SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " Email " 763 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Is American Electric Power Still The Business You Bought?
For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com. Most people who own American Electric Power (AEP) bought a steady electric utility for its dividend, which came to 2.9% of the company's market value over the last twelve months.
Review: 'You Can See Everything' leaves viewers questioning truth and how it's presented
Movie reviewer Joshua Hill says 'You Can See Everything,' which follows Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, in her final days before her imprisonment for criminal fraud, examines when falsehoods are used as facts and leaves viewers questioning the truths in the film and how they were presented. Though it's a documentary, Hill says it feels intensely cinematic.
Weekend Watchlist: What's new in theaters, on streaming
Ready, set, binge! Here's a look at some of the new movies and TV shows coming to theaters and streaming services this weekend:Netflix TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); The One About Matthew Perry: This docuseries follows the life of the Friends actor Matthew Perry.SCTV: The Greatest Show You've Never Heard Of: Watch this new documentary about the classic Canadian comedy series.HBOThe Gilded Age: Season 4 of the New York-set drama series makes its premiere. Paramount+ Dexter: Resurrection: The second season of the Dexter sequel series stars Michael C. Hall as the titular serial killer.Apple TVNocturne: Liev Schreiber and Zazie Beetz star in this new crime drama series about a town under attack by an imprisoned serial killer. Movie theatersThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York: John Turturro leads this film where he plays a pickpocket who supports his wife in New York City. That’s all for this week’s Weekend Watchlist – happy streaming!Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.
Science Begins With Wonder and Sometimes With a Salamander.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Don & Beth Straus Center at Birch Bay Village. BAR HARBOR—The children had come to see the axolotls, those odd little salamanders with pink frills around their heads and the remarkable ability to grow back what they lose. But also there were stickers. There were crafts. There was the kind of excitement that makes a roomful of kindergarteners forget, for a little while, that sitting still is ever a requirement. And then there were the animals themselves, alive in their clear cases at the MDI Biological Laboratory, where 12 children from Pemetic Elementary School got to meet the creatures they had been learning about in class. “Do you love them?” their teacher, Carol Null, asked. The answer came back in a chorus. “I do!” “I do!” “I do too,” Null said, smiling. “I love them even more now.” That was the thing about a day at the lab. Science was no longer a picture in a book, or a word on a classroom wall. It had a face, a tail, and a set of extraordinary powers. And for a child, sometimes that is where wonder begins. Sometimes learning about science is about stickers. Sometimes it’s about bright pink feathers and getting super excited about that glow in the dark. Sometimes learning about science is joy—pure and simple joy. That’s how it was October 28 at the MDI Bio Lab as Miss Hannah (known in the lab as Dr. Hannah Lust, director of STEM, undergraduate and graduate Training), other scientists, graduate students, and MDI Bio Lab staff, hosted 12 students from Carol Null’s Pemetic Elementary School’s kindergarten class. The 2.5-hour program created by Dr. Lust focused on axolotls, a species of mole salamanders, a superhero in the animal world: a superhero with some scientific-study worthy superpowers. One of those superpowers come from the axolotls’ ability to regenerate body parts, including entire limbs. But also, they’re cute. This fall, before coming to the internationally renowned lab nestled in Salsbury Cove, Null has been integrating axolotls into her class. They’ve been part of the kids’ vocabulary and their storytelling. They’ve been part of science. They’ve been part of the children’s learning about facts vs opinions. The Pemetic Elementary kindergarten students learn about invasive species and the impact on the ecology and one student related it to their dad, who lobsters, and his worries about green craps, an invasive species in Maine. “Are they bigger or smaller than you thought they’d be?” the children are asked after the scientists show them multiple see-through cases of axolotls, lined up on a table that they’re told not to jiggle. “Bigger!” “I think they’re bigger.” “Smaller!” The bio lab opening its doors to the collaborations and to students and families is a norm, but this is the first program of this kind. It’s meant to encourage kindergarten students about axolotls. But when the students come to the bio lab something else happens too—something beyond Null’s child-focused teaching—the students see science—and the regenerating creatures in real life. They do crafts. They speak with them. They meet people who know all about them: scientists and educators who talk to the kids like they’re equals. That’s a superhero power, too. Null speaks about meeting the kids where they’re at in her classroom, letting their interest and hearts lead her in their learning. That requires recognition of interests, of individuality, of empathy. Some would argue that’s a super power, too, but it’s also in those 12 students as they listen to the storybook, encounter those live axolotls, and hear about how axolotls might help advance society’s understanding of human health. As Eddie Seckeler (comparative animal models, CORE facility manager), carefully puts the axolotls on a cart and rolls them away, some of the children stop what they’re doing to watch. “Bye axolotls.” “Bye!” “Bye!” The axolotls are not just images in a book, Hello, I’m an axolotl by Hayley and John Rocco; they are real and cool. MDI Biological Laboratory scientists Dr. Prayag Murawala and Dr. James Godwin who both feature in the Roccos’ book. The kindergarteners get to meet them in real life, off the page, in the world, doing science. They learn from them, laugh with them. “The visit is about more than meeting an unusual animal. By introducing children to scientists working in their own community, the experience helps make science tangible and accessible. Students can see that science is not just something they read about in books or learn about at school. It is something real people do every day by asking questions, making observations and working to understand how the world works,” explains MDI Biological Laboratory Director of Communications Rebecca Woods. While the students make axolotl-related crafts around tables, graduate students and staff help out. Ryan holds up his construction paper setting and axolotl to show Omar Maged, a graduate student. “Do you like it?” Ryan asks, eyes wide, turning from his axolotl to look up at Omar. Omar studies the construction paper for a moment, smiles and says definitively, each word important. “It is beautiful.” Null says that she’s so thankful for all the “amazing” community partners that her school and her students get to interact with as they learn and grow and live, but emphasized how the MDI Bio Lab goes out of its way to create something meaningful, something that allows her young students to build their own agency, to know that they can be impactful in their community, to show them how how things they learn about in text is connected to themselves and their community. Woods explains, “Axolotls have an extraordinary ability to regenerate, or regrow, certain body parts, including limbs. Scientists study these animals to understand how regeneration works and what their biology might teach us about tissue repair and healing in humans.” The children enter the space for “a memorable introduction to a big scientific question,” Woods said. “How can some animals regrow body parts? The encounter encourages children to look closely, wonder about what they see and begin to understand how scientists use observations and experiments to investigate questions.” “For the students, the visit is an opportunity to explore a fascinating animal and meet scientists in their own community,” Woods explains. “For MDI Biological Laboratory, it is a chance to share the excitement of research, nurture curiosity, and help young learners discover that science begins with asking questions.“ At the beginning of the school year, Pemetic kindergarteners didn’t know what the axolotl was—at least not exactly—now they know all about the axolotl’s life cycle. “It’s different than a butterfly,” one student told Mrs. Null. It is. The change and knowledge might seem small**,** but it offers a glimpse of what happens when a subject moves beyond the pages of a book and into a child’s world. The children have been learning about butterflies at the Charlotte Rhoades Park and Butterfly Garden. At both the garden and the MDI Bio Lab, the children see the animals, meet the scientists who study them and at the lab encounter a question that researchers are still working to answer: how can some creatures regenerate body parts, and what might that teach us about healing in humans? They leave with gift bags, paper-plate salamanders, new things to wonder about and a connection between the science they learn in school and the work happening in their own community. The axolotls may be remarkable for their ability to grow back what they have lost. For these young students, the day offers something different: a chance to discover how much there is to ask, observe, and imagine. When Null’s students had time to use chalk and draw whatever they want, in the beginning of the year, they drew rainbows. Now? They’re using that chalk and choosing to draw axolotls instead. About MDI Bio Laboratory For more than 125 years, MDI Bio Lab has been a center for training and research in comparative biology. In the last two decades its biomedical research has focused on aging, regeneration, and environmental toxins. The Laboratory houses 11 research groups staffed by an international team of world-class scientists and graduate students. It also leads a statewide network of colleges, universities and research institutions that collaborate to provide training, research experiences and financial support to help young Mainers play a bigger role in today’s biomedical revolution. Located on Maine’s rugged coast, the Laboratory’s 100+ acre campus houses research facilities, cottages and dorms that house visiting scientists and students. It is also home to MDI Bioscience, a subsidiary working to design innovative techniques to speed the drug discovery process. The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art. LINKS TO LEARN MORE NIH INBRE MDI BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY Pemetic Elementary School Hello, I’m an Axolotl Photos: Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 restock update: the Nintendo Store remains your best bet
🎮 The Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 was released on October 29 and flashed in and out of stock at the Nintendo Store 🚨 Our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker @mattswider on X will send out an alert as soon as stock appears 👀 Walmart was our top pick to have a restock, but a supply chain delay has pushed the date back ⌚ In-store midnight launches are being held at GameStop, Best Buy, and Nintendo New York/San Francisco Walmart: Zelda Switch 2 console Best Buy: Zelda Switch 2 console GameStop: Zelda Switch 2 console Nintendo: Zelda Switch 2 console 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 launched yesterday, and it was the Nintendo Store that held the most restocks. The console flashed in and out of stock repeatedly throughout the day as limited units were sold and quickly snapped up. 🚨 Want the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2? Drop your email for restock alerts before it sells out. ⤵️ Subscribe Many were met with error messages, “sold out” signs, or “couldn’t add the required amount” to their baskets. However, with a little persistence and luck, others were more successful. As it stands, it’s the best place to try to get the Zelda Switch 2, even if the experience can be a little frustrating. We’re expecting a similar situation today as our tracker continues to receive restock alerts. However, we’re reluctant to share them all as many have been false flags, but we immediately notified The Shortcut followers once the first restock went live. [ The Shortcut@theshortcut Zelda Switch 2 is back in stock at the Nintendo Store: nintendo.com Nintendo Switch™ 2 – The Legend of Zelda™ – 40th Anniversary Edition - Nintendo Official Site 4:18 PM · Oct 29, 2026 · 2.09K Views 2 Replies · 2 Likes ](https://x.com/theshortcut/status/2115840807773299128?a=b6yhtCFmoswv5lWWvEs&s=20) Amazon was the only other retailer to hold an online restock, though it sold out almost instantly. No more restocks took place, and sadly, the major Walmart restock of the Zelda Switch 2, which we were confident would take place, did not happen because of a supply chain issue. [ Matt Swider (The Shortcut)@mattswider ](https://x.com/mattswider/status/2115824408938111299?a=quc3qYd6I_Qe5wag2lU&s=20) 🚨 Zelda Switch 2 console at Amazon right now amazon.com/dp/B0HJ6F8L6V?… amazon.com Nintendo Switch™ 2 –The Legend of Zelda™ – 40th Anniversary Edition 3:13 PM · Oct 29, 2026 · 76.7K Views 32 Replies · 4 Reposts · 57 Likes The console will now be available to order online at Walmart on November 6, with Target also offering the same date. Some lucky shoppers could also get the Zelda Switch 2 in-store, with The Shortcut readers sharing their personal accounts of getting the console at Walmart and helping each other out. If you’re willing to travel to your local store, Best Buy and Nintendo are holding in-store events on November 5 (though you’ll need a Warp Pipe Pass for Nintendo’s event). GameStop is also letting customers pre-order in-store.. We’ll still be tracking every retailer with our exclusive Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 restock tracker, which provides up-to-the-second information when the Zelda Switch 2 is in stock. If the console appears – which it might – our followers will still be the first to know. Up next: PS5 Pro restock: it’s available again, but you’re paying more than you should Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
LEGO Convention coming to Charleston, will support nonprofit organization
Brick Convention, a LEGO fan event, is making a stop at the Vandalia Health Convention Center in Charleston, they announced in a news release Oct. 28, 2026. The convention will be held Feb. 20-21, 2027.
Club news: Holiday fundraisers, business events coming up - The Daily Reporter
The Daily Reporter will occasionally feature updates from local clubs and social circles. To share photos, news and announcements from your club, email dr-editorial@greenfieldreporter.com.
Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 restock: Walmart and Target confirm exact release dates
🎮 The Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 is out today, October 29, but Walmart and Target are planning online restocks for November 6 🚨 Our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker @mattswider on X will send out an alert as soon as stock appears 👀 Walmart was our top pick to have a restock, but a supply chain delay has pushed the date back ⌚ GameStop, Best Buy, and Nintendo are holding in-store midnight launches where units will be available Walmart: Zelda Switch 2 console Best Buy: Zelda Switch 2 console GameStop: Zelda Switch 2 console Target: Zelda Switch 2 console Nintendo: Zelda Switch 2 console 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 A new update has dashed our hopes of a major Walmart restock of the Zelda Switch 2 console, which we were confident would happen today. However, a new Reddit post (thanks, Wario64) has revealed that Walmart is waiting until at least November 6 to sell the special edition console online. 🚨 Want the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2? Drop your email for restock alerts before it sells out. ⤵️ Subscribe A employee note says: “Due to a supply chain delay, some stores may not receive the Nintendo Switch 2 Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition in time for its planned Oct. 29 release. To allow time to fulfill preorders and reshop inventory as needed, the point-of-sale (POS) block will remain in place through at least Friday, Nov. 6. As inventory arrives, orders will be fulfilled based on preorder priority and available inventory.” The Redditor who posted the news shared that some people were able to get the console from Walmart after 8:00am local time, so there is still hope. Target recently updated its Zelda Switch 2 listing to reveal that it will also start taking orders of on November 6, with in stores orders beginning November 5. Clearly, the supply chain delay is impacting other stores, otherwise we likely would have seen a restock take place today, as we initially predicted. We now know that Walmart and Target will be taking online orders, and that Best Buy and Nintendo are holding in-store events on November 5. GameStop is also letting customers pre-order in-store via their website. Despite the news, we’ll still be tracking every retailer with our restock tracker, which provides up-to-the-second information whether something is in stock. If the Zelda Switch 2 does appear – which it might – our followers will still be one of the first to know. Up next: PS5 Pro restock: it’s available again, but you’re paying more than you should Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
The Israel debate reshaping Jewish American politics
“There are plenty of people who believe, as I do, that Israel has a right to protect itself,” says David to Lauren, both pictured below, over the dinner table. Subscribe “How does starving children protect Israel?” she replies. “I don’t think Israel is intentionally starving children.” “It’s a little bit absurd to be sitting here talking about all of these very specific things,” Lauren says, “as opposed to looking at the totality of him as a candidate, and the 90% of things that you agree with him on.” This is a snapshot from a conversation between a Jewish father and daughter in Michigan ahead of the crucial Senate race. Lauren supports the Democratic candidate, Abdul El-Sayed. Her father is undecided. That is mainly because of El-Sayed’s stance on Israel, one that mirrors a growing wing of the party that has become critical of the US-Israel relationship following the war in Gaza. You’re reading FourSight, a newsletter from Channel 4 News’ expert journalists explaining the complexities of the biggest global stories Could that alienate Jewish American voters who have a strong connection to Israel - and the majority of whom have voted Democratic? A shifting stance on Israel “An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally,” El-Sayed recently told ABC News, referring to the Iran war and how some Americans believe that Israel pushed President Trump into the conflict. Foreign policy has become an economic issue that’s hitting Americans’ pockets, with the soaring cost of petrol and diesel. El-Sayed, pictured below, has opposed military aid for Israel and accused the nation of genocide in Gaza. That led to the pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, funding his opponent, Hayley Stevens, to the tune of $30m during the Democratic primary here. “I frequently criticise AIPAC because I think the way that they are pouring dollars into defeating Abdul and others around the country… is really corrosive to American democracy,” Brad Lander says at a canvassing event in Detroit. Lander, a Jewish Democratic congressional candidate in New York, is an ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and has come to campaign for El-Sayed. “Democrats and Americans don’t want to keep paying for Netanyahu’s wars,” he says. “They want a reset in the US relationship with Israel.” The 2026 election has clearly been a bruising one for AIPAC; the Wall Street Journal reported that, in an unpublished letter, the group described the cycle as one of the “most challenging environments in recent memory”. Share And significantly, after the midterms, the group will stop direct contributions to candidates through one of its political action committees. Voters’ concerns We followed a group of Jewish canvassers around one suburb in Detroit. They think that among the 130,000 Jewish voters in Michigan, between 20 and 30,000 are undecided. In a swing state where El-Sayed beat his primary rival by just 13,000, that could prove pivotal. We meet one voter, Jen Friedman, pictured below, who has a “Democrats for Rogers” sign, referring to the Republican candidate. The issue of Israel is very important to her because “having a safe haven is crucial”, she tells me. “What I see is one candidate, Mike Rogers, who is associating himself with people who are very proudly American,” says Jen. “Abdul, on the other hand, is associating with people who say they are anti-American.” Friedman raises two issues. Firstly, Hasan Piker, a left-wing streamer who has campaigned alongside El-Sayed and has been criticised for his comments on the US and Israel. [ ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/who-is-hasan-piker-the-socialist) [ Why Hasan Piker thinks the US needs a socialist Trump ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/who-is-hasan-piker-the-socialist) Anushka Asthana · Aug 19 [ Read full story ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/who-is-hasan-piker-the-socialist) The other concern regards an attack on a Michigan synagogue back in March. The FBI said the man was inspired by Hezbollah and had lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon. El-Sayed condemned the antisemitic attack, but also said “hurt people hurt people”. That upset many here, with El-Sayed apologising numerous times for his choice of language. Jews for Abdul As we follow the canvassers, there are still plenty of lawn signs supporting El-Sayed. Elissa Driker, pictured below, runs out of her house wearing a “Jews for Abdul” t-shirt. “I feel like the values that Abdul has align with how I live my Judaism,” she tells me. She says “Abdul is not Hasan Piker, so I don’t conflate them”. I ask why Piker keeps coming up. “It gets weaponised. I don’t know if you watched the debate the other night, but talk about… weaponising fear and weaponising anxiety and all that Islamophobic dog-whistling that was coming towards Abdul.” I also talk to Elissa about how Americans more broadly appear to be questioning the US-Israel relationship and whether American Jews were ready to do that too. “A lot of American Jews are. My experience is absolutely the tide is turning.” For the first time, Gallup found this year that Americans now sympathise more with the Palestinians than the Israelis. In another poll of Jewish American voters, 65% said they were pro-Israel but also critical of Israeli government policies, 52% support cutting or eliminating aid to Israel. Father and daughter Back at the dinner table, I bring up those polls with David Fink. Why does he think Americans sympathise less with Israelis? [ ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/how-support-for-israel-in-us-is-declining) [ How support for Israel in US is declining ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/how-support-for-israel-in-us-is-declining) Kiran Moodley · May 4 [ Read full story ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/how-support-for-israel-in-us-is-declining) “Because the news media and the extremes of both parties are so willing to tell what I think is a false narrative.” Lauren chimes in: “Do you really think the actions of Israel have nothing to do with the shift in the sympathies?” “I think that’s very relevant,” he replies. “I just don’t think that people really have a full understanding.” Lauren again: “It sounds like you’re saying that the shift is due to how the atrocities are being described, as opposed to what the actual atrocities are.” “There have been some things that shouldn’t have happened,” David says. “I think the polling is being driven by politicians who are taking advantage of this issue.” Lauren then asks, “I’m curious what your response would be if my children were killed in an Israeli airstrike and someone said there have been some things that shouldn’t have happened?” A long pause from her father. “Any reference to my grandchildren has a very deep emotional impact on me. Well done,” he says. “I have an empathy for any civilian in war and I don’t mean to belittle those losses. The loss of any one life is a horrible thing. But it doesn’t make it a war crime and it doesn’t make it genocide.” Lauren and David cannot agree but tell me how proud they are of one another for sticking to their convictions and for agreeing to let me sit in on their conversation. I cannot thank them enough for their time, and hope their honesty informs and educates many people during such a fraught election. Abdul El-Sayed: The candidate testing the US - Israel relationship Thanks for reading our latest FourSight newsletter. Subscribe to receive free weekly newsletters from Channel 4 News. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment
With new digital dashboard, Morrisey promises to move at ‘the speed of business’
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey launched a new digital dashboard that offers a one-stop shop for businesses applying for permits. The system, which had a soft launch Oct. 1, pulls together permit applications from 13 different agencies. It will also include a fast-track application process. The One Stop Shop Permitting Portal is part of the Speed to Build initiative.
A golden age of science is coming
It’s almost hard to remember, but just a few years ago, a lot of very smart people thought that science was in terminal decline. Respected researchers were writing papers with titles like “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?”, “Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time”, and “Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science”. In 1996, science writer John Horgan even published a book called The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age. The fundamental idea was that the Universe only has so many insights to discover, and that we’ve picked the low-hanging fruit. It was the idea that Joseph-Louis Lagrange expressed when he said that “we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish.” As the big ideas and the simple ideas get mined out, we’re forced to throw ever more brains at the mysteries of nature just to keep scientific progress going at a fraction of its old pace: It looked like science was hitting a wall. Then along came AI. It’s far too early to tell how much AI will eventually speed up the growth of total factor productivity. But already we can see signs of a speedup in science. Anthropic Founder Jack Clark assembled some of the hopeful data points in a recent lecture: [ Dror Poleg@drorpoleg "If you pick different parts of science, you see the same pattern show up: Progress is accelerating, and it has started to accelerate in the last two years." Jack Clark @jackclarkSF I’m speaking at the IMF in an hour about the singularity and why I believe it has begun and the choices we'll need to make. Watch live here: https://t.co/Hj9HzcXx5h 6:08 PM · Oct 18, 2026 · 21.2K Views 2 Replies · 10 Reposts · 123 Likes ](https://x.com/drorpoleg/status/2111882070376980529) Anthropic is accelerating its investment into drug discovery, and is already announcing some impressive preliminary results: [ BioTender@Junioryu136689 BREAKING: Anthropic unveils early results from six Claude-powered drug development collaborations. • 70% shorter CAR-T signaling domain • ~35,000 antibody designs • >10× tighter antibody binding • 89% less batch-record review time Still largely preclinical. Anthropic @AnthropicAI Over the past few months, Anthropic scientists have engaged in deep research partnerships with six organizations developing new medicines. We've also begun drug discovery efforts of our own. In doing so, we’ve learned much more about how Claude can support the many stages of 9:43 PM · Oct 27, 2026 · 11.2K Views 3 Replies · 24 Reposts · 205 Likes ](https://x.com/Junioryu136689/status/2115197821150495150) Claude also appears to be enabling rapid progress toward a treatment for food allergies. OpenAI, meanwhile, announced a possible breakthrough treatment for neurodegenerative disease. Meanwhile, Google Cloud Chief Scientist Pushmeet Kohli has a list of recent scientific advances that have been enabled by its new Gemini model, including breakthroughs in nuclear fusion reactor design, rare disease research, and quantum computing: [ Pushmeet Kohli@pushmeet Gemini 4 Argon is a step change in model performance. In recent weeks, it has had a transformative impact on the Science projects in our team at @GoogleDeepMind and our external collaborators, and helped make a number of remarkable advances across scientific disciplines. 🧵👇 4:47 PM · Oct 13, 2026 · 36.5K Views 8 Replies · 41 Reposts · 497 Likes ](https://x.com/pushmeet/status/2110049807385702623) But as cool as these stories sound, they’re just very minor, preliminary efforts. There are a number of reasons to think that AI is going to propel us into a golden age of scientific discovery. That age might not last forever — AI might still run into diminishing returns eventually. But the next few decades are probably going to be an absolutely amazing time for human science. The number of “effective researchers” is no longer limited The most important input into science is scientists themselves. Until this year, that meant human brains — talented, highly trained human brains. The number of trained human brains could be increased by sending more people to grad school, but only to a point — the smartest people tend to be sent into the hardest research fields first, and if you 10x the number of researchers, the average quality will go down. This constraint was already starting to bite, as Ekerdt and Wu argued in 2024: We argue that a substantial portion of the downward historical trend in U.S. research productivity is a composition effect resulting from self-selection in researcher ability and the dramatic expansion of the research sector…[W]e find that this composition effect has lowered average researcher ability by between 37% and 53%[.] And of course, low fertility was making the problem worse, because fewer children meant fewer people who were able to become future scientists. AI just blows up this constraint completely. If an AI agent can function as an autonomous researcher, there’s no constraint on the number of researchers in the world — you can just build more of them, by building more computer chips and data centers that enable the running of more AI agents. Whether or not massive hordes of agents can collaborate to solve individual problems much faster, increasing the number of agents allows them to tackle many different research questions in parallel. What’s more, these AI “researchers” can be trained incredibly quickly compared to human beings. A human scientist takes decades to train, and more years to reach the frontier of their research field by diligent reading and conversation. This is the “burden of knowledge”, and it’s commonly believed to be one reason ideas have been getting harder to find — by the time human scientists can get up to speed, they’re often so old that their ideas are no longer novel. AI just annihilates this constraint — it can assimilate the entire literature and reach the frontier of research extremely quickly, and it can also tell human scientists where the frontier lies without forcing them to discover that for themselves. It can also pivot to new research directions more easily than humans can. And there’s also a self-reinforcing economic cycle here. Because scientific advances enable higher GDP, they enable more resources to be invested into the creation of yet more electronic “scientists”. Now that doesn’t mean the amount of scientific research goes to infinity — there may still be some essential bottleneck task that human researchers are still needed to perform. There are some indications that AI’s progress on open-ended conceptual research tasks is slower than in other dimensions, and it may be that humans are still needed to provide some of this long-term conceptual thinking. I’d bet against this being true for much longer, but it might be true for a long time. Even in this most “pessimistic” case, though, the amount of effective capital that scientists can use to leverage their work just went up by a lot. AI eliminates the theory bottleneck Science proceeds by an iterative process of theory and experiment. The theory part of that cycle is typically short, but non-trivial — it took a couple of years after the blackbody radiation spectrum was observed for Max Planck to come up with the quantum hypothesis to explain it, and decades longer before quantum theory as we now know it was created. It took about a year for Watson and Crick to figure out the shape of DNA after the requisite data was gathered. AI will basically eliminate the theory bottleneck entirely — or at least shorten the turnaround time between experiment and theory by an order of magnitude. AI is an absolute beast at math. Recently, an OpenAI model solved some of the most important open problems in computer science, math, and theoretical physics, and no one even batted an eyebrow because that sort of triumph is becoming increasingly commonplace. One of those solutions was a proof that the Standard Model of Particle Physics could be mathematically well-defined — a problem that human theorists had so far been unable to tackle. Not all research relies equally on theory, but understanding novel experimental results almost always involves some important component of either mathematical or spatial reasoning. That part of the task has now been made much, much faster. And on top of that, science is now open to a greater number of humans who aren’t naturally good at theorizing. AI can read the whole literature Much of the work of human scientists involves reading and understanding endless amounts of papers and going to endless conferences and seminars. The purpose of that work is to understand the existing scientific literature. Understanding the literature allows scientists to do the following things: Come up with new ideas for hypotheses to test Avoid doing research that someone else has already done Synthesize approaches from different areas or fields AI can reduce this effort to almost zero. Consider this excerpt from OpenAI’s blog post about their new research into neurodegenerative disease: The team divided the analysis among thousands of AI agents powered by GPT‑Rosalind, an approach we call distributed biological reasoning. The agents examined a whole-brain CRISPR atlas…a dataset showing how gene disruptions affect different types of cells across the mouse brain. Each agent investigated a gene disruption, analyzed cellular responses, searched scientific literature, and proposed explanations for the results. Their reports were combined into a reasoning atlas linking genes, cellular effects, relevant publications, and possible biological mechanisms. The research team estimated that comparable human analysis and literature review, conducted one perturbation at a time, would take months to a year. The agents reproduced findings from human analyses while uncovering additional leads. Their assessments of novelty and scientific value also aligned with judgments from blinded human experts. These findings help prioritize further experiments needed to test the proposed biological mechanisms. Some of these insights point to new leads for understanding brain disease. [emphasis mine] This is one case in which parallel work by a large number of agents really does make a huge difference: [ Haider.@haider1 this is actually insane openai deployed thousands of GPT-Rosalind agents to analyze millions of mouse brain cells in 32 minutes, work that could take human researchers months to a year also the agents uncovered new leads for brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's OpenAI @OpenAI GPT-Rosalind surfaced a new lead for drug discovery: could restoring cholesterol transport protect neurons from degeneration? DCTN1 is a gene linked to Perry syndrome, a rare neurodegenerative disorder. In mouse-brain data, disrupting it increased expression of genes involved in 2:41 PM · Oct 21, 2026 · 51.5K Views 26 Replies · 95 Reposts · 1.26K Likes ](https://x.com/haider1/status/2112917197903540516) Not only does instantaneous literature review vastly speed up the research process, but it allows AI to make novel conceptual leaps from combining approaches from wildly different fields of research. AI regularly does this in math research, combining results, approaches, and theorems from far-flung places that no human mathematician would have thought to combine. It can do it in science, too. Much of scientific innovation, historically, has been “recombinant” innovation — scientists applying insights from one field to another. With AI, essentially all research is now cross-disciplinary — AI can read not just the literature on a particular subject, but the literature on a million other subjects that might have produced useful techniques or insights for the problem at hand. Superscience So far, all of the factors I’ve listed are ways that AI can speed up science as it’s already done. I’ve basically described how AI can send gigantic hordes of superhumanly fast, superhumanly well-read, superhumanly mathematically gifted researchers to re-accelerate scientific discovery. But it’s also possible that AI will enable types of discovery — and ways of understanding the natural world — that no network of humans, no matter how large or how brilliant it was or how long it had to work, would ever be able to discover. In a post back in July, I wrote about how that might work: What if there are lots of…aspects of the Universe that [are] too complex to understand in terms of simple laws, but not so complex that they just dissolve into unknowable chaos? It’s possible that we can reliably control these complex phenomena with AI, even if we never reduce them to the kind of principles that we can teach a grad student in a textbook… Another way of saying this is that there may be laws of the universe that humans can’t understand but AI can. I call these “cloud laws” — causal regularities that can be exploited by technology, but which are too diffuse and complex for an individual human being to either intuit or communicate… Perhaps social sciences like economics, sociology, and political science obey similarly complex regularities, and AI can help us find them. Perhaps there are physical processes — plasma, or topological materials, or aerial turbulence, etc. — that obey cloud laws instead of chaos?… [H]uman collaboration is bottlenecked — it’s limited by our ability to intuit patterns at an individual level, and to communicate these patterns from one individual to another. AI, being a computer, just doesn’t have this sort of limitation; it can work with vast, diffuse patterns without having to break them into pieces or simplify them in order to compress them into the tiny pipelines of person-to-person explanation… If much of the Universe turns out to be ruled by cloud laws, we could be on the precipice of a scientific renaissance. In order to discover cloud laws, AI will need huge amounts of data about the natural world. AI figured out human speech by assimilating essentially all of the text humans have ever written. If it’s going to figure out hidden patterns in biology, neuroscience, materials science, etc., it’s going to need similarly massive amounts of data from physical instruments. That data will be far, far more than humans — individually or collectively — would be able to parse, label, characterize, or model. But AI was built to do this. If scientists simply build huge arrays of sensors to measure complex phenomena like the brain, the cell, the economy, etc., they may be able to feed this flood of data to AI directly and bypass human cognitive intermediation entirely. AI would then learn about the world directly, and it might learn things that humans never could. This “superscience”, if you want to call it that, would actually go beyond the kind of science humans have done heretofore. Many of the technologies it yielded would be beyond human comprehension — indistinguishable from magic. But to the AIs, they would make perfect scientific sense. In any case, it seems clear that the scientific slowdown that threatened human progress will now be delayed — at least for a while. Unless humans have somehow found most of the actual exploitable regularities in our Universe, we’re about to enter a new golden age of science. Subscribe Share
Final Deadline for the 2026 Aspect Marketing & Advertising Awards Is October 31
The final deadline for the 2026 Aspect Marketing & Advertising Awards is Saturday, October 31, 2026 at 11:59pm CDT. The Aspect Marketing &
Chrome’s enhanced autofill can now pull info from Gmail to help you fill out forms
Chrome can now dig into your email to help you complete forms.
Change order to increase cost of Parrot Island Waterpark expansion
It will cost at least $193,115 more to install five new slides at Parrot Island Waterpark, according to an email from Fort Smith City Administrator Jeff Dingman to the Fort...
Nintendo joins Best Buy for midnight Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 restock launch
📅 The Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 releases on Thursday, October 27 🚨 Our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker @mattswider on X will send out an alert when stock appears 😲 Nintendo Store held a surprise restock on October 26 and is holding a midnight launch event on November 5 🙏 Other retailers may be holding back stock for launch day, too Walmart: Zelda Switch 2 console Best Buy: Zelda Switch 2 console GameStop: Zelda Switch 2 console Target: Zelda Switch 2 console Nintendo: Zelda Switch 2 console 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 🚨 Want the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2? Drop your email for restock alerts before it sells out. ⤵️ Subscribe We’re expecting to see a Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 restock tomorrow at major retailers like Walmart, as the console and Pro Controller are set to launch. However, Nintendo has joined Best Buy in announcing a midnight launch event for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on November 5, where limited quantities of the special edition console will be available. There is a catch, though. To attend the in-store event, which will be held on November 4 at Nintendo San Francisco and November 5 at Nintendo New York, a Warp Pipe Pass is required, which means capacity will be limited. If you’re lucky enough to receive a Warp Pipe Pass (they’re currently fully booked), you’ll be able to purchase The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition console, Zelda 40th Anniversary Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller and display stand, the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller on its own, and the Zelda 40th Anniversary carrying case and screen protector. Purchases will be limited to one “per customer” and will be sold on a “first come, first served basis.” Why you should follow our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker Obviously, many will be looking to receive the Zelda Switch 2 before November 5, and an instore event isn’t exactly ideal for many. That’s where our exclusive Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker comes in, as we’re providing up-to-the-second US store inventory checks. Those who follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications will be the first to know when new stock is live, as you can see in the post below. [ Matt Swider (The Shortcut)@mattswider ](https://x.com/mattswider/status/2114758291322757239?s=20) Zelda Switch 2 console in stock at the Nintendo Store nintendo.com/us/store/produ… 4:37 PM · Oct 26, 2026 · 67K Views 18 Replies · 4 Reposts · 75 Likes We’re strongly expecting retailers like Walmart to have stock on launch day, especially as it’s the largest retailer in the US. Cancellations can also occur in the run up to release, meaning more stock is made available that was previously taken. Thursday and Friday mornings is also when Walmart tends to offer restocks online. We’re predicting other retailers like Target, GameStop and Amazon will also get a new wave of consoles on launch day, and we’ll notify you if and when any Zelda Switch 2 restocks appear. You can trust our restock tracker as we helped over 400,000 people buy Sony’s console when it was in and out of stock for two years. We’ve since made it our goal to help our subscribers purchase hard-to-find items. We’ve done the same with the PS5 30th anniversary edition and many more in-demand products. Up next: Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller restock looks increasingly likely at Nintendo Store Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
In brief: Amy Poehler stars in 'Dig' official trailer and more
The official trailer for Dig has been unearthed. Amy Poehler co-created and stars in the show that also features Hugh Laurie, Geraldine Viswanathan, Antonia Thomas and Fina Strazza as parts of its main cast. The 10-episode season of the new comedy premieres on Peacock on Nov. 23 ...Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir has released its worldwide season 7 rollout strategy. The show is set to debut in the U.S. and Latin America on Disney Channel on Nov. 20. It will be available to stream on Disney+ the next day. The animated children's TV series is incredibly popular, having ranked fourth among all TV series globally — not just children's programming — in Parrot Analytics data covering the days between June 21 to Sept. 18 ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Billy Crystal is sticking around on Broadway a bit longer. His new solo play 860 has been extended six weeks due to popular demand. It will remain playing at the Imperial Theatre until Feb. 14, 2027. The show finds Crystal recounting the aftermath of the Palisades fire that destroyed his home and uses that incident to reflect on his life ...Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.
More voters are leaving party labels behind, as national politics reshape in WV
A growing number of West Virginia residents choosing to register without a political party, a shift that comes as the state’s political identity continues to change. Interviews with voters and political observers suggest that, for some, leaving a party is less about abandoning politics and more about feeling that neither major party fully represents their beliefs.
Charleston Ballet debuts 'Legend of Mothman', about West Virginia's famous cryptid
The Charleston Ballet debuted "The Legend of Mothman", a collaboration between Deborah Novak and choreographer Kim Pauley, Oct. 23, 2026, at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, West Virginia. The 40-minute program featured dancers dressed in 1960s-inspired costumes and an original score by Charleston-native composer Matthew Jackfert, who hosts "Film Score Fridays" for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Charleston Ballet debuts 'Legend of Mothman', about West Virginia's native cryptid
The Charleston Ballet debuted "The Legend of Mothman", a collaboration between Deborah Novak and choreographer Kim Pauley, Oct. 23, 2026, at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, West Virginia. The 40-minute program featured dancers dressed in 1960s-inspired costumes and an original score by Charleston-native composer Matthew Jackfert, who hosts "Film Score Fridays" for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
CLOG's 'Annie' coming to the Clay Center; 'Les Misérables' auditions slated
The Charleston Light Opera Guild and the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences of West Virginia will co-present the beloved Broadway musical "Annie" Thursday and next weekend in the
MAHA’s midterm report card
It’s been just over two years since the rise of Make America Great Again, or MAHA. The movement united a coalition of moms, wellness influencers and voters across the political spectrum over concerns about chronic illness and childhood diseases. And when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as Secretary of Health and Human Services, it seemed like MAHA would be front and center in Washington.But as we approach the midterm elections, has the Trump administration made good on the MAHA agenda? On today’s episode, we dig into what’s changed, what hasn’t and what that means for your health.Interested in more health science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Paula Kaufman: The politics of vilifying Rep. Ilhan Omar (Opinion)
President Donald Trump, the lord of the flies, calls U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “garbage.”
Who Owns What: The Watermania Waterpark Richmond May Expropriate
[There is often a lack of transparency around land ownership in BC. Who Owns What is an ongoing series by The Realist focused on interesting land ownership stories. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email: howardchai@substack.com.] Earlier this month, CBC and Richmond News reported that the City of Richmond is planning to expropriate Watermania, the waterpark located at 14300 Entertainment Boulevard near the Richmond Ice Centre. The City of Richmond currently leases the property from a private owner — 14300 Entertainment Blvd. Investments Ltd. — and the lease is set to expire in March 2027. According to the reports, the two sides have been unable to agree on terms of the lease renewal and the City has since served a Notice of Expropriation, saying it wants to secure “essential community services,” according to CBC, with outgoing Mayor Malcolm Brodie telling CBC that “Watermania is an important recreation facility for our community, and the city’s goal is to secure its long-term future.” Richmond News added that because the expropriation is not for a linear easement like a sewage line or rapid transit, an inquiry can be requested, and one has been scheduled for November 30 to December 4, according to CBC. What was left out of both stories, however, is who the City would be expropriating Watermania from. According to the Land Owner Transparency Registry, 14300 Entertainment Boulevard is legally owned by 14300 Entertainment Blvd. Investments Ltd. and that numbered company is controlled by a Chinese individual named Hai Feng Zhu, who primarily resides in the Jilin province. The registered address of 14300 Entertainment Blvd. Investments Ltd. is 3899 Cartier Street in Vancouver, a mansion in Shaughnessy that BC Assessment values at $10,423,000. The home at 3899 Cartier Street has previously been tied to Kevin Sun of Sun Commercial by reporter Sam Cooper when he was with the Vancouver Sun in a report noting that Sun had an associate named Hai Feng Zhu who is a director of SunOil Ltd., as confirmed by the company’s filings. Another person mentioned in both the report and filing is Denise She. A search of Hai Feng Zhu in the Land Owner Transparency Registry reveals that Zhu also owns four other properties in British Columbia. The Realist then used the PIDs1 to identify the addresses, finding that the two parcels with PIDs beginning 014 are two parcels that form 1155 Bidwell Street in Vancouver and that the two parcels with PIDs beginning 015 are two parcels that form 1755 Davie Street. 1755 Davie Street is the Best Western Plus Sands, 1155 Bidwell Street is a surface parking lot, and both are held under 0993956 B.C. LTD., which is controlled by Hai Feng Zhu alongside the aforementioned Kevin Sun and Denise She, among others. The Best Western Plus Sands is listed under Sun Commercial’s portfolio and Sun Commercial also previously sold the Richmond Ice Centre to the City of Richmond for $32 million in 2019. Denise She, Peter Cheng De She, and Julia MiMi Yang also control 1078635 B.C. Ltd., which owns 1707 Davie Street, the small retail building that sits between 1755 Davie Street and 1155 Bidwell Street. Governments in British Columbia have a tendency to overpay for real estate, so it’ll be interesting to see how much the City of Richmond pays for Watermania if they do end up expropriating the property. BC Assessment values 14300 Entertainment Boulevard at $49,397,000. The assessed value is dated to July 1, 2025 and is a small decline from the previous assessment of $52,584,000. The rest of this story dives into Sun Commercial and $159 million in sales it made last year to KingSett Capital. Become a paid subscriber for all the details. Subscribe Sun Commercial Sun Commercial is based out of the City Square Shopping Centre at 555 W 12th Avenue in Vancouver, which it acquired in 2019 for $225 million, and also has an office located at 415 Yonge Street in Toronto.
Animals Starves while the Kardashians Miss the Charts Again
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get going, I’d like to offer congratulations to Jonathan Funke, whose suggestion “midflicks” won the poll for what I should call straight-to-streaming films which aren’t big or cinematic enough to go to theaters but seem too expensive for a TV movie. It’s so useful a term, I just used it last week! Now I just need to add this term to my data dictionary! Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’re starting out looking at Netflix/Ben Affleck’s latest crime thriller, Animals. I’ll also look at Disclosure Day heading to Peacock (it did better than you’d remember in theaters...) and a new movie based on toys. Plus, a long-time streaming flop returns for its eighth season...will it finally chart? (No.) Will anyone at Disney care? Probably not. All that, plus another look at new shows landing on streaming on 1-Oct from Reelgood, what streamer hasn’t had a film make the Luminate charts since August, Reacher’s long run on the charts, M_onster: The Lizzie Borden Story’s_ short run, the top shows in 2026 according to Samba TV, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. And I mean that last part: putting this week’s issue together, I assembled OVER 25 images, most of which are bespoke looks I made just for this report. Really, publishing articles like this takes the work of writing two articles: one is the narrative and the other is making charts/graphs. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the week of October 5th to October 11th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - Netflix’s Latest Star-Studded Thriller Goes For Glory The tempting angle for anyone writing about streaming film this month, like yours truly, is to ask, “Is this why Dan Lin lost his job at Netflix?” Take Animals, the Ben Affleck-starring-and-directing, Artists Equity-produced crime thriller that opened on 9-Oct. (Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson are also in it.) If it did really well, then one could argue that Lin has another success on his resume. If it underperformed, then it’s another example of a Netflix underperformance this year. So where did Animals fall? Kinda in the middle, but that means it’s more “not a hit” than “big hit”. On Nielsen, it opened to 12.0 million hours, and here’s how that stacks up for 2026 films so far this year: Obviously, that’s not great. It’s both under my 15 million opening bar for “fine” for a Netflix film and 20 million bar for “great” opening. It did a bit better on Samba TV, getting to first place. That’s very, very good, though again, looking at the Nielsen data, it probably means that it was a light week overall. Luminate’s data is a bit closer to Samba TV’s, tied for 17th all time for single weeks since May of 2024: To top it off, no one seemed to like it. It has a 33 on Metacritic and only a 5.7 on IMDb. Both of these numbers could have been impacted by the stories about Affleck’s comments about using AI to make the film. Given the controversy, the film might not have been as bad as the ratings suggest, but it’s also not a bullish sign. All to say…yeah, on net this film isn’t a point in Dan Lin’s favor. At this point, Netflix’s slide has been long enough—going on since February—that I’m almost tempted to lower the bar for what a “hit” is on streaming. Post-February of 2026 or so, it seems like straight-to-streaming films just haven’t hit the same heights as they did from 2022 to 2025. Before we head onto the “Quick Hits” for film, I want to shout out a fellow newsletter whose articles I’ve been loving this year, LA Material, a new LA-based news outlet. For just a highlight of my favorite articles since July... I loved this article on Ghost Town, a group on Venice that clears homeless encampments. As a Los Angeleno, obviously I adore their articles on LA parking issues. Their article on illegal parking tickets got the City Council to address the issue! Also check out their article on people parking in medians. Check out their deep dive on what went wrong with the LA Jazz Festival and how it fell apart, or what’s wrong with USC’s finances. Finally, they wrote up a voter guide on voter guides for the LA General Election. So meta! In search of a city? L.A. Material is an independent news outlet covering the people, politics, culture and glorious chaos shaping Los Angeles. L.A. Material brings you intel on the city you can’t get anywhere else. From exploring how Reddit short stories became Hollywood’s hottest commodity to reporting on the survival jobs keeping entertainment workers afloat. And answering, once and for all, why the AMC Burbank escalator is always broken. Through their newsletters, podcast, videos, events, and member community, L.A. Material is designed to help Angelenos connect to Los Angeles and each other. Sign up now for the free weekday newsletter. Quick Notes on Film Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, came to Peacock on 9-Oct, and I’ll admit that, after pulling its stats, I did a pinch of a double take. As I wrote throughout my deep, deep, deep dive on summer box office/Obsession/Backrooms/IP/superheroes, oftentimes the film media discusses films as “flops” or “misses” or “hits” without clarifying what they specifically mean. Since Disclosure Day didn’t make $250 million in the US or $500 million globally, it was definitely a disappointment by Spielbergian standards, who is the highest-grossing director of all time, and arguably even more ahead in adjusted grosses. But it did make $245 million globally on a $115 million budget, so it isn’t as big of a miss as I remember. That’s still probably not enough to break even in the theatrical window, when you factor in marketing costs…but it’s close. And it grossed a lot more even in the US than some titles with about ten times more coverage. Anyways, lots of preamble to say this one only did 4.5 million hours according to Nielsen, so it did make the charts, but on the low end. Here’s how it stacks up to other Peacock titles: Apple TV (née +) followed up their “success for them” Mayday with Matchbox The Movie. This one doesn’t look like a success even for them, but at least it’s not a miss. Apple/Skydance clearly tried to take advantage of the success of Barbie at the box office—let’s greenlight all the toy properties!!!—but of course, this didn’t make it to theaters. And it stars John Cena, who, as I argued earlier this summer, NEEDS to get his movies back in theaters. Anyways, this one has mixed-to-bad numbers. It missed the Samba TV and Nielsen charts in its first week, but did make Luminate with 7.1 million hours. That’s just enough to not be an outright miss, and about half what Mayday did earlier this summer. Speaking of Apple Studio’s Mayday, it ended up lasting five weeks on Luminate, which isn’t bad for Apple TV. On Nielsen, it had a three-week run, racking up 13.5 million hours total. Again, like Matchbox, the issue is the budget; I doubt that this viewership earned enough to justify that budget. Also, to be clear, neither of these films are “midflicks”; both should have gone to theaters. Toy Story 5 is not hanging around on the streaming charts on Disney+, so it’s not as leggy as either Zootopia 2 or Moana 2, and definitely not in the same class as Encanto. (It did make all the money at the box office, so Disney is going to be fine…) The Breadwinner on Netflix (from Sony) is down to 3.9 million hours in its third week. It only lasted for one week on the Samba TV charts. Netflix’s Doing Life had a smaller-than-normal binge release curve bounce, only going to 7.1 million hours from 6.0 to start, but it made Samba TV at fifth place in its second week. The Netflix documentary, The Widower: Til’ Death Do Us Part, also had a small binge release curve bounce to 6.5 million hours, but did make a second week on Samba TV. Meanwhile, Netflix’s Unabomber fell off after two weeks on Nielsen—which is not great at all—and Demon Slayer fell off after just one week. Over on Luminate, the two smaller titles The Swan: Behind the Mirror and Kill. Bury. Print both fell out of the Luminate top ten charts. The story of library film at the first of the month is the arrival of the Ice Age films on Netflix. Now, here’s a small example of optimizing your library that even Netflix could do better. Say you want to rent/license a new film series from Disney**.** A streamer could pay a big paycheck and then drop each Ice Age film on the exact same day of the month, the fourth of October. That’s one choice. In contrast, the streamer could have released each film one week apart, and make each one a mini-event for folks watching Ice Age films. Or even roll them out monthly. Netflix opted for the former strategy, and as a result, only three of the films made the Nielsen charts this week. The “Miss of the Week” goes to Tubi’s YA-ish horror film_, R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead 2_, which didn’t even make the Luminate charts like Tubi films usually do, or, should I say, “used to”? Tubi films, most of which are straight-to-streaming, used to reliably make the Luminate film charts (which only covers straight-to-streaming films), but a Tubi film hasn’t made it since August. The first Pumpkinhead got 1.4 million hours last year according to Luminate. As I wrote about this film before, it seems to be a bit muddled in terms of age: too scary for young kids but probably not scary enough for older kids. Speaking of Luminate, Netflix’s latest doc about a comic (expect more docs about comedians all month), Who Is Martin Mull?, flopped, getting just 200K and 700K hours according to Luminate. Three other film/special misses belonged to Hulu, including a standup special, Jamie Foxx: Take Care of Yourself, Neon’s latest horror film, Hokum, which made $17 million in the US, and a Family Guy Halloween special. (That last one was only 22 minutes, so it’s not a surprise it missed.) Finally, another Netflix standup special missed the charts, Mojo Brookzz: I Know You Lying missed too. I can confirm last week’s misses, most notably Paramount+’s Jackass: Best and Last, MUBI’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and HBO Max’s Evil Dead Burn. Television - I Can’t Visualize Nothing: The Kardashians Story Normally, in the mini-dive essays that open the Streaming Ratings Report, I focus on shows that do well or, at the very least, make the charts. Why? Because as I’ve said time and again, I can’t visualize nothing like, say, the Kardashians’ TV shows. Here’s the TV debuts chart for this week with a missing spot for The Kardashians, whose eighth season just landed on Hulu:
How Clinica Esperanza’s ‘Navegantes’ Are Bridging Rhode Island’s Healthcare Gap for Latino Patients
Seven years ago, Jaqueline Medrano received an email about a free clinic in need of Spanish-speaking volunteers. Medrano, a first-generation undergraduate student at the time, said the email was a …
Gina Hinojosa wins court order to review Abbott-Musk emails, Gov. Abbott appeals
A judge has ordered the governor to let his Democratic opponent inspect unredacted communications with billionaire Elon Musk.
Zelda 40th Anniversary Nintendo Switch 2 restock signals good news for launch day buyers
📅 The Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 releases on Thursday, October 27 🚨 Our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker @mattswider on X will send out an alert when stock appears 😲 Nintendo Store held a surprise restock yesterday, which is good news for other retailers 🙏 It suggests other retailers may be holding back launch day stock, too Walmart: Zelda Switch 2 console Best Buy: Zelda Switch 2 console GameStop: Zelda Switch 2 console Target: Zelda Switch 2 console Nintendo: Zelda Switch 2 console 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 🚨 Want the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2? Drop your email for restock alerts before it sells out. ⤵️ Subscribe We predicted that a Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 restock would happen on launch day, October 29, and we’re now even more confident after the Nintendo Store’s surprise restock yesterday. Our followers were the first to know that the Zelda Switch 2 was back in stock at the Nintendo Store, and the console even promised to arrive on launch day if you managed to secure one. [ Matt Swider (The Shortcut)@mattswider ](https://x.com/mattswider/status/2114758291322757239?s=20) Zelda Switch 2 console in stock at the Nintendo Store nintendo.com/us/store/produ… 4:37 PM · Oct 26, 2026 · 67K Views 18 Replies · 4 Reposts · 75 Likes It strongly suggests that other retailers such as Walmart, Target, GameStop, Amazon and Best Buy will have more units – albeit in limited quantities – on launch day for those who currently don’t have a pre-order. Retailers often hold back stock for launch day buyers who haven’t pre-ordered. Cancellations can also occur in the run up to release, meaning more stock is made available that was previously snapped up. Zelda Switch 2 restock – why Walmart will have stock Walmart historically holds back extra stock for launch day, and we’re expecting the same to happen on October 29. As the largest retailer in the US, it usually has the biggest stock allocation, and Thursday and Friday mornings is when the retailer tends to offer restocks online. As we mentioned previously, Nintendo was also a retailer to watch – and it went live with a restock earlier than we thought. It had previously promised the Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 would be “replenished”, and it offered a limited amount of stock for those who were lucky enough to snag one. (Hint: Followers of Matt Swider on X and our restock tracker were first in line.) We’re expecting other retailers like Target, GameStop and Amazon to get a new wave consoles on launch day, and we’ll notify you if and when any Zelda Switch 2 restocks appear. Why you should follow our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker Remember when you couldn’t find a PS5 for nearly two years? Not our followers. We helped over 400,000 people buy Sony’s console when it was in and out of stock, and we’ve since made it our goal to help our subscribers bag hard-to-find times. We’ve done the same with the PS5 30th anniversary edition, Nintendo Switch 2, and many more in-demand products. With up-to-the-second US store inventory checks, The Shortcut and Matt Swider on X offers exclusive Zelda 40th anniversary Switch restock updates. You’ll also receive an instant notification on X (if set to on) as soon as new stock arrives. Up next: Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller restock looks increasingly likely at Nintendo Store Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
IRS and Social Security promote Trump accounts with election a week away
A week before the midterm elections, the IRS is emailing Americans to urge them to sign up their children for Trump account in messages sent to tax filers via email.
You Can See Everything and the science of spotting liars
It feels like everyone we know is talking about the new documentary You Can See Everything. It tracks the effort of comedian and documentarian Nathan Fielder to suss out how deceptive Elizabeth Holmes, disgraced founder of the company Theranos, is. And after watching the film, we all left the theater wondering -- what could we see? How possible is it to ever really spot someone lying? So we of course called up an expert in deception and counter-deception research, Maria Hartwig, a professor of psychology at CUNY, the City University of New York. For more on sussing out a liar, check out our episode about what's wrong with the polygraph. Interested in more deep dives on the science behind pop culture blockbusters? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
What Is the Relationship Between Doing Good History and Entertainment?
[Cross-posted from The Tattooed Historian’s Dispatch] What exactly are we doing when we communicate history to the public? Most of us would agree that accuracy matters, evidence matters, context matters, historical rigor matters. But we also live in a world where attention matters (and attention spans are dropping at an alarming rate). Subscribe Whether we’re posting on social media, producing videos, hosting podcasts, giving public talks, or designing museum programs, we’re all competing with countless other demands on people’s time. The public doesn’t simply stumble into history anymore. Now, good history has to find people where they already are. This raises a difficult question: Is making history entertaining part of good historical practice, or is it simply what we must do to remain relevant? “Entertainment” is often treated as the opposite of seriousness. But what do we mean when we use the term itself? Does entertainment mean simplifying the historical record? Does it mean telling compelling stories in a lively manner? Is there a difference between being engaging and being entertaining? And who gets to decide where that line is? Share These questions become even more complicated online. Social media platforms reward attention. Algorithms reward engagement (the positive and the negative). Visibility often depends on producing content that people are willing to click, watch, share, and discuss. What happens when those incentives shape the way history is presented? Can historians work within those systems without letting those systems define the work? Are public audiences being served better than ever before, or are platform incentives changing what kinds of history rise to the surface? These are just a few of the issues that I discuss with John R. Heckman in our latest installment of “Historians Off the Cuff.” Feel free to suggest future topics for us to discuss in the comments section below. Hope you are entertained. LOL Civil War Memory is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Wilmington Health facility sells for $9.4M
Wilmington Health’s main facility recently sold for more than $9 million. The 66,000-square-foot facility located at 1202 Medical Center Drive was purchased by Charlotte-based real estate investment firm Cedar Square in a $9.4 million sale-leaseback transaction, according to a deed recorded Oct. 21. Wilmington Health will continue leasing the facility, CEO Jeff James told the Business Journal in September. James said the lease term would likely be five years, with most services eventually transferring to a new medical office building under construction in the Midtown Park office area near The Pointe at Barclay. The Wilmington Health facility was originally listed earlier this year at $11.85 million. A Wilmington Health representative did not respond to a request for comment by press time. Steve Hall, vice president of BlueCoast Commercial, represented Wilmington Health in the transaction. “Wilmington Health wanted to unlock the value in its real estate without disrupting a single patient visit, and a sale-leaseback let them do exactly that,” said Hall in a text to the Business Journal Monday. “Cedar Square gets a long-term, absolute net investment anchored by one of the region’s leading physician groups, and Wilmington Health keeps its home on Medical Center Drive while redeploying that capital into care.” The sale marks Cedar Square’s first entry into the Wilmington market, according to Jon Dixon, the firm's managing partner and founder. “We are attracted to Wilmington's growth and what we see as strong long-term fundamentals,” said Dixon in an email Monday. “Population growth, relative affordability, and quality of life make it a compelling market for us. The climate and proximity to the coast are a big part of that appeal.” He added, “We hope to pursue additional opportunities across retail, industrial, medical office and multifamily in Wilmington. We will evaluate opportunities individually and remain disciplined about the properties we pursue. We would like this acquisition to be the beginning of a broader investment presence in Wilmington.” Given the facility’s age, Dixon said the site could eventually be redeveloped, potentially for medical office space or housing. Dixon said recent announcements from UNC Health and Atrium were among the factors behind the firm’s growing interest in Wilmington’s medical-office market. The announcements involve competing proposals for hospital expansion in New Hanover County, which are subject to the state’s Certificate of Need process. “Medical office remains one of the most sought-after asset classes in commercial real estate,” said Hall, “and well-located (medical office buildings) with strong operators are scarce in Southeastern North Carolina.” According to Dixon, Cedar Square describes itself as a boutique, hands-on real estate investment firm that values direct relationships with tenants and the communities where it owns property. “We’re very hands-on, and we like to be in direct contact with all of our tenants and the communities in which we own,” Dixon said. He added, “We’re definitely interested in building a presence with local owners, brokers and businesses or tenants.”
Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller restock tracker: we’re watching these retailers
🎮 Nintendo will release a Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller on October 29 💰 It costs $99.99, the same as other limited editions 📅 A restock could occur on launch day at Walmart and Best Buy 🚨 Our Zelda Switch 2 Pro Controller restock tracker @mattswider on X will send out an alert when stock appears Walmart: Zelda Pro Controller Best Buy: Zelda Pro Controller Amazon: Zelda Pro Controller Target: Zelda Pro Controller GameStop: Zelda Pro Controller Nintendo is releasing a special limited edition Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda series. It releases on October 29, 2026, which is when we expect to see a long-awaited restock of the hard-to-find controller. 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 Pro Controller stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 The Switch 2 Pro Controller features the same striking gold and royal emerald color scheme of the Nintendo Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary edition, and also includes a fun little easter egg on the back: an 8-Bit Link. 🚨 Want the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller? Drop your email for restock alerts before it sells out. ⤵️ Subscribe This is the same Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller we’re used to, aside from the intricate design, but it means you’ll have to pay more as a result. It costs $99.99 instead of the standard $89.99. However, the Pro Controller is the easiest way to play the best Switch 2 games in TV mode. If you’ve been searching for a Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller restock, here’s everything you need to know. Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller should restock at these retailers We’ve seen retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy restock items on release day, even when pre-orders have sold out. It’s likely that the Zelda Switch 2 Pro Controller will be up for grabs on October 29, 2026, when the controller and console launches. Demand will be high, and stock could sell out fast. However, we’ll be keeping a close eye on every major retailer, including Target, Amazon, GameStop, and the Nintendo Store and will alert our followers as soon as stock goes live. Why you can trust our Zelda Switch 2 Pro Controller restock tracker We’ve already helped over 400,000 people buy a PS5 when it was in and out of stock during Covid, and we’ve helped our subscribers continue to secure hard-to-find items. The Shortcut followers were some of the first to secure the Switch 2 when it went on sale, and we’ve also helped countless others snag limited edition consoles like the PS5 30th anniversary edition. The Shortcut and Matt Swider on X offer exclusive Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller restock updates with up-to-the-second US store inventory checks at the biggest retailers. You’ll receive an instant notification on X (if set to on) as soon as new stock arrives. Up next: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 review roundup: ‘a strong return to form’ Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
ChatGPT Keeps Telling People 404 Media Can Solve Their Tech Support Problems
Because big tech doesn't do customer service, we are being inundated with AI-generated emails begging us for help.
In brief: Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood joining 'The Gentlemen'
Netflix is rounding up more gentlemen. Tudum announced Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood and Ed Speelers are joining stars Theo James and Kaya Scodelario for the third season of The Gentlemen, which is currently filming in the U.K. and Morocco. Also added to the series cast are Dexter Fletcher, Robert Carlyle and Bugzy Malone, who appeared in the 2019 film that inspired the Netflix series. Daniel Ings, who played the drug-addled older brother Lord Frederick “Freddy” Horniman to James’ criminal mastermind Eddie Horiman, told HATC magazine he will not return for the third season. Netflix has not confirmed this …The action-adventure series Fallout has inspired a new reality show. Prime Video has revealed Fallout Shelter: The Experiment, an unscripted competition inspired by the post-apocalyptic drama series and the video game universe. The show “invites everyday participants to test their aptitude for the apocalypse in Vault-Tec's state-of-the-art bomb-proof vault shelters," according to Prime Video. Contestants will “go head to head in a series of high-octane drills, psychological dilemmas and morally challenging behavior trials.” The winner walks away with a $1 million prize. Fallout Shelter: The Experiment will begin streaming in January 2027 … TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Bravo renewed a slate of its reality shows ahead of Bravo’s Fan Fest on Saturday. New York-based In the City has been greenlit for season 2, while Next Gen NYC is coming back for a third season. For viewers seeking a little Southern charm, The Next Gen universe will be expanding with a spinoff based in Atlanta, and Southern Hospitality is moving forward with a fifth season. Premiere dates have not yet been announced … Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.
UCLA Library's Data Science Center closed amid consolidation effort
UCLA Library dissolved its data consultation center and stopped offering data analysis services in August. The university consolidated the Data Science Center into UCLA Library’s research services unit as part of a broader effort to restructure the department, a UCLA Library spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Med Center Health Heroes Fest a huge success
Email newsletter signup Polls What is the biggest challenge facing Bowling Green? Vote Now View Results
Review: 'Whalefall' a big fish tale thriller within a fraught father/son relationship
Movie reviewer Joshua Hill says 'Whalefall' combines a fraught father/son relationship with a suspenseful narrative featuring excellent sound design and imagery.
Netflix’s Leadership Shake Up…Explained
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Well, I had a simple article planned for this week. Called “Whoa, I Missed It!”, I’d take a gander at a few important-but-under-the-radar stories I didn’t cover while I wrote about all things “Skydance. (Formerly known as “the saga of Netflix trying to buy Warner Bros., but not Discovery, then Paramount-Skydance bought all of Warner Bros. Discovery”.) Alas, that article will have to wait. Netflix made news. Ironically, my “Whoa, I Missed It!” article would have mostly been about “content” strategy decisions, which is also what today’s article is about. But instead of the entire industry, this article will only cover Netflix’s decision to upend their film and TV content teams. Just that! So that’s the full topic of the day. I’m going to tackle the issue in the opposite direction of the way “stuff” flows: uphill. We’ll start at film, then move onto TV, and then onto the CEOs themselves, and the strategy questions that still remain. But we start with the numbers driving this. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Netflix Upends Their Corporate Hierarchy I’ve got a lot of thoughts, but we’ll start with the most common response to yesterday’s article. Let’s Talk Stock Price More than one person, responding to what I published two days ago, pointed out that, well, actually, the thing driving Netflix’s actions is this: In short, stock price! Even if Netflix isn’t obsessed with their own share price—they probably are, but, for the record, my strategic advice to every CEO is to absolutely ignore stock prices, which will, ironically, probably help the stock price long-term—most everyone thinks they are. By the way, I prefer market capitalization to stock prices, because it’s a more apples-to-apples way to compare companies: But there’s an even better way to look at it, and it kinda casts some doubt on the entire push here: price-to-earnings. I have a long list of articles that I wish I had written, and chief among them is an article titled, “Am I Still a Netflix ‘Bear’?” meaning someone who thinks Netflix’s stock is overvalued. As of last summer, Netflix had solved their biggest problem—which for me (circa 2019) was the lack of free cash flow—but their stock was CRAZY overvalued. That’s this chart here: Why did Netflix’s stock price increase to a price-to-earnings ratio of 50 last summer? What financial metric changed so quickly? Nothing. Given that, historically, mature entertainment companies average 10 to 20, with 16 being the average, that increase made little sense. Netflix’s stock swoon these last eight or so months wasn’t irrational; the stock price rise last year was. So if you want a really hot Netflix take, here it is: Netflix’s stock price has been going down because the financial industry recovered its senses, not because of any strategic mistake. Yes, that would imply that cleaning house may have been a mistake. That’s why the charts yesterday are so important, because they show that Netflix did have a strategic problem (a lack of hits) and that’s what they moved to address. (One could also argue the industry drastically overrated Netflix’s growth prospects, but that’s a financial industry problem, not a Netflix strategy problem per se. Some growth estimates are just crazy. *cough* AI *cough*) Now, the last time Netflix’s stock price crashed—circa 2022—it gave them an opening. I’d argue Netflix insiders knew they needed to expand post-COVID-19 crisis, adding advertising, cracking down on password sharing, and dabbling in sports. But if they had done that when their stock price was high, it would give folks a reason to second guess their strategy. (Arguably, last year, when Netflix pursued the Warner Bros. merger, it gave the industry a chance to review their business.) Instead, after the 2022 fall, they had the opening to make strategic changes. We may see Netflix pivot again following this latest slide. For example, the “binge versus weekly” conversation is alive and well again. Same for expanding into theaters even more. And adding both linear channels and streaming bundles. And maybe more either social, user-generated, vertical, or creator content. But the first shift came with who is making the content calls. A Message from Our Sponsor Last winter Pulp Fiction was on Netflix. For those same 90 days, it was also free, with ads, on Pluto TV and the Roku Channel. That is not a glitch, and it is not rare. The title has run on 20 different US streaming services since 2019, across 80 separate windows, and for more than 600 of those days it sat on a paid subscription service and a free ad-supported one at the same time. Almost nobody can see this, because when a title leaves a service, the record that it was ever there tends to leave with it. Reelgood keeps that record, dated to the day rather than the month: 4MM+ movie, show and episode titles across 300+ services globally, with timestamped arrivals, departures and moves across SVOD, AVOD, TVOD and vMVPD. Licensing teams price against every prior window. Rights teams check what a licensee actually delivered, and when. Pick a title you think you know: data.reelgood.com/title-availability Film - Dan Lin Want to know why I don’t opine on individual film or TV executives, especially new hires? Dan Lin. As I always caution, it’s really, really, really tough to predict which executives will succeed in new roles and which won’t. The successful head of co-production/finance partner, Rideback, Lin was considered for the head of DC Studios job before taking the job as the head of Netflix. By all accounts at the time, this was a smart hire. (That’s my read of the news coverage anyways.) But now that Netflix has fired Dan Lin, we got a slew of news stories about how he was doing a terrible job. In sports media, Bryan Curtis, new Substack writer/podcaster from The Ringer, calls this the “now you tell us” story, when you only hear the bad news after a star athlete leaves a sports team. In this case, now they tell us that Dan Lin was bad with talent after he got kicked out the door. So was Dan Lin a flop? It’s actually tough to say. While film moves faster than TV, even two years isn’t really enough time to evaluate a person’s output. The new head hasn’t really taken control. As Emily Horgan noted, it takes much longer than two years to produce animated films, so yeah, it’s definitely too early to judge in that domain. As for live-action films, I just published an article by Brandon Katz called “Netflix’s Summer of Bummer”, but I’d point out Netflix had a bad summer two years ago too. Arguably, their best summer came from KPop Demon Hunters last year and Happy Gilmore 2, the latter of which I saw credited to Lin. Then, the stories came out that Dan Lin clashed with talent, both Ben Affleck and Greta Gerwig, classic “now they tell us” factoids to explain his firing. This may have been true, but also should have been expected given that he was given the mandate to bring budgets back in check, especially after Rebel Moon. So if he made folks upset, well, that’s what he was hired to do! But also, he was described as “well-liked” at his hiring! In that case, I’m a bit sympathetic to Lin, since he may have been undercut by senior leadership, as often happens. Basically, a CEO hires a subordinate to be their “bad cop” and keep budgets in check, but then when talent complains, the CEO ends up undercutting them. That’s how I think you end up with a Narnia movie as expensive as any of the other flops, along with a film executive the town no longer likes. As a result, I think that Netflix is now executing a classic “hire the opposite” move by hiring Peter Rice. This phrase comes from my experience following football and basketball coaching decisions, where teams generally hire the opposite of who they just had. If you have an offense-minded head coach, hire the defensive guy. Or in college football, if you have a strong recruiter, then you pivot to an “X’s and Os” type of guy. Or in pro basketball, if you have a very analytically minded coach, you hire the player-friendly guy. I see that here. After dropping Scott Stuber—arguably a talent-friendly executive with lax budget control—Netflix hired the business guy to keep costs in check. Now Netflix is pivoting back to Peter Rice and presumably a more talent-friendly regime. (Disney, by the way, has done this twice: hiring business guys to succeed talent-friendly Bob Iger. It didn’t work out last time.) When it comes to Peter Rice…we’ll see! Maybe he works out, but maybe he doesn’t. I’d actually say the biggest problem is that Netflix still hasn’t solved its “IP Problem”, in that they don’t own much IP, so they just have a lower hit rate. The new executive won’t solve that. (Though buying Lionsgate would help.) Share “Content” - Bela Bajaria I almost published yesterday’s article after this column, but ended up flipping the order, because it told the story so well. So if you want the data for why Netflix is looking at TV to fix their problems, it’s in that article, this graph in particular: I know I just wrote that it’s often hard to judge executives, but Bajaria ran TV for six years and film for three and a half more. That’s more than enough to judge hit rates, and Netflix needs more hits. That’s the story. Since 2023, Netflix hasn’t had as many hit shows as it used to, and many of its previous power house TV shows have ended their runs (Stranger Things most of all). Also, many shows from 2020 to 2022 probably pre-dated Bajaria’s tenure. (That said, one thing may have been outside of Bajaria’s control, which I explain below.) Let’s lump some content strategy thoughts about Netflix and TV into one place: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… Why I partially blame Squid Game for Netflix’s latest troubles… What is “the football trap”... Why it might not be the TV shows or films’ fault at all… What change I don’t think Netflix will make... How Bela Bajaria evolved Netflix’s TV strategy in smart ways… Whose departure likely submarined Bajaria’s final few years… One sneaky explanation for Netflix’s content struggles... And a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
Verizon Apologizes for iPhone Duo Pre-Order Delays, Giving Customers $100 Gift Card
Verizon has apologized to customers who pre-ordered the iPhone Duo through the carrier but have since been informed that their delivery is delayed. In an email sent to affected customers, Verizon said an "unexpected shipping delay" means that iPhone Duo deliveries to some customers will "take a little longer". To make up for the inconvenience, Verizon is offering affected customers a $100 Verizon gift card that can be used online or in-store toward bill payments or merchandise.
Capcom Confirms Data Breach That Affected 11.7 Million Users
Capcom ID is still available to use, but users may see more phishing scam emails.
Huntington leaders hope to draw visitors in with $1M Thomas Dambo troll
Plans are in the works for the upcoming installation of a Thomas Dambo troll in Huntington, an outdoor art project bringing economic opportunities to the area.
Volunteers help out with the Pumpkin House display; still time to get involved
The Kenova Pumpkin House, in Wayne County, West Virginia, invites volunteers to carve, sculpt and scoop any of the 3,000 pumpkins for the display, which is expected to be ready by Oct. 28, 2026.
New Email Scam Targets Small Businesses » CBIA
The email uses the subject line “RE: Connecticut Office of the Secretary of the State, Business Services Division.”
Pope hope, that’s entertainment, and getting ahead in the CIA
Happy Friday friends, I want to start by just breathing for all of us a big long collective sigh of relief at the news this week that the pope’s doctors have basically blown the all clear for Leo’s health. Going from knowing nothing to him declaring to the world he needed surgery, to a cancer diagnosis, to bouncing out of the hospital in barely even days, to ringing the bell in less than two weeks is whiplash inducing. But in the best possible way. We are living in a world in which the Roman pontiff, by dint of history, biography and circumstance, is once more at the epicenter of global affairs. Not just conversations about religion, or Christian and post-Christian values, but the bleeding edge of the most pressing issues of human affairs. Think I am exaggerating a touch? Consider the images of the crowds who greeted Leo in Paris just weeks ago, and juxtapose them with the absolute photo negative scenes unfolding there recently. Ask yourself how many world leaders are talking about AI right now and directly citing the pope as they do so. Try to name a country who has had as many top-ranked diplomats in and out of both Russia and Ukraine in the last three years as the Vatican has in the last three months. It has been fascinating to watch Leo XIV emerge as not just a kind of pop culture reference point or totem to be cited (Francis was often name-checked this way) but as a kinetic force in global conversation. Given the state of things, we need global figures of gravitas and values, even better if they have real wisdom behind what they are saying. So news of Leo’s illness was, it seemed to me, a tremor with potentially Richter Scale implications. That not only has the worst not come to pass but instead we’ve had the best of outcomes announced is something to really be grateful for. Humanity, it seems to me, is entering one of its irregular but cyclical phases where the pace of change — technological, social, and geopolitical — outstrips the ability of previously settled norms and received wisdom to cope. Such periods – and I think the first decades of the last century were a similar such time – throw into question the viability of all kinds of institutions. And many of ours have been straining to breaking point for a few years now. The papacy has the power and the potential to be a steadying pole in all of this. That’s my hope, anyway. It’s a lot to freight the office with, though it is arguably its ultimate purpose from its founding, to be a steadying rock on which all that matters can be anchored. It’s also, of course, an intolerable weight of responsibility to place on a single man. But I am encouraged to have hope in – and for – Leo. The apostle whom he succeeds, after all, was famously unequal to some moments, failed some tests of faith, and resiled from taking the road which led ultimately to the circus on Vatican hill. Human frailty and limitations, of health, of character, of temper, can open us to Christ, whose strength is greatest in our weakness, so St. Paul learned. That gives me hope, and I am sure it consoles Leo, too. And so I will continue to pray for him. Because we need apostles of rock right now. Here’s the news. Subscribe The News The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued yesterday a new document “Venite ad me: Considerations on the Transmission of the Faith in an Epochal Change.” It’s not a short document, and it is at pains to stress this isn’t a doctrinal note from the dicastery, either. Rather, it brings together reflections on an important issue from the Church around the world. Some of it I actually found really rather powerful. It is, however, 25,000, which is a lot for a busy reader to get through on a weekday. So, you can read our busy reader’s summary right here. — News broke yesterday of an Oct. 22 meeting of U.S. bishops with President Donald Trump. The meeting was organized by an official at the Heritage Foundation, according to several sources close to the meeting. Video of several U.S. bishops praying in the Oval Office over President Trump was posted on social media Thursday afternoon, first by White House Communications Advisor Margo Martin, and then by the official twitter.com account of the Archdiocese of Denver. The meeting has drawn sharp criticism because of its proximity to the upcoming midterm Congressional elections, in which Democrats are widely expected to win control of the House of Representatives, while control of the Senate remains closely contested. Sources close to the bishops’ conference told The Pillar that some USCCB senior officials were surprised by the existence of the meeting when video of it first emerged online. And a source close to conference president Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City told The Pillar that the archbishop was “deeply frustrated” by the occasion of the meeting. An official conference spokesperson told The Pillar that the meeting was “not organized with or by the USCCB” and was “not affiliated with the conference.” You can read the whole story here. — The next National Eucharistic Congress will be held in Indianapolis in 2029, a return to the city that hosted the last gathering in 2024. You read it here first. By here, I don’t mean this newsletter, I mean at The Pillar. We broke the story this week. It’s a big deal, in as much as the last congress was a roaring success and the next installment has the potential to be a real focal point for evangelizing efforts in the coming years. Read all about it here. — As Pope Leo prepares for the longest trip of his pontificate, Church leaders in Uruguay say the pontiff will encounter a highly secularized culture, in a country with a very different Catholic history than many of its South American neighbors. The nation has not had a papal visit since 1988, and leaders who spoke with The Pillar say it has a dire need for evangelization, even amid the prospect of a small revival in faith. This is real reporting on the Church in the country, and frankly a story you simply are not going to be able to read anywhere else. Read the whole thing. — The Archdiocese of Detroit announced this week a plan that would see the vast majority of its parish priests reassigned next summer, amid a restructuring process expected to dramatically shrink the number of parishes in the archdiocese. Archbishop Edward Weisenburger said this week that the plan “asks much of our priests,” but is a “sacrifice they are making as brothers of one, unified presbyterate.” The thing is, as JD pointed out in an analysis yesterday, pastors of parishes have a legal right to stability in office, so the only way this kind of wholesale reassignment goes ahead is if all of the archdiocesan clergy agree to resign. That creates its own kind of legal issues, though, and re-raises longstanding questions about the effectiveness of canonical due process protections for priests when dealing with coercive exercises in authority. Read the whole thing here. — More than three months after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its decree declaring the excommunication of the leadership of the Society of St. Pius X, questions remain about the full effects of the society’s schism. Specifically, the DDF’s July claim that marriages witnessed and confessions heard by SSPX priests are now invalid remains contested — and it emerged this week it appears that the Vatican’s own legal experts don’t agree. You can read my whole analysis of the situation and what it means here. All I would add is that the DDF’s undeveloped, some would say unsubstantiated, claim about the invalidity of some SSPX sacraments came in their July Explanatory Note on the schismatic consecrations by the society that month. It touches directly on both papal acts of governance — indeed it purports to nullify them — and the most intimate pastoral encounters possible in a parish setting. If there is one aspect of the Francis-era style of governance I would like the curia to finally cut out, root and branch, it would be these attempts to try to effect extraordinarily sensitive legislative acts via a note. — At least a dozen French bishops have spoken out following an eruption of violence on the country’s streets Oct. 17. Not surprisingly, they unanimously condemned the violence, but the length and content of their interventions varied significantly. Several sought to distinguish between the actions of rioters and what they suggested were the legitimate concerns of peaceful young protesters. Many also evoked Pope Leo XIV’s Sept. 25-28 visit to France, suggesting it offered a powerful counter-image to the scenes of looting and destruction. A number of bishops also stressed their solidarity with law enforcement officials who struggled to contain the disorder, as well as the owners of the roughly 3,000 damaged or looted businesses. What’s the background to the nationwide unrest that the French media calls “les violences du 17 octobre”? And what exactly are the bishops saying? Read all about it here. — A Polish bishop called for the firm defense of unborn children as well as compassion for their mothers this week, as the lower house of Poland’s parliament passed two bills seeking to liberalize the country’s abortion laws. The bill on decriminalizing assistance in an abortion passed by 217 votes to 213, while the abortion in cases of fetal abnormality bill passed by 233 to 203, thanks to the government’s majority in the lower house. Both bills will now move to the Polish Senate, the upper house of parliament, where the ruling coalition has a larger majority. The fetal abnormality bill is symbolically significant because if it became law, it would effectively overturn a 2020 ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal that a 1993 law permitting abortion for a severe and irreversible disability or a life-threatening incurable disease was unconstitutional. Read the whole story here. Subscribe **[The St. Paul Center App | Bible Study On-The-Go Read and understand the Bible with St. Paul Center’s new app! With today’s leading Catholic Scripture scholars as your guides, the St. Paul Center app empowers you to read the Bible](https://stpaulcenter.com/app?utm_source=pillar&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=applaunch)** from the heart of the Church. Download the app for free at either the Apple or the Google app stores. https://stpaulcenter.com/app That’s entertainment I have written before about my deep and sincere reservations about the celebrity exorcist subculture which has taken root in American Catholicism. And, because I am very ill at ease with the entire thing, I try to keep a weather eye on the phenomenon without being drawn into the kind of online back-and-forth which these figures sometimes generate. Earlier this week, JD noted that one such celebrity exorcist type, Fr. Chad Ripperger, has undertaken, on the request of his bishop, a year’s fast from interviews and public speaking. I’m sure that will be salutary for him, if for no other reason than that receiving with docility requests from one’s rightful ecclesiastical superiors always comes with graces. Then a second thing happened this week which caught my eye. Apparently, another fixture in the celebrity exorcist world, Fr. Carlos Martins, has initiated a lawsuit against two lay men — apparently associates of Rippenger, though I am unclear in what way, exactly — for allegedly defaming him and his ministry on a podcast. It seems the suit was initiated nearly a year ago and is now pending. At issue, I read, is that the two men described Martins on a podcast as “not who he says he is” with regard to his exorcism ministry and that he “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” These statements Martins considers to be false and defamatory and, his suit claims, “directly affected the sale and reception of [his] The Exorcist Files book that was newly released at the time these episodes aired.” I don’t want to get too into the weeds of the details here, but a couple of things struck me about all this.
In brief: Fleetwood Mac documentary coming to Apple TV and more
The landslide is bringing them to Apple TV. Fleetwood Mac is telling their story in their own words in the Apple Original Films documentary Fleetwood Mac: The Chain. Apple announced the “unprecedented look” is the first fully authorized documentary about the award-winning, culture-defining band. It brings together the voices and memories of Fleetwood members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and the late Christine McVie. Fleetwood Mac: The Chain will debut Jan. 29 ...Ramy Youssef’s feature directorial debut has added some more star power to the cast. Amanda Seyfried will join Youssef and Sharon Stone in Martha & Muhammad, a new comedy for A24, according to Deadline. Youssef will direct from his own script, in addition to starring. Plot and character details are being kept under wraps, though The Hollywood Reporter previously described the project as telling the story of “a white widowed socialite in New York who develops a relationship with a young Muslim man” ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Another book adaptation is coming to Prime Video. Amazon MGM Studios confirmed Thursday it has picked up Butcher & Blackbird, the bestselling thriller novel by Brynne Weaver. Emma Laird and Thomas Doherty are signed on to star in the new film, which follows vigilante serial killers who fall in love as they compete to take out the most targets ... Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.
More Than a Charcuterie Board: A Mother and Daughter Build a Business Around Gathering.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Birch Bay Retirement Village. NORTHEAST HARBOR—Food’s ability to be a social cornerstone is one of the founding premises of one of Mount Desert Island’s newest, and perhaps most unique, endeavors in cuisine based catering. From intimate gatherings to large functions, Olive & Pearl creates charcuterie boards that can not only astound the tongue but also the eye. Many would agree that food can bring people together. In fact, culinary delights, and sometimes adventures, have been utilized as the centerpiece for social and business occasions of all kinds for centuries. Often times it even has the ability to start conversation, temper differences, and build new relationships. Settings can vary, from a multi-course sit down meal, a backyard barbecue, or a couple of bowls of chips and dip in front of a television, but the result can be the same. Humans come together, they share food, and the whole process is a catalyst for thought, communication, and a shared experience. Imagined and created by the mother and daughter team of Dr. Susan Scanlan (formerly MacCready) and Kayla Musetti, Olive & Pearl was started in June of this year and has been creating, delighting, and growing since. We gave the two an opportunity to answer some questions about themselves and their new venture. The love, passion, and pride for what they are doing and the fact that they are doing it as a mother and daughter team came through so strongly in their answers that we decided to present the question and answer session in its entirety. The Interview What did you do prior to Olive & Pearl? We’re a mother-daughter team, and food, family, and hospitality have always been a big part of our lives. Susan grew up in a large family in Pennsylvania, where the table was always at the center of everything. There were multiple dishes, little bites, stories, and plenty of conversation. Food was never simply about eating. It was about gathering, celebrating, and spending time together. After living in several Southern states, Susan relocated to Maine more than 20 years ago, and Maine has truly become home. She loves its sense of community, natural beauty, and connection to local food and makers. Professionally, Susan is a registered nurse and holds a doctorate in health administration. She has worked in a variety of clinical, nonclinical, and leadership roles and currently works as a faculty academic director. Building Olive & Pearl has been an exciting creative venture alongside her career. Kayla is also a registered nurse and works in the ambulatory surgery unit at Mount Desert Island Hospital. While healthcare is an important part of both of our professional lives, Olive & Pearl has given us an entirely different way to connect, collaborate, and create something together. Tell us about the business. Olive & Pearl is a mother-daughter charcuterie business centered around beautiful food, thoughtful presentation, and bringing people together. We create curated charcuterie boards designed for everything from intimate gatherings and dinner parties to weddings, showers, corporate events, boat days, and celebrations of all kinds. We think of our boards as more than food. They’re an experience and an invitation to gather, slow down, and enjoy time with the people around you. We’re intentional about quality ingredients, artful presentation, and personalization. Whenever possible, we also incorporate Maine-made and locally sourced products, including cheeses, jams, honey, seasonal produce, and baked goods. What inspired you to start Olive & Pearl? In many ways, Olive & Pearl grew out of something we had been doing our entire lives —bringing people together around food. We’ve always loved creating beautiful spreads for family and friends. There was something special about watching people gather around a table, graze, talk, laugh, and simply enjoy being together. Friends and family began telling us, “You should do this as a business,” and one day, we stopped laughing it off and started mapping it out. We realized we had an opportunity to combine our different strengths and create something that reflected what we both value: hospitality, creativity, quality, and connection. Charcuterie felt like the perfect expression of that. It’s beautiful and creative, but it’s also communal and approachable. At its heart, it brings us right back to where the idea began, a table filled with food and people gathered around it. Do you have a business partner(s)? Our business partner is each other! Olive & Pearl is truly a mother-daughter partnership, and building it together has been incredibly meaningful and sometimes hilarious! We know each other extremely well, which can be both a strength and, occasionally, a challenge. We have different personalities and strengths, but we’ve learned to lean into those differences and use them to our advantage. There’s a lot of trust between us, and we’ve learned how to communicate, collaborate, and occasionally laugh at ourselves along the way. We’re also building Olive & Pearl while continuing our careers in healthcare and education, so we’re taking things thoughtfully and growing the business one step at a time. We all have to start somewhere. One of the most rewarding parts has been having something that belongs to both of us. We get to learn from one another, celebrate the small wins together, and create something that we hope will become part of our family’s story for years to come. When exactly did you launch the business? Recently, in June 2026, we launched Olive & Pearl, turning an idea we had talked about for years into real business. It has been incredibly rewarding to watch something that started around our own family table and begin to find a place within the community. How is it going so far? How do you feel it has been received? It has been going very well, and we’ve been incredibly encouraged by how warmly Olive & Pearl has been received. As more people hear about us, our orders have continued to increase, and we’re seeing growing interest in boards for events and celebrations. It’s exciting to watch something that began as an idea between the two of us start to grow within the community. One of the most rewarding parts is hearing from customers after their events or seeing photos of our boards being enjoyed. Knowing that something we created became part of someone’s celebration is incredibly meaningful to us. Is there a brick-and-mortar location or is it all online? Olive & Pearl is currently an online business. We’re intentionally starting this way so we can build relationships with our customers, learn what they love, and grow thoughtfully. Our long-term dream, if the business continues to grow, is to eventually have a sit-down space where people can experience Olive & Pearl in person. Do you have any future plans if things go well/keep going well? Absolutely. For now, our focus is on continuing to grow Olive & Pearl, getting to know our customers, and becoming part of more celebrations and gatherings throughout the area. Long term, we would love to have our own physical space where people can come together and experience Olive & Pearl beyond the boards themselves. We can imagine a place that combines food, hospitality, creativity, and community. Ultimately, we want to build something that continues to grow while still feeling personal and connected to the people and community around us. Is there an aspect of the business that you really love? There are so many things we love about it, but the people and the connection are probably at the top of the list. We love creating something beautiful, but what really matters to us is what happens after we hand it over to the customer. We picture our boards on kitchen islands, at backyard gatherings, on boats, at weddings, or around a long dinner table—with people laughing, talking, and lingering a little longer. We also love the creative side. Every board is an opportunity to play with color, texture, shape, seasonality, and flavor. We don’t just want to fill a board, we want to curate an experience. And supporting local makers is especially meaningful to us. Whenever possible, we love incorporating Maine-made cheeses, local jams and honey, seasonal produce, and products from nearby bakeries and businesses. It allows us to showcase some of what makes Maine so special. Perhaps most importantly, we love doing this together. Building something as a mother and daughter has given us another way to spend time together, learn from one another, celebrate small wins, and create memories. Is there anything regarding any aspect of Olive & Pearl that you may think is important that is not reflected on the website? One thing that may not always come through online is just how personal this business is to us. Olive & Pearl isn’t something we created simply because charcuterie was popular. It grew very naturally from our family, our traditions, and the way we’ve always enjoyed gathering with people we love. There is a lot of heart behind every board. We think about the people who will be enjoying it, the occasion they’re celebrating, and how we can make the experience feel special. We also want people to know that we care deeply about supporting locals whenever possible. Using Maine products isn’t just about sourcing ingredients, it’s about telling a little story about where we live and the talented people who make and grow wonderful things here. Is there anything that we have not asked that you think is important/relevant that would like readers to know? We hope people see Olive & Pearl as more than just a charcuterie business. At its heart, it’s about gathering. Our goal is to make it easier for people to create those moments when everyone gathers around the table, conversations last a little longer, and people simply enjoy being together. We also hope people see the mother-daughter story behind the business. We’re building Olive & Pearl alongside our careers, one step at a time, and there is something incredibly special about creating a shared family legacy in the process. For us, success isn’t just about how many boards we make. It’s about becoming part of people’s special moments - birthdays, weddings, weekends with friends, quiet evenings at home, or a beautiful day on the Maine coast. If one of our boards helps people put down their phones, linger a little longer, laugh a little more, and enjoy the people around them, then we feel like we’ve done exactly what we set out to do. All photos courtesy of Olive & Pearl. LINKS TO LEARN MORE Olive & Pearl website Olive & Pearl Facebook Olive & Pearl Instagram RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website. [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/pemetic-students-share-thoughts-on) [ Pemetic Students Share Thoughts on Declaration of Independence Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/pemetic-students-share-thoughts-on) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/pemetic-students-share-thoughts-on) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/fall-festival-at-the-noreaster-for) [ Fall Festival at the Nor’Easter for Mount Desert Nursery School, October 24. Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/fall-festival-at-the-noreaster-for) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/fall-festival-at-the-noreaster-for) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/explore-career-opportunities-where) [ Explore career opportunities where you make a difference for Maine’s natural resources—and the people who enjoy them. Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/explore-career-opportunities-where) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/explore-career-opportunities-where) [ Cranberry Isles Comprehensive Plan Committee Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/cranberry-isles-comprehensive-plan) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/cranberry-isles-comprehensive-plan) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/community-school-hosts-a-pancake) [ Community School Hosts a Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser October 25! Oct 22 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/community-school-hosts-a-pancake) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/community-school-hosts-a-pancake) HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
Public health experts warn lawmakers may politicize spending of opioid settlement funds
Public health experts warn that future opioid-related settlement dollars could go to waste following a decision by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey in 2026 to give lawmakers the power to distribute most of those funds.
What's going on, South Dakota?
Submit your events for The Dakota Scout's Lounge section by emailing events@thedakotascout.com
The One Chart That Explains Why Netflix Cleaned House
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Yeah, I’ll be honest: I went with a clickbait-y headline today. One chart? That explains everything? That’s as clickbait-y as it gets. But let’s be real. I’m analyzing a dataset that I’ve built over six years, and c’mon, I never write articles which feature just one chart! If you think this article—which includes a level of data detail unheard of in journalism twenty years ago—is clickbait, fine by me. Really, what I’m doing is using data to explain Netflix’s recent strategy changes, since the story of the month is the turbulence at Netflix. First, head of content Bela Bajaria was fired. Then head of film Dan Lin followed her to the unemployment ranks. (Along with, sadly, 1,000 other Netflix workers.) And then Netflix delivered a “sub-optimal” earnings report, which continued their year-long stock price slide. Then came a flood of articles explaining why all this is happening. (Mine’s coming shortly, rest assured.) I realized I had the perfect chart to explain Netflix’s woes. Specifically, Nielsen’s weekly top ten charts. Usually I focus on one or two weeks in my Streaming Ratings Reports, but sometimes it’s worth stepping back to look at the larger story. And hoo boy, what a story. This article is my annual (plus three months) follow-up to one of my most popular articles of last year. (And a topic I’ve been visualizing for the last half decade.) Subscribe Netflix’s Share of The Nielsen Charts Continues to Decline
Capcom confirms data breach affecting 11.7 million accounts
Japanese gaming giant Capcom has confirmed that hackers breached its membership service, CAPCOM ID, exposing more than 11.7 million customer email addresses and associated information.
New Report Highlights How Private Credit Powers Businesses Across America
Dunham: "Private credit direct lending plays a critical role in our economy, supporting countless small and midsized businesses across the U.S."
How well have past GOTY winners sold?
We’re less than two months away from 2026’s The Game Awards, and what a year it’s been for fantastic games, including Resident Evil Requiem, Forza Horizon 6, Slay the Spire II, the Blood of Dawnwalker, and Control Resonant – just to name a few. So as we approach the end of the year, we thought we’d look back on our estimates for the GOTY winners of the past four years. In terms of revenue, Elden Ring (2022 winner), Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), Astro Bot (2024), and Expedition 33 (2025) have generated a combined $3.8B via 73M copies sold: Let’s have a look, then. Elden Ring has generated $2B in revenue Elden Ring is a phenomenon in every sense. It’s sold a whopping 36.4M copies across Steam (50%), PS5 (35%), and Xbox (15% across console and PC). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring also just passed an astronomical milestone: $2B in revenue. While PlayStation and Xbox account for half of Elden Ring’s copies sold across these three platforms, they account for 57.5% of revenue. This – as ever – is due to regional pricing and the higher relative share of PC gamers in lower-priced markets. For example, around 17.4% of Elden Ring’s Steam copies sold were in China, where the game costs about 26% less than the price in the States. There’s an … interesting narrative going around these days that console gamers are only interested in ball-and-gun games and have the patience for little else. Well, Elden Ring’s impressive sales prove that is simply not true, and across all platforms. What’s more, over 9.8M people have played Elden Ring for over 100 hours, with nearly 3.5M people getting all of the achievements and trophies. For reference, 10.9% of Elden Ring’s PlayStation players have the platinum trophy, while 10.5% of players on Steam and 3.9% of Xbox players unlocked all the achievements. Git gud, Xbox players! Of the 1.5M people who played Elden Ring on PlayStation last month, 4% also played Dark Souls 3 last month, 4% played Bloodborne, and 3% played Sekiro. There’s those Soulsborne diehards for you. By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time. It’s an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring has sold another 2M copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox this year, generating almost $110M. This means it’s outperforming many of this year’s high-profile releases. Even Elden Ring’s standalone run-based PvE spinoff, 2025’s Nightreign, has sold 7.8M copies and generated $282M in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3 is another billion-dollar-plus banger Another cross-platform phenomenon is Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold 23.2M copies and generated over $1.2B in revenue. About 18.7M of these copies (80.6%) are via Steam, 2.9M via PS5 (12.7%), and 1.6M (6.8%) via Xbox. Around 1.3M folks on Steam bought BG3 before it hit 1.0. The PlayStation version launched about a month after the PC 1.0 release, while the Xbox version came four months later due to technical issues around developing local co-op on the Series S. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Across platforms, Baldur’s Gate 3’s monthly active users have never dropped below 2M, including 2.2M MAUs last month (68.5% on Steam, 21.9% on PS5, and 9.6% on Xbox). And it still regularly brings in 280K to 400K players every day: About 1% of BG3’s Steam player base has played for over 500 hours! That’s a little under 200K people. Astro Bot is also an evergreen seller, albeit a more niche, family one Astro Bot, 2024’s winner, has now sold 4.7M copies and generated $291M in revenue. The budget, including marketing, is almost certainly under $100M, given the small Japan-based core team and three-year dev timeline. You can really see why the tides are changing toward less expensive hubs. Astro Bot is the only first-party winner on this list, but follows other first-party winners of The Last of Us Part II (2020’s winner), God of War (2018), and Breath of the Wild (2017). Around 46.6% of Astro Bot’s copies sold have been physical, which is far higher than the typical game. This makes sense for a couple of reasons: There’s a large family audience for this one, and physical boxes are an item to wrap when giving Astro as a gift. Astro has collector value for the PlayStation core (this is nostalgia-fueled platformer celebrating PlayStation’s history) Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Astro is another one of those games that continues selling over time, regularly selling more than 100K a month. It’s sold around 1M more copies this year ($60M in revenue) and is a popular title with families. We can see this using the Alinea platform’s MAU crossover tool: Astro Bot’s top #2, #3, and #4 games by crossover in any given month this year are Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox – without fail. The #1 title every month, though, is Astro’s Playroom, a pack-in with all PS5 consoles. For every month this year, between 20% and 30% of Astro Bot players also played Astro’s Playroom that month. So the free pack-in is a noice funnel for converting players to a full paid product. Expedition 33 sells 8.7M despite Game Pass cannibalisation Finally, we have last year’s winner – Expedition 33. The turn-based-RPG banger has generated $366M via 8.7M copies sold, with 58.8% on Steam, 35.7% on PS5, and 5.5% on Xbox. Xbox’s share of copies sold is this low due to Expedition 33 launching on Game Pass, where 4.3M people across console and PC accessed the game. A little under 700K Xbox players used their subscription to play Expedition 33 this year. That said, the game’s 1.5-year Game Pass deal ended last week on October 16, and we’re already beginning to see a positive trend on Expedition 33’s copies sold via Xbox (but the jury’s still out!). There’s understandably a lot of French pride behind this one, as France is the game’s #3 market on both Steam and PlayStation. Vive la France! One thing that stood out to me is that the GOTY winners aren’t $300M Hollywood productions made in the US. They’re mostly mid-budget studios outside the traditional AAA cost centres. Lots to think about there. Also, good games sell well; who’d have thunk it!? And there’s a whole load of them this year, with GTA 6 still to come, too. GTA just made the cutoff point for the VGAs this year. What a coincidence! Loading... Cool links and other stuff Our physical games newsletter from Tuesday was picked up by GameSpot, Eurogamer, TweakTown, and a bunch of others. We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up. Next week, we’ve got some exciting news regarding the future of our newsletter, so stay tuned! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. Want to see why these companies (and many others) are subscribed to Alinea? Get a free platform trial! [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
The 16th annual Wisconsin Science Festival is upon us: Here’s what it holds
The Wisconsin Science Festival is a 10-day celebration of science, organized by community and volunteer efforts while bringing people together across Wisconsin Oct. 15 to Oct. 25, social media and communications intern for the Morgridge Institute for Research, Callie Kositzke said in an email statement. “The Wisconsin Science Festival invites people of all ages from...
CT secretary of the state warns businesses of phishing email scam
Connecticut Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas warns businesses about a phishing email scam impersonating her office.
SpaceX offers employees extra pay to help build its data centers
Elon Musk's rocket company is offering employees a 20% pay bump if they volunteer to move, according to an email seen by Business Insider.
Rural Health Transformation implementation begins; Here’s what the money will do
Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced the first allocations of the Rural Health Transformation Program Awards, totaling nearly $2.4 million, on Sept. 4, 2026, to fund worksite clinics and employer-based healthcare services across West Virginia.
Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner Vie to Become the Second Biggest Film This Year...
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Often, people blame “data” for ruining Hollywood, when I’d argue that hype (which can often be debunked by data) is often worse, as you can see in these two headlines. To use a common meme, here’s how it started: and how it’s going: Earlier this year, I read countless (and I mean countless) articles (in almost every mainstream media outlet) about how Heated Rivalry was a huge hit and that it “heated” interest in hockey. But Heated Rivalry wasn’t a huge viewership hit compared to the hype: [ ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) [ You Can’t Eat Buzz…Did Heated Rivalry’s Buzz Translate into Actual Viewership? ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) Entertainment Strategy Guy · Jan 22 [ Read full story ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) In this case, the hype (Heated Rivalry is really popular) belied the data (It didn’t make the top ten charts, meaning it wasn’t a huge hit.1) Even worse, every time I write about this, I get a lot of negative feedback, hence why I only sparingly mention the show these days or add lots of caveats when I write about it, but this just further cements the hype. But companies, and the executives leading them, have to determine strategy based on reality, not media coverage. The NHL committed real marketing dollars to a campaign that didn’t work. Sure enough, the latest NHL season opened to under a million viewers. At some point, you have to focus on what the data says, because real dollars are at stake. And that’s why we have the Streaming Ratings Report! To provide and analyze cold, hard data. Luckily, this week, I can be positive and take a look at a huge opening on streaming, along with a very buzzy horror film that customers kind of like, but don’t really love. And a comedy that tried to rebound on streaming. Today, I’m covering two weeks—21-Sep and 28-Sep—so we have a lot to discuss (nearly 5,000 words worth), including a series of film misses for Netflix, another argument for weekly-released TV shows on streaming, another sitcom tries to avoid the comedy curse, Netflix has two new game shows (one powered by AI), Reacher falling off the charts after a huge run, Prime Video tries its hands at the romcom game**,** a look at the WNBA’s big season, a big night for the VMAs on CBS and MTV, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 14th to October 4th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - Two Hits and a Miss Come to Streaming… Three very interesting films came to streaming in one week, and I like comparing them since they show the range of theatrical films. One was a huge blockbuster, one was popular, and one was neither. One is a horror film, a buzzy genre; one is a comedy, a struggling genre; and one is an animated family film, the king of the box office. One went to a tiny streamer (HBO Max), one went to a second-tier streamer (Disney+), and one went to the biggest (Netflix). So… If you just went by box office, you’d expect Backrooms—the $197 million grosser, and partner of Obsession for “YouTube Horror Summer”—to dominate on streaming. If you read this report, though, you know that horror films don’t do great on streaming, and that’s the case again. Backrooms opened at 3.8 million hours according to Nielsen, and had 3.9 million hours in its second week. Here’s how that stacks up to other HBO Max films: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… ...why I don’t buy Backrooms budget… …two new games shows arrive on streaming… …another sitcom struggles… ...another argument for putting out shows weekly on Netflix... ...and a whole lot more, nearly 5,000 words more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Next week, I’ll be taking a look at the eighth season of Hulu’s The Kardashians, answering the question: will this show ever make the charts? If Mormon wives can make it, surely one of social media’s most popular families can as well. Also, Prime Video has a new horror show based on popular IP, Carrie, Netflix has a horror show starring Josh Hartnett, Below, and Apple TV has a UK import, Small Prophets. Plus a bunch of movies like Disclosure Day heading to Peacock, The Housemaid coming to HBO Max, Ben Affleck’s latest on Apple TV, Animals, and Matchbox the Movie on Apple TV, a John Cena action comedy inspired by Hasbro’s toy cars. The week after is even busier! I’ll look at another IP-based horror show, Crystal Lake, a new MCU show on Disney+, VisionQuest, season two of The Lowdown on FX/Hulu, the fourth seasons of The Diplomat on Netflix and Tulsa King on Paramount+, another season of Love is Blind, and four straight-to-streaming films: Netflix’s Sacrifice (starring Chris Evens, Anya-Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, John Malkovich, Salma Hayek. Charlie XCX), Apple TV’s Tenzing (starring Tom Hiddleston and Willem Defoe), Prime Video’s Love of Your Life (Margaret Qualley) and Masterplan (Stanley Tucci) and a whole lot more, somehow. Long term, here’s some huge IP news: a Game of Thrones movie is coming to theaters, Game of Thrones: Aegon’s Conquest in 2029, while Jon Watts (who helmed three of the most recent Spider-Man movies) is directing the next Star Wars trilogy, to be written by Simon Kinberg. I’m cautiously optimistic for both. It feels obvious to say that making good movies matters, but for bets this big (Star Wars is on a swoon, Game of Thrones hasn’t been to theaters yet), the quality has to be there.
'Haven't Played Your Console in a While?' Trade It in, Xbox Tells Customers Amid Stock Shortages
Xbox is sending emails to customers reminding them that they can trade in their Series X and S consoles if they’ve been collecting dust.
Xbox Reportedly Emailing Users To Trade In Consoles At Best Buy
The email supposedly opens by asking Xbox Series owners, 'Haven't played on your console in a while?'
A note to readers: Science, accountability and elections
Dear readers, As early voting begins, I wanted to share some news — and why it connects to the decisions we make at the ballot box. I’ve been selected for the inaugural cohort of the South Atlantic Climate Journalism Hub mentorship program, hosted by Covering Climate Now. I’m excited to join this group, learn from scientists and fellow journalists, and expand my science reporting. Science directly ties to governance. Local officials make decisions about where development goes, how infrastructure is maintained, what emergency preparations receive funding, and how communities rebuild after disasters. Understanding the evidence behind those decisions helps us evaluate whether our government is serving us well. Here in western North Carolina, those connections are all around us, in Lake Lure and beyond. Flood maps inform decisions about property and development. Engineering assessments help identify risks at dams and bridges. Rainfall forecasts guide emergency preparations. Geological information helps explain landslide hazards. Water testing gives communities information they need to assess conditions. Meteorologists’ knowledge and public perception of weather events shape public safety. Each involves scientific or technical knowledge. Each also raises questions about public responsibility: What did officials know? How did they use that information? What did they tell the public? What did taxpayers receive for their money? A study can identify a problem. Elected officials still have to decide what to do about it, how to pay for it, and how to explain their choices. Reporting should examine both the evidence and the response. That is where I want to strengthen my work. My reporting on Helene recovery, infrastructure, flooding, public safety, and public spending has repeatedly brought me to questions that require scientific expertise alongside public records. This mentorship may help me better understand the research, ask more precise questions, and explain the answers clearly. I also bring the perspective of someone living with these concerns. I live downstream of Lake Lure Dam, and landslides affected my property during Helene. Those experiences bring urgency to my questions. Careful reporting helps establish the answers. Readers deserve to know what the evidence shows, where uncertainty remains, and whether officials accurately describe the information guiding their decisions. You also deserve scrutiny of proposed solutions: what they cost, what they are expected to accomplish, and what risks remain. Access to that information matters. As a mostly deaf journalist who relies on written communication, I will continue pressing for written public warnings, records, and explanations that people can read and use in real time. As you consider the candidates seeking your vote, consider how they approach evidence, preparedness, and transparency. Do they support local journalism, even when it’s not parroting a press release? Do they explain weather events clearly in plain English and explain their decisions after them? Make supporting records available? Acknowledge uncertainty? Follow through when a report identifies a risk? Those are practical questions about governing. Thank you for supporting Cops & Congress and the work that makes these questions part of the public conversation. I’m grateful to David Dickson and the CC Now team for this opportunity, and I look forward to bringing what I learn back to you. Annie DanceEditor & Publisher, Cops & Congress — Learn more about this newsletter, ethics policy, how you can help shape this work, and support it. Follow on X and Facebook. Send constructive criticism, fan mail, and tips with public documents for future stories: CopsandCongress@gmail.com ICYMI: View the Cops & Congress archive — Annie Dance is the publisher of Cops & Congress, a newsletter that analyzes what happens when crime, courts, disaster, democracy, and small-town policies collide. Views expressed here are covered by the First Amendment. Dance has a Bachelor of Arts from Manhattan University in Communication with a focus in Journalism and Government. She has been a journalist for over 20 years. Share Upgrade now or give a gift subscription
Texas Democratic candidate for governor sues to review emails between Elon Musk and Greg Abbott
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa alleged in her lawsuit that Gov. Greg Abbott is “unlawfully withholding communications” between his office and tech CEO Elon Musk.
Meatballs on hold: IKEA delays opening new Madison store until spring
The Swedish furniture and home decor company confirmed the updated plans for its second Wisconsin location in an email to the Cap Times.
AI Breach of Australian Healthcare Website Sparks Regulation Debate
Nearly three months after a June attack involving OpenAI on the Australian Medicare website, the Australian government received a five-paragraph email from the company informing officials of the breach. Although the Australian government has promised to take further action, such as establishing task
Streaming’s Biggest Show Returns…and a Buzzy Genre Struggles
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Obviously, the big news of the week (if not month) is Netflix letting go of executive Bela Bajaria, their chief content officer. I’m going to cover this in my next “Most Important Story of the Week”, but I also have a data angle that I might publish before then. (Too much news this month, am I right?) But first, I have a bonus Streaming Ratings Report issue for you. Today’s article is a bit of a grab bag of topics I’ve wanted to write about, but couldn’t squeeze into the (already very long) Streaming Ratings Report issues. The NFL drives huge viewership numbers, so I’ve got a look at that. A whole bunch of TV shows returned to the traditional broadcast channels, and I have thoughts. And I have a quick look at adult animated shows, since a couple flopped earlier this month. Plus, the Emmys aired earlier this month, and we got some fun data bout how popular those nominated shows are and why I’m not optimistic about the show’s future. That’s a lot, so let’s dive right in. Subscribe Sports - Football Remains the King of Streaming Over the last two Streaming Ratings Reports, I sorta ignored the biggest “show” each week. (I was tempted to say “piece of content” but I know that word bugs folks.) In my database, I call these “specials”, and they sure are special. I speak of the king of American TV: football!!! Streaming football is back and, unlike some other sports, it routinely dominates all viewership. Probably the best way to show this is to update one of my favorite graphics, the “40 Million Hour Club”1 since football games have joined that club each week they’ve premiered: (Yep, that’s the data through 28-Sep, the first four weeks of the season. As a reminder, I take the average minute audience provided by Nielsen, factor out a percentage of linear TV viewers in home markets, and multiply the run time by the three-hour runtime.) Again, the numbers are huge. Let’s start with Netflix. They grabbed the rights to the bonus opening week NFL Kickoff game (which was on YouTube last year) and it put up 18.5 million viewers on average. That nets out to 47.4 million hours of estimated streaming hours. That’s good! Though, notably, it’s well below Christmas Day games from previous years. Compared to other streamers/broadcasters, that’s a bit of a mixed result. On one hand, Netflix’s 18.5 million average is about what YouTube claimed last year, though Nielsen used a bespoke methodology at that time, so I trust this viewership figure more. So that’s good. (The game also shifted from a Friday to a Thursday and that could have helped the viewership as well.) And Netflix continues to best Prime Video in total viewership—as you’ll see next—though Netflix has had much higher-profile (opening week and Christmas Day) games. NBC/Peacock’s opening game the night before averaged 25.1 million average viewers, which is just much bigger than Netflix (or Prime Video). That’s the big caveat to all streaming viewership records: even in success, they can’t compete with traditional linear TV. Previously, I called this my “hierarchy of viewership”, and the data keeps supporting that thesis. The downside for NBC is that this game’s viewership was down compared to previous years, though it may be a counting issue. Here’s a great chart from Sports Media Watch: Indeed, looking at all the opening week games across all windows, Netflix still lags the other primetime windows, but does well compared to the afternoon games: I saw a few folks make the case that streamers still lag traditional broadcasters in reach, and I’d add they really lag compared to “broadcast plus streaming” options like NBC/Peacock, ESPN/Disney+ and CBS/Paramount+. The best data I saw for this came from Samba TV, who charted reach through the 2025 season, and, wow. (Samba TV’s numbers are historically lower than Nielsen’s, so don’t compare their household figures to Nielsen’s hours, but use them as a proxy for the relative reach of the streamers.) The good news is Prime Video is NOT having a down year. Their opening Thursday Night Football game reached 18.6 million viewers (about what Netflix got), but that’s a high for Prime Video on Thursdays and the biggest Thursday night game since 2015. The TNF games the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep continued this streak, getting 43.1 (16.8 million average viewers) and 42.5 total hours (16.6 million average viewers), which were both up from last year. Still, that continues the (typical) season slide: (For those new-to-streaming-football-numbers folks, the viewership declines for Thursday Night Football as the year goes along.) Overall, it appears as if Prime Video is now part of the “football habit”, be it for customers at home or out at places like bars and restaurants. And its viewership is slowly catching up to broadcast. One last chart shows this. Last season, Nielsen started adding out-of-home viewership to the charts, so I try not to do season-to-season comparisons as I did for the first few years. And while Nielsen added Big Data viewing this year, I’m going to compare the last two seasons. Here’s that chart, which shows the season-over-season gains: When it comes to streaming football, we have to keep a few seemingly contradictory thoughts in our head… First, streaming doesn’t come close to matching broadcast’s reach and, thus, viewership. Second, even with that gap, football is still the biggest “thing” on streaming. It’s very, very popular. Third, while some methodology changes have likely helped Prime Video’s numbers, their viewership does appear to be growing. Lastly, yeah, the NFL started the season off poorly, with week one dragging down the numbers in year-over-year comparisons. However—and again, methodology changes may have helped this—the viewership grew compared to previous seasons over the next couple of weeks. So football is still king. On streaming and off. Television - Adult Animation Continues to NOT Make the Streaming Charts In the last two reports, two adult-animated shows whiffed: Netflix’s animated comedy, Dang! Paramount+’s Sega-video-game-inspired fantasy/comedy, Golden Axe. Neither made the charts, but that’s usually the case for animated shows. I mean, here’s literally every animated show that’s made the Nielsen Original charts since the start of 2025: And one of those shows is G_abby’s Dollhouse_! A kids show! The problem with charts like this is that they don’t give you a sense of how many shows miss the charts. Netflix had at least eleven animated flops, including comedies like Big Mouth (a show everyone assumed was popular in the pre-Streaming Ratings Era), Long Story Short, Haunted Hotel, Mating Season, Strip Law, and Alley Cats, and action shows like Blood of Zeus, Castlevania: Nocturne, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Prime Video had at least six animated misses, two in the same universe (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss), three more comedies (#1 Happy Family USA, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy and Kevin) and an action show (The Mighty Nein). Disney+ had MCU and Star Wars animated misses (Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Star Wars: Visions, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld) but I can’t tell how many of those shows were geared towards adults. HBO Max had Harley Quinn and Hulu had Solar Opposites. None of these shows made the charts! That’s a lot of misses! If I remade the chart with all those misses, here’s how it would look: Listen, I know the counter arguments. First, it’s cheaper to produce animated shows than live action. Fair enough, but with viewership this low, even that cheaper price point starts to not matter. Second, just look at the acquired charts. Hit animated comedies can generate viewership for years! Shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers do really, really well. Fair enough, but streaming has failed to recreate the dynamic that Fox has mastered so well. That’s a problem for streaming still. Television - Emmys! The annual Emmys broadcast was a few weeks ago, and I’ve got data on how the nominees performed on streaming, plus hot takes on this year’s viewership (and the big news about the broadcast’s, er, streamcast’s future). We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The top Emmy-nominated shows… ...why I’m worried about the future of the Emmys telecast... ...the pros of broadcast television ...and the cons... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue (since the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep were so light), but then I’ll be all caught up after a deluge of streaming ratings data from Nielsen in September. In the meantime, I’m going to try to take a look at Netflix’s stats to explain why Bela Bajaria is out. But even light weeks give me plenty to talk about. The Great British Baking Show returns to Netflix and Apple TV has a buzzy new star-studded comedy. And Netflix has a controversial-but-appears-to-be-popular new game show. Plus big films like Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner head to streaming. And is East of Eden a hit? After that, The Kardashians return to Hulu, Prime Video has a reboot of Carrie, and Netflix has a horror show, Below. Disclosure Day heads to Peacock, The Housemaid heads to HBO Max_,_ a new Ben Affleck film, Animals, lands on Netflix, and Apple TV has a new John Cena action film based on, checks notes, Hasbro’s Matchbox toys. Okay. Longterm, some interesting TV production news. HBO Max ordered How to Survive Without Me, starring Kaley Cuoco, Joshua Jackson, Ray Romano and Rita Wilson, for fifteen episodes! I love that some streamers (or, at least, HBO Max) are finally ordering TV shows with more than eight episodes. In less wise production news, Landman does not appear to be coming back this year, since it just started production. Frankly, I don’t love this (get your shows out on time) but Landman is so popular, I doubt it matters.
Here’s Brunch, a pop-up, weekend email about the 2026 Election Cycle
Your Sunday buffet of Florida politics, food, culture & more.
Fort Smith to help employees with credit monitoring, ID restoration
Fort Smith City Administrator Jeff Dingman on Saturday (Oct. 17) notified city employees of help with “credit monitoring and identity restoration services.” The email came a day after Talk Business...
Review: 'The Social Reckoning,' director Sorkin takes a more subdued approach
Movie reviewer Joshua Hill says 'xxxxxxx' xxxxxxxxx.
Business Bulletin: Are those “Cloud storage is full” messages real?
If you receive an email warning appearing to be from a company you know and trust that states your online storage is full and your family photos, important documents and other files could soon be deleted ... would you click on the "fix" button?
Schmooze: WV natives return to Charleston area for film shoot 20 years in the making
West Virginia natives Chad Smith, Ryan Dorsey, Dustin Kerns and others came together to film a short film, "Schmooze," in Charleston from Oct. 15-19, 2026. The film is a thriller inspired by the movies they used to make together as students at Riverside High School.
Clients, employees left hanging as NH wedding photography business files for bankruptcy
Kasey Fedorchuk and her fiancé Joshua Logan are set to tie the knot on Halloween, but just weeks before the couple will say, "I do," an unexpected email hit their inbox.
AI chatbots could make healthcare more accessible, but some doctors are still wary
AI chatbots are everywhere these days, helping to write emails or draft resumes and answer users’ burning questions about everything from their love life to medical advice.
Plague is stoppable. The next health threat may not be.
The word plague is scary. Centuries ago, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people and changed the course of history. Plague still kills people around the world, and the word still evokes catastrophe. New fears of plague surfaced on October 2, when a lab worker in Irkutsk, Russia, died of pneumonia. Reports suggested that she may have contracted plague through a laboratory exposure. Understandably, people were alarmed. On October 7, the World Health Organization called for the Russian Federation to be transparent about what it knew. WHO issued an update on October 10. Russian authorities told WHO that testing did not identify plague and that investigations found no laboratory release. WHO said confidence in its risk assessment remained limited and that further clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory information was needed. The cause of the woman’s illness remains unknown, and WHO says a laboratory-associated exposure cannot be excluded. As I explained in a recent interview, this incident is very unlikely to lead to a pandemic. Plague is still active, including in the U.S., which sees a handful of cases each year. But it is a disease we can prevent and treat. Plague doesn’t spread readily, and it responds to antibiotics. The standard response—isolate the patient, trace contacts, and administer antibiotics and monitor for symptoms among contacts for seven days—works. We have even planned for antibiotic-resistant plague. At CDC, we developed a playbook for antibiotic-resistant plague and ran exercises on how to find and stop it. CDC guidance anticipates engineered resistance and recommends two different classes of antibiotics if there’s reason to suspect it. There is no evidence that resistance—or even confirmed plague—is involved in this incident. We have thought through how to address plague, but we’re not ready for the next major health threat that emerges from a lab or from animal spillover to humans. What should concern people is how little stands between the world and the next pathogen to get loose. Since peak COVID, epidemic preparedness has fallen off the political agenda, but the risk is greater than ever. More labs handle dangerous pathogens with more ways to make those pathogens deadlier, and more people live and work in close contact with animals. There are actions we can take now: We need better lab safety in every country. The number of labs that work with dangerous pathogens has increased worldwide over two decades, but there’s no enforceable international standard and no inspection regime; the Biological Weapons Convention, fifty years on, still has no verification mechanism. Labs that study dangerous germs need strong safety systems, training, and oversight. We need to reduce spillover events. Three in four emerging human infections start in animals, and there’s a lot we can do to reduce spillover risk, but the world is doing very little of it. Live-animal markets are one place to act. For instance, closing live-bird markets helped control H7N9 influenza in China. Reducing opportunities for people to encounter infected animals can prevent infections before they become outbreaks. In The Formula for Better Health, which is now out in paperback along with the hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook versions, I argue that labs do too many risky experiments with too many dangerous pathogens in too many institutions, and that every experiment should first answer one basic question: Is the likely benefit greater than the risk? Spillover risk can also be reduced: In the book, I discuss how Brazil cut its deforestation rate by 70% from 2004 to 2012 while increasing agricultural production and reducing risky contact between people and forest animals. We need faster detection and response. Delay costs lives. Strong surveillance, good labs, and trained responders can turn a single case into a small cluster of infections instead of an epidemic. Resolve to Save Lives has worked for nearly a decade to help countries find and stop outbreaks faster. The 7-1-7 target, which Resolve to Save Lives developed with partners in Uganda and elsewhere, provides a clear standard: detect within 7 days, notify within 1 day and complete all essential early response actions within 7 days. In Uganda’s Kasese district, for example, a review of a measles outbreak using 7-1-7 identified shortages of accessible funds, fuel, and vehicles that delayed the response. District leaders established funds they could access quickly. When, a few months later, the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever appeared, the district detected it in three days, notified authorities in one, and mounted an effective response in two. Only one case was confirmed, and the patient survived. Because funds were available before the emergency, authorities were prepared and able to act. This kind of preparation can’t wait until the next crisis begins. Plague is an old disease we that know how to stop. The next threat may be harder to recognize, harder to treat, and easier to spread. Safer labs, less risk of spillover, and faster outbreak detection and response need sustained investment now, while we still have time to prevent the next emergency. Share
What's going on, South Dakota?
Submit your events for The Dakota Scout's Lounge section by emailing events@thedakotascout.com
Designs reviewed for Greenville’s Falls Park Conference District, JW Marriott
Greenville Design Review Board approved one application and deferred another involving the planned Falls Park Conference District during its Oct. 15 meeting.
IP Saves the Day On Streaming
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get started, I wanted to highlight a new idea I saw from Real Good AI, proposing a ratings system for AI use. (H/T to Anthony Kaufman’s article highlighting this.) It would look something like this: In general, I think that this is a solid, middle-ground solution that should appease both the pro-AI camp (who love AI) and the anti-AI camp (who wants to know if what they’re watching didn’t come from humans). Regardless of your feelings on AI/LLMs—I’ll never use it for my writing—transparency is often the best solution to many problems. In general, I think way more media outlets need to be using way more AI disclosures. My quick “Yes and...” to this idea: what about ads? In particular, I hate it when I see or hear ads that are obviously AI-generated, but a person or voice says, “I used this product”. AI doesn’t use products! Just today, I watched a YouTube ad where a “person” said they use some sort of rain wind chime...but that’s not a real person! They didn’t use this product. (Especially since the video of the wind chime itself also appeared to be AI-generated...) I believe most traditional advertising already has standards like this anyway.1 Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’re covering the week of 14-Sep, and then next issue, I’ll be fully caught up with Nielsen’s new release schedule. In the future, I plan to put out Streaming Ratings Reports each Monday after Nielsen’s Thursday releases. Overall, we had some big new shows this week, like Prime Video’s Reacher spinoff_, Neagley_, which is off to a big, big start, and Netflix’s latest in its Monster anthology, which is their largest opening since June and the second-largest since One Piece came out in March. All that, plus Slow Horses returns, the trio of returning shows (Lioness, Reacher and Ted Lasso) continue to dominate the top tens, Paramount+’s latest crime drama, a big whiff for a Netflix original film and a precipitous drop for Netflix film charts, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 14th to September 20th 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - IP For the TV Win Can I use the dirty word of entertainment journalism right now? IP. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone I said it. But IP works at the box office, and we’ve seen some evidence it works in TV too. Not as well, and not all the time—no absolutes here!—but often enough. And glancing at the Nielsen top ten…it worked this week! Take Prime Video, who has a monster hit in the crime drama Reacher. Would a spinoff work for that show? Yep! They binge-released Neagley, about a detective from the original Reacher series, and its eight episodes debuted to 29.6 million hours. Here’s how it stacks up to Reacher, one of Prime Video’s biggest shows: That’s great. Nearly as strong as Reacher’s opening! (Both shows started with eight, binge-released episodes, so this comparison is apples-to-apples.) Notably, Prime Video scheduled the debut of Neagley to overlap with Reacher’s most recent season, to help drive tune-in. Obviously, I love smart release strategies like that. And even though I wrote “obviously”, it’s not really that obvious, since streamers don’t often take advantage of natural overlaps like this_._2 Other data backs how well Neagley performed. It opened at second place on Samba TV for two weeks and got 51.7 million hours on Luminate. That’s the eleventh biggest opening on Luminate since May of 2024 and tied with Bridgerton’s third season opening. That’s a huge opening! Its IMDb is solid too, a 7.7 on 24K reviews. Netflix’s latest edition in the “Monster” series—which started with Jeffrey Dahmer and comes from Ryan Murphy—did well too, opening to 24.7 million hours. That’s the biggest opening for Netflix since I Will Find You in June, and second biggest since March. Unlike the Reacher series, this franchise is trending downward, though. The first Monster show—Dahmer - Monster—was giant. More than anything, I think this reflects that Netflix running out of extremely popular—if that’s the right word?—serial killers to feature. Still, the data says this is a very good opening. It made it to third place on Samba TV for two weeks. It also opened to 40.0 million hours on Luminate. That’s not quite as elite as Neagley, but still very, very strong. I’ll be honest: my priors coming into any given week are that IP works to help drive buzz for new shows, but TV shows need to stand on their own even more than movies, so they will succeed or fail based on their quality. But these two spinoffs definitely worked. Quick Notes on TV The top show, film or special this week? Football, again. Specifically, Prime Video’s season opener of Thursday Night Football. The games run long (three hours) but mainly a lot of people watch each game. That adds up to a lot of viewership. Paramount released the second season of MobLand on an unusual day for that service, a Friday! Often, they put their new shows out on a Sunday, as they did last year with a run of shows (Lioness, Tulsa King and Landman). MobLand didn’t make Nielsen in its first week, but on Samba TV it got to eighth and seventh place. Luminate had a smaller opening too, only 5.3 million hours. MobLand missed the Nielsen charts for its first eight weeks, so this season is off to a stronger start. (Bonus note: the first season streams on both Prime Video and The Roku Channel, but I only have it as Paramount+ on those charts.) I’ve mentioned a few times that foreign-language originals do lower numbers than English-language originals on Netflix most of the time. But I don’t usually emphasize what country those originals come from, and observationally, they tend to be from Western or Northern European countries, in general. So credit to Not a Stranger, a Turkish Netflix original, for breaking through on Luminate, getting to 7.9 million hours in its first full week on those charts. As I mentioned last issue, Crew Girl ended up making the Nielsen charts in its second week. That’s still a soft performance compared to many shows, but again this, one looks affordable. And if you’re curious, here’s how it stacks up to some other sports romance shows: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… …about a new data source and how it drives streaming viewership… ...what reality show is struggling in its latest season…. ...what Netflix film bombed…. ...How Reacher, Ted Lasso, and Lioness are doing on the charts… ...what obscure sport put up great viewership numbers… …how far streaming films are falling… …all the flops, bombs and misses for the last week… …and more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue, then we’ll be all caught up with Nielsen’s data. Yes! The goal is to have my report out on the Monday after I get Nielsen’s data. So next issue, I’m looking at East of Eden, The Great British Baking Show, a Willy Wonka game show (that people are upset uses AI, but viewers might not care), and a Cosby show spinoff reboot on Netflix, and Brothers on Apple TV (starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey). That’s about it for TV, but who’s going to win the streaming week, The Breadwinner or Backrooms on streaming? Answer: Toy Story 5. Plus Netflix has a Unabomber film and a new Tyler Perry film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma tries to repeat The Substance’s run on MUBI, and Paramount+ has Jackass: Best and Last. Long term, Netflix is remaking Lonesome Dove. I love this choice, but man, there are a lot of westerns on TV right now. And they’re making Sega TV shows, including a Crazy Taxi TV show and Sonic show with an “edge”.
The Politics of Heat, Homes, and Lobster Boats.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Bank. MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—The candidates’ forum focusing on House District 15 and incumbent Holly Eaton and Clifford Noyes last week spent a lot of time on the candidates’ thought of heating, communication with constituents, property taxes, education costs, and other issues. It also was a time for the community to ask their own questions and see two candidates up close and personal at the Southwest Harbor Fire Department firehouse. Jim Vallette organized the hour-long event, which was moderated by Carrie Jones of the Bar Harbor Story. Ken Rozsahegyi provided technical support for the congenial event. House District 15 serves Brooklin, Deer Isle, Eagle Island Township, Frenchboro, Isle au Haut, Marshall Island, Southwest Harbor, Stonington, Swan's Island, Tremont, and Vinalhaven. Jones advised as she began the question and answer part of the event, ”Treat everyone here like they are going to be the ones who might give you a ride in a rainstorm, pull your pet out of a burning building, or be the one grading your kids’ papers at school, okay?” She continued. “That’s it. Tonight isn’t meant to be a gotcha debate. The goal is to give people in the district a chance to get to know both candidates, hear what they care about, and understand what they’d actually try to accomplish in Augusta.” The questions and discussion throughout were kind. Eaton currently serves in the position. She’s a Democrat from Deer Isle, raised in a fishing family and has worked in nonprofits and volunteered for her school board. Noyes is unenrolled (politically) and from Southwest Harbor and currently a school board member, self employed as a mason. He focused on fiscal issues throughout the forum. Eventually, at Jones’ prompting, the candidates played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” for who would go first for their closing statements. Noyes used the opportunity to urge others to head to the ballot. “Whether you vote for me or Holly, it’s important that people vote,” Noyes said. He hoped the voter turnout in the district would be over 35 percent because that would mean people were truly engaged. Eaton stressed that she’s a Democrat, but in Augusta, her role isn’t about party. “I am a Democrat, but when I go to Augusta, I am there to represent the people of District 15. I want people to feel as though I’m accessible, that I’m responsive, and that I show up for the district,” Eaton said. Being there for others was vital, she explained. “When something comes before me in Augusta, I try to look at it through the lens of the people and the communities that I represent. How will this affect the people who live here? Does it make it easier or harder to raise a family here, to operate a small business, to work on the water, to afford a home, to keep our schools open, or provide the essential services our communities depend on?” Eaton said. Noyes spoke about fiscal responsibility and about the state being more responsive to communities and the ideas that come from them. “I feel that we desperately need to restore some fiscal sanity, a little bit. So when the legislature meets again,” Noyes said, “it could be critical for Maine residents that we don’t keep digging this hole that we’re in financially and keep raising our taxes so the struggling families struggle even more.” The two answered a series of questions from Jones, then answered questions from the audience and participants via Zoom. Jones asked what they heard the most from people about what was making their lives hard and what can the legislature in Augusta do it about those issues. Both spoke to concerns about heating oil costs. Noyes spoke to the three H’s: health, home, and heat. Eaton and Noyes spoke to the burdens of families with lower incomes, with Eaton mentioning LIHEAP (Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program). They both were in favor of free community college and trade programs. They both supported the working waterfront. Both said that data centers—such as the one proposed in Eastport, which is out of the district—should be a local decision, but neither were in favor of it. The working waterfront was supported by both. Eaton’s served on the Maine Marine Resource Committee in the legislature. She advocated a diversity of fishing resources and less of a reliance on lobstering. Shrimp, she hoped, would make a comeback. Noyes worried about out-of-state pressure on the lobstering industry, also spoke of shrimp harvesting timings, and said he supported the lobstering industry. QUICK NOTE Carrie Jones is, obviously, the co-founder of the Bar Harbor Story, which made us have a bit of a hard time putting out this story and thinking it through and how to present it. We ended up with this article. The debate in its entirety is below, many thanks to Ken and Jim for making it publicly available. UPCOMING AND PAST EVENTS The following events are or were organized by the League of Women Voters Downeast. DISTRICT 7 DISTRICT ATTORNEY DISTRICT 13 Thursday, Oct 15, 2026 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM Candidate Forum: House District 13 125 State St , Ellsworth Featuring candidates Michael Cunningham (D) and Russell White (R), moderated by Cyndi Wood, managing editor of the Ellsworth American. DEMOCRACY FORUM Friday, Oct 16, 2026 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM Democracy Forum — Election 2026: What’s on Your Ballot RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website. [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/feeling-stressed-kids-corner-invites) [ Feeling Stressed? Kids’ Corner Invites Parents, Educators, and Caregivers to Rediscover the Joy with National Speaker Raelene Ostberg Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/feeling-stressed-kids-corner-invites) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/feeling-stressed-kids-corner-invites) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ Mainely Meat’s Pink Party for Breast Cancer Awareness is October 18! Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ Conners Emerson School Announces Public Surplus Property Sale Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ Planting the Writer’s Garden 12:15 AM ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) [ Artist Maria de los Angeles explores migration and belonging in COA public lecture 12:19 AM ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
OPINION: Tired of political spam texts and emails? It's only going to get worse.
OPINION: Tired of political spam texts and emails? It’s only going to get worse. Read more at The Nevada Independent.
Gemini AI Plus subscribers will lose access to Pro models next month
Google has begun emailing Gemini AI Plus members to inform them when their Gemini subscription will no longer include access...
Ubisoft plans cuts at German studios, adding to wave of workforce reductions
Ubisoft is planning to reduce its workforce in Germany, where it operates a trio of studios, by about 100 workers, Game File has learned. The company wants to offer employees buyouts to, should enough people accept, avoid having to lay anyone off. “In Germany, we initiated discussions with the Works Council last week regarding a proposed voluntary departure plan across Ubisoft Dusseldorf, Ubisoft Berlin & Ubisoft Mainz,” a company rep told Game File. A “works council” is a union-like group representing employees. “The voluntary plan is the primary measure being proposed to support the intended organizational changes,” the Ubisoft rep added. The company declined to confirm the scale of the potential headcount cut. Of the impacted studios, Mainz might be the best known to the public. It leads development of the Anno series and shipped the well-reviewed strategy game Anno 117: Pax Romana in November 2025. Berlin and Dusseldorf operate as support studios within Ubisoft’s creative network. Berlin recently supported the development of Rainbow Six Siege and the Rayman Legends Retold remake. Dusseldorf also contributed to those projects, as well as The Settlers and Ubisoft-branded escape rooms. Dusseldorf is the biggest of the three studios, with some 400+ workers, compared to just over 100 at the other two, a source familiar with the reductions and the teams told Game File. More than half of these new reductions of about 100 people are expected to happen at Dusseldorf. The planned cuts were announced at a town hall for the German studios on Tuesday of last week. In an email follow-up, the studio group’s managing director, Benedikt Grindel, said the cuts were intended to “best position our German studios for the future... with a clearer focus on their role, capabilities and organizational setup needed for the work ahead.” The email was an echo of the past. In January 2025, Grindel had emailed the Ubisoft developers in his region (or studio “zone”) to explain that a round of 185 cuts at the time, including about 65 at Dusseldorf, were “essential to improve our operational efficiency and ensure the long-term sustainability of our studios, the zone and the company.” A half-decade of continued job cuts Ubisoft has been aggressively cutting its headcount for years. At the end of September 2022, it had 20,729 workers. By the end of March 2026, that total was down to 16,590. Studio management is trying to trim costs as it grapples with a changing industry and a drought of releases, let alone hits. The company announced earlier this year that it had reduced its costs since 2022 by “nearly €325 million” ($362m) and planned to lower them through 2028 by another €180 million ($200m). In June the company said it was closing down its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios and cutting roles in its Barcelona team. Even commercial and creative success hasn’t spared studios from this ongoing company-wide contraction. As Game File was nailing down details around the proposed cuts in Germany, Ubisoft management was informing workers of cuts in its Singapore studio, which shipped a hit remake of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag this past July. Some 70 positions in Singapore are being eliminated “to align the studio with upcoming production needs,” per a company rep’s statement to Game File. In early 2024, a large team in the Singapore studio launched the multiplayer pirate game Skull & Bones. It performed poorly but has been supported with regular content updates since. Many of Ubisoft’s studios around the world are heavily subsidized via regional grants and tax breaks. Singapore had been among them for years, but received no such local assistance in the 12 months ending this past March. News of the Singapore cuts broke today alongside word that Ubisoft is also proposing the closure of RedLynx, pending negotiations with officials. The Finnish studio behind the motorbike series Trials was founded in 2000 and sold to Ubisoft in 2011. As reported by VGC (and corroborated by Game File), Ubisoft management told employees it could not come up with a new, sustainable assignment for RedLynx. The 2025 workforce at Ubisoft Dusseldorf were straight-up cuts. This time, Ubisoft is hoping the reductions at its trio of German studios will largely come from workers taking a payout to leave. The company offered such voluntary dismissals at its Massive Entertainment studio (The Division) a year ago. For the German studios’ buyouts this time around, Ubisoft and the Works Council had discussed a formula that’d pay a worker’s monthly salary multiplied by 1.5 and by the number of years they’ve worked at the company, according to Game File sources. The formula is still subject to negotiations with the Works Council and has not yet been part of an official offer to workers. It could be adjusted up or down, and it could be supplemented with additional bonuses. Asked about the floated payout formula, a Ubisoft rep told Game File, “The terms of a potential voluntary departure program remain subject to negotiation with employee representatives. No final agreement has been reached, and we won’t comment on specific proposals while discussions are ongoing.” Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: Epic’s AI adventures Epic Games (Fortnite, the Unreal engine) is all-in on using AI to try to transform the way it makes video games and game-making tools. It’s leaders appear to be undeterred by any resistance among gamers and some game developers around generative AI—and instead emboldened by advances, particularly in AI-assisted programming. A recap of the last three days: On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Epic management told workers last week that development of an upcoming game combining Star Wars and Marvel characters would be “AI first.” Employees would be expected to use AI models such as Claude to code the game. A manager told Epic’s developers there would be “[n]o more hand-written code” and that art for the game would be “generated with full AI workflows,” per the outlet. Just ahead of that story running, Epic founder Tim Sweeney tweeted: “We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.” In a follow-up, Sweeney predicted that most game development processes would be at least three times faster a year from now than they were in January 2026, thanks to AI. To a person on X who told him he was failing to read the room, Sweeney said: “Much of the room wants it to be 2016 again, but it’s not. Our job, as the provider of tools and technology to much of the industry, is to design for the present that is and the future that will soon be.” On Wednesday, Epic announced it was releasing a faster launcher for its Epic Games Store marketplace. It did so by stating in a blog post as clear as could be that the launcher is an AI-enabled, vibe-coded project: Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look. Programming is hard? That was unexpected phrasing from a company founded by a legendarily great programmer. Back in 2011, Sweeney told me that he’d picked up programming quickly as a kid and rejoiced at the power it gave him. “I could look at any program that anybody else had written and, with enough effort, build something cooler.” Item 3: The Xbox Labs experiment (and one of the people behind it) Microsoft’s Xbox division, which is flooding the zone with announcements lately, yesterday revealed a new internal tech-tinkering team called Xbox Labs. In the words of Xbox boss Asha Sharma Labs is “a small group of game makers, engineers and scientists whose job is to turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience.” Conventional wisdom coming out of the announcement is that Labs is a team that’ll focus on ideas driven by generative AI. In her announcement, Sharma cited some of the dizzying achievements in tech and gaming over the past month as AI agents and other AI tools have been deployed to swiftly figure out how popular games work, then rebuild them and mix them up. She mentioned seeing ”games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support” and said “[p]erhaps more surprisingly, we’ve seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another.” (Minecraft plus Elden Ring, for example, or Fortnite + Super Monkey Ball + Overwatch + Diablo + others.) Sharma also cited the work of Windows PC games being ported to run in browsers, a seeming reference to a recent AI-assisted fan port of Halo. Or perhaps Call of Duty or GTA. Sharma didn’t use the specific term “AI” in her memo, but she came close, citing AI “agents” and their potential for game-making tools that Labs could help craft: I think XBOX has an important role to play here. Coding became the first major workload for agents because they can write, run, and test software. Games share many of those same properties, and people spend more than 72 billion hours a year playing XBOX games, roughly five times the estimated time spent writing code worldwide. We’ve spent 25 years learning how to make great games, and I want our game makers to help shape what these new technologies make possible. As we learn, we’ll share the tools we build with developers across the industry, just as we always have. When I asked an Xbox rep if Labs was an AI-centric team, they said genAI was not the focus, describing it as having a broader mandate for using new tech in new ways in gaming. As an example, they pointed to Xbox’s recently launched disc-to-digital gaming usage rights program. Microsoft didn’t specifically name anyone involved full-time in Xbox Labs yesterday, but on social media and LinkedIn, I spotted Adrian Mato IDing himself as leading the creatio of tools at Labs and talking up the launch. Mato first caught my attention in late September, when he said on X that he was “starting to build a new team at Xbox focused on products and tools for how games get built and distributed as agentic tools become more capable.” At the time, he framed AI-based tools as a supplement to traditional game dev tools. “I don’t think we need to replace them,” he said. Since then, he’s publicly shown interest in AI and in games. He’s recently spent some of his X feed marveling at the power of AI agents and praising the lighting in the latest Gears of War. Following the Labs announcement yesterday, he enthused about the Xbox Labs’ stylish landing page. He wrote: “We built some fun tools to art-direct shaders in real time, experimented with interactive ASCII art, and sprinkled in lots of tiny details. “Move your mouse to leave a colorful trail that reveals the original footage, or interact with the video to trigger bursts of particles. “A lot of love went into making it all feel just right. “More to come”
A Major Labor Boom in CNY? Not Here Yet
With so many major projects going on — Micron, I-81 viaduct and others — job growth is predicted to increase. But so far the number of jobs in the region has declined By Aaron Gifford [caption id=attachment_11065 align=alignright width=350] Amy Stage, deputy director at the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY): “For us, the conversation isn’t just about filling jobs. It’s about creating sustainable pathways that help people see a future for themselves in manufacturing.”[/caption] The I-81 viaduct project in Syracuse and Micron facility construction in Clay are expected to create a major labor boom for Central New York. But for the time being, the number of jobs here has actually decreased in the past year. The New York State Department of Labor reported that, for the annual comparison of June 2025 to this past June, private sector jobs decreased by 2,200 or less than 1% to 260,000. Job gains were concentrated in leisure and hospitality (+700), private education and health services (+400) and other services (+300). Job losses for that annual period were reported in the areas of trade, transportation and utilities (-1,500); professional and business services (-1,000); financial activities (-500); mining, logging and construction (-300); manufacturing (-200); and information (-100). The public sector job count rose over 12 months, with most growth concentrated in education, the state Department of Labor reported. Looking ahead, the Central New York economy is expected to benefit from both the Micron and I-81 viaduct projects over a period of several years. Initial job growth is foreseen in construction and computer and electronic manufacturing. Spin-off jobs will be created in the areas of professional and business services, health care and education, the state Department of Labor said in an email response to Oswego County Business magazine. “Population growth tied to the buildout of Micron Technology semiconductor complex in Clay is also expected to bring more workers and residents to the region, increasing demand for transportation services,” the agency said. New York Department of Labor highlighted current or projected job growth trends in various sectors. An increase in defense-related contracts at local high-tech employers has continued to support employment growth in the computer and electronic product manufacturing sector and Micron is expected to generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs as the project progresses. This sector paid an annual average wage of $117,500 in 2025 and employment in the sector is projected to grow by over 60% through 2032, making it the fastest-growing industry in the region. Typical occupations in this industry include electrical, electronic and electromechanical assemblers, software developers and industrial engineers, the state agency reported. Specialty trade contractors include several different types of tradespeople — electricians, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) mechanics and installers. Many of these positions are trained through apprenticeships, the state Department of Labor reported. The Interstate 81 construction project is generating local jobs, including construction laborers, projected to grow at a 6.4% rate, and operating engineers and other construction equipment operators, projected to grow at a 7.3% rate over the next several years. Construction of the Micron Technology facility is also “creating thousands of job opportunities that will continue over the next two decades,” the state agency reported. The specialty trade contractors sector paid an annual average wage of $86,200 in 2025. For Central New York, the challenge isn’t creating jobs, it’s filling them. Amy Stage, a deputy director at the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY), said meeting this unprecedented growth is a much larger task than just replacing retirees. “We’re seeing workforce gaps at every experience level,” she said. “Companies need entry-level employees, experienced technicians, supervisors, engineers and skilled trades professionals. The opportunity is tremendous, but we need more people entering these career pathways.” Employers are looking for people who can troubleshoot, read technical information, use computers and learn new processes, not just perform repetitive production work, Stage said. To address this demand, the MACNY created the Manufacturers Talent Institute, which aims to connect students and job seekers with meaningful career pathways while helping employers build their workforce. Twenty-one companies have so far signed up to provide opportunities for more than 800 students. “For us, the conversation isn’t just about filling jobs,” Stage said. “It’s about creating sustainable pathways that help people see a future for themselves in manufacturing.” Several manufacturing facilities in the region are in the midst of expansion: • TTM Technologies, a leading U.S. manufacturer of advanced electronics and interconnect solutions for aerospace, defense and high-technology markets, which has a plant in DeWitt, completed its buildout of an additional facility, adding 400 jobs and expanding production of high-tech circuit boards for defense and critical electronics applications. • In Cortlandville, the Byrne Hollow Crossing Plant, a dairy manufacturing and processing facility, is increasing its operations, creating 100 new jobs. • The Chobani yogurt company is building a 1.4-million square foot dairy processing facility in Oneida County. This will create more than 1,000 good-paying jobs and double Chobani’s New York state workforce, Stage said. Stage noted several ways that local, state and federal governments can help spur manufacturing job growth in this region. Elected leaders and public agencies could work with industry representatives to create pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs seeking to upskill workers and improve employee retention. New York state has a variety of grants, tax incentives and financing programs to support site preparation, infrastructure, workforce development and capital investment. The U.S. Department of Labor has a pay-for-performance incentive program that provides employers $3,500 per new apprentice hired and retained for 90 days. MACNY was previously awarded an $87,000 federal grant that will cover 25 apprentices at nine companies. The manufacturing skills gap in the United States, at its current rate, could result in 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030, according to a study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute. In New York state, that gap is on pace to exceed 100,000 unfilled positions within six years. Manufacturing companies will be counting on more women to help fill that gap. While women make up half of the overall U.S. workforce, they only account for 29% of the manufacturing workforce in this country, Stage said. “Pre-apprenticeship programs like Real Life Rosies help to bring awareness to the manufacturing industry to fill some of the gaps, but we have a long way to go and it starts with educating people at younger ages about careers in manufacturing and earn-and-learn opportunities,” she said. As for Micron, that $100 billion-plus project, considered the largest private investment in New York state history, is expected to eventually create up to 50,000 jobs throughout the region, factoring in the spin-off opportunities for construction and supply chains. The plant’s foundation was poured on July 9. “As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, data and memory are foundational to the modern economy — and Micron is increasing our U.S. investments to more than $250 billion through 2035 to meet that moment,” the company’s president and CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, said in a news release. Bechtel, Micon’s construction partner in the project, reported that 4,500 people will be employed to help build the facility, including skilled craft professionals, local union members representing various trades and apprentices. The Syracuse-based CenterState CEO organization tallies the regional labor force at 397,582 workers (Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, Madison and Oswego counties). Job growth isn’t limited to the Central New York region. For the larger area covering portions of the Mohawk Valley, the North Country, the Southern tier, and the western part of the state, there are 155,601 employees in the advanced manufacturing sector, and 155,275 construction workers. The agency’s 2026 Economic Forecast report noted that 41% of community and business leaders surveyed said a shortage of skilled workers in this area remains a problem, though 77% shared a positive economic outlook for the year ahead. Beyond the semiconductor and advanced manufacturing areas, local business leaders also see growth in small manufacturing companies, storage businesses, housing, unmanned flight technology and general construction. “Productive reuse of property,” the report said, “will hopefully continue to preserve unique architecture while driving business.” The report identified several challenges for economic growth in the region, including an aging workforce, outdated equipment, the rising cost of raw materials and “the disconnect between the speed of business needs and the pace of talent readiness.”
'Dark Hollow': West Virginia horror film highlights Appalachian culture, history
Daniel Byers's independent horror film Dark Hollow, inspired by Appalachian history and filmed in West Virginia, is being shown in theaters across the state during the month of October 2026.
Fenway Insider: Submit questions for MassLive’s Sean McAdam
What questions do you have for Sean McAdam this week? Drop them in the comments or send an email to fenwayinsider@masslive.com
Email King County Council now to support public health clinics
With an end to temporary funding ahead, public health clinics need a reliable and sustainable funding source now as HR 1 kicks in.
*POSTPONED* Behind the Science with Paleontologist and Curator of Dinosauria Dr. Matthew Carrano
***Due to speaker illness, this event has been postponed. A new date will be announced in two weeks. If you registered for this program, please check your email for more information. We apologize for the inconvenience.*** Is the 21st Century the real Age of Dinosaurs? Today, more paleontologists are discovering more dinosaur fossils from more places in the world than ever before. Our understanding of these amazing creatures has leapt forward while their popularity has surged. Museums sit at the junction of these phenomena. The Smithsonian has been a center for dinosaur research for more than a century, and its collections include many iconic and scientifically important specimens. Today, Smithsonian researchers continue to discover new dinosaurs, but they are also uncovering more information about the ones we already know and love. New techniques and approaches allow them to investigate aspects of dinosaur biology, ecology, and evolution in ways that would have been inconceivable to early paleontologists. The result is an ever-improving understanding of dinosaurs as living, breathing, and thriving animals. This month, go behind the science with paleontologist Dr. Matthew Carrano, Curator of Dinosauria at the National Museum of Natural History as he discusses new discoveries at home and abroad, in the field and in the museum. Registration is encouraged. Space is filled on a first come first served basis. ---------------- About the Series: Behind the Science A monthly after-hours series featuring NMNH scientists and researchers Each month, join the National Museum of Natural History for the new series, Behind the Science, where NMNH researchers share insights into their latest discoveries and explore the fascinating questions driving their work—from the origins of life to the future of our planet. Come learn what’s happening behind the scenes and how science shapes our understanding of the natural world. Programs take place in Q?rius, the Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Center. Topics and speakers announced on a rolling basis, but save the dates now!
Rochester Mental Health Alliance Announces Upcoming 2026/2027 Community Meetings
The Rochester Mental Health Alliance announces upcoming 2026/2027 Community Meetings taking place at First United Methodist Church (Hurd Room), 34 S Main Street, on the 3rd Wednesday of the month from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. For more information, email kmichaud@cornerstonevna.org.
Jack Bernard: Don't put off needed change because of politics (Opinion)
West Virginia has several healthcare issues that must be addressed sooner rather than later.
Guest editorial: Don't put off needed change because of politics
Portions of this editorial were originally published by The Guardian and were distributed by The Associated Press.
AI Agents Give Main Street Businesses Big Business Muscle
Running a small business has always meant doing more with less. The owner takes the morning shift, answers customer emails on lunch, reconciles the books
The science, instinct and hard work behind Roosters’ success
Enter your email address to get each Tribune edition sent to your inbox Subscribe There’s a fair bit of unseen work that goes into winning an NRL premiership, dating back many months - just ask Simon Jones. The Sydney Roosters Head of Performance, who hails from Southland, has been in the thick of it. He played a lead role in guiding the 2026 champions through a marathon campaign that ended with a grand final win over the Newcastle Knights. The Roosters had to navigate the lengthy round-robin competition, including the pre-season, before playing through all four weeks of the finals series. It was a demanding stretch that tested the players and the staff responsible for keeping them on the field. “It is a hell of a beast, mate, to be honest,” Jones told The Roar Podcast. “There’s such a great group of staff there that know what they’re doing, and the boys are pretty professional.” Jones believed the Roosters managed the physical demands well, pointing to the health of the squad throughout the campaign and the decision to rest a significant portion of the playing group in the final round of the regular season. That call, made by head coach Trent Robinson and his coaching staff, proved valuable as the Roosters entered the finals with some energy in reserve. “We did finish the season physically where we needed to be, and we’d sort of had a pretty healthy squad all year,” Jones said. “To the team that do that, mate, mission accomplished, really.” It is the sort of work that often goes unnoticed when the spotlight falls on the players scoring tries and making match-winning plays, but Jones knows the cumulative effect of those decisions can be significant over a long season. After a win over Penrith had helped establish them as premiership favourites, losses to the Wests Tigers and Dolphins were followed by a defeat to the Panthers in the opening week of the finals. Rather than panic, the club refocused to position itself to challenge for the title. “The Tigers’ performance was probably the only one where you’re really quite disappointed because it’s hard to get to the top of the competition,” Jones told The Roar Podcast. “We had proof that we could; we knew what we needed to do. We just had to get back to that.” For Jones, the answer was not necessarily a radical change to the programme. It was about executing the basics consistently, both on the field and in preparation. “We just do the basics better than anybody else,” he said. “Whether that is actually the way you play the game or how you’re preparing, it’s just be really consistent, do the basics really, really well.” Like many professional sports teams, the Roosters are entrenched in sports science and performance data. The club has access to a range of information, including players’ sleep, GPS metrics and neuromuscular scores, helping staff assess how individuals are coping with training and competition. “We are very science-backed, and some people would say data-driven, but it’s people first,” he said. “The reason you collect all this data is to try and be the best for that person.” Jones said the club was also prepared to reconsider testing methods if they were not generating useful discussions or helping staff make better decisions. In an environment where technology is continually evolving, he believes experience and gut instinct remain important. “The data is no good unless you have conversations,” he said. “When you strip it right back, mate, trust the gut still and obviously, you know, just doing the basics really, really well.” The return of halfback Sam Walker provided a further example of the importance of individual determination and the work of the club’s medical team. Walker underwent ankle surgery late in the regular season, with his premiership campaign appearing in doubt. However, he was determined to return for the preliminary final. Jones said Walker was back at the training ground three days after surgery, walking freely enough to surprise those around him. While the surgeon’s work was crucial, Jones credited the halfback’s mindset as a major factor in the remarkable turnaround. “He was quite clear with Robbo after he got the surgery that he was going to make it back for the prelim finals,” Jones said. The Roosters’ performance programme also sits within a wider club culture that Jones believes is central to their success. Each season, players develop their own team mantra through a lengthy process facilitated by Robinson. It provides principles that the squad can connect to its actions on the field. Rather than simply carrying over the previous year’s wording after a successful campaign, the club repeats the process because the players’ ownership of it is what gives it meaning. “When it’s led, player-owned and player-led, mate, it’s really powerful,” Jones said. Get more from Logan Savory in the Substack app Available for iOS and Android Get the app Jones joined the Roosters in 2024 and said the environment had evolved as experienced players departed and younger members of the squad took on greater responsibility. Maintaining continuity in the club’s culture and preparation had helped the group navigate those changes. The premiership was a significant achievement for Jones, who acknowledged how difficult it was to win the NRL’s ultimate prize. However, he is already looking at how the performance programme can improve. “There’s still things within my role and things that I’d like to help improve at the club,” he said. For Jones and his team, the challenge now is to review the season, refine their systems and prepare for another campaign. The celebrations may have followed a memorable title win, but the work behind the scenes never really stops. The Southland Tribune is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Enterprise AI Impact Report 2026: Transforming Business, AI in the Enterprise
Artificial intelligence has moved out of the lab and into the boardroom. What began as a novelty for writing emails and summarising documents is fast becoming
KENS 5: Your San Antonio News Source
Welcome to the official YouTube channel of San Antonio's Own KENS 5. Follow @KENS5 on your favorite social media channels. Download KENS 5+ on your TV to stream live newscast and watch special local programs for free! Email your photos, videos and news tips to news@kens5.com or text them to 210-366-0020.
TeraWulf to double data center size near Ashland; Ky. Power to add unit at Big Sandy
TeraWulf Inc. plans to double the capacity of its AI data center at the EastPark industrial park near Ashland a year ahead of schedule, which the two companies say would lead to lower residential electric bills for residential customers. Also, the data center could double in capacity again, TeraWulf says. Kentucky Power says it plans to add a new generating unit at the Big Sandy Power Plant near Louisa, Kentucky, as part of the expansion.
John Turley: Who pays for American politics? (Opinion)
In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the most consequential and controversial campaign-finance decisions in modern American history. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court
Netflix’s Summer of Bummer
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Today, I’ve got a guest post from longtime friend of the newsletter, Brandon Katz. I’ve been trying to find time all summer to look at Netflix’s straight-to-streaming film slate, but between a pre-planned trip and Nielsen moving up their streaming data timeline, I’ve been swamped. So I reached out to Brandon, one of my favorite fellow analysts, to write about it. And I feel like he captured the tone and data focus of the newsletter perfectly. You can connect with Brandon on LinkedIn and Twitter. Enjoy! Don’t worry, folks. You’re in safe hands with me. To ease any anxieties about an interloper in ESG’s domain, I’ll start by stealing one of his best framing devices: headlines. Box office flops are covered in the same way the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eye pizza: with cartoonish insatiability. I would know. I’m a former reporter who wrote nearly identical headlines: Yet, intentionally or not, streaming misses get treated with kids gloves, filtered through a rosy lens: In the last six years, U.S. streaming viewership has become nearly as transparent as the box office, but the data often arrives weeks later, in a number of less intuitive metrics, and with nary an official budget to be found. This plays into the Wall Street-whispering narratives major streamers have been cultivating for years. They get a pass in a way that theatrical studios simply don’t. Subscribe Netflix’s Summer Slate Not a single Netflix original film released between May and August this year opened above 20 million U.S. TV hours, per Nielsen. That benchmark usually serves as the EntStrategyGuy’s floor for a streaming hit on Netflix. None of these films enjoyed a hit-cementing single week of 20-plus million hours during their runs. Netflix’s two best films were true crime docs, Maternal Instinct (16.5 million hours) and The Crash (19.7 million), the best overall week for a film this summer. Great for most other streamers, but not necessarily what we’re used to seeing from Netflix. For an overly-dramatic comparison, Happy Gilmore 2 opened last summer to around 47 million hours (celebrity cameos, baby!). Zooming out, the picture looks even worse. In 2026, Netflix’s five biggest scripted summer films posted the lowest average (28.6 million hours) and median (28.8 million hours) eight-week viewership totals of the past four years. Now, it’s unrealistic and unfair to expect Netflix to deliver a _KPop Demon Hunters-_sized hit every year. But it’s also not ideal to see the size of their hits shrinking over the last few summers. Let’s quickly run through some of the notable summer misses. Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein’s perfectly fine romcom, Office Romance, fell off the charts after 20 million hours in its first two weeks. Top films usually last for four-plus weeks. Starry titles ideally don’t decay that fast either. Homegrown star Millie Bobby Brown couldn’t prevent the snappy Enola Holmes franchise from diminishing returns. At 14.3 million U.S. hours, the third film posted roughly half of what the first two films did in their first two weeks. What’s on Netflix calculated that per-day global views were down nearly 60% from the second movie. The Whisper Man did okay with more than 36 million hours over its first four weeks. But I expected a little more juice from a film featuring Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan, and Adam Scott. Kevin Hart’s Ladies First collected just 11.2 million hours total across two weeks. That’s a big miss for one of Netflix’s go-to stars. Plopping into the same bucket are Sunny Sandler’s Don’t Say Good Luck (10.3 million in two weeks) and John Cena’s Little Brother (17.5 million). Meanwhile, English-language originals Color Book (June 19), In the Hand of Dante (June 24) and Heartstopper Forever (July 17) never sniffed Nielsen’s Top 10 at all, despite needing only 2 to 5 million hours to land in the top ten most weeks. (By my count, eleven English-language scripted original films released between May and August did chart). It’s only fair to mention that Swapped (1-May) posted nearly 42 million U.S. hours over five weeks (the longest Netflix original run this summer) and is currently their eighth most-watched English-language film ever worldwide. Remarkably Bright Creatures (37 million, 4 weeks) and Voicemails for Isabelle (27 million, 4 weeks) weren’t bombs either. Still, overall, I think it’s fair to say this was a quieter summer season than we’re used to seeing from the market-leader. You might not realize that given the language commonly used in public analysis. The Twist Despite the starkly black-and-white tone of the coverage, here’s the twist: when many box office bombs arrive on streaming, their viewership looks a whole lot like many of Netflix’s supposedly successful summer releases. Hmm, where have we heard that one before? Masters of the Universe topped out at $65 million stateside against a $170 million budget_._ I’ll admit, Skeletor ripping sleeveless curls as a gym bro and bodyslamming Adam’s co-workers was funny. But, much to the chagrin of my bank account, my laughter doesn’t launch franchises. Yet the He-Man reboot opened to 19.6 million hours (from a Wednesday five-day opening instead of just one weekend), on par with Hoppers on Disney+ (19.4 million). It put up nearly 47 million hours over its first six weeks, bigger than all of Netflix’s summer releases. Pretty darn healthy and likely to land among the 25 most-watched movies on streaming this year. Sticking with Amazon, The Sheep Detectives just barely broke even at the box office with $133 million worldwide (and only $66 million domestic). I never expected cloven-hooved, cud-chewing mammals to be able to bring me to tears. Yet that’s exactly how I found myself at the end of this surprisingly affecting movie (#NoShame). It was likely the unexpected quality in a family-friendly film that powered its streaming over-performance. Sheep Detectives delivered a solid run for Prime video netting 26.2 million hours! How about franchise IP? Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu had the lowest opening ($81 million) and lowest-grossing Disney-era live-action Star Wars film ($178 million domestic). One day before release, its Heat score (19.8%)—audiences who list their interest as a 7/7—fell behind blockbusters Wicked (21%), Superman (23%), Fantastic Four: First Steps (23%), Michael (23%), Toy Story 5 (26%) and Avatar: Fire and Ash (27%), according to Greenlight Analytics. The urgent enthusiasm just wasn’t there. On streaming, Mando opened to weeks of 12.1 million, 6.1 million and 2.7 million hours (21 million total) over its first three frames. Not the numbers Lucasfilm was hoping for nor the numbers of a streaming hit. But they’re in the same vicinity as some Netflix summer releases with $345 million at the global box office to offset a smidgen of the pain. Final Thoughts So why oh why does this nuance gap exist? Four key reasons: Data Literacy: A “$100 million opening” just makes sense. After decades of box office reporting, even casual movie fans are well-versed in the benchmarks of hits and home runs. There’s an immediate shorthand. But “16.5 million” hours doesn’t land nearly as cleanly. Despite leaps of progress, the streaming ratings era is still in its infancy compared to theatrical. The EntStrategyGuy and I met thanks to a late 2010s group chat of data nerds hungry to find a shred of certainty in nebulous streaming performance. I’m not surprised to see “No. 1 on Netflix” still getting misconstrued out in the wild. Timing: By Friday morning, we have the box office’s Thursday night previews totaled, allowing us to better project the weekend’s expectations. From there, ticket sales are reported daily. By Sunday, the film’s fate is usually finalized, at least in terms of public perception. In streaming, Nielsen recently improved its delay to…two weeks. The medium isn’t forced to contend with instant gratification as harshly. Financials: Theatrical film budgets are a mere Google away. Profit and loss is calculated in the cold and unforgiving naked light of day for all to see. But finding the vast majority of streaming exclusive movie budgets requires the forensic investigation skills of a Criminal Minds detective. Also, it’s very difficult to calculate how much revenue/value a straight-to-streaming films provides a streamer. This is why there are so few stories about streaming original movies “losing X amount of money”. On top of that, marketing budgets are far greater for theatrical movies than streaming exclusive movies, which leads to earlier and better awareness. This then translates to a wider pool of potential interest. Narrative Control: Netflix is the only major streaming service to publish weekly first-hand viewership data and annual engagement reports. Naturally, some headlines borrow their first-hand framing**.** Other streamers benefit from their comparative lack of transparency. They may occasionally announce vague performance platitudes such as Apple TV’s Mayday becoming its “biggest film debut on the platform to date over its first 18 days,” and that it ranked No. 1 with left-handed viewers in its first weekend. (Fine, I made up that second one). But, for the most part, they keep first-hand viewership shrouded in mystery to avoid bad press. Especially for outlets that demand multiple articles per day from their writers, it’s an easy (and understandable) way for some reporters to hit their daily article quota by just repeating what the streamers have told them. TL:DR version: Streaming-exclusive movies are asked to do different things than theatrical movies, but that doesn’t mean they should escape judgment. Both still need to draw enough eyeballs to justify their cost within the proper performance contexts. The more cleanly we can inject a little nuance into streaming analysis, the better we’ll understand the audience and content trends that drive this industry. And that’s what all of this is really about: knowing what audiences actually want! Brandon Katz is the Director of Insights & Content Strategy at Greenlight Analytics where he focuses on evaluating the ever-fluid media landscape to unearth understanding, opportunity and value. Greenlight Analytics is the entertainment intelligence consulting company redefining how Hollywood finds, understands, and activates audiences. Prior to joining Greenlight Analytics, he served as the senior entertainment industry strategist at Parrot Analytics, and as a full-time entertainment industry reporter covering the Xs and Os of Hollywood, most notably with TheWrap and the Observer.
Gears of War: E-Day sells 230K copies
Gears of War: E-Day has sold 230K copies since its advance-access launch on October 1 and full release on October 6. Steam accounts for 168K of those, with Xbox (console and PC) selling 62K. But there’s more to this story, as Xbox makes up the bulk of revenue. E-Day is the best-reviewed Gears game in nearly two decades (and the best one ever made, in my opinion). The Coalition has made a banger here (it’s currently in my top 10 of the year). Despite E-Day’s undeniable quality, this is a soft result. And it’s down to the business model, really. E-Day has made $37M so far, thanks to the Premium upgrade On Xbox, Game Pass is cannibalising much of the premium revenue. Our estimates show that 1.7M folks accessed E-Day via their subscription rather than a copy. But Xbox is having it both ways – or having it halfway, at least – via its Premium Edition Game Pass upgrade. Game Pass subscribers could pay $30 (or their local equivalent) for up to five days of early access starting October 1. Our estimates show that of the 1.7M who accessed E-Day through Game Pass, 722K paid for the upgrade. Between the review embargo lifting on October 1 and the full release, E-Day managed to shift another 250K early-access upgrades – no doubt helped by the campaign’s rave reviews. So despite selling far fewer copies on Steam, Xbox accounts for almost three-quarters of the revenue (roughly $26M of the $37M, versus about $11M on Steam). So “230K copies” undersells the paying audience. Including the 722K upgrades, nearly 950K people actually paid something for E-Day. The $30 upgrade is a halfstep from cannibalisation, but will Xbox go all the way? While E-Day is a sublime game, these are soft numbers for a flagship when Xbox badly needs revenue wins. E-Day sold 62K copies on Xbox against 722K Premium upgrades, so for every one copy sold on Xbox, nearly 12 Game Pass upgrades were sold. The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox. Normally you can’t see what a Game Pass player would have paid, because the game’s just there in the subscription. But the $30 early-access upgrade estimate shows that 722K people demonstrated they’ll spend real money on this game. In a world without day-one Game Pass, many of these folks would have bought E-Day at $70. They paid $30 for five days early access to something they don’t own. Xbox is, in effect, charging its most valuable customers the least, based on a hangover from a tried-and-exhausted strategy from a previous administration. Those 722K willing-to-pay players generated about $21.7M via the upgrade. If three quarters of this group – mostly US and European audiences – bought E-Day outright, that’s nearly $40M. Of course, Game Pass does bring in meaningful recurring revenue, and E-Day is adding value for hundreds of thousands of subscribers. However, Game Pass is no longer growing, so Xbox is at a crossroads. Xbox is reportedly looking to do a Netflix and bolt on an ad-supported tier to pad it further. But that will just set a new floor, and leadership keeps telling us the priority now is revenue growth, which is subscriber-speak for ARPU. Xbox has already pulled Call of Duty from day-one Game Pass after day-one inclusion hammered its sales, with new CoD titles now arriving on the service around a year late. We know that some Microsoft executives believe the service devalues games outright, and rumours (which Microsoft has dismissed so far, to be fair) suggest that day-one releases could be taken off Game Pass. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe When a game this well-reviewed does this softly on its home platform, the model – not the game – gets brought into question. What else E-Day’s early adopters have played (including this month so far) Looking at E-Day‘s players on Xbox, most have played the franchise before (86% have played Gears 5, 76% Gears 4), and every game on the crossover list is either a shooter or a title from an Xbox-owned studio (though Game Pass is inflating those numbers, of course, more on that later): As for what else Xbox’s E-Day players have played this month, the top three are Fortnite (16%), Roblox (7%), and Call of Duty (6%). Another 5% played Minecraft Dungeons II, which is also on Game Pass and launched a couple of days before Gears‘ advance-access date. Many Game Pass players are happy to check out most big new additions. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Over on Steam, the top crossover games are also mostly shooters (slightly more PC-coded ones), including Space Marine 2, which was itself heavily inspired by Gears: Looking at what E-Day‘s Steam players are into this month shows who they are – as subscriptions don’t skew the data. The top three are Wardogs (13%), Deadlock (12%), and CS2 (10%), so you’ve got the restless shooter crowd checking out the new hotness. A little further down are Helldivers 2 and Space Marine 2, your co-op PVE shooter players who’ll feel right at home in Horde mode. Game Pass is skewing the playtime distribution on Xbox Looking at the playtime distribution in our platform, E-Day players on Steam are – relatively speaking – playing for longer: 54% of E-Day players on Xbox have played for five hours or less (versus 32% on Steam) 19% of Xbox players played for over 15 hours (versus 33% on Steam) 14% of Xbox players played for over 20 hours (22% on Steam) The absolute number of people playing for over 15, 20, and 50 hours is, of course, bigger on Xbox, thanks to the sheer volume of folks who came in through Game Pass (upgraders included). None of that is cause for alarm. Game Pass is the reason Xbox playtime skews lower, as when a game is free to try, people try it and bounce without putting in even an hour (17% under an hour on Xbox versus 6% on Steam). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe The subscription brings in tourists alongside the committed, dragging down the average even when the game is excellent (but also perhaps winning over the uninitiated). It’s standard across every subscription-included title, on PS Plus too. Forza Horizon 6, for instance, had 11% of its Xbox players bounce under an hour, versus just 2% on Steam. So, Xbox’s crossroads So there we have it. Gears of War: E-Day is an incredible game whose revenues have been stifled by subscription inclusion and exclusivity. It’s the best-reviewed entry in the series in fifteen-odd years, but it still turned into one of the year’s softer flagship launches, not because players didn’t want it, but because Xbox’s own storefront gave its most willing buyers a reason not to pay. Which leaves Xbox at a crossroads. Will it keep making Gears games when the financial returns are this thin and the margins this low? And if it does, does the next one arrive off Game Pass at day one – the way CoD now does, or even on PlayStation? I think it should. Alright, back to E-Day for me! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
In brief: 'Stick' season 2 trailer and more
Bill Murray stars in the official trailer for A Course Called Ireland. The six-part documentary series premieres on Paramount+ on Oct. 25. The show follows Murray and his friends as they travel across the island to explore Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland's best fairways ...The Die Hard films are getting a brand-new home media release. All five of the movies will be released on physical media in 4K Ultra HD on Dec. 1. Bruce Willis stars as John McClane in all of the Die Hard films. The original movie finds the New York City policeman taking on terrorists after he flies to Los Angeles to be with his estranged wife and two children on Christmas ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); The trailer for Stick season 2 is here. Owen Wilson stars as the talented golfer who strives for second chance in the sophomore season. Peter Dager, Timothy Olyphant, Rhea Seehorn, Marc Maron, John Higgins and Billy Zane also make up the cast of the new season. The Apple TV series premieres its first two episodes on Nov. 4. A new episode drops weekly every Wednesday that follows until the season finale airs on Dec. 30 ...Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.
Trump bucks and the politics of mailing checks
The checks started going out last week, nearly one million of them, and mostly to battleground states. With a return address for the U.S. Treasury and a letter enclosed signed by President Donald Trump, these one-time checks for $500 were ostensibly government rebates for Obamacare enrollees who overpaid. In the accompanying letter, however, Trump attacks his predecessor and talks about his record in office on an important issue he’s not polling well on, which makes it seem more like the most expensive political mailer in U.S. history. The average piece of direct mail costs between 30 cents and $3, according to Mail Processing Associates, a print, mail, and fulfillment company. At $500 a pop plus roughly 50 cents each to issue the paper check, the cost of Trump’s healthcare mailer sent to more than 950,000 enrollees comes in at more than $475 million. Trump’s midterm healthcare message “For years, the Biden Administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare dot gov,” Trump wrote in the letter. “That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now, I am returning it to you!” In the letter, Trump makes false and misleading claims about his administration’s record on healthcare costs, an issue Democrats have a 20 point advantage on over Republicans, according to a recent poll from KFF, a nonpartisan health policy think tank. Trump touts his administration’s TrumpRX program, which he claims is “delivering massive discounts.” However, new research from KFF found that of a selection of drugs available on the TrumpRX platform, just five were the lowest price, while 13 were the highest price. Trump also falsely claims in the letter that he’s fighting to lower healthcare costs. In reality, average monthly premium payment costs for enrollees rose 58% under Trump while marketplace sign-ups declined 5%, per KFF. Under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, it’s estimated 10 million more Americans will be uninsured by 2034. You get a check and you get a check and you get a check Trump’s long promised cash outs to his fans, from his days as a casino operator and gameshow host to his presidency. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the first Trump administration made the unprecedented move to put Trump’s name on checks that went out under the CARES Act (notably the $500 refund checks this time around don’t feature Trump’s name). Ever since, Trump’s been chasing that high. In his second term, Trump’s promised more stimulus that never arrived, like refund checks from DOGE cuts and tariffs, while he said at his party’s convention last month that he’d give out $5,000 checks to everyone if Republicans win in November. In reality, DOGE overstated its cost cutting and Trump’s government actually now spends more than former President Joe Biden’s, while Trump’s tariffs actually grew the trade deficit. His proposal for $5,000 checks would add about $1.2 trillion to the national debt. The problem is there’s no money to give. These $500 checks — plus $90 Medicare rebate checks also going out as well as $250 deposited this week in some Trump Accounts for kids courtesy Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and his wife Susan — represent the closest Trump’s going to get to making good on his promise to deliver cash fast. And the checks seem especially targeted. Though the $500 checks went out to enrollees in one of 30 states that use the federal HealthCare dot gov marketplace, a Reuters review found 71% of the payments, or $339 million, went to enrollees in 13 states that have the most competitive elections for governor and U.S. Senate. Most Americans don’t buy it Could Trump bucks sway the election? An Economist-YouGov poll found 57% of U.S. adults doubt Trump will deliver on his promise for $5,000 checks, compared to 21% who do. “I’m waiting on my DOGE check and I’m still waiting on my tariff check,” one 2024 Trump voter who’s since turned on him told a recent focus group. “It felt like kind of trying to buy people’s votes, which honestly felt like in elementary when the class president was like, hey we’re going to take you to the water park if you vote for me. It’s like, I don’t think it works like that.” But for voters in swing states who got a check, it could still matter. One survey published in 2022 found receiving a physically personalized check in the mail during the pandemic was associated with a much greater self-reported likelihood of voting for Trump in 2020, and those gains mainly came from out partisans. The issue for Trump comes if these checks are mostly going to Obamacare enrollees whose premiums have gone up by more than just $500 since he took office and who view the money as something like a bribe before the election rather than an actual long-term solution to lowering household costs. Spending $500.50 per mailer would be absurd as a normal campaign expenditure, but since Trump’s checks and letter are a government rebate, his campaign and super PAC didn’t have to spend a dime and he got out his message regardless. If enough voters in key states are swayed by the one-time payment, it could prove to be the best $0 the Trump campaign spent. Subscribe [ ](https://www.yellopolitics.com/p/why-independent-candidates-are-making) [ Why independent candidates are making independence central to their brand ](https://www.yellopolitics.com/p/why-independent-candidates-are-making) Hunter Schwarz · Oct 6 [ Read full story ](https://www.yellopolitics.com/p/why-independent-candidates-are-making) [ ](https://www.yellopolitics.com/p/these-designers-and-grocery-nerds) [ These designers and grocery nerds will brand Mamdani’s NYC grocery stores ](https://www.yellopolitics.com/p/these-designers-and-grocery-nerds) Hunter Schwarz · Oct 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.yellopolitics.com/p/these-designers-and-grocery-nerds) Trump wants to turn his first-ever golf course into a government course for presidents
Pretend you're sitting at Elizabeth Holmes' desk on this weirdly detailed website
With over a thousand emails, slides, texts, and documents from the United States v. Elizabeth Holmes trial, Extend engineer Bo Lau created a website that simulates what it might have been like to rifle through the Theranos founder's desk.
Business Bulletin: BBB warns of healthcare fraud during open enrollment
If you or a family member are considering changes to your Medicare or Healthcare.gov coverage during open enrollment, your Better Business Bureau (BBB) urges you to be cautious of unsolicited calls, emails, and texts offering to help you find the best plan or deal. Scammers often take advantage of open enrollment to trick people into sharing personal information, Medicare or insurance details, and financial information.