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Health officials report 74 new measles cases in Pennsylvania
Five people have died in the state.
AI in Health Care Moves Toward More Autonomous Roles
Federal health agencies are testing AI applications that move into patient care typically handled by physicians. And recent research suggests people may place more trust in conversational AI, while false claims attributed to authoritative sources can increase willingness to share them.
Business Briefs: Oct. 9, 2026
Bank collecting donations to support veterans SHELBURNE FALLS — Greenfield Cooperative Bank invites the community to its Shelburne Falls branch to contribute to a household essentials collection drive supporting veterans through Project New Hope Inc. The drive is offered in partnership with the Northeast Chapter of American Daughters of Conservation and the Massachusetts Bowhunters Association. […]
Ohio health officials warn of dangerous drug resurfacing
Cyclorphine could be up to 10 times more potent than fentanyl, and overdoses could require many doses of naloxone.
Flu season's unexpected twist: It started in Western states
The unusually early start to the season has prompted local health officials to urge people to get their flu shots as soon as possible.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
FOX Carolina's Anna Arinder has the details.
COA opens new $25M health sciences center
College of The Albemarle officially opened its new Regional Health Sciences Center, a 60,000-square-foot simulated hospital, with a grand opening and ribbon cutting that drew dozens of guests, elected officials
Juventus’ tactical switch could give needed tactical flexibility up front
Luciano Spalletti’s tweak to his front line presents a lot more possibilities.
SC ranks second in measles cases as health officials urge vaccination
South Carolina ranks second in the nation for reported measles cases, with 670 known cases so far this year, according to the CDC. Pennsylvania ranks first. Three states have reported more than 500 cases, the agency says.
China nominates health official to lead WHO
China has nominated health official Song Li to lead the World Health Organization
China nominates health official to lead WHO
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has nominated health official Song Li to lead the World Health Organization, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday, as Beiji
Locally authored ‘The Other Disney’ discovers gold, twice
SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY — “The Other Disney,” a novel by Hallstead physician-author Dr. Bernard Leo Remakus, tells the story of a father, who has just lost his job, and a resourceful
Trump, a Cowboy and a Science Guy: Who’s taking sides in Senate race
Ken Paxton and James Talarico are drawing support from politicians, sports stars, entertainers and some surprising crossovers.
China nominates health official to lead WHO
China has nominated health official Song Li to lead the World Health Organization. The World Health Assembly is set to elect the next WHO head in May. Song is a senior public health official with...
China nominates health official to lead WHO
China has nominated health official Song Li to lead the World Health Organization
China Nominates Health Official to Lead WHO
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has nominated health official Song Li to lead the World Health Organization, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday, as Beijing seeks to expand its presence in international governing bodies. The World Health Assembly is set to elect the next WHO head in May. That ...
Put communities before political parties
Elected officials must be willing to acknowledge and confront entrenched interests, political party pressure and cumbersome rules if they want to deliver on their promises.
Produced water forum brings science, questions to Iraan
More than 50 residents, ranchers, elected officials, industry representatives and water stakeholders gathered at the Iraan Civic Center Friday, Oct. 2, for a first-of-its-kind local discussion centered on whether highly saline produced water from Permian Basin oil and gas operations could one day be treated and beneficially reused. Hosted by Friends of the Pecos River and the Texas Produced Water Consortium, the forum ran from 9:30 a.m. to noon and included presentations, refreshments and an extended public question-and-answer session.
Voluntary Business Update on Prosus Food Delivery
AMSTERDAM, October 08, 2026--Prosus N.V. (Prosus) (Euronext Amsterdam: PRX; JSE: PRX) today announces a letter to shareholders outlining a Food Delivery Update for Prosus. The financial information on which this update is based has not yet been reviewed nor reported on by Prosus’s independent auditor.
Iran’s Economy in Deep Recession as Businesses Face Empty Malls and Soaring Costs
A new wave of citizen and business-owner videos circulating on social media highlights severe market stagnation across Iran. Merchan ...
Patty Murray launches initiative to restore trust in public health, starting with event at WSU
WASHINGTON – Sen. Patty Murray on Wednesday launched an initiative aimed at rebuilding trust in the nation’s public health system, assembling a group of experts to develop a “blueprint” for policy after the tenure of President Donald Trump and his top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Life Is Asymmetric. The Scientists Who Figured Out Why Won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Henri Kagan and Kensō Soai designed chemical reactions producing only one of the two mirror-image forms of a molecule—an important finding for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and other biological substances.
Most Americans think artificial intelligence is developing too fast, a new AP-NORC poll finds
A new AP-NORC poll finds that most Americans think artificial intelligence is developing too fast
PepsiCo to cut costs as weak N.America business hurts core profit forecast
Oct 8 (Reuters) - PepsiCo cut its annual core profit forecast on Thursday and said it would pursue additional cost cuts, warning that efforts to revive growth and profitability in its crucial North American business were taking longer than expected.
Gen Z politicians who want to make a change grapple with parties that aren’t always ready for them
Editor’s Note: This story is part of Gen Z at the Ballot Box, a collaboration between States Newsroom and The 19th. TOPEKA, Kan. — After state Rep. Angel Roeser defied her fellow Republicans and voted against their plan to ask voters to change the way Kansas Supreme Court justices are selected, members of her own […]
Cuteness Is Political
Conservatives are attracted to baby-like cuteness due to its association with purity, write Chethana Achar and Carolyn Wells Keller.
Idaho deserves a competent lawyer and politician for attorney general
An attorney general can have personal views on political issues but cannot ethically inject them into legal advice or court. | Opinion
Law firm hires official who worked for Whitmer, Snyder and Granholm to lead new government practice
Melanie Brown, who most recently was the Michigan Economic Development Corp.’s executive ombudsman, will be managing director of Miller Johnson's new government solutions practice.
TAKE3 comes to Lebanon as LCCCA continues 93-year tradition of live entertainment
The Lebanon County Community Concert Association will welcome TAKE3 to Lebanon on Sunday, Oct. 11, for the second performance of its 2026–27 concert season.
Cybersecurity firm, also North Augusta Small Business of the Year, marks 25 years in the CSRA
Founder Russell Wyatt started PC Techware in 2001, fixing home computers across Augusta. Today, the company serves businesses throughout the CSRA as an all-commercial cybersecurity and IT provider.
Arsenal youngster receives MBE from Prince William
The Arsenal forward was honoured for services to association football after helping England win a second successive European Championship.Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty ImagesMichelle Agyemang describ...
Medical Debt Is Crushing Hospital Patients in Los Angeles. Public Health Officials May Have a Fix.
In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, a new system could screen hospital patients for financial aid, preventing hundreds of thousands from getting bills they can’t pay.
Nevada City Rotary's Pumpkins Palooza Family Celebration returns Oct. 15
Halloween spirit is officially back in the air as Nevada City Rotary announces the return of the Pumpkins Palooza Family Celebration, a live family celebration, scrumptious raffle drawings, and auctions
Medical debt Is crushing hospital patients in L.A County. Health officials may have a fix
In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, a new system could screen hospital patients for financial aid, preventing hundreds of thousands from getting bills they can’t pay.
Medical debt is crushing hospital patients in LA. Health officials may have a fix
In Los Angeles County, the nation's most populous, a new system could screen hospital patients for financial aid, preventing hundreds of thousands from getting bills they can't pay.
What happened in Juventus' last victory against Cagliari?
The Men's First Team are back in Serie A action this weekend with a Matchday 6 trip to face Cagliari in Sardinia.Luciano Spalletti's side come into the match having won the previous Serie A match agai...
Vincent Kompany to be honored with Bavarian Minister-President award
Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder will honour Vincent Kompany with a special award for his commitment to fighting racism. The Bavarian State Chancellery announced that the award will take pla...
The Math Singularity Is Here, and Science May Be Next
OpenAI has released an extraordinary body of mathematical work produced by an unreleased frontier model: 722 manuscripts spanning 372 research families across fields including number theory, complexity theory, and mathematical physics. Each result required, on average, the equivalent of roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro reasoning. A New Era of Discovery We may be witnessing the beginnings of a “math singularity”: a point at which machine-generated discovery accelerates beyond humanity’s ability to independently reproduce, verify, or fully absorb it. If frontier models can generate hundreds of meaningful results in the time it takes a human researcher to investigate one, the constraint will no longer be producing new mathematics. It will be our capacity to validate, interpret, and integrate it. This does not make mathematicians obsolete. It changes their role. They may increasingly serve as guides, critics, and meaning-makers. Increasingly, they will decide which questions matter, determining which results can be trusted, and explaining why they are important. Mathematical insight may become abundant, while human judgment becomes more valuable than ever. Mathematics May Be Only the Beginning Every scientific discipline could eventually experience a similar acceleration. AI systems could generate and test hypotheses, connect findings across specialized fields, and explore possibilities at a scale no human research community could match. In medicine, imagine models identifying overlooked disease mechanisms, designing drugs and clinical trials, personalizing treatments, or discovering cures in months rather than decades. In materials science, AI could help create better batteries and cleaner industrial processes. In climate science, it could accelerate advances in energy, forecasting, and carbon removal. In biology, it could uncover relationships hidden across enormous genomic and molecular datasets. The result would not simply be faster research. It could expand the frontier of what is scientifically possible. The New Bottleneck Scientific discovery, however, is not the same as scientific progress. A medical breakthrough must still survive laboratory testing, clinical trials, regulatory scrutiny, manufacturing constraints, and real-world deployment. As machine-generated ideas multiply, the bottleneck may shift from producing breakthroughs to validating them safely and translating them into practice. We may soon have more hypotheses than laboratories can test, more drugs than clinical trials can evaluate, and more mathematical results than experts can review. That imbalance will require better systems for automated verification, reproducible research, prioritization, peer review, and collaboration between AI and domain experts. The importance of OpenAI’s work is not merely the number of manuscripts produced. It offers a glimpse of a world in which intelligence can explore thousands of intellectual paths in parallel. If ideas cease to be scarce, humanity’s defining challenge will be deciding which are true, which matter, and how to turn them into progress. The math singularity is not the end of human inquiry. It is the beginning of a new kind—one in which machines expand the frontier of knowledge and humans decide where it should lead. Subscribe Share Leave a comment
Max Dowman given three Guinness World Records
Arsenal’s teenage midfielder Max Dowman has been presented with three official Guinness World Records certificates.
Clásico Referee Decision Still Pending After Conflicting Reports
Hernández Hernández was reported to be the frontrunner to referee Barcelona and Real Madrid at Camp Nou on October 25, but the appointment had not been officially confirmed. Radio MARCA’s report, ...
China has nominated health official Song Li as WHO head
China has nominated health official Song Li as a candidate to lead the World Health Organization, China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, confirming a Reuters exclusive that said Song was put forward to succeed the incumbent director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Six social causes recognised at Atlético’s ADN Rojiblanco gala
The Atlético de Madrid Foundation held its first ADN Rojiblanco awards gala at the Club Telefónica of the Riyadh Air Metropolitano on Wednesday 7 October, with six social projects linked to the club...
Is Fury v Joshua about meritocratic sporting excellence or just algorithmic celebrity power?
This long-awaited fight is happening exactly as intended: at the sweet spot where commercial potential meets a genuine absence of jeopardy
‘Transformation is our central priority,’ science minister says
Blade Nzimande emphasises focus on promoting women, underrepresented racial groups and disabled scientists
Catching up with: Vestis Manufacturing Inc.
Thirteen years ago, Vestis Manufacturing Inc. was a five-person operation producing and installing fabric awnings for homes and businesses within 100 miles of Spokane. Today, Vestis focuses on manufacturing aluminum canopies, louvered sunshades, and bolt-on balconies for commercial clients…
Commercial muralist builds brand identity, value
Riveting Paint & Pearl owner Desire McGinn approaches murals less like commissioned fine art and more like a skilled trade, working directly with business owners, contractors, and design firms to turn walls and other surfaces into extensions of a client's brand.
Bottles for Brewers celebration featured names of Wisconsin cities
After winning the National League Division Series, the Brewers' postgame celebration featured a special touch on champagne bottles.
NFL Canada Partnership Could Be A Game Changer For Penn Entertainment Stock (PENN)
PENN Entertainment recently saw its theScore Bet unit secure a multiyear role as an official NFL partner for sports betting and online casino in Canada, alongside an analyst upgrade that reflected these business developments. The Canadian NFL tie-up gives PENN Entertainment another channel to push its digital betting brand into a live sports audience, which could affect user acquisition costs and long term engagement across its broader entertainment ecosystem. We will now look at how PENN...
Food major Kido enters entertainment sector, seeks new growth after ice cream divestment
Kido Group, Vietnam's leading food company, is expanding into media, entertainment and commerce through its AIRO ecosystem and A&M joint venture with YeaH1, as the group gradually exits its ice cream business, which has been a significant contributor to its profit from joint ventures and associates.
Pneumonic plague, by the numbers
From 2019 to 2025, 10 countries reported almost 4,000 suspected human plague cases and 423 deaths. Health officials say the current risk to the public “appears to be low.”
I’m a pediatrician in Michigan, and here’s what I’ve learned about how medical schools can improve community health
In medicine, poverty is often screened for, documented and then ignored as a “social” issue outside the scope of medicine.
President Trump Remarks at Science and Technology Summit in Washington, D.C.
President Trump hosts a summit to highlight technology, artificial intelligence, scientific innovation, and his administration's updated science policy framework.
Duke Health-backed survey identifies steep health barriers for Durham residents earning under $75,000
The Durham Community Health Assessment Survey's latest findings will guide Duke's community health planning going forward, Duke Health officials said.
Amazon cuts fewer than 1,000 jobs across teams, Business Insider reports
Investing.com -- Amazon confirmed a new round of job cuts on Wednesday, primarily in its Stores division, adding to the company’s workforce reductions even as it ramps up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Bay Area health officials urge getting a flu shot as flu season arrives early
Doctors are sounding the alarm about the early arrival of the flu season and urging people to get their flu shot as soon as possible.
New Hampshire Film Festival announces 2026 lineup
The New Hampshire Film Festival returns to Portsmouth Oct. 15–18 with more than 100 films, Spotlight screenings and an Alicia Silverstone “Clueless” event.
California sees early flu spike as health officials urge residents to get vaccinated
California undergoing early flu spike as health officials urge vaccinations
Trump to award National Medal of Science to Elon Musk
President Trump will award the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk and other prominent tech executives on Thursday, a White House official confirmed to The Hill’s broadcast partner, NewsNation.&…
Second Annual Milwaukee Vegan Restaurant Week Expands To 35 Businesses
Grassroots vegan restaurant coalition grows with official tourism sponsor.
Their record is improving, but are the Colts?
There is room for improvement everywhere, especially at QB
Ceola’s Blood Cancer Story
After a routine appointment revealed blood cancer, Ceola Karchner is moving forward one step at a time. Read Geisinger patient stories.
Kelly’s Breast Cancer Story
Her breast cancer diagnosis came without symptoms after a routine mammogram. But throughout treatment, Kelly Titus remained strong for her family, refusing to let cancer call the shots.
Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh detained by US immigration authorities
By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - An award-winning filmmaker whose work has explored conflict in his native Kashmir has been detained by US immigration officials after legally coming
Should Diseases Be Renamed When Science Advances?
Changes in scientific understanding are prompting renewed scrutiny of disease names and their effects on how patients, clinicians, and researchers view conditions.
As AI Learns to Write, Tuhin Chakrabarty Studies What Humans Stand to Lose
As AI models are able to generate increasingly convincing prose, what began as an experiment—can AI write something that sounds plausibly human?—is becoming a commercial reality, with blog posts, YouTube video scripts and even bestselling novels bearing AI’s fingerprints. But the speed of that shift brings unique challenges, including questions of copyright infringement and an
Packers tight end Kraft struggling with drops as he comes back from torn ACL
Green Bay’s Tucker Kraft said this summer he believed he was playing as well as any tight end in the NFL before tearing his anterior cruciate ligament last season.
Japan, U.S. business leaders urge governments to boost AI cooperation
Japanese and U.S. business leaders on Wednesday called on their governments to step up cooperation on artificial intelligence, ranging from measures to support corporate procurement of necessary power sources to harmonizing governance of the rapidly growing technology.
International experience gives business leaders an edge, study finds
Business leaders with international experience play a significant role in shaping the success of their organizations and are often associated with stronger organizational performance, including higher ...
Trump Will Award Musk National Medal Of Science At D.C. Tech Summit
Musk and Jensen Huang, who’s also being honored, were two of the six tech moguls who signed the voluntary "White House Accord on Super Intelligence" last month.
Samsung Q3 profit jumps nearly nine-fold as AI memory boom lifts chip earnings
Samsung Electronics on Thursday projected a nearly nine-fold jump in third-quarter operating profit from a year earlier, beating analysts' estimates as booming demand for artificial intelligence chips drove strong memory earnings.
Who Won August and September: Original Films or Franchises?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) I just heard someone say that if you’re reading a pundit or data analyst, and they don’t tell you that they got anything wrong, they’re not a pundit but an “influencer”. I agree with that. You have to tell your audience when you get things wrong, or they won’t (or shouldn’t) trust you as much. Today, we’ve got another edition of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. In general, I’m patting myself on the back (and patting very hard) about a few things like IP at the box office, LIV golf, horror films, crowdfunding movies, superheroes, and old people going to the theaters. That said, I also made a couple of data mistakes on the streaming bubble popping and HBO’s datecdotes, so I’m not perfect. But first, I need your feedback... Subscribe Follow-Ups: What Should We Call Mid-Budget Movies Which Aren’t Cinematic Enough for Theaters But Are Too Expensive to Make Money on Streaming? After I asked for feedback on what we should call straight-to-streaming films that are too big to pencil out on streaming but not really big enough to resonate in theaters, I got some great suggestions from you all, including... “Moldilocks” from John Aboud “Little Big Indie” from Travis Frick1 “Midflicks” from Jonathan Funke. “Extra-Medium” from Jona Nwuke. (Read the explanation in the footnote.) Between these and Brandon Katz—who suggested “Bermuda Budget Triangle”, “The Platform Gap” and “The Distribution Deadzone”—we’ve got some excellent suggestions. And they’re better than my suggestion, the “Streaming Budget Dead Zone”, so let’s take a poll! The winning entry becomes the new term. Loading... RIGHT: LIV Golf is Fully Bankrupt…Is Anyone Else Next? A few years ago, I was always a bit perplexed at all the articles I’d read praising LIV Golf and their strategy to disrupt the PGA. LIV Golf, a brand new professional golf league, offered PGA stars ten times what they made on the PGA Tour to join their new league. And folks praised this strategy for its initial “success” in that a lot of big names did indeed leave the PGA. Yeah, of course the players came over. LIV Golf paid them so, so, so much more! But LIV Golf hadn’t discovered a way to increase potential revenue. So think about this in basic business terms… They paid much more in costs… …but had no real way to increase revenue. That’s not a strategy! That’s deficit financing. It won’t work unless you bankrupt the competition (and then turn around and pay those same golfers much, much less). It’s not a sustainable strategy and only lasts as long as the company/person/nation backing it decides they’re cool with losing money. For LIV Golf, that meant Middle East oil wealth, in particular Saudi Arabian money. Clearly, the current Iran War has hurt Middle East finances, so they need to trim their more exorbitant spending. And LIV Golf was part of that trimming. This should be a major warning for others. TGL’s parent company, TMRW Sports, just got a $1 billion valuation, despite TGL’s (the indoor golf league) horrible TV viewership of less than half a million viewers per match. Unrivaled, the women’s basketball league, just secured a $650 valuation, despite its horrible TV viewership and a new rival (Project B) entering the scene next year. To relate this to streaming, Hollywood should ask which streamers may have wealthy patrons funding their losses. (Let’s be clear: Google, Amazon and Apple.) Could those patrons lose their appetite? For Amazon, probably not. But Apple has a new boss, so maybe! WRONG: My Analysis of the Streaming Bubble Was Missing a Week I’m going to be congratulating myself a lot today, but I make mistakes too, like this data goof. When I last compiled the data on the decline in TV shows, I was missing one week at the end of June. If you look at the first image, you can see that one week was mislabelled as “July”. Mainly, this image got updated to show a 27% decline, not 29%: This change doesn’t really impact the overall analysis, but it is two percent better. By the way, through the third quarter, the decline increased and it’s now a 30% decrease since 2022. (I’ll write/visualize this in an upcoming article.) But I want you to trust me and my data. Especially these days, when many people are using LLMs that I know are inserting faulty data into their charts, I want to keep earning my audience’s faith. So that’s the accurate data. RIGHT: IP Remains Very, Very Popular In July, I wrote a giant (and I mean giant) article on Backrooms, Obsession, and the box office, going over what we know, what we don’t know about what works in theaters, looking at YouTubers, IP, the horror genre, comic book movies, and a whole lot more. The month of August really tested a lot of my theses and, being honest, mostly supported my arguments. Let’s start with IP. Looking at 8-Aug (the weekend after Spider-Man: Brand New Day came out) to 18-Sep (the weekend that Resident Evil came out, which I think provides a nice bookend to this time period), there were seven films based on pre-existing IP: Resident Evil (2026) ($126 million) Practical Magic 2 ($65 million) _Insidious: Out of the Furthe_r ($65 million) Coyote Vs. Acme ($59 million) Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie ($53 million) Tony ($15 million) Super Troopers 3 ($7 million) Compare those to the notable original films from the past month—I actually could have included more movies, but here are just thirteen, bringing us to an even twenty films—including.... The End of Oak Street ($54 million) Buddy ($26 million) Mutiny ($15 million) By Any Means ($15 million) The Dog Stars ($14 million) Runner ($14 million) One Night Only ($11 million) Hope ($8 million) Spa Weekend ($7 million) The Uprising ($6 million) Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma ($6 million) Onslaught ($3 million) Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man ($2.8 million) Here’s that in chart form: Five of the top six films in this time period were all based on IP. I made a big chart of films that grossed over $200 million at the box office before Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey hit theaters. Let’s update that chart! By the way, if you want to see how I categorized each film—so another bar chart—here it is: I know that many of my fellow critics/pundits/analysts dislike films based on IP and how Hollywood is making so many of them. And I’m sympathetic to this point of view. As I’ve written many, many times before, you need a balance between existing franchises, new IP, and original films. And Hollywood clearly needs to make more films like Resident Evil (a well-made film from a visionary director) and fewer Practical Magic 2’s (which didn’t get critical or customer buzz). But at some point, critics and pundits need to contend with what audiences are telling them: Movie-goers aren’t showing up to original films. Audiences are speaking with their dollars, telling you they want more IP and franchises. You can try to convince studio heads to make fewer IP-based films and franchises, but the data and numbers aren’t there. Instead, critics need to work harder to convince audiences to show up for original films. Aim your ire/concern at the average person, not studio heads.2 Because they’re just making the films that audiences are telling them to make. WRONG: Original Horror Films Didn’t Break Out I’ll be honest, even though I wrote an article casting some skepticism on the horror genre in July, if you asked me to make a prediction, I would have predicted that, in August, a new, original horror film would have blown up. No, seriously, I just assumed that Obsession and Backrooms presaged a change in audience behavior. But none of the buzzy new original horror films from August—Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Onslaught (not an action film in spite of the ads), The End of Oak Street, Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man, or _Buddy—_broke out. To be clear, exactly one of those films (Buddy) had good “ROI”, but again—I try to be specific in my language—none were “popular” in any broad sense of the word. None of them will be “saving” movies theaters like Backrooms or _Obsession_helped save the summer. The new Insidious film and Resident Evil, both based on IP, were far and away the biggest horror films since July. (We’ll see if this changes in October/Halloween season.) RIGHT: Stay Skeptical about Crowdfunding... I’ve long been skeptical about crowd-investing platforms as one of Hollywood’s saviors, mainly because there’s so much hype/buzz. People need to stay more skeptical about more things, explaining both the potential upside but also the downsides. In particular, the media often hypes crowdfunding at the start and never checks in on the actual results after they’ve come in later. And August gave us our first update! _Ice Cream Man—_directed by Eli Roth—grossed $6 million off of a $5.5 million budget. This is a production of The Horror Section, which was one of the first “crowd investing” studios with 2,400 investors, which means that 2,400 investors probably lost money. They certainly aren’t getting as great of returns as if they had just invested their dollars in the stock market. Hopefully Stiletto (Tagline: “Someone’s Going to Make it Rain Blood!”) does better next month. WRONG: Another Data Goof Here’s another data error. When the first episode of House of the Dragon came out, HBO put out that it had 21.5 million viewers in the first three days, and I read that to mean in the US…but no, it was global. So my US-only datecdotes charts shouldn’t have included it. We never got US-only numbers for the first episode, but for the final episode, HBO put out that it had 11 million US viewers. (And that global dropped to 21 million viewers.) Here’s the updated chart (which I’ve since used in the Streaming Ratings Report): Still, this show is absolutely huge. RIGHT: Superhero Films Remain Very, Very Popular After Supergirl flopped, I read a few takes that “comic book movies are going the way of the Western”. Post-Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that take didn’t age well. To be fair, I have a very nuanced take on the superhero genre right now; it’s down right now, for a lot of reasons. But it’s not “dead”. Maybe _Spider-_Man is just a really popular character? I saw that take, and it’s a fair counter-argument. (But pundits arguing that superhero movies were dead should have mentioned this $1.5 billion counter-argument…) But is it just Spider-Man? The next Avengers film already has $50 million in pre-sales (and I was skeptical that that film would do well) and the Avengers: End Game re-release topped the box office two weekends ago (over three original films). And I wouldn’t bet against Batman or Superman. So maybe it’s just Spider-Man, Batman, Superman and the Avengers. Oh, and Deadpool, of course. And Black Panther. And Wolverine. And probably the X-Men. Plus a well-made Wonder Woman or the Hulk film could break out. But that’s it! It’s just those ten characters/teams. Oh, what’s that? Lanterns is also doing well on HBO? (See previous section…) To be fair, I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the argument that more popular characters—like Spider-Man and Batman—anchor more popular films. In fact, I made that exact argument three years ago when I first wrote about the “Marvel-cession”. In many ways, you can blame The Guardians of the Galaxy for fooling Marvel Studios (and the rest of us) into believing that any character could pop. It turns out, the list of iconic characters is probably smaller than most people think. But it’s probably too early to say that superhero films and comic book movies are dead unless “death” means a slight decline over a longtime. RIGHT: Who Killed Theaters? Old People I get frustrated whenever I see headlines or analysis about how young people are “returning” to theaters. As I’ve detailed(for years), young people have always powered the US box office, despite narratives about “kids these days” and their “phones”. Really, what’s changed post-2020/pandemic is that old people aren’t going to the movies nearly as much. This summer, I saw a movie (from an older director) in a theater near a retirement community, and multiple older people at the theater were talking about how this was their first time seeing a movie in years. I dislike personal anecdotes, so YouGov can fill in the data, best summarized by this headline: “Who killed movie theaters? Not the youths”. According to them, 64% of people aged 18-29 have seen a movie in the last year, but only 30% of 65-and-older. 20% of 18-29 have seen a movie in theaters in the last week and 42% in the last month. Here’s the polling data: Most concerning? Many Americans (17%) think theaters are a worse or much worse experience than watching films at home. Slight WRONG: Hadestown Opens Big A live theater capture of the Broadway musical, Hadestown, made $20 million at the US box office, which begs the question: was I wrong to be skeptical about musicals a few years ago? Yes and no. On the one hand, $20 million is a far cry from being “popular”, so yeah, the genre isn’t that popular overall and Hadestown is one of the more popular musicals from recent years (i.e. the “Taylor Swift Data Fallacy” in action). On the other, I doubt filming this cost all that much, and I don’t think that they spent much on marketing, so this is a good source of ancillary revenue. Smaller Updates WRONG: As I mentioned in a Streaming Ratings Report, I underestimated the budget for Enola Holmes 3. It probably cost more like $50 million, if not more. But... I’m not sure that it really matters? At sub-10 million hours, prices have to come down to make this work. WRONG: Netflix is giving Ink a 27-day in theaters! To quote the kids/YouTubers these days, let’s go! Now I might actually have a chance to see Danny Boyle’s latest in theaters. I’d complained about this in a “Coming Soon” section, but I was heartened to read that Netflix is giving multiple films longer theatrical windows this year. RIGHT: Netflix is sending 4-5 films per year to theaters. Netflix is slowly but surely sending more and more films to theaters, as I cautiously predicted earlier this year. For now, it’s just three big films and a number of awards contenders, but still, this is great news. And they’ll be releasing box office grosses! Just this week, Ted Sarandos confirmed that KPop Demon Hunters 2 will come to theaters (and my guess is it performs in the box office top ten at a minimum). WRONG: Angel has 3 million subscribers! How do I know this? Well, they told Deadline, who reported it. I marked this as “wrong”, since they’ve doubled their subscribers in one year but, you know, they don’t really have a hit film to speak of and they’re still losing money. WRONG: Furious was only renewed for one more season. I accidentally wrote “two more seasons” in my latest “Renewals, Cancellations, Un-Orders and Removals Update”. RIGHT: House of David is ending with its third season. In July, Prime Video renewed House of David for a third season, as I just wrote in my latest “Renewals and Cancellations” report. Well, now it’s ending after that third season. Why? As I’ve been writing, its viewership wasn’t great. I got feedback that this show didn’t cost very much, but it cost enough that its limited viewership didn’t save it. WRONG: Adults was a Hulu original! So I missed Adults when it first came out last year; I saw that it aired on FX and just assumed that it was a linear-first program. Turns out, it aired three episodes on FX, but binge-released the rest of its episodes the next day on Hulu. Huh. So I should have covered it last year! But I just wrote about it. 1 “When I was a kid in the 90s, if you wore a t-shirt to school that wasn’t too big and also wasn’t too small, but somehow didn’t quite fit, we’d say you were wearing an “extra-medium” shirt.” 2 As always, a huge exception is Disney, which barely makes anything original anymore.
International robot/human fight promoter ordered to cease in California
A company that stages human-versus-robot fights is still advertising a San Francisco event this week despite receiving a cease-and-desist order from California regulators over a recent match between a humanoid robot and a social media influencer.
Eagles Get Discouraging Saquon Barkley Update Despite ‘Not Major’ Injury
Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley is dealing with a hamstring injury he suffered in Sunday’s 24-20 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. ESPN lists his status as questionable ahead of Week 5. Head coach Nick Sirianni gave no update on Monday and said more answers would come Wednesday. Despite the lack of official details, […] The post Eagles Get Discouraging Saquon Barkley Update Despite ‘Not Major’ Injury appeared first on Gridiron Heroics.
Protestors, politicians denounce Trump as his East Side rally begins
Protestors have gathered across the street from the Freeman Coliseum, where Trump's rally for Republican candidates is underway.
At Black business expo, officials urge owners to speak up
State and federal lawmakers called for more Black small business owners, who disproportionately face economic challenges, to meet with elected officials and ask for support.
Business interruption claims
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IQVIA Launches IQVIA Life Science Models to Help Life Sciences Companies Predict Clinical Trial Outcomes
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IQVIA (NYSE:IQV), a leading global provider of clinical research services, commercial insights and healthcare intelligence to the life sciences and healthcare industries, today at TechIQ 2026 introduced IQVIA Life Science ModelsTM to help predict clinica
Texas' 35th district tests GOP redistricting, Hispanic voters
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UT symposium explores AI’s growing role in future of health care
Some of the biggest names in health care, technology and research gathered at the University of Texas this week to discuss how artificial intelligence is already changing the way patients receive c…
Kentucky's Ousmane N'Diaye gets eligibility ruling
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Financially troubled Redeemer Health failed to make a bond payment on Sept. 1
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EPA grant supports nature-based solutions and sediment science for North Bay marsh
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month announced that it selected the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and the Association of Bay Area Governments as awardees of a $13.9 million grant to restore and enhance some 1,500 acres of tidal wetland habitat known as Strip Marsh East along the State Route 37 corridor in Solano County.
CBS News to launch election night "nerd show" for politics junkies
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After vast sewage spill, officials say testing shows Potomac is back to health
Testing “found no current signs of harm” from the millions of gallons of raw sewage that flowed into the river in January, according to D.C. Water.
Lancaster General Health serves Amish families with special outreach programs
Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health meets regularly with Amish bishops to help provide culturally-appropriate care to the Amish community.
Epic used AI to find potential security flaws that could expose patient health records
Epic Systems revealed last month that it used an advanced artificial intelligence tool to find security weaknesses that could have allowed undetectable access to patient health data. Epic maintains health records for more than 325 million patients around the world.
After topping $10B in revenue, Kirkland & Ellis will stop disclosing results
The Chicago-based legal giant will no longer provide financial figures to industry publications after reporting its 2026 results, the Financial Times reports.