he is receiving medical care after a TikTok livestream frightened fans and triggered a law enforcement response.
Fall sports Senior Media Day
Seniors, mark your calendars for our fall sports Senior Media Day photo shoot, which will take place on Monday, Sept. 14, at 3:30 p.m.! All seniors playing a fall sport should report to the third-floor balcony area at Albany High promptly at 3:30 p.m. to get their photograph taken by John Wong Photography. Photographs taken on our fall sports Senior Media Day will be utilized for the creation of large, weatherproof senior banners. Each senior will be featured in their own individual banner. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Albany Booster Club for funding our senior banners, which will be proudly displayed at our senior night events. Thanks to our booster club's support, each senior will get to keep their banner as a memento of their hard work and dedication as a Falcon student-athlete. There is no sitting fee for the Senior Media Day photo shoot. Students and families will be given the opportunity to purchase photos separately if they so choose. Senior Media Day photo shoots for winter and spring sports will be publicized leading up to each season. In addition to our Senior Media Day photo shoots, seniors will also be asked to participate in our sports photo sessions each season for all student-athletes in grades 9-12, facilitated by Upstate Images. Upstate Images provides our sports photography for our Albany High yearbook and students and families will be given the opportunity to purchase individual and/or team photos if they so choose. More details will be available at the start of the fall sports season.
Apple's iCloud Private Relay is Leaking Users' Real IP Addresses
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Michigan Supreme Court asked to block 'money out of politics' proposal
A group fighting a petition initiative that would bar state-regulated corporations from political spending has asked the high court to block it
Amid tension, Cunningham says she wants to 'get back to basketball'
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Referendum campaign asks court to block new Missouri map
People Not Politicians wants a Cole County judge to reverse Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and prohibit use of the gerrymandered map
Earth science and policy student spends summer exploring Arctic geothermal options
Declan Goldhawk knew he wanted to spend the summer expanding on what he’s learning in college while branching out into unfamiliar territory. A 10-week internship in Alaska — a place he’s never been — researching geothermal energy at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power checked both boxes.
Johnston & Engels can't leave before play-off
John Collins says Celtic must not cash in on key duo Alistair Johnston and Arne Engels until after their Champions League play-off. Martin O'Neill's side face LASK in Europe later this month, having failed at the same stage against Kazakh side Kairat Almaty last term. Canada right-back Johnston is wanted by Everton, while Celtic have turned down a bid from West Ham for Belgium midfielder Engels.
Clayville Library marks centennial with monthlong celebration
The Clayville Library Association is marking its 100th anniversary this month with free daily giveaways, weekly basket raffles, live music and children's entertainment for the community.
Lawsuit filed asking Wisconsin's sports betting law be declared unconstitutional
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the suit Wednesday, asking a judge to declare Wisconsin's sports betting law unconstitutional.
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ASUS canceled an RTX 5090 order worth $4,607, raising the price to $4,982, reflecting growing GPU price inflation after the RAMpocalypse
Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. I am particularly pleased that it goes out for free to thousands of subscribers around the world. But, writing this newsletter takes a lot of work. If you are enjoying it and would like to support the project, sign up for one of the subscription options here. It is the equivalent of a fancy cup of coffee per month! Subscribe
This week in Santa Cruz County business: Volunteer Center names new director as longtime exec retires; new life ahead for Casalegno’s market
Shawn Peterson takes over for Karen Delaney at a powerhouse local nonprofit, a revival for a Soquel institution and names, numbers and dates to know – Jessica M. Pasko runs it all down in her weekly survey of Santa Cruz County business.
Your favorite beauty brands are now also entertainment brands
Advertising has long existed alongside entertainment, either in the form of TV ad breaks or product placement. But as today’s consumers are up to their eyeballs in entertaining content just a scroll and a click away, many of today’s beauty brands are asking if entertainment and advertising can be one and the same.