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Results for " Choi " 1,399 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle

Computer science enrollment fell after ChatGPT's rise, economist says

A Stanford economist says AI may be reshaping students' choices as computer science enrollment slows.

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Jul 21 • 9:09 AM EDT • Science • businessinsider.com
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Braves Announce Signings of All 21 Draft Choices

The Atlanta Braves announce they have signed all 21 of their 2026 MLB Draft picks today.

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Jul 20 • 4:47 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Nissan’s Brake Caliper Colors Aren’t For Decoration, They’re Ranking Your Car

From silver to yellow, Nissan says its brake colors reveal far more than styling choices

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Jul 20 • 11:11 AM EDT • Technology • carscoops.com
Freedom of Choice

A lens for understanding business leaders' ability to act in alignment with their values.

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Jul 20 • 11:00 AM EDT • Business • ssir.org
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process

[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe

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Jul 20 • 9:29 AM EDT • Science • democracysos.substack.com
Scientists have found an ancient sea worm with jaws made from a mysterious 'bio-metal' never encountered before, a discovery that could rewrite what we know about nature

Imagine you’re playing “20 Questions” and you start with the classic opener: “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” Most of the time, a sea worm would be an easy answer: animal. But one particular marine species, the ancient and still-living bristle worm Perinereis cultrifera, complicates that simple choice.

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Jul 20 • 6:47 AM EDT • Science • timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Dissatisfied with Tallahassee politics? Arnie the dog wants your vote

A basset hound named Arnie is running for Tallahassee mayor after his owner decided there isn't a strong choice among the current slate of candidates.

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Jul 20 • 5:05 AM EDT • Politics • tallahassee.com
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Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) Opens Record Coaster As Investors Ask If The Stock Is A Bargain

Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) just opened Tormenta: Rampaging Run at Six Flags Over Texas, a record-setting giga dive coaster that could influence how investors think about the company’s park assets and guest appeal. See our latest analysis for Six Flags Entertainment. Despite the buzz around Tormenta: Rampaging Run, Six Flags Entertainment’s share price has softened recently, with the 30-day share price return down 29.71%, while the 1-year total shareholder return has declined 43.38%,...

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Jul 20 • 4:21 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Colorado Republicans will have to live with the consequences of their candidate of choice

Two surprising election results this year in Colorado and Maine’s 2026 primaries compel us to examine the role of voters. It’s usually regarded as impolite, if not insulting, to question the judgment of voters. Democratic theory often implies the collective conclusions they reach capture some ephemeral element of shared wisdom. This may be true when […]

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Jul 20 • 3:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com
Your Dolphins Breakout Defensive Player For 2026

Miami Dolphins fans share their choice for defensive breakout player of the year this coming season.

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Jul 19 • 8:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Science & Medicine: Small daily choices can have a big impact on your dementia risk

A UT San Antonio researcher warns that dementia cases could triple by 2050 and that no health system on earth is ready for it. But Dr. Claudia Suemoto says the outlook isn't hopeless: everyday choices around exercise, diet, and community can meaningfully lower your risk, especially if you start by around age 35.

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Jul 19 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • tpr.org
Your Dolphins Breakout Offensive Player For 2026

Miami Dolphins fans share their choice for offensive breakout player of the year this coming season.

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Jul 18 • 8:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Is Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) Undervalued After Its CTF Life Awards Deal?

Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) is back in focus after CTF Life agreed to become the exclusive title sponsor of the 2026 TMElive International Music Awards, bringing the event to Hong Kong for the first time. See our latest analysis for Tencent Music Entertainment Group. Despite the CTF Life partnership putting Tencent Music Entertainment Group back in the headlines, the stock’s recent performance has been mixed, with a 1 month share price return of 4.95% contrasting with a year to...

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Jul 18 • 3:20 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Saturday Bantering: Little And Estrada Called Up

We made it to another weekend. There are only ten of these weekends left this season Yesterday’s game was the latest in a series of terrible games this year. I’m wondering if they can continue to go with Spencer Miles one of five starts. But then, I don’t know who the next choice is. And […]

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Jul 18 • 12:35 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
OnePlus Exit Means Fewer Options in a Market Mired by Lack of Choice

Goodbye, OnePlus.

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Jul 18 • 6:00 AM EDT • Technology • petapixel.com
AMC (AMC) Stock Trades At A Discount On Its 99% Five Year Slump

AMC Entertainment Holdings stock now trades around US$1.94 after a long slide in which shareholders have seen the value of their investment fall about 99% over five years, while some valuation checks still suggest the shares are not clearly expensive on current metrics. Over the past five years, AMC Entertainment Holdings has declined about 99%, which means any fresh move in the share price carries outsized importance for existing holders. Recent balance sheet moves to refinance high...

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Jul 18 • 2:26 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Fast food, fries, and science: Inside U-M’s lab studying cravings

Inside a tucked-away laboratory in East Hall at the University of Michigan, researchers recreated a fast-food restaurant—not to serve lunch, but to answer a question millions of people wrestle with every day: Why do people make different food choices in tempting environments than they intended?

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Jul 17 • 2:30 PM EDT • Science • michigantoday.umich.edu
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The Bull Case For Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) Could Change Following Its TMElive Awards Push Into Hong Kong

CTF Life recently announced a long-term partnership with Tencent Music Entertainment Group to bring the TMElive International Music Awards to Hong Kong for the first time in August 2026, with CTF Life as exclusive title sponsor. This collaboration positions Tencent Music to extend its brand beyond online platforms into a large-scale international live festival, deepening its presence in the fan-driven music ecosystem. We’ll now examine how hosting the TMElive International Music Awards in...

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Jul 17 • 11:29 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
How the hold-in has become the ploy of choice for Steelers with stalled contract talks

Six years ago, Le’Veon Bell became the last Steelers player to hold out during training camp. Upset the Steelers placed the franchise tag on him...

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Jul 17 • 10:00 AM EDT • Sports • post-gazette.com
Caesars Entertainment (CZR) Following Lake Tahoe Relaunch Has Fair Value Back In Focus

Caesars Entertainment (CZR) has drawn fresh investor attention after unveiling Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe Hotel & Casino and completing a multi phase refresh of the former Harveys Lake Tahoe with updated rooms, gaming, dining and entertainment. See our latest analysis for Caesars Entertainment. Recent events, including the Lake Tahoe relaunch and a board resignation announcement, come as Caesars Entertainment’s share price has a 90 day share price return of 9.88% and a year to date share...

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Jul 17 • 7:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D Review

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D delivers fantastic gaming performance thanks to 3D V-Cache. Priced at $330, it offers more FPS than the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, at a similar price point. Energy efficiency is impressive with low temperatures, making it an strong choice for gamers wanting high-tier CPU performance without breaking the bank.

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Jul 16 • 10:10 AM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com
Alabama state employees could see health benefit changes amid 'difficult choices'

Changes could be presented to the State Employees Insurance Board (SEIB) in September, CEO Stephanie Azar said.

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Jul 16 • 6:01 AM EDT • Health • alabamareflector.com
The ’Gay’ Attacks on Lindsey Graham Are All About Politics

Was Lindsey Graham gay? As the author of a book about the history of gay Washington, D.C., it’s a question I’ve been asked frequently for years, and even more so since his sudden death last weekend. The South Carolina Republican’s lifelong confirmed bachelorhood, vocal intonation, and Southern dandy demeanor (if not sartorial choices) prompted many to conclude that he was, as they say in that part of the country, “light in his loafers.” Graham’s repeated attestations to the contrary had zero effect on those invested in the narrative that he was. Only about the matter of J. Edgar Hoover’s rumored cross-dressing (for which there is much circumstantial but no direct evidence) am I questioned more. Whenever I’ve been asked to speculate upon Graham’s sexuality—and speculate was all that I or anyone else could do—I always answered the question honestly. While my personal sense is that Graham was probably gay, as a journalist and a historian I cannot rely on my intuition to make factual assertions. (Gaydar hasn’t yet been scientifically perfected.) Given the absence of any known female or male romantic interests, Graham may very well have been a heterosexual unlucky in love. He might also have been asexual. Barring the highly unlikely postmortem emergence of a personal diary or some other unassailable evidence attesting to Graham’s innermost yearnings, we will never know the answer. As is depressingly the case these days when a public figure dies, a chorus of voices reveled in Graham’s passing, many of them making light of his presumed homosexuality.

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Jul 15 • 7:30 PM EDT • Politics • thefp.com
Young Dallas Cowboys Defender Draws High Praise From NFL Scout

After allowing more points than any other team in the NFL last season, the Dallas Cowboys had no choice but […]

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Jul 15 • 1:08 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Astound Business Solutions gains top honors in PC Magazine's 2026 Business Choice Awards

Princeton-based Astound Business Solutions secured top honors in PC Magazine's 2026 Business Choice Awards.

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Jul 15 • 7:40 AM EDT • Business • roi-nj.com
A tragedy leaves Maine Democrats with less time to choose

Unlike some major news developments that provide a moment of political clarity, this situation resolves nothing. Instead, it raises the stakes for Democrats to make the right choice.

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Jul 15 • 5:30 AM EDT • Politics • bostonglobe.com
Trump’s Latest Nominee for C.D.C. Director Will Face Senate Panel

Dr. Erica Schwartz supports vaccines and is seen as a mainstream choice to lead an agency that has been a target of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to change federal immunization policies.

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Jul 15 • 5:03 AM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Stock Trades Below Fair Value Following Its 62% Slump

Flutter Entertainment has had a tough run over the past year, with the stock down 61.9%, yet current valuation checks still flag it as looking cheap against its fundamentals. High profile interest from investors such as Michael Burry has sharpened the focus on whether the market has pushed Flutter too far to the downside or is correctly pricing in regulatory and competitive risks. Over the last 12 months, Flutter Entertainment's share price has fallen 61.9%, which puts recent interest from...

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Jul 14 • 4:20 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
47 revelatory hours with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

To review this month’s supposed remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I must first correct the record. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced isn’t a game about pirates (and assassins) in the 18th century Caribbean. Sure, sure, that’s what the trailers would have you believe. They’ve go their clips of Edward Kenway swinging his swords and steering his pirate ship into cannon-blasting combat against British frigates. Is Resynced truly a pirate game? Of the 47 hours I spent playing Resynced over the past few weeks, I will admit I spent maybe 44 (?) of them collecting plunder with Blackbeard, drinking rum with Anne Bonny and debating the pros and cons of the lawless pirate-run settlement Nassau with Benjamin Hornigold. I may in fact have spent dozens of hours sailing to remote islands, reading treasure maps, opening messages left in bottles, sinking the odd Man o’ War with a well-timed broadside, collecting sea shanties for my crew, befriending a pet monkey, and hunting whales. I am nevertheless neither so Gullible nor so Narrow-Minded as to call the magnificent Resynced a “pirate remake.” Oh no. Forget any reviews of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced you may have read. Forget what you yourself may have played, if you’ve spent any time with the game since its launch. What Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is really about I’m here to give you the scoop (spoilers for Resynced’s Animus menu lore, which many players are probably not going to see): Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the new game whose development was led by Ubisoft Singapore, is set in the year 2096. It’s about a societal split, about revolution, about an old Assassin’s Creed adventure repurposed in the series’ distant future as propaganda or samizdat. It’s about the overheated future of 2096, essentially conquered by the series’ well-established nefarious Templar-run company Abstergo. (In this future, Abstergo is, among other things, remaking a 2013 pirate movie called Devils of the Caribbean, but this time in VR. The VR version will be backed by a marketing plan that involves AI influencers, a 10,000-avatar “metaverse premiere event” and that manufacturing of memes aimed at “50 million VR nodes.” See what I mean about Abstergo being evil?) Resynced is about a late 21st-century population mollified by the widespread use of Abstergo’s Animus devices which let people experience the lives of historical figures culled from “genetic memories.” It’s about an insurgent faction of Assassins. And it’s about a plan to wake the population into revolutionary fervor by showing them the memories of 18th century pirate Edward Kenway, who—as depicted in the original Black Flag and again in Resynced—gradually comes to an understanding about the Assassins of his day and their centuries old fight for freedom. Resynced is also about an AI developed within the late 21st-century Animus, called Ego. It has found a way to alter genetic memories, to create and show Animus users false ones. The game is about Ego’s efforts to tell the people experiencing Edward Kenway’s memories that Kenway was wrong, that fighting against order is folly, that we should crave a world where “compliance is rewarded with power.” Who are we in this game? We’re an unnamed Animus user in 2096 who experiences Kenway’s journey virtually. At four moments during Kenway’s exploits in the Caribbean our virtual jaunt can be interrupted for 10-15 minutes, as we explore Animus “rifts” where Ego explicitly tries to tell us how wrong Kenway was. None of this is what 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was about, of course. That was a different game, even if you also spent dozens of hours pirating as Kenway in that game, across missions and a map that’s been faithfully reintroduced and rebuilt for Resynced. The 2013 Black Flag was about you playing as an unnamed researcher newly hired in 2013 by Abstergo Entertainment, the video game development wing of the Templars’ evil-corp. In that game, you were assigned to use the Animus to dive into the genetic memories of Desmond Miles, a man who died in Assassin’s Creed III and who was descended from a long line of Assassins (and at least one Templar) whose adventures were featured across the prior AC games. In 2013’s Black Flag, your mission was to plumb the Edward Kenway experience for material that Abstergo could use in productions such as the motion picture Devils of the Caribbean, though the Templars had some ulterior motives for the assignment. Resynced is therefore not a remake of 2013’s Black Flag. It’s a sequel. It is a new game about a new exploration of Edward Kenway’s pirate/assassin journey, set 83 years after the framing sequences of the original game. Resynced provides a new narrative framework that, thanks to the concept of an AI that wants to alter historical memories, arrives with creative justification to tweak a now-classic 13-year old game. That makes Resynced, already a hot seller, a tantalizing hint of where Ubisoft could go with a line of Assassin’s Creed remakes. They could remake the first game, the Ezio games, even the recent ones set in ancient Egypt and Greece. And for each, they could not just modernize the graphics and controls but expand and alter their sequences of events to use them as reference points for a conflict set in the late 21st century, as rival factions try to weaponize historical memories. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, even when that work consists of ravings about Assassin’s Creed’s modern day plot, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe A story most players will probably miss If you didn’t know any of this, I’m not surprised. If you played the game and still didn’t catch it, I’m not a bit shocked. If Ubisoft has no plans to do more of this, I won’t fall down. Almost all of what I’ve described is optional and missable in Black Flag Resynced. I nearly missed it myself, as I planned for a breezy playthrough of an old Assassin’s Creed favorite. Instead, I found myself in a 40+ hour hunt for the “real” story, buried deeper in Resynced than any gold-filled chest. The story of 2096 is Resynced’s meta-story, told in two remote pockets of the game: 1) four optional playable “rifts” that players may find as they proceed through Resynced’s pirate fantasy , 2) in dozens of text files tucked three menus deep in the game’s barely-interactive Animus hub. Assassin’s Creed games have almost always had a meta-story about people in the 21st century (usually matching the game’s release year) and their connections to the main history portions you play. Those meta-stories have always been squeezed into the margins, though seldom as severely and as, uh, graphiaclly simple, as in recent games. Back in 2013, the modern-day exploits of you as an Abstergo Entertainment employee were prominent. They were portrayed via first-person portions that occasionally interrupted the third-person Kenway experience and could be explored for hours, complete with their own missions, side quests and puzzles. Resynced’s 2096 story—of Assassin “Watchers” vs. Abstergo/Tempar goons, of rogue AIs, of panicking scientists, of a woman wondering why her Animus-addicted husband is muttering about Mary Read (“What does he mean by Assassins?”), of a fight for the population’s hearts and minds via varying interpretations of Edward Kenway’s life choices—is mostly told through unlockable text files. The files are interesting. Offered via diary entries, intercepted chats and news reports, they present varied perspectives of a world in crisis. One set works as a narrative puzzle as it reveals the Rashomonic interpretations of a massacre, or was that a successful Assassin hit? Another favorite reveals the rising bitterness of a person who, through Edward Kenway’s journey, now shakes at the ignored evil around him. One surmises that Ubisoft is averse to putting the Assassin’s Creed’s meta-story in the way of more marketable pirate playgrounds and ninja/samurai epics. Instead, we get a better-than-nothing text-in-menus approach introduced in 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In Shadows, players unlocked the meta-story text files largely via time-gated missions that called on the user to kill X number of enemy type Y, clear three enemy castles, re-win a three-phase fighting tournament, and other grinds. Time restrictions on accessing these missions and unlocking the files meant it could take players months to access the full story in-game. But even in the most hardcore Assassin’s Creed hangouts, the fanbase instead seemed to throw up their hands rather than grind to keep up. In Resynced, Ubisoft has shown some mercy, diminishing the amount of new text files that are tied to timed grinds. Now, most of the text-based 2096 lore are associated with “data file” collectibles that players can find in the world. That includes a batch of written entries that explain a historical link between the feudal Japan era in Shadows and the piracy adventures in Black Flag. Players who explore a lot will find dozens of data files, though the game does not appear to offer any in-game tracker for finding each one. You just need to keep looking for them. As of this writing, I have most of them, but not all. I can’t find any full guide for them online. And even Ubisoft’s optional $5 microtransaction that reveals lots of items in-game does not appear to reveal the locations of the text files (at least the official description omits them from its collectibles list). That’s not a huge bother, because tracking the data files down compelled me to re-explore the waves and islands of Black Flag. That was a thoroughly pleasant task to do for the first time in a dozen years. I expect many players, though, will be content to wait for the files to be reproduced in an online AC wiki somewhere, the easier to read on a web page. It may not seem enticing to play a video game in order to gradually unlock pages of text to read. Why not, you may ask, just read a book, where they put the pages in order? For one, they’ve not tucked this latest installment of Assassin’s Creed’s meta saga in a book. I also enjoy the unordered delivery, the dawning comprehension of a story about 2096’s desperate people and questionable tech, which I glimpsed first at its middle, then the end, then the front, then other moments in between1. I am also enamored with the idea of the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve previously played, including Black Flag, being repurposed for an information war. The ideas in Resynced’s meta-story, which builds off characters and ideas in Shadows’ chunks of text, are strong. The potential of where they could go with it is exciting. As for the pirate stuff? Looks great, controls pretty well, is fun to play and oh so speedy in terms of how much of a good time you can have with each sit-down. It never gets old to chase a new shanty page across a rooftop, bombard a fort with upgraded mortars or use a diving bell to explore sunken wrecks (hats off to the team at Ubisoft Barcelona that worked on the underwater portions in Resynced; that team is now facing layoffs, such is the misery of modern gaming and oft-troubled Ubisoft). New pirate missions in Resynced involving new ally characters are brief, dramatic and add more to Edward’s story, even if the gameplay perks they provide barely enhance the gameplay. A new denouement for high-class pirate Stede Bonnet is affecting; a new hunt for Blackbeard’s treasure is a welcome extra moment. A new epilogue to hunt down a pirate killer, on the other hand, over-complicates Kenway’s character. The ending credits remain my favorite of any game I’ve ever played. Black Flag provides great source material. The revisit is well-made and a great sign of what could be. It is offered in a different wrapper that hints at an opportunity for more interesting remakes to come, should Ubisoft choose to pursue such treasures—and as we brace to resist or comply with an Abstergo future. 1 The messages that Edward Kenway finds in bottles tell another out-of-order story, one about a man reckoning with the strange memories and voices he’s heard in his head since he was a boy. That tale was also in the 2013 game and develops into one of Black Flag’s most compelling character arcs. In Resynced, it has lost its climax, because the bottle story previously paid off in the halls of the first-person Abstergo Entertainment, which is exclusive to the older game. An altered resolution, written by the 2013 game’s lead writer is fine, doesn’t invalidate the 2013 version, but makes for an inferior final note.

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Jul 14 • 3:17 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
Christopher Nolan sparks fresh backlash after calling 'The Odyssey' criticism 'irrelevant'

Critics slammed Nolan's response to "The Odyssey" casting backlash involving Lupita Nyong'o, Elliot Page, and the film's modern language choices.

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Jul 14 • 2:17 PM EDT • Entertainment • foxnews.com
Shedeur Sanders catches shade from Joe Flacco for visor choice

The third season of Netflix's 'Quarterback' series showed off the funny way Joe Flacco teased then-rookie Shedeur Sanders.

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Jul 14 • 11:43 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Sphere Entertainment (SPHR) Could Be 15% Undervalued After F1 Afterparty Deal

Sphere Entertainment (SPHR) is drawing investor interest after announcing an F1 Afterparty collaboration with the Formula 1 Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix. The partnership features bundled race, hospitality, and concert ticket packages at the Las Vegas Sphere venue. See our latest analysis for Sphere Entertainment. Despite the F1 Afterparty announcement, Sphere Entertainment’s recent share price has eased, with the stock down 5.4% over the past month but still showing strong year to date share...

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Jul 13 • 7:37 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Samsung Health will delete your data unless you hand it over for AI training

As its new redesign rolls out, Samsung Health is also forcing users into a choice – let their data be...

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Jul 13 • 6:15 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
The Quintessential Trump-era Politician

In 2020, I wrote an article about collaboration and collaborators. The title was History Will Judge the Complicit, and it started with the story of two famous East Germans, Markus Wolf and Wolfgang Leonhard, who both landed in East Berlin just after the end of the war. Although they came from very similar backgrounds, the former stuck with the regime, eventually becoming its spy boss; the latter, horrified by the brutal reality of Soviet-style communism, escaped. By way of juxtaposition, I also wrote about Lyndsey Graham and Mitt Romney. These two men also made very different decisions when confronted by Donald Trump’s assault on the ideals that they had both grown up believing: A glance at their biographies would not have led many to predict what happened next. On paper, Graham would have seemed, in 2016, like the man with deeper ties to the military, to the rule of law, and to an old-fashioned idea of American patriotism and American responsibility in the world. Romney, by contrast, with his shifts between the center and the right, with his multiple careers in business and politics, would have seemed less deeply attached to those same old-fashioned patriotic ideals. Most of us register soldiers as loyal patriots, and management consultants as self-interested. We assume people from small towns in South Carolina are more likely to resist political pressure than people who have lived in many places. Intuitively, we think that loyalty to a particular place implies loyalty to a set of values. But in this case the clichés were wrong. It was Graham who made excuses for Trump’s abuse of power. It was Graham—a JAG Corps lawyer—who downplayed the evidence that the president had attempted to manipulate foreign courts and blackmail a foreign leader into launching a phony investigation into a political rival. It was Graham who abandoned his own stated support for bipartisanship and instead pushed for a hyperpartisan Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son. It was Graham who played golf with Trump, who made excuses for him on television, who supported the president even as he slowly destroyed the American alliances—with Europeans, with the Kurds—that Graham had defended all his life. By contrast, it was Romney who, in February, became the only Republican senator to break ranks with his colleagues, voting to impeach the president. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office,” he said, is “perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.” In the wake of Graham’s unexpected death on Saturday, I wrote about him again. He was, in many ways, the quintessential politician of Trump’s Washington, a man who shifted 180 degrees. Graham had been a fervent American patriot, proud reserve officer and military lawyer; he became one of the most important defenders of a president who believes soldiers are “suckers and losers” and shows no respect for law of any kind. As his politics changed, his language grew coarser and his behavior grew worse: He urged Israel to “level the place” in Gaza, and insulted the Danish prime minister in Munich, prompting a colleague, Senator Elissa Slotkin, to issue an apology. Here’s an excerpt from the article, which you can read in The Atlantic (gift link here) Like his close friend John McCain, Graham believed that America should stand at the center of a broad democratic alliance. The few times I met him were in that context, at the Munich Security Conference or at other European-American gatherings, which he once attended with great regularity. He also took seriously the practice of American democracy at home. In a 2014 conversation with The Atlantic, he described himself as a pragmatic politician who eschewed populist slogans. “I know Washington is broken, but what’s broken about it is everybody yelling and nobody trying to fix it,” he said. “I’m trying.” When Donald Trump first appeared in U.S. politics, Graham recognized him immediately for what he was: the spokesman for an alien ideology, one radically different from the idealistic patriotism that Graham had practiced and preached since childhood. Trump privately mocked the military that Graham loved as nothing but “suckers and losers.” He put falsehoods, cynicism, and personal greed at the center of his politics, while expressing disdain for transparency, accountability, and democracy itself. In 2015, Graham described Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who should “go to hell.” Also as a “nutjob.” When Trump won, Graham understood, as did so many others, that he would have to make some important choices. For a while, he went silent. In the spring of 2016, I saw him at one of those conferences in Europe. He seemed too depressed to speak. But then, like many other Republicans—and, more important, like many other people who have lived under political occupation or experienced radical regime change—he made the decision to abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunistic collaborator. As I wrote in 2020, it’s very hard to look in to anyone’s heart and to understand their motivations from the outside. But it does seem that Graham had a deep need to be relevant, to be in the game, to be a player, at any cost. And that, rather than any particular achievement, is what he will be remembered for. Continuing to monitor conflicts of interest, ostentatious emoluments, outright corruption and policy changes that will facilitate outright corruption. (Read my original article, Kleptocracy Inc and check out the SNF Agora Institute chart) June 27 Trump diverted funds from more than 900 projects nationwide—including safety upgrades at national parks—to finance beautification projects around Washington, including $700,000 used to fix a White House walkway. June 28 After a years-long Department of Justice investigation into Abbott Laboratories over its management of a baby formula facility where potentially deadly bacteria turned up enough evidence to criminally charge the firm, top department officials instead opted for a financial penalty—illustrating the department’s move away from strict corporate enforcement under the Trump administration. June 29 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stacked the Defense Policy Board—which is charged with providing independent national security recommendations to the Office of the Secretary of Defense—with Trump allies, including tech billionaire Marc Andreessen, who has invested in defense contractors like OpenAI and SpaceX, after purging the panel last year. Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in Axon—which makes about 90% of US tasers—two weeks before ICE solicited bids for a $220 million taser contract. The White House unveiled limited-edition US passports for America’s 250th birthday, featuring a portrait of Trump overlaid on the Declaration of Independence. June 30 Trump made around $1.2 billion from his various crypto companies last year, including more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial and $600 million from sales of his meme coin. Trump is considering issuing 250 pardons to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. These are expected to be largely doled out through the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s informal network of intermediaries. White-collar defense attorneys say they can typically win pardons for clients for $2 million. Last year, Trump administration officials awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million to Clark Construction for the White House ballroom—negotiations in which the president was directly involved. July 1 The Amazon MGM Studios documentary about Melania Trump earned the First Lady more than $10 million. Trump made hundreds of individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million the day before his announcement pausing “Liberation Day” tariffs for 90 days sent the S&P 500 soaring nearly 10%—one of the largest single-day gains ever. Mar-a-Lago and Trump National Doral saw record surges in revenue during Trump’s first year in office, earning $77.5 million and $121.9 million respectively, compared to average annual revenues of $25 million and $75 million during Trump’s first term. Entities across the Persian Gulf paid more than $300 million to Trump’s businesses last year, including $263 million from the sale of half his stake in World Liberty Financial to a firm backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a top UAE royal and brother of the country’s president. Kash Patel failed to properly disclose his stock purchase of a Department of Justice contractor, MicroStrategy, worth up to $250,000 last year, despite laws requiring disclosure within 45 days of the trade. July 2 Trump has been directing administration officials to steer more government contracts—so far worth more than $2.4 billion—to Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin aerospace firm, after Amazon gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, donated to the White House ballroom project, and reached a $40 million deal to license a Melania Trump documentary. Alongside the billions he made from cryptocurrency last year, Trump earned millions of dollars from real estate licensing fees, including $21 million from organizations in the UAE and $9.2 million in Saudi Arabia, along with smaller sums from merchandise sales, including $4.7 million from Trump Watches and $35,920 from 45 Guitar, a guitar brand endorsed by the president. House Democrats accused consultants tied to the Trump administration of financial fraud, alleging they gave prospective donors to America250—the bipartisan committee created by Congress to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial—the banking and routing numbers for Freedom 250, the White House’s fund for events like the UFC cage fight. Democrats also allege that Freedom 250’s CEO traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos to solicit donations from foreign government officials and business leaders. The Trump administration’s proposed rollback of gun regulations would lift the prohibition on mailing handguns to individuals, a significant win for GrabAGun—the direct-to-consumer firearm retailer on whose board Donald Trump Jr. sits and in which he holds a 1.1% ownership stake. GrabAGun currently must rely on a middleman to transfer firearms to customers. Trump’s financial disclosure revealed that he made more than 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office, growing his investment account to at least $858 million across stakes in around 1,600 companies, compared to the 13 total trades Joe Biden made during his entire presidency. July 4 Nearly 1 million people who bought the president’s meme coin—Trump Coin—collectively lost $3.8 billion on the token, while he walked away with $636 million. July 6 Shares of Dell closed up 4.4% after Trump recommended people buy the firm’s computers during a speech announcing the launch of Trump investment accounts for children, boosting the more than $1 million worth of shares the president owns in the company. July 9 Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh named crypto investor and Trump ally Marc Andreessen to a task force aimed at modernizing the Federal Reserve, including rethinking its approach to inflation—a key factor keeping interest rates elevated. Palm Beach International Airport has officially changed its name to Trump International Airport—a move that will require Florida to pay royalties to the president’s family for licensing his name. I was there a few months ago, during a trip to Barcelona. The sculptures were a revelation, I’d never seen so many together before. Each one has its own personality. Enjoy the good weather, if you are lucky enough to have it. History Will Judge the Complicit The Quintessential Politician Autocracy Inc Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

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Jul 13 • 4:19 PM EDT • Politics • anneapplebaum.substack.com
UK Trade Group Calls Death Of Discs A Blow To Consumer Choice

The move is coming even as many still buy games physically

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Jul 13 • 8:58 AM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com
Want fewer Platners in politics? Stop electing outsiders.

It's rare to hear 'both sides' in this political climate, but when we asked USA TODAY readers about problematic politicians, we heard it plenty.

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Jul 13 • 6:04 AM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com
‘Removing discs doesn’t represent progress’: UK retail group condemns PlayStation decision to stop making discs

It says Sony’s plan is “a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice”…

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Jul 13 • 5:35 AM EDT • Technology • videogameschronicle.com
Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) Launches Tormenta, Is The Stock Still Undervalued?

Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) is in focus after Six Flags Over Texas opened Tormenta: Rampaging Run, a record-setting giga dive coaster, paired with the new Rancho de la Tormenta themed village and festival. See our latest analysis for Six Flags Entertainment. Despite the fanfare around Tormenta: Rampaging Run and a new COO appointment, Six Flags Entertainment’s recent momentum has been mixed, with a 1 day share price return of 4.34% at US$19.46, but a year to date share price return of...

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Jul 12 • 6:25 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Value Creators Or Self-Dealers? The Choice Facing Business And Society

Businesses & society must choose: Value Creators like Henry Ford (real innovation for customers) or Self-Dealers like Claude Hopkins. Data favor the Value Creators

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Jul 12 • 2:47 PM EDT • Business • forbes.com
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In California governor’s race, voters face stark choice on immigrant healthcare

What the state does next could have profound implications for its healthcare system and its sprawling economy.

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Jul 12 • 2:00 PM EDT • Health • timesofsandiego.com
3 fashion choices I saw at Wimbledon again and again

Tennis players must wear white at Wimbledon, but spectators have their own unofficial uniform featuring hats, slacks, and strawberries.

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Jul 12 • 5:06 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
How Burry’s Prediction-Market Bet and New Products Will Impact Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Investors

Recently, reports emerged that Michael Burry has taken positions in DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment, framing them as a regulatory-focused investment amid growing attention on prediction markets as competitors to traditional sportsbooks. Flutter Entertainment’s work on its own prediction-market products highlights how the company is actively preparing for possible shifts in how sports-related wagering and forecasting are regulated and offered. We’ll now examine how Flutter’s...

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Jul 11 • 10:18 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Is Melco Resorts & Entertainment (NasdaqGS:MLCO) A Bargain After Its Sri Lanka Launch?

Melco Resorts & Entertainment stock has had a difficult run over the past few years, yet its current valuation checks paint a more supportive picture for investors trying to judge whether the market has become too pessimistic. Over the past 5 years, the share price has declined 63.2%, which signals that sentiment around Melco Resorts & Entertainment has been weak for a prolonged period. The recent opening of City of Dreams Sri Lanka can support expectations for the company to grow its...

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Jul 11 • 10:44 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Our readers chose their favorites in NKY arts and entertainment

From museums to live music, these are the Readers' Choice Awards winners in the arts and entertainment category.

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Jul 11 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • linknky.com
Premiums rise, but overall costs could fall for NC State Health Plan members under a new system

Significant changes coming for the health insurance plan for NC teachers and state workers, including premium increases and a tiered system for hospital choices.

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Jul 10 • 11:31 AM EDT • Health • ncnewsline.com
Childcare, education and children’s health are inseparable

I have never stopped carrying the children of West Virginia whose futures are narrowed by poverty, limited access, and public choices.

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Jul 10 • 5:55 AM EDT • Health • westvirginiawatch.com
Here's how Delta's new 'basic business' class will work

Delta aims to make business class cheaper with by unbundling perks you may not want, like lounge access or seat choice.

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Jul 10 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Advocates push for ranked choice voting, open primaries in local elections

Ranked choice voting is a voting practice that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

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Jul 9 • 7:36 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
Advocates push for ranked choice voting, open primaries in local elections

Ranked choice voting is a voting practice that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

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Jul 9 • 7:36 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
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Mayor Johnson names Dr. Garth Walker to lead Chicago Department of Public Health

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has named Dr. Garth Walker as his choice to lead the Chicago Department of Public Health, putting the current chief medical officer of Rush Health in line to become the city's next public health commissioner.

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Jul 9 • 6:17 PM EDT • Health • abc7chicago.com
Caesars Entertainment (CZR) Following Lake Tahoe Opening Has Investors Weighing Its Valuation

Caesars Entertainment (CZR) is in focus after officially opening Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe Hotel & Casino, completing a multi phase renovation of the former Harveys Lake Tahoe and expanding its luxury resort and gaming footprint in the region. See our latest analysis for Caesars Entertainment. Caesars Entertainment’s recent Lake Tahoe opening comes as the stock shows mixed momentum, with a 26.57% year to date share price return but a 68.45% decline in five year total shareholder return...

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Jul 9 • 1:33 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Making Medical Decisions with Uncertain Science

What is the best way to make medical and health policy choices in the face of uncertainty? That question was the focus of the Tradeoffs podcast and an Aspen Ideas: Health panel.

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Jul 9 • 12:57 PM EDT • Science • thehastingscenter.org
More than 1 in 5 social media users say they’ve made health choices based on their feeds. How to use it wisely

Social media can be a helpful source of health advice — but it can also spread misinformation. CNN’s Dr. Leana Wen helps you figure out the difference.

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Jul 9 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • cnn.com
ENTERTAINMENT: Home brewers to compete at museum’s Hop-Off

The competition for the best historic home-brew uses historical prompts and recipes as inspiration; adult visitors can sample the beers and vote for a People's Choice Award while a panel of beer enthusiasts chooses the winner of the Taster's Choice Award.

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Jul 8 • 5:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • arkansasonline.com
Inside Michigan’s slugfest of a Senate primary

Democrats are in the middle of a hostile fight between Abdul El-Sayed, backed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rep. Haley Stevens, the choice of Chuck Schumer.

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Jul 8 • 3:14 PM EDT • Politics • nbcnews.com
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Justin Bieber and More Join World Cup Final Halftime Show Featuring Madonna, Shakira and BTS

NEW YORK (AP) — Justin Bieber will bring his swag to the World Cup's star-studded, Super Bowl-style halftime show, joining fellow headliners Madonna, Shakira and BTS, FIFA announced Wednesday. Afrobeats star Burna Boy, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the PS22 Chorus — a choir of elementary ...

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Jul 8 • 3:02 PM EDT • Entertainment • usnews.com
York, Hanover Community's Choice Awards winners celebrated

Businesses and organizations gathered Tuesday to celebrate the York and Hanover Community's Choice Awards winners at a gala in York.

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Jul 8 • 11:59 AM EDT • Business • ydr.com
What to know about Delta’s expanded Basic fare options, available now

Starting today, Delta is offering Basic fares in premium products (Delta First, Delta Premium Select and Delta One — known as Basic Business) alongside Classic and Extra fares in select markets. This expansion of the Basic experience allows customers to access premium products at a lower price point, giving them more choice and the ability to tailor their travel based on what matters most.

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Jul 8 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • news.delta.com
Matt Damon's strict diet choice for dramatic 'The Odyssey' transformation that revealed hidden health issues
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Jul 8 • 5:41 AM EDT • Health • nypost.com
Can Sphere Entertainment's (SPHR) Wizard of Oz Bet Justify Its Rich Venue-Driven Valuation?

In recent days, Sphere Entertainment drew attention as investors reacted to renewed optimism around its flagship Sphere venue and an expanded content slate, including immersive productions such as The Wizard of Oz. The key tension now is that while some valuation models suggest the shares may be trading below intrinsic value, others imply the company already carries a premium earnings multiple, highlighting how sensitive sentiment could be to venue performance and cost control. We’ll now...

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Jul 7 • 11:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
‘The Odyssey’ star Matt Damon reveals strict diet choice that 'changed my life' after hidden health issues

Oscar winner Matt Damon says eliminating this from his diet changed his life after finding a food sensitivity during intense training for "The Odyssey."

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Jul 7 • 12:19 PM EDT • Health • foxnews.com
Republican Sarasota Co. Commissioner Joe Neunder supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump

Sarasota Republicans are being asked to believe a former Hillary Clinton donor is now the MAGA choice.

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Jul 6 • 10:00 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com
Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

Apple's Mac mini and Mac Studio have become the machines of choice for running AI agents, according to Doug Brooks, Apple's senior product manager of Apple silicon. Brooks made the claim while discussing Apple's chip strategy in a newly published interview with The Deep View conducted just prior to WWDC 2026 in June. Brooks says that the company has seen "incredible demand" for the two desktop Macs.

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Jul 6 • 8:10 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Media Release: Financial Worries Rise and Match Health Concerns as Cost-of-Living Pressures Mount in 2026

MUNICH, July 06, 2026--Households around the world are feeling the strain of the rising cost of living, with financial pressure increasingly shaping everyday choices and long-term confidence. Finances and health are now tied as the top global worries, at 48% each, followed by concerns about the future at 35%, according to consumer surveys in 10 countries published in "The Allianz 3am Report 2026."

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Jul 6 • 4:00 AM EDT • Health • finance.yahoo.com
PENN Entertainment (PENN) Opens New Aurora Casino As Valuation Debate Heats Up

Index moves and a new Illinois casino put PENN in focus PENN Entertainment (PENN) has just opened its US$360 million Hollywood Casino and Hotel Aurora in Illinois, while also moving from the Russell 1000 family into several Russell 2000 indices. See our latest analysis for PENN Entertainment. The recent opening of Hollywood Casino and Hotel Aurora and PENN Entertainment’s move into several Russell 2000 indices comes alongside a 50.17% 3 month share price return and a 19.13% 1 year total...

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Jul 5 • 8:32 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Tencent Music (TME) Stock May Be 36% Undervalued On Cash Flow Strength

Tencent Music Entertainment Group stock has had a tough run over the last year, yet both the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) intrinsic value estimate and the earnings-based valuation checks currently point to the shares trading at a discount to that underlying assessment. Over the past 12 months, Tencent Music Entertainment Group is down 54.5%, which means recent shareholders are sitting on sizeable paper losses despite the stock screening as undervalued. The key support for any upside case is...

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Jul 5 • 6:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Mallory McMorrow drops out of Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary

Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan on Sunday, narrowing the field to two as the party faces a crucial choice next month in picking a nominee to defend a must-win seat.

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Jul 5 • 1:55 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Sphere Entertainment (SPHR) Stock May Be Cheap On Cash Flow Yet Pricey On Earnings

Sphere Entertainment has delivered very strong share price gains over the last three years, yet the valuation signals are pulling in different directions, with the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) intrinsic value estimate pointing to some upside while market based multiples look stretched. Sphere Entertainment has returned roughly 387.2% over three years, which puts a spotlight on whether recent gains already reflect most of the good news in the story. Expectations around demand for The Wizard of...

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Jul 4 • 5:38 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Gamers push back: 71% say they’re not ready to let physical games die as PlayStation and Xbox move toward a digital-only future”

Our community has spoken, and 71% say physical games still matter. Here's why ownership and consumer choice remain major concerns.

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Jul 4 • 9:02 AM EDT • Technology • windowscentral.com
How Flutter’s Removal from Key Russell Growth Indices Will Impact Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Investors

In late June 2026, Flutter Entertainment plc (NYSE: FLUT) was removed from multiple Russell growth benchmarks, including the Russell 1000 Growth, Russell 3000 Growth, Russell Midcap Growth, Russell 3000E Growth, and Russell Small Cap Comp Growth indices. This broad index exclusion matters because it can prompt passive and index-tracking investors to sell shares, potentially amplifying trading volumes and sentiment shifts around Flutter’s stock. Next, we’ll examine how Flutter’s removal from...

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Jul 4 • 7:25 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Is Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) A Bargain After Its COO Appointment?

Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) is reshaping its leadership team by appointing industry veteran Mark Pauls as Chief Operating Officer effective July 15, 2026, while outgoing COO Tim Fisher moves into a Special Advisor role. See our latest analysis for Six Flags Entertainment. At a share price of $20.99, Six Flags Entertainment has a 1 day share price return of 2.59% and a 90 day share price return of 25.16%, while the 1 year total shareholder return is down 34.71%. This suggests that recent...

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Jul 4 • 6:18 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Is AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) A Bargain Following Its $350 Million Equity Raise?

AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) is back in focus after raising US$350 million through equity offerings. The company is using the cash to fully redeem its 2027 notes, extend major debt maturities and reshape its balance sheet. See our latest analysis for AMC Entertainment Holdings. Recent equity offerings and the full redemption of AMC Entertainment Holdings' 2027 notes have coincided with a sharp 90 day share price return of 68.75%, although the 1 year total shareholder return is still down...

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Jul 3 • 3:24 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Where is the Democratic Party headed? One Dem. governor says disruption, not ideology, is driving voters’ choices
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Jul 3 • 2:17 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
What Caesars Entertainment (CZR)'s Wabanaki iCasino Expansion and Bearish Zacks Rank Mean For Shareholders

In late June 2026, Caesars Entertainment Inc. announced it had expanded its partnership with three Wabanaki Nations in Maine to cover potential online casino gaming, adding three branded iGaming platforms that integrate with Caesars Rewards and its Universal Digital Wallet, subject to regulatory approvals. At the same time, the company faced sharply weaker analyst sentiment, including a very large downward revision to current-year earnings estimates that pushed it onto the Zacks Rank #5...

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Jul 3 • 6:33 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Who Are the Best Draft Picks in Denver Nuggets’ History?

The NBA Draft is where franchises, like the Denver Nuggets, are built. Few organizations have found greater value in the later stages of the draft than Denver. The team famously selected three-time MVP Nikola Jokić with the 41st pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. Now, the choice is regarded as the greatest second-round pick in […] The post Who Are the Best Draft Picks in Denver Nuggets’ History? appeared first on The Lead.

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Jul 2 • 4:30 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Accel Entertainment (ACEL) After Russell 2000 Exit Has Undervaluation Back In Focus

Index removal puts Accel Entertainment back in focus Accel Entertainment (ACEL) was recently removed from the Russell 2000 Dynamic Index, an event that can influence institutional ownership patterns, index tracking fund flows, and short term trading activity around the stock. See our latest analysis for Accel Entertainment. Against that backdrop, Accel Entertainment’s recent share price moves have been mixed, with a 1-day share price return of 1.27% but a 7-day share price return that...

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Jul 2 • 7:50 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Sony will cease production of discs for new PlayStation games in 2028

New games sold for PlayStation consoles will only be available digitally and won’t be sold on discs effective January 2028, Sony has announced. The move applies to all PlayStation games released from that point on, including those made by Sony and those released by third parties. The PlayStation group calls the change “a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” according to a PlayStation blog post reviewed by Game File in advance of its publication. As movies, TV and music have shifted from physical media to an age of downloads and streaming, Sony’s move could speed the demise of physical media in a gaming. The industry has offered consumers games via cartridges, cassettes, floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays across a 50-year stretch. Sony has been reporting to investors in recent years that PlayStation games have been increasingly purchased as downloads, not as discs. The most recent figures show nearly four in five purchases of full games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 were purchased digitally in the past year. Stats like that may cause today’s news to carry an air of the inevitable. But Sony’s declaration for 2028 is still likely to produce a shock, as the biggest gaming platform on the planet that uses game discs leaves them behind. Discs going away, but the fate of game boxes is unknown Sony is committing to still selling games in physical retailers even after they drop discs in 2028. Just how those games will be sold—in boxes with codes inside, as cards marked with digital redemption codes—is unclear. Digital games will also continue to be sold in the online PlayStation Store. New games released for PlayStation consoles prior to January 2028 will be unaffected by the policy change, Sony says. That means the PS5 games of 2027, be they a new Madden, a new God of War, a new Call of Duty, a new Sly Cooper (one can dream?), would still potentially be offered on disc. PlayStation 6 implications Sony’s timeline for a transition to a no-disc era will also spin up more speculation about the timing and configuration of Sony’s next-generation console, the probable PlayStation 6. “This pretty much guarantees that PS6 won’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest,” Piers Harding-Rolls, senior games research analyst at Ampere Analysis tells Game File. Harding-Rolls also concludes from today’s news that “the base version of a PS6 will not include a physical media drive,” as Sony looks to keep costs down on the device. Sony itself is saying nothing about the PS6 today: not its timing, nor how it might or might not support internal or external disc drives in order to run disc-based PS4 and PS5 games, should the console be backwards compatible. The many signs this was coming Industry support for games being released on physical media has been waning. As has consumer interest in them. PC games effectively went all-digital years ago, thanks to the popularity of playing games through Steam and other digital storefronts. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that kept much of the global population home helped shift shopping patterns toward downloads. Sony’s own data shows PlayStation game downloads being an uncommon consumer choice a decade ago and now becoming the norm. On consoles, physical media has been in such decline that Sony and Microsoft both launched their current gen Xbox Series and PS5 consoles in 2020 with cheaper versions that lacked disc drives. In early 2024, Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox, told me that ““[w]e ship games physically and digitally, and we’re really just following what the customers are doing.” He added that the game industry had become an outlier in still supporting disc-based entertainment, even as movies and TV have bailed on discs in favor of downloads and steaming: “Gaming consoles themselves have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive. And this is a real issue, just in terms of the number of manufacturers that are actually building drives and the cost associated with those. And when you think about cogs that we’re going to go put in a console—and as you have fewer suppliers and fewer buyers—the cost of the drive does have an impact.” Last year, the Nintendo’s Switch 2, which uses cartridges rather than discs, introduced the concept of game-key cards, which are physical media that contain no game, just a prompt for a download. Even disc-based games aren’t what they once were, now frequently containing just stubs of games rather than the whole thing. The website Does It Play has tested over 3000 games and found that, for example, that the disc version of this year’s hit 007: First Light, only contained the game’s first mission, with the rest needing to be downloaded. Beyond all that, last week brought the news that Grand Theft Auto VI, likely the biggest game launch this decade, will debut for PS5 and Xbox Series without a disc-based version. Today’s big news comes to you for free. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and ensure more of my work is possible, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Discs helped define PlayStation However the trends in entertainment may be going, it is still remarkable to see PlayStation ditch discs given their importance in PlayStation history: In the late 1990s, the first PlayStation’s support for games on relatively cheap CD-ROMs instead of traditional game cartridges allowed the upstart console to outmaneuver cartridge-based systems from Nintendo and Sega, as it drove down game prices down in the process. (The cheaper disc format even prompted Final Fantasy VII maker Square to taunt Nintendo in a magazine ad, saying that if the game was “available on cartridge, it’d retail for around $1200.”) PlayStation devices often doubled as machines for watching movies and TV on the latest disc-based formats. In the late 2000s, for example, Sony’s pricy PS3 gained traction as a go-to device for playing then-novel Blu-Ray discs. In 2013, Sony effectively roasted the digital game-sharing restrictions proposed by rival Microsoft for its upcoming Xbox One console by showing how games could be shared for the then-upcoming PS4. In a 21-second clip that has over 20 million views on YouTube, one PlayStation executive simply handed a game box—presumably with disc inside—to another, who said “thanks.” Sony’s possible motivations The PlayStation announcement today cites “consumer preferences” and a shift away from discs among “the broader entertainment industry,” but does not delve into the decision-making process that brought Sony to this point. Sony is not discussing the economics of this move (I asked!), but there are a number of potential factors: Abandoning discs will spare Sony the cost of manufacturing and shipping them, which analysts and industry veterans I spoke to said could account for $1 or so of a game’s retail price. For first-party games, that’s direct savings for Sony, though the amount is limited by the winnowing percentage of people who were even buying the disc-based versions. For third-party games, Sony could pass the savings on to partners or just retain the better profit margin for themselves. As the 2024 comments from Phil Spencer alluded to, leaving discs behind could mean leaving disc-drives behind, allowing Sony to produce consoles more cheaply. Switching to digital-only for games could diminish the risks of copies of new games leaking. It would also seemingly make second-hand sales of used games impossible, pushing more people to buy their own copies of games. These economic benefits for Sony could be boons for the games industry overall, Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls tells Game File. Among other things, it could free publishers and retailers from having to worry about securing an inventory of game discs when trying to sell games, he noted. “If there is a way to streamline the business of games retail, I generally think it’s a good thing for the industry as it removes unnecessary costs,” Harding-Rolls said. “This will help offset pressure on margins from other directions – development and staffing costs for example.” Should the industry shift from game boxes that contain discs to smaller, cheaper game cards, Harding-Rolls said, that reduces pressure on publishers and retailers. “The advantage of everything going digital for the industry is that sales can be tracked much more easily and there is less commercial risk for publishers wanting to continue selling via retail,” he said. The shift to no discs will also likely impact game development timelines, as developers will no longer face the same urgency to have a build ready to submit to PlayStation for the production of a disc, as industry experts noted around GTA VI’s no-disc news last week. Instead, projects may gain weeks of development time, in the event delivery deadlines for platform approval move closer to release date. Preservationists’ likely worries While millions of gamers have shifted to digital, there are still people who associate game discs—and only game discs—with actual ownership of PlayStation games. That portion of the gaming community spoke up last week about wanting to buy a version of GTA VI that they could hold in their hands, could lend to a friend and could potentially pop into a well-preserved PS5 console three decades from now and still see it run. Such gamers didn’t want to worry that they’d merely purchased a digital copy that could lose access to the game if, say, the company behind the game someday turns of the servers that transmit downloadable copies. Digital copies of games are inherently less long-lasting, because consumers aren’t actually buying a game (on a disc), just buying access to the game. The fine print in online gaming shops notes this, as does a recent law that went on the books in California in 2025. That lasw requires game publishers doing business in the state to refrain from words like “sell” when offering digital copies of games, unless they explicitly tell consumers that what’s being sold isn’t the game itself but a potentially revocable license to access it. A Sony spokesperson noted to Game File that “[w]ith all digital content, including games, movies, and music, players are purchasing a personal license for non-commercial use.” Regarding the fears of PlayStation games being lost to time in an all-digital era, the rep also noted that Sony remains “committed to delivering experiences from past generations to the new platforms our players are using.” They noted that PlayStation has used emulation and remasters to keep offering its classic games to modern gamers. It’s true that many consumers have become accustomed to not having physical copies of new music albums or movies, but the relative precariousness of digital copies of games is in fact being highlighted today by…. Sony’s other big announcement: the upcoming closure of the PS3 and PS Vita online stores Sony said today that it will be closing the online marketplaces for its PlayStation 3 console and PS Vita handheld in most countries in July 2027 (sooner elsewhere: August 2026 for the PS3 store Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua; late 2026 for PS3 in other Latin American countries and the Middle East). “We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming,” Sony said in its announcement, saying the move “was not an easy decision for us to make.” Sony said that PS3 and Vita marketplaces “are no longer able” to support modern commerce systems, prompting a “need” to close the shops and focus on more modern PlayStation platform stores. The news may spark some deja vu. Sony announced back in March 2021 that it planned to take the PS3, Vita and PlayStation Portable marketplaces offline that summer. The move would have caused some 2,000 digital-only games to become unavailable for new purchasers, according to a VGC analysis at the time. Fans complained loudly. By April 2021, Sony walked back the PS3 and Vita shop closures, with then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan saying “it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here.” This time around, Sony is giving a longer notice period in most regions. The closure of those stores is still likely to cut off access to new purchases of digital-only PS3 and Vita games. The current PlayStation 5 marketplace sells PS5 and PS4 games, as well as a selection of PS1 and PS2 games. It does not sell PS3 games, because games for that platform can’t run on the system (some are offered via a PlayStation Plus streaming option). Vita games also aren’t sold via PS5. Sony says digitally purchased PS3 and Vita games will be downloadable after the stores’ shutdowns “for the foreseeable future.” Sony’s move contrasts with Microsoft’s Xbox platform, which continues to sell and support games from all four Xbox console generations. But it puts it in line with Nintendo, which disabled purchases in the marketplace for its Wii console (a contemporary of the PS3) in 2019. Nintendo discontinued purchases in the online shop for its 3DS portable (a contemporary of the Vita) in 2023. The big questions about Sony’s 2028 post-disc era Will Microsoft follow suit, ending support for new disc-based games on Xbox platforms and therefore all game consoles, too? Whether Microsoft does or not, will third-parties that can no longer release games on discs for PlayStation, simply ditch the disc options across the board? Given the GTA VI no-disc experiment launching this November, will more game publishers decide to forgo disc-based offerings even in 2027? How will no-disc PS5/6 games be packaged and sold in brick-and-mortar retail stores? What becomes of game sharing in an all-digital era? Will Sony modify its current set-up, which currently allows some sharing of digital games across a pair of consoles, to allow more casual lending? (See for example, Nintendo’s year-old system of letting players lend a digital game to another player in a “family group” for up to 14 days.) Will there be a version of a PS6 with a disc drive? Or will a drive be offered as an add-on? And how will gamers who want to retain access to PS4/PS5 disc-based games react to whichever configurations Sony chooses to offer? What will the final disc-based PlayStation game be?

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Jul 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
AMC Entertainment (AMC) Is Down 8.7% After Equity Raise To Retire 2027 Notes And Fund Upgrades

In late June 2026, AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. completed a registered direct equity offering of about US$200.03 million and moved to fully redeem US$125.47 million of its 6.125% Senior Subordinated Notes due 2027 at par plus accrued interest. The company plans to use the remaining proceeds to bolster cash reserves and fund growth-oriented upgrades across its theatres as early as this autumn. Next, we’ll explore how using fresh equity capital to retire higher-cost debt and invest in...

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Jul 1 • 6:28 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
2026 Arts & Entertainment Winners

The 2026 Chronogram Readers' Choice Awards winners for arts and entertainment. The categories include annual events, art classes, dance classes, bands, radio shows, and more.

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Jul 1 • 1:47 AM EDT • Entertainment • chronogram.com
Palace Theater and Downtown Gallatin offer July entertainment

Historic Downtown Gallatin, Inc. and the Palace Theater continue to offer plenty of entertainment and shopping choices to Gallatin citizens, both inside the air-conditioned theater and outside in the July heat. The Kids Summer Movie Series continues all month on Fridays from 10 a.m. until noon. July 3 will feature 2025’s “How to Train Your

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Jun 30 • 2:52 PM EDT • Entertainment • mainstreetmediatn.com
Examining the deepest and thinnest position groups for the 49ers

What would your choices be?

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Jun 30 • 2:30 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Ames Science Stars of the Month July 2026

The NASA Ames Science Directorate recognizes the outstanding contributions of (pictured left to right) Sungshin Choi, Yi-Chun Chen, Emma Yates, Eduardo

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Jun 30 • 5:12 AM EDT • Science • nasa.gov
Vote for the Cincinnati high school winter Athletes of the Year

Cincinnati Enquirer readers can now vote for the 2025-26 Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine readers' choice winter Athletes of the Year.

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Jun 29 • 7:49 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Opinion | America Is the Land of Endless Choice, Except in Politics

There’s a case to be made for a two-party system, but what do you do when your party loses its mind?

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Jun 29 • 1:06 PM EDT • Politics • wsj.com
Jodie Sweetin praises “Better Call Saul ”actor cast as dad in “Full House ”pilot, but Bob Saget was always 'first choice'

Saget was engaged to cohost CBS' "The Morning Program" when he got the call for "Full House," which led to his absence in the original pilot.

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Jun 28 • 9:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Jodie Sweetin praises 'Better Call Saul' actor first cast as 'Full House' dad, but Bob Saget was No. 1 choice

Bob Saget nearly missed the chance to play Danny Tanner on 'Full House,' and though he was casting's 'first choice,' Jodie Sweetin says this 'Better Call Saul' star was 'very sweet' in the original pilot.

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Jun 28 • 9:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
Katy Perry cancels music festival performance at the last minute: 'They gave me no choice'

Katy Perry apologizes after her Werchter Boutique performance was canceled at the last minute, tells fans 'I am just as unhappy as you are.'

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Jun 28 • 6:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
Is Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) A Bargain Following Its Sharp Pullback?

Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) has drawn fresh attention after recent trading left the stock down about 9% over the past month and about 11% over the past 3 months, which has sharpened the focus on its current valuation. See our latest analysis for Tencent Music Entertainment Group. At a recent share price of $8.39, Tencent Music Entertainment Group has posted a year to date share price decline of about 53% and a 1 year total shareholder return decline of about 55%. However, the 3...

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Jun 27 • 4:12 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
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Caesars Entertainment (CZR) Expands In Maine Online Gaming, Is The Stock Already Fully Valued?

Caesars Entertainment expands digital footprint with Wabanaki Nations partnership Caesars Entertainment (CZR) is extending its partnership with three Wabanaki Nations to include online casino gaming in Maine, targeting a potential 2026 iGaming launch, subject to regulatory approvals. See our latest analysis for Caesars Entertainment. Caesars Entertainment shares have climbed over recent months, with a 90 day share price return of 16.79% and year to date gain of 28.14%. However, the 5 year...

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Jun 27 • 11:20 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
So many colorful Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 bands leaked ahead of launch

Anyone opting for the new Galaxy Watch9 or the redesigned Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 after July 22 will be spoiled for choice. Lots and lots of watch bands in different styles and colors will be available from Samsung at launch, as roughly 60 images leaked in advance shows.

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Jun 27 • 7:13 AM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net
Trump-backed Letlow faces Fleming in Louisiana GOP Senate runoff

President Donald Trump’s choice for U.S. Senate in Louisiana is seeking to secure the GOP nomination and deliver another win for the president in his effort to replace Republicans who crossed him

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Jun 27 • 12:09 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com
This Week's 10 Must-Read Stories on Women in Politics: Title IX Anniversary, AI's Anti-Women Bias and Ranked-Choice Voting Victories

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a weekly compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment! Published every Friday. —This week marked the 54th anniversary of Title IX. —As the Taliban approaches the five-year mark of its return to power this August, a rare protest in western Afghanistan last week laid bare both the brutality of its rule and the resilience of those living under it. —A woman will replace Eric Swalwell in California … but for not two more months. —A study of 133 AI systems found that 44 percent demonstrated gender bias, and more than a quarter showed both gender and racial bias. ... and more.

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Jun 26 • 6:02 PM EDT • Politics • msmagazine.com
Jason Rantz criticizes Seattle's FIFA World Cup 2026 cleanup as temporary political choice

KTTH Seattle radio host Jason Rantz discusses how Seattle's downtown core was 'near perfect' during the FIFA World Cup 2026 on 'Varney & Co.'

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Jun 26 • 12:32 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
How PENN’s US$360 Million Aurora Resort Shift At PENN Entertainment (PENN) Has Changed Its Investment Story

PENN Entertainment has opened the US$360 million Hollywood Casino and Hotel Aurora, replacing its former Fox River riverboat with a 388,500-square-foot, 24/7 land-based resort featuring over 1,000 slots, 50 table games, a sportsbook, 226-room hotel, spa, event center, and extensive dining options. The Aurora project, which created around 700 permanent roles and mirrors PENN’s broader shift into higher-amenity land-based properties, highlights how the company is reinvesting heavily to refresh...

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Jun 26 • 10:17 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Is AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) Undervalued Or Is Its Recent Rally Already Priced In?

AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) is under renewed scrutiny as investors weigh its recent share price swings and ongoing losses against reported revenue of $5,031.8 million and a market value of about $1.5 billion. See our latest analysis for AMC Entertainment Holdings. At a share price of $1.89, AMC Entertainment Holdings has seen sharp swings, with a 7 day share price return down 33.22% but a 90 day share price return up 99.33%. The 1 year total shareholder return is down 37.42%, indicating...

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Jun 26 • 9:19 AM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st
In governor's race, voters face stark choice on immigrant healthcare

California’s next governor will face tough decisions on a highly controversial piece of healthcare policy: what to do about health coverage for the more than 1.4 million low-income residents without legal status.

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Jun 26 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • latimes.com
NHL Mock Draft: Flyers Projected to Make Massive Choice... Literally
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Jun 26 • 5:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Making Our Own Luck

We are cross-posting a piece that former NIH official Kris Willis wrote for Macroscience. Kris is now the President and Founder of the Woodley Park Institute, for which I’m a board member. Picking winners or hedging bets? Federal science agencies have long wrestled with the question of how to ensure their billions of dollars of grants and contracts result in maximum benefits for Americans. On the surface, it might seem that a goal-oriented, interventionist style of management would be the best policy: prioritize our most pressing problems and distribute funding accordingly.This top-down strategy creates a unique hazard, though: bad choices can send resources in the wrong direction, resulting in slow progress that impedes the delivery of tangible benefits to citizens. Moreover, if decision makers pursue an applied advance when the underlying scientific principles remain poorly understood, they risk costly failures and a loss of support for the research enterprise at large. Examples include Nixon’s 1971 War on Cancer, undertaken on the premise that a cure could be achieved in less than a decade, the drive to build an operational commercial fusion plant by the mid-1990s, and the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, which failed to produce the effective treatments and prevention strategies promised by 2025. The contrasting laissez-faire approach is to hedge your bets. If the path to an advance is impossible to predict, then the wisest choice might be to distribute funding to as widely as possible. The main risk of this strategy is that spreading funding thinly may limit the resources available to the most promising research, resulting in the same negative outcomes as the interventionist approach: limited support for the most promising topics, slow progress, and delayed returns. In reality, at science agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, program managers navigate between these two extremes, setting some funds aside to target high-priority areas and using the rest to cover the widest possible range of meritorious proposals. This middle path seems like the most rational way to proceed, but it still requires making choices. How much should be set aside for high priority topics? What should those topics be? How should we define merit? Expert opinion can provide a helpful guide, but leading experts can have remarkably different opinions about what matters and what should be prioritized. Moreover, experts and administrators alike can be risk averse, giving an edge to high-profile, well-established concepts. What’s really needed is a data-driven framework to help guide decision-making, one that doesn’t simply repackage prestige or incumbency. Recognizing breakthroughs years in advance Many breakthroughs fail to attract funding or recognition at the earliest stages of development. Katalin Karikó, for example, spent years struggling to win grants for work on mRNA that would eventually win her and Drew Weissman a Nobel Prize. Similar stories can be told about Jim Allison’s groundbreaking studies leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy, Stan Pruisner’s demonstration that prions can self-replicate without DNA, or Robin Warren and Barry Marshall’s proof that Helicobacter pylori, not stress, causes ulcers. Yet at some point, the scientific community recognizes and responds to transformative breakthroughs like these. How does that change happen? And what if science funders could identify the areas that are on the cusp of a breakthrough? Those questions led my collaborators and me to study how scientists responded to past breakthroughs. Based on patterns in that data, we developed a means of predicting future breakthroughs, using biomedicine as a proof of concept. It’s worth taking a moment to describe how our approach works. Briefly, our prediction process begins by grouping the 18 million or so peer-reviewed papers in PubMed, the authoritative database of biomedical research, into roughly 50,000 unique topics. A small subset of these topics are so widely acclaimed as breakthroughs that they have been recognized with a major prize like a Nobel or a Lasker Award. We theorized that studying the development of these outliers over time, especially before they gained acclaim, was the key to identifying future instances of them. After defining topics, we chose 21 representative breakthroughs and asked what they looked like before they won prestigious prizes. To answer that question, we re-ran our topic-mapping algorithm repeatedly, winding back the clock one year each time, stringing together the years to follow the progress of each field as it grew and advanced. We found that in each case, the years leading up to a discovery followed a pattern: a burst of papers on a new, rapidly evolving topic, many of which quickly became influential. These characteristics—the percent of papers that are new, the percentage of papers that are brought in from other topics, and the influence of each individual paper—can all be measured separately for any given topic. Together, they act as a predictive signal that is detectable an average of five years before a transformative discovery is made, and up to thirty years before the discovery receives a major prize. Scanning the current research landscape for topics that display this signal allows us to predict what work will likely produce a future breakthrough. Each year we analyzed includes four or five signals, a number that appears to have remained constant across a twenty year time frame. In their classic work on the sociology of science, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar established that the desire to participate in a major discovery is an important motivator for scientists as they consider whether they should take up (or abandon) a research problem. Although further work is needed, the simplest explanation for our results is that this behavior is widespread enough to detect at scale. A foundational advance, or something like it, draws the attention of scientists and causes them to change the direction of their research. They vote with their feet, staking their own reputation and careers by publishing on and citing the new idea. That upswell of interest is the foundation of our breakthrough signal. What kind of research does our model identify as a breakthrough? After building a model based on the patterns in our 21 preselected breakthroughs, we tested it by identifying all early signals of discovery from 1994 through 1997. Of the 18 signals we found in that time period, 17 can be traced forward in time to a breakthrough. Examples include super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (see the image above), the directed evolution of proteins and enzymes (Chemistry Nobel, 2018), and sequencing the human genome (National Medal of Science, 2008). The discovery of the role of leptin signaling in obesity is a particularly interesting case study. Around 1950, scientists noticed the existence of a type of lab mouse that suffered from a unique inherited form of obesity. When given the freedom to choose their own diet, these mice ate more than normal and preferred food that was high in fat. Researchers had few clues as to why the animals overate; early experiments pointed to the existence of a soluble ob factor found circulating in the bloodstream that regulated appetite, but its identity was unknown. In 1994, Jeffrey Friedman and colleagues identified and sequenced the ob gene, noting that the protein it encoded appeared to fit the profile of a circulating factor. A year later, a trio of high-profile publications demonstrated that ob was a hormone that regulated body weight and fat deposition by regulating appetite. One of these was co-authored by Friedman, who christened it leptin from the ancient Greek word for thin. Using our model, the data from 1996 make it clear this advance would become a breakthrough. Scientists had flocked to study the biology of the new hormone, generating the flurry of new papers and citations required to produce a signal. One of these demonstrated that serum leptin concentrations reflected the amount of adipose tissue in the human body, providing clinical validation of the earlier mouse studies. Before the identification of leptin, scientists were unable to point to a specific molecule that controlled appetite and adiposity, so that it was impossible to rule out non-physiological causes of obesity; its characterization fundamentally changed our concept of weight gain. In 2010, Friedman and fellow pioneer Douglas Coleman were awarded a Lasker for the discovery. Our work also identifies breakthroughs in clinical practice and behavioral and social sciences, even though these areas are less likely to draw the attention of major prize committees. One example that falls into this category is the introduction of endovascular aneurysm repair, a minimally invasive surgical procedure for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, a leading cause of death among Americans over the age of 65. Relative to the previous standard of care, it reduces in-hospital mortality by almost four-fold. In 2017, Timothy Chuter received the American College of Surgeons’ prestigious Jacobsen Innovation award for his multiple refinements to the technique. Another under-recognized breakthrough identified by our model is the development of standardized survey instruments to assess the quality of life for HIV+ patients. The antiretroviral cocktails introduced in the mid-1990s reduced AIDS mortality, but treatment came with serious side effects. The new evaluations showed that patients whose disease progressed had worse physical functioning than Americans with other chronic diseases, while those who were asymptomatic maintained a health-related quality of life on par with the overall US population. This evidence made it possible for patients and activists to argue that even in the absence of a total cure, and in spite of the side effects, alleviation of symptoms was a worthwhile priority for clinicians. My colleagues and I have failed to identify any significant recognition for the physicians and health policy experts who pioneered this advance, although in 2016, researchers called for the World Health Organization to set targets for good health-related quality of life as part of its framework to end the AIDS pandemic. From forecasting to funding How should science funders use our predictions? Any serious discussion of what we should do with this new capability needs to begin with an understanding of its limitations. We can’t (and shouldn’t) invest all of our resources in the small number of topics predicted to produce breakthroughs. Innovative new fields are born from existing ones; they rarely arise de novo. If funders don’t maintain a diverse portfolio, the breakthroughs of tomorrow will have no antecedents. Think of this as eating the seed corn, or killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There are also multiple goals of funding beyond basic scientific discovery, including translating discoveries into clinical practice, developing new technologies, supporting economic development, and training new scientists. The investments needed to accomplish these goals are likely different from those required to support emerging breakthroughs. Finally, we must be aware that we may not capture every instance of a breakthrough. The concept is fuzzy, and not every significant discovery is recognized with a major award. Further, breakthroughs are rare, meaning that our dataset is, by necessity, small. This makes formal estimates of accuracy challenging. Although our overall success rate appears to be high, any one signal may turn out to be a false positive. We found one apparent example: the development of the third generation COX-2 inhibitors, Vioxx and Celebrex, which were much celebrated in the early 2000s as effective but non-addictive pain relievers, meets all the algorithmic criteria of a breakthrough. Five years after it received FDA approval, researchers demonstrated that Vioxx was associated with serious cardiovascular complications, and the manufacturer voluntarily pulled the drug from the market. Celebrex remains available, although like other NSAIDs, it carries an FDA warning for increased cardiovascular risk. Decision makers who were overly focused on the breakthrough potential of this research might have wasted substantial resources nurturing an area that ultimately proved to be a failure—but so would those who relied on expert opinion at the time. That said, the potential benefits of funding the next mRNA vaccine or cancer immunotherapy years earlier than we might have are large. When we can’t assume the outcome of an action, it’s worth conducting an experiment. Can targeted support for areas that are poised to produce a breakthrough increase the return on scientific investment without cannibalizing future advances? With the necessary administrative infrastructure in place, conducting this experiment would be straightforward. First, identify all the breakthrough signals between 2018 and 2023, select half at random, and commit to a decade of investment. For biomedicine, a six year window should yield about 30 topics with the potential to produce a breakthrough. Providing strong support to half of these might be accomplished for $300 million a year. That’s roughly half of the recent annual budget of the NIH Common Fund or around 20% of the fiscal year 2025 budget for ARPA-H. After five years, then again at ten, compare to see which group — the one that was actively managed, or the control — produced more breakthroughs, and on what timescale. Although we used biomedicine as an example, the same experiment could just as well be run for physics, materials science, or any other discipline. Any attempt to undertake such an experiment should keep three points top of mind. First, we can predict the topic of future breakthroughs, but the people and vision for how to move the work forward are still important. In practice, this means success requires active program managers with the expertise to develop the science and the authority to do so, including by recruiting investigators. Second, we would be wise to learn from the failures of past attempts to fund transformative research. High among these are funding modestly repackaged work, confusing the genuinely novel with the merely unfamiliar, and relying too much on incumbent investigators. All of these risks can be mitigated by thoroughly and intelligently integrating high quality data into portfolio management. Finally, we need to have patience. Even with strong funding support, producing a breakthrough takes time. If supporting breakthroughs is the best way to nurture the birth of new fields, we also need to accurately describe and properly manage the other two stages, so that we invest wisely throughout the productive lifetime of ideas and divest once they reach the point of diminishing returns. We would benefit from more study of all of these phases, especially the transition from one to another. More research could answer questions like: When does a breakthrough become an established field? How do the availability of funding, the size and characteristics of the available workforce, and the accumulation of evidence that disagrees with prevailing models affect a field’s decline? Exactly how do old ideas give birth to new ones, and can we speed up the process? The more we understand about the dynamics of scientific progress, the better we can maximize the odds that our curiosity leads to results. I’d call that finding a way to make our own luck.

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Jun 25 • 4:48 PM EDT • Science • goodscience.substack.com
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