Search headlines

Macy's Lifts Sales Outlook; GameStop Collectibles Business

On this episode of Stock Movers with John Tucker: - Macy's (M) shares are on the move after it lifted its sales outlook for the year, a sign that the company's focus on growing its luxury business and improving its assortment is paying off. - GameStop (GME) shares are climbing after the video-game retailer reported a record quarterly profit driven by its collectibles business. Sales overall climbed 14% to $835.3 million. Net income of $389.6 million was the highest ever for a quarter in the company's history, GameStop said in a regulatory filing Tuesday. - Palo Alto (PANW) shares are dropping as the security software company reported results following a 61% year-to-date rally. The company reported third-quarter results that beat the average analyst expectation and raised its full-year forecast for key metrics, but failed to meet elevated buyside expectations.

Jun 3 • 11:14 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com

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

World Business Chicago names six finalists in competition for city’s next big idea

From capping highways to reimagining alleyways and boulevards, six finalists in a World Business Chicago have bold ideas to reinvent the city's infrastructure.

Jun 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

Human Science achieves Moodle Premium Certified Partner status in Japan

We’re delighted to share that Human Science has been elevated to Moodle Premium Certified Partner in Japan. Learn more in this post.

Jun 3 • 5:27 AM EDT • Science • moodle.com

Gilbert Fire and Rescue orders full building evacuation, leaving business owners scrambling for space

Gilbert fire ordered a full evacuation of a commercial building near Gilbert and Guadalupe roads after determining the property posed an immediate safety risk, leaving business owners scrambling.

Jun 2 • 11:08 PM EDT • Business • abc15.com

New Mexicans vote in gubernatorial primaries as revenue soars from oil boom

Tuesday's primary election also comes at a time of promise for the next governor: Elevated global oil prices from the Iran war have translated into an influx of tax revenue.

Jun 2 • 6:40 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

New Mexicans vote in gubanatorial primaries as revenue soars from oil boom

Tuesday's primary election also comes at a time of promise for the next governor: Elevated global oil prices from the Iran war have translated into an influx of tax revenue.

Jun 2 • 6:40 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

WTAS: Advocates Commend Introduction of Chairman Cruz’s Protect College Sports Act  - U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Intercollegiate conferences and universities across the country are praising the introduction of the Protect College Sports Act, bipartisan legislation aimed at ending the uncertainty and disorder facing college athletics. The legislation was formally introduced today in the U.S. Senate by Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Senators Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.). Chairman Cruz will convene a full committee hearing tomorrow, June 3, at 9:00 a.m. ET on the legislation. Witnesses are Nick Saban, Pete Bevacqua, Gordon Gee, Teresa Gould, and […]

Jun 2 • 5:44 PM EDT • Sports • commerce.senate.gov

HOLLYWOOD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE TO HONOR DAVID BECKHAM WITH STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME - Hollywood Walk of Fame

David Beckham will be honored with the 2,849th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 12th at 10:00 am PT at 6819 Hollywood Boulevard. Beckham will receive his star in the category of Sports Entertainment.

Jun 2 • 4:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • walkoffame.com

MSHSL tables girls flag football emerging sport status for 2026–27 school year

The MSHSL has opted to table the decision to elevate girls flag football to an ‘emerging status’ sport until at least after this season.

Jun 2 • 4:01 PM EDT • Sports • fox9.com

New Microsoft tool lets devs spin up AI behavior tests using text descriptions

Microsoft on Tuesday took the wraps off Adaptive Spec-driven Scoring for Evaluation and Regression Testing, an open-source framework for spinning up AI evaluations.

Jun 2 • 3:02 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.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

Viaducts connect this Oak Cliff restaurant to downtown. Rerouting could cost business

La Comida struggled for three years after moving to Oak Cliff. Now it has solid footing, but the proposed Jefferson Boulevard construction threatens business.

Jun 2 • 1:40 PM EDT • Business • keranews.org

Injuries reported after semi crashes into business along W Jefferson Boulevard

The Fort Wayne Police Department is responding after a semi crashed into a laundromat along West Jefferson Boulevard on Tuesday afternoon.

Jun 2 • 1:28 PM EDT • Business • 21alivenews.com

Mike Vrabel calls Julian Hill's injury, "Devastating. Awful."

Patriots tight end Julian Hill's season ended before it began with an injury in a voluntary offseason practice, and head coach Mike Vrabel said today that he feels terrible about it.

Jun 2 • 12:54 PM EDT • Sports • nbcsports.com

Orlando Health unveils plans for new hospital in Viera, Brevard County

Orlando Health plans to build a new hospital and medical office building in Brevard County, creating over 1,000 jobs and enhancing healthcare services.

Jun 2 • 9:43 AM EDT • Health • wftv.com

DAILY Q&A: How do you consume entertainment media?

Sources of entertainment have changed over the decades, and nowadays there are so many that it’s hard to keep up. That’s why in today’s Daily Q&A, NewsChannel 7’s Mia Hernandez and Emmett Rice sit down with Producer Evan to discuss their favorite ways to consume media.

Jun 2 • 9:43 AM EDT • Entertainment • wjhg.com

Ask Dr. Universe podcast explores apple breeding and the science behind new varieties

The latest episode of the Ask Dr. Universe podcast takes listeners inside the world of apple breeding with WSU horticulturist Kate Evans.

Jun 2 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • news.wsu.edu

Motorola News | Designed for Comfort, Built for Everyday Entertainment: Introducing the new motorola edge 2026 and moto buds 2

Motorola brings the new edge and moto buds 2 to North America, designed to elevate the features that matter most to today's consumers.

Jun 2 • 8:57 AM EDT • Entertainment • motorolanews.com

Building Structured Generative AI Evaluation at Enterprise Scale

How Oracle built Veritas, a scalable GenAI evaluation framework for structured benchmarking, reusable pipelines, reproducible testing, and enterprise AI evaluation workflows.

Jun 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • blogs.oracle.com

This scientist learned he has a devastating brain disease. He set out to cure it.

Jeff Carroll is part of a new effort to accelerate the development of targeted cures for a handful of neurodegenerative diseases.

Jun 2 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • washingtonpost.com

Fireworks, entertainment, giveaways to mark Station Casinos’ 50th anniversary

Station Casinos Inc., the corporate entity that owns and operates 20 entertainment destinations throughout Southern Nevada, will celebrate its 50th anniversary

Jun 1 • 8:48 PM EDT • Entertainment • cdcgaming.com

Business fire on Evansville’s north side Monday

Vanderburgh County Dispatch says they got a call about the fire at Bobcat of Evansville around 6:34 p.m. Monday.

Jun 1 • 8:30 PM EDT • Business • 14news.com

Business owners struggle to rebuild after devastating Opa-locka junkyard blaze

Jun 1 • 5:47 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com

Immersive theater upgrade: Orlando Science Center’s Dome reopens

Experience the fully revamped Dome by Dr. Phillips Charities at the Orlando Science Center, featuring 8K laser projection, enhanced sound, and more.

Jun 1 • 3:59 PM EDT • Science • wftv.com

Black River Entertainment Elevates Grace Watson

Black River Entertainment has promoted Grace Watson to Vice President, Commercial Partnerships [...]

Jun 1 • 2:51 PM EDT • Entertainment • musicrow.com

Racial Equity Impact Assessments as Tools for Advancing Population Health and Equity in Local Policy

Racial equity impact assessments (REIAs) are used by local governments to integrate equity considerations into policymaking and decision-making processes by evaluating potential impacts of proposed legislation before enactment.

Jun 1 • 1:20 PM EDT • Health • milbank.org

PlayStation FlexStrike wireless fight stick and 27-Inch Gaming Monitor launch in August; Pulse Elevate wireless speakers later in 2026

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced release dates for three of its major accessories. The FlexStrike wireless fight stick will launch on August 6 worldwide, the 27-Inch Gaming Monitor with…

Jun 1 • 11:21 AM EDT • Technology • gematsu.com

Insights from Dževada Garić, Professor of Political Science

In our latest Speaker Spotlight, Dzevada Garic, highlights the role of journalism in matters of interfaith coexistence.

Jun 1 • 6:40 AM EDT • Science • corporate.dw.com

Why a surge of election-related websites could spell rising cyber threats for the midterms

A new report, first reported by PBS News, warns that November’s midterm elections in the United States will drive “elevated” cyber threats to political organizations, fundraising and media platforms, and that some of the groundwork for election misinformation and disinformation likely is already being laid. Check Point, a cyber security company, found that in January of this year, approximately 1,300 newly registered domains contained the keyword “election,” and approximately 2,957 contained “vote.” Registering website domains

Jun 1 • 5:55 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Fire Science Academy prepares high school students for firefighting careers

University of Nevada, Reno Extension’s Living With Fire collaborates U.S. Bureau of Land Management and other agencies to train nextgen firefighters.

Jun 1 • 4:00 AM EDT • Science • unr.edu

TST Best Bets: June 1, 2026

The last couple days of the NBA playoffs have brought plenty of excitement as the San Antonio Spurs prevailed in the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, 111-103, in Game 7 on Saturday.

Jun 1 • 3:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES: BerkShares Business of the Month is Ward's Nursery

Sam and Eva Ward believe strongly in community engagement through educational programs, cultivating a strong resources page on their website, and being on site every day to interact with their customers.

Jun 1 • 12:05 AM EDT • Business • theberkshireedge.com

Veterans face surprising threat after cancer diagnosis, study reveals

A new JAMA Oncology study finds veterans with cancer face elevated suicide risk that can persist for up to five years following their diagnosis.

May 31 • 11:12 PM EDT • Health • foxnews.com

The forgotten organ that could predict how long you live

A long-overlooked organ may hold surprising clues to healthy aging and cancer survival. Researchers at Mass General Brigham used AI to analyze CT scans from tens of thousands of adults and found that people with healthier thymuses—a small immune-system organ once thought to become largely irrelevant after childhood—lived longer and had substantially lower risks of heart disease, cancer, and death.

May 31 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Elevance Health (ELV): One of the Best Undervalued Stocks to Buy According to the Financial Media

Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV) is one of the Best Undervalued Stocks to Buy According to the Financial Media. On May 19, Evercore ISI added the company to its Tactical Outperform list for Q2, noting that Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV) is expected to see strong upside in EPS this year, provided current trends hold or improve. […]

May 31 • 7:00 PM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com

108 top economists predicted 'devastation' — Argentina's Milei continues to prove them wrong

Three years into Milei's presidency, Argentina's economy has been transformed. Economists who predicted failure now see a playbook other nations could follow.

May 31 • 9:59 AM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com

New solar desalination breakthrough makes fresh water without toxic brine

Scientists have developed a solar desalination system that turns seawater into drinking water without creating environmentally damaging brine. Special laser-textured metal panels use sunlight to evaporate water while automatically moving salt deposits away from the working surface, preventing clogging. The process was successfully tested with water from three oceans and can recover nearly all salts as solids. Those leftover materials could even become a source of valuable lithium for batteries.

May 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Scientists Stunned: Two Black Holes Captured Together in a Historic First - Futura-Sciences

The Golden Age—and a New Dawn for Black Hole Physics It’s widely agreed that the so-called “Golden Age” of theoretical black hole physics ran from Roy Kerr’s 1963 solution describing a rotating black hole to Stephen Hawking’s revelation of black hole evaporation in 1973. The combined puzzle-solving of physicists and...

May 31 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com

Villanueva measure to protect patients’ reproductive health records passes Senate

SPRINGFIELD – Recognizing the importance of reproductive health data privacy for Illinois residents, State Senator Celina Villanueva advanced a measure to directly combat continued attacks on bodily autonomy and keep...

May 30 • 10:24 PM EDT • Health • illinoissenatedemocrats.com

'It's football and it's cruel

It's devastating to lose a Champions League final on penalties. Arsenal's starting XI had played a combined 21,458 league minutes for the Gunners in 2025-26, which was 6,081 more than PSG's line-up.

May 30 • 4:49 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

'Top class' Liverpool star contacted by Euro giants

Liverpool's squad is going to undergo another revamp this summer. hardly any of their transfers have worked out.Granted, a lot of their poor performances are due to the number of injuries that they've...

May 30 • 1:35 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Community is Better and Stronger

Rolling Fork and Sharkey County continue to rebuild from the devastating 2023 tornado March 24, 2023 is a date residents of Rolling Fork and Sharkey County will never forget. A powerful EF 4 tornado sliced through the city and county in the early evening hours, leaving behind almost indescribable amounts of destruction. While the horrible […]

May 30 • 1:09 PM EDT • Business • deltabusinessjournal.com

Who is Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire acquiring Caesars Entertainment?

The Fertitta name is ubiquitous in Southern Nevada considering the ownership role the Fertitta family has with Station Casinos and UFC. Frank and Lorenzo Fertit

May 30 • 11:37 AM EDT • Entertainment • cdcgaming.com

Wisconsin ranks #12 for youth mental health. Here’s what parents need to know.

Wisconsin has a lower prevalence of mental illness and higher rates of access to care than most of the country.

May 30 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • wbay.com

OC businesses fight to recoup losses after toxic tank emergency in Garden Grove

More than a week after the toxic tank emergency at GKN triggered a massive evacuation, thousands of businesses are now fighting to recoup their losses.

May 29 • 9:40 PM EDT • Business • abc7.com

Mamdani endorses Espaillat's primary challenger Avila Chevalier

Mamdani formally endorsed the fellow Democratic Socialists of America member on Thursday evening.

May 29 • 9:17 PM EDT • Politics • ny1.com

Smoke pours out of Boardman business after fire sparks

Boardman Fire crews responded to a fire at Entertainment Service Group on Southern Boulevard this afternoon.

May 29 • 6:50 PM EDT • Business • wkbn.com

Trump targets science in OMB’s grants revamp

A new administration proposal is part of a larger campaign by the president to exert political control over the federal scientific enterprise.

May 29 • 1:50 PM EDT • Science • eenews.net

White House moves to give political appointees more power over federal grants

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration on Friday moved to give political appointees more power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies, a move scientists say puts critical research funding into the hands of partisans without relevant expertise.

May 29 • 1:48 PM EDT • Politics • wral.com

White House Moves to Give Political Appointees More Power Over Federal Grants

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration on Friday moved to give political appointees more power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies, a move scientists say puts critical research funding into the hands of partisans without relevant expertise. In what ...

May 29 • 1:44 PM EDT • Politics • usnews.com

Devastating wildfire and homelessness loom over Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' bid for second term

As Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass seeks a second term, she isn't sidestepping the obvious: her tenure at city hall has been difficult. “I haven’t always got it right,” she says plainly.

May 29 • 1:05 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Andreeva charges towards business end of RG - Roland-Garros 2026

The 19-year-old's finest Grand Slam showing to date is a semifinal at RG 2024

May 29 • 11:44 AM EDT • Business • rolandgarros.com

WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel amended

WHO Member States adopted a resolution to amend the ‘WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel’ (the Code) and strengthen its implementation, following Member State-led consultations in the lead up to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly. The resolution marks an important step towards the vision that everyone, everywhere can access competent and motivated health and care workers, as a foundation for both universal health coverage and global health security. Key additions to the Code focus on: inclusion of provisions on health personnel recruited internationally for employment as care workers; applicability of the Code recommendations during emergencies; and encouraging co-investment in health systems and health workforce to ensure international recruitment results in proportional benefits for source and destination countries.Since its adoption by the Sixty-third World Health Assembly in 2010, the Code has undergone three rounds of review of its relevance and effectiveness. “We welcome the resolution’s focus on sustainable and ethical mobility of health personnel,” explained Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General, Health Systems, Access and Data. “The Code’s adoption in 2010 was a landmark achievement. Following this update, we encourage all countries to enhance implementation, including by viewing co-investment as a win-win.” The additions were recommended by an Expert Advisory Group appointed by the WHO Director-General. The Expert Advisory Group’s final report noted the progress in health workforce data availability, provision of migrant health worker rights and the embedding of ethical recruitment principles in national policies. It also highlighted areas of possible improvement in the Code implementation, including support for the strengthening of health systems in source countries.The adoption of the resolution follows extensive consultations led by Member States, underscoring the continued relevance of the Code in a context of increasing international mobility of health workers and growing pressure on health systems resulting from global health emergencies and funding constraints.WHO is already taking forward actions called for in the resolution. An updated version of the ‘WHO health workforce support and safeguards list’, that guides ethical recruitment practices by identifying countries facing the most pressing health workforce challenges, will be published later in 2026. As recommended by the Expert Advisory Group, this will include additional flexibility enabling countries to indicate their willingness to allow active international recruitment, or for Member States not on the list to request tailored support and safeguards. This approach reflects a more nuanced, country-led framework that balances workforce mobility with the need to protect and strengthen health systems in vulnerable settings.“I thank the members of the Expert Advisory Group, the group of Member States who led the resolution, and all Member States for their constructive engagement,” added Dr Nakatani. “Let’s bring this spirit of collaboration to our collective efforts to implement the resolution, strengthen the health workforce and build resilient and equitable health systems.”

May 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • who.int

Boardman crews respond to fire at Entertainment Service Group

Crews responded to a fire in Boardman on Friday afternoon at Entertainment Service Group near Southern Boulevard.

May 29 • 6:47 AM EDT • Entertainment • wfmj.com

Ward and Smith’s Co-Managing Directors Named to Business North Carolina’s 2026 Power List

Ward and Smith is proud to announce that Co-Managing Directors Brad Evans and Devon Williams have been named to Business North Carolina’s 2026 Power List,

May 29 • 4:30 AM EDT • Business • wardandsmith.com

What will the deal to acquire Caesars Entertainment mean for Las Vegas? Gaming expert weighs in

Abel Garcia talks to Nevada Independent senior reporter Howard Stutz about the far-reaching impacts of Fertitta Entertainment's deal to acquire Caesars Entertainment.

May 28 • 9:18 PM EDT • Entertainment • ktnv.com

NASA Uses Mineralogical Marker to Understand Ancient Martian Climate

Scientists analyzed 20 Martian samples collected by NASA's Curiosity Rover and found that differences in hematite crystallite size at varying elevations could serve as a new mineralogical marker for understanding Mars' ancient climate.

May 28 • 2:22 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Neuroinfectious Diseases Research Workshop: Advancing Translational Science and Clinical Research Innovation

The Neuroinfectious Diseases Research Workshop will be a two-day scientific meeting designed to accelerate research, foster collaboration, and build capacity in the field of neurological infections. Hosted at the NIH Neuroscience Center (NSC, Executive Boulevard), this meeting will bring together clinician-scientists, laboratory investigators, translational researchers, government partners, and trainees committed to advancing understanding of neuroinfectious

May 28 • 9:30 AM EDT • Science • ninds.nih.gov

Fed's favored inflation gauge remained elevated in April

The latest PCE inflation data was released by the Commerce Department and showed that inflation rose and remained elevated in April due in part to the Iran war's impact.

May 28 • 8:37 AM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com

Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for 3% funding target

Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for better conditions

Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

MVC Announces 2025-26 Track & Field Scholar-Athlete Teams

Northern Iowa’s David Russell and Evansville’s Taylor Johnson highlight the 2025-26 Missouri Valley Conference Track & Field Scholar-Athlete Teams as they have been selected as the MVC Scholar-Athletes of the Year.

May 28 • 7:58 AM EDT • Science • mvc-sports.com

The Poynter Institute launches fully funded fellowship for journalists covering brain health

From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.

May 28 • 7:00 AM EDT • Health • poynter.org

Gold Country Kiwanis and Nevada County OES to host safety carnival

Families are invited to enjoy our 21st Annual Health/Safety & Fire Preparedness Carnival on Saturday, June 6, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 950 Maidu Ave, the Rood Center

May 28 • 4:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • theunion.com

Caesars to be acquired by Fertitta Entertainment in a $17.6B transaction

The Houston-based company controlled by Tilman Fertitta will take Caesars private and will acquire more than 50 properties, including 15 hotel-casinos in Nevada.

May 28 • 2:24 AM EDT • Entertainment • thenevadaindependent.com

Germany news: Health care staff protest plan for major cuts

Medical staff in Germany are protesting proposed cuts that ministers say are necessary to stop spiraling costs. Meanwhile, a World War II bomb meant thousands were evacuated from their homes. DW has more.

May 28 • 2:23 AM EDT • Health • dw.com

How the latest congressional effort to 'save' college sports could impact Nevada and MW

Congress' latest effort to "save" college sports was unveiled Wednesday whenSenators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) announced plans for a bipa

May 27 • 5:19 PM EDT • Sports • nevadasportsnet.com

Spacewalkers Back Inside Station After Science Hardware Work

Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 4:24 p.m. EDT after five-and-a-half hours.

May 27 • 4:36 PM EDT • Science • nasa.gov

UT Health Tyler Receives ACC Chest Pain PCI Accreditation

Tyler, Texas (May 13, 2026) — The American College of Cardiology has recognized UT Health Tyler for its expertise and commitment in treating patients experiencing heart attack symptoms, awarding the hospital its prestigious Chest Pain PCI Accreditation. UT Health Tyler earned the accreditation after a rigorous onsite evaluation of the staff’s ability to quickly evaluate, […]

May 27 • 4:18 PM EDT • Health • uthealtheasttexas.com

Jalen Hurts details philosophical shift in Eagles offense

Jalen Hurts said Sean Mannion's offense brings a different philosophical approach as the Eagles continue installing a revamped system during OTAs.

May 27 • 3:38 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Renown Health partners to launch first OB/GYN residency in Northern Nevada

The program will train future physicians locally and help address a critical shortage of OB/GYN providers across the state.

May 27 • 3:30 PM EDT • Health • aha.org

University of Montevallo Art Class Collaborating with Baptist Health

An art class at the University of Montevallo will be utilizing the creative talent of students in the College of Education and Human Development and College of Fine Arts to provide a welcoming space for patients and staff in the Adult and Senior Behavioral Health units at Baptist Health in Alabaster. The class is led… Continue reading University of Montevallo Art Class Collaborating with Baptist Health

May 27 • 10:56 AM EDT • Health • montevallo.edu

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

Morristown approves $48 million deal with Atlantic Health, clears path for $1 billion hospital expansion

The town council approved the agreement without public comment or discussion, setting up a three-step process for evaluating Atlantic's proposed expansion of Morristown Medical Center.

May 27 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • morristowngreen.com

Steelers re-sign veteran defensive lineman after devastating 2025 injury

The Pittsburgh Steelers have signed defensive lineman Dean Lowry to a one-year contract.

May 26 • 9:53 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

NASA’s Fermi telescope reveals the power source behind monster supernovae

NASA’s Fermi telescope has detected what may be the first confirmed gamma-ray signal from a superluminous supernova — one of the most extreme explosions in the universe. Scientists believe the blast was powered by a rapidly spinning magnetar, an exotic neutron star with unbelievably strong magnetic fields. The event, called SN 2017egm, erupted 440 million light-years away and may help explain why some supernovae become extraordinarily bright.

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

UCF Alumnus Makes Epic Mark in the World of Themed Entertainment

As a performance coordinator at Universal Orlando Resort, Christian Spencer ’23 ’26MS is applying the unique insight he’s developed through UCF’s hospitality management and themed experience programs to elevate guest experiences.

May 26 • 3:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • ucf.edu

Keeping your kids in the game: Preventing sports injuries

For minor injuries at home, parents can do RICE therapy--Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. If pain , swelling or limited movement lasts more than a few days, Consumer Reports suggests it may be a good idea to check in with your childs doctor

May 26 • 2:32 PM EDT • Sports • wral.com

Marilyn Monroe and the dead-celebrity business

A company is keeping her culturally relevant—and cashing in

May 26 • 12:10 PM EDT • Business • economist.com

Seth Rogen on comedy, money and all those awards

Founded by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver, Point Grey Pictures has had a successful awards season with its comedic hit, "The Studio."

May 26 • 10:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

I became the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner

Cherie DeVaux says winning the Kentucky Derby was the culmination of years of risk, reinvention, and relentless work.

May 26 • 5:23 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

As Trump woos China, the Quad grouping drifts towards irrelevance

As Washington shifts military focus away from Asia, analysts say the Quad is struggling to define its purpose.

May 26 • 3:27 AM EDT • Politics • aljazeera.com

Tariff refunds may evade small businesses in Michigan

Small Michigan businesses face losses as tariff refunds go to importers of record instead of retailers.

May 26 • 12:02 AM EDT • Business • detroitnews.com

Holiday weekend brings business to the beach

Signs of rebuilding are still easy to find, like hotels under construction and homes in the process of being elevated.

May 25 • 8:05 PM EDT • Business • baynews9.com