SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " GRANTED " 100 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Black voters rip Dems over taking them for granted in El-Sayed's backyard: ‘Hush us up’
Black voters in Detroit told Fox News Digital they feel Democrats take their support for granted, a dynamic that could reshape Michigan's Senate race.
Dan Hurley is right. College sports is ‘total chaos'
A wave of players have been granted additional NCAA eligibility, even some professional athletes.
Sports without politics is a fantasy and the World Cup proves it
From ancient Greece to Nazi Germany, sport and politics have long been intertwined. Nevertheless, we still imagine that international sport can be kept above the fray and serve as a neutral arena where nations compete on merit alone. In this article, diplomacy scholar Geoffrey Allen Pigman argues the 2026 FIFA World Cup shows this is a dangerous illusion. When international sport is left entirely to revenue-maximizing private bodies like FIFA, it doesn't escape politics, but rather surrenders to its worst expressions. With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics fast approaching, the IOC must decide whether to learn that lesson or repeat the same mistakes. The largest and most lucrative FIFA World Cup ever draws toward its climactic conclusion amidst a swirl of controversy. Team members, staff, fans, and spectators have been denied their right to enter the United States to participate, and US President Donald Trump intervened with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to overturn a referee’s call that Trump believed disadvantaged the US national team. It is a moment to step back and reflect on what the purposes of international sport mega-events like the World Cup, and international sport more broadly, are, and what they should be. Does international sport serve public purposes? Is there a public interest? Or is it primarily a private endeavor organized by commercial enterprises to entertain the global public (and generate profit in the process), which is occasionally used by governments and leaders for raisons d’etat? Central to the idea of sport is the principle of fair play, which in the international context demands that games be free from political interference. However, it is impossible to separate sport from politics, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The most positive political use of international sport through the millennia has been to facilitate diplomacy. The use of international sport for diplomatic objectives has existed since at least the time of the ancient Olympic Games, around which was instituted the custom of the Ekecheiria, or Olympic Truce, between participating states to facilitate fair competition and diplomatic achievements by ensuring that participants could travel safely to the Olympiad. In his seminal work On Diplomacy (1987), diplomacy scholar James Der Derian characterized the objectives of diplomacy as overcoming alienation and mediating estrangement between governments and between peoples. One increasingly important diplomatic tool in the technology-infused media environment over the past century has been public diplomacy, under which governments and non-state diplomatic actors (e.g. transnational corporations) communicate to global publics about their international policy objectives and to shape their global brand image. Political scientist Michał Kobierecki, in his important book Sports Diplomacy (2020), views sports diplomacy as falling broadly within the ambit of public diplomacy, as international sport intimately involves the participation of global publics as spectators and consumers of global media. Diplomacy scholar Stuart Murray and this author, in a 2013 article, distinguish between international sport used for diplomatic purposes and international sport-as-diplomacy, which encompasses the range of diplomacy that occurs as teams and competitors, spectators and fans, and government officials all converge for international sporting events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. Diplomacy scholar H.E. Chehabi, in a 2001 article on US-Iran sports diplomacy, describes the interaction between spectators and fans at international sporting events as “people-to-people diplomacy,” in which relationships develop independently of governments and their objectives. Diplomacy by the aforementioned definitions is often unsuccessful. Moreover, all too often the tools of diplomacy may be employed by governments and other actors to thwart or oppose the objectives of diplomacy as characterized by Der Derian. Governments routinely use the tools of public diplomacy to disseminate propaganda, spreading misinformation in the attempt to deceive global publics about their objectives and to create misleading impressions about their brand identity. Within sports diplomacy, the term “sportswashing” has been coined recently to describe how governments invest in and promote international sport to create positive global public impressions of their nations and, in doing so, to distract the global public from their deficient records in areas such as human rights and democratic governance. Murray, in his 2018 book Sports Diplomacy: Origins, Theory and Practice, introduces the concept of sports anti-diplomacy, wherein governments intentionally use international sport to advance aggressive and nationalistic objectives. Obvious historical examples include Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to glorify his Third Reich and the 1969 El Salvador-Honduras football “war.” SUGGESTED READING The beautiful game made ugly By Emily Ryall FIFA argues that it is and seeks to be apolitical in its stewardship of international Association Football (soccer). FIFA policies governing bids to host the World Cup require uninhibited and non-discriminatory access for players, team staff, and spectators of all participating countries to host nations and venues. It became clear soon after Trump returned to power in the United States in January 2025 that Trump’s political intentions and objectives to limit non-US citizens from living and working in the United States and, in numerous cases, even visiting the country, would collide with FIFA’s host nation policies. Beginning soon after the start of the second Trump administration, US federal authorities imposed restrictions on entry to the United States of citizens of between 20 and 40 countries for any purpose, with only limited exceptions. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began arresting non-US citizens in the United States, including persons with and without legal status, holding them in jails, concentration camps, and other detention facilities until they were deported to their home or third countries, where they faced substantive risks to their personal safety. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, in an effort to ensure the most successful and lucrative World Cup in history, engaged diplomatically with President Trump in an attempt to facilitate entry to the US for World Cup participants. Infantino did all in his power to ingratiate himself with Trump, to the extent of creating a FIFA “Peace Prize,” which he awarded to Trump in December 2025 at a ceremony in the then Trump-controlled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the World Cup draw. The prize was an ersatz consolation for someone who aspired in vain to win the rather more prestigious and well-known Nobel Peace Prize. And in the run-up to the World Cup, conditions became worse. In February 2026, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a war of aggression against Iran, illegal under international law, under the false pretence that Iran’s government was preparing to attack the United States and Israel. During the US aerial bombardment of Iran, US planes bombed Azadi Stadium, the facility where Iran’s national football team trained. As the 2026 FIFA World Cup began, it was clear that Infantino’s efforts had been for naught: the Trump administration would not adhere to FIFA policies governing access to World Cup host nations. World Cup referee Omar Artan, a citizen of Somalia, was denied a US visa to enter the United States to participate in the World Cup. Trump’s government only granted US visas to Iran’s football team ten days before they were scheduled to arrive for the tournament. Numerous members of the support staff for Iran’s team were denied US visas. Iran’s team, which had been scheduled to train in Arizona, was directed to shift its training site to Tijuana, Mexico, notwithstanding that all three of their group stage matches took place at US venues. The US Department of Homeland Security only permitted the Iranian team to enter the US on the day before each scheduled match and then to return to Mexico immediately after playing. Members of Iraq’s and Switzerland’s football teams were delayed for hours by US officials at the US border, and an Iraqi team photographer was refused entry. Spectators and fans from Haïti and Iran were denied entry to the United States altogether. A large number of fans from a range of countries had their applications for US visas rejected. There were multiple off-ramps through which participants could have avoided the negative consequences of Trump’s decisions for the 2026 World Cup. Once it was clear that the Trump government intended to violate the established expectations for World Cup hosts, FIFA could have shifted the matches scheduled to take place in the United States to Mexico and Canada. The three nations were already designated as co-hosts, and host cities and venues had been selected. Once it was clear that FIFA, governed by FIFA boss Gianni Infantino’s dependent and dysfunctional relationship with Trump, would never consider this option on its own, it fell to the national football federations to act. The national federations, particularly some combination of federations of the leading contenders (France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, England, Germany, etc.), could have refused to participate under the US-imposed conditions or, at the least, demanded an ironclad agreement with the Trump government that FIFA policies on access would be respected. ___ International sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. ___ Why did neither FIFA nor the national football federations act to protect the interests of players, team staff, referees, fans, and spectators? In essence, the relentless engines of capitalism prevailed over norm observance, ethics, and fair play. The revenue interests of FIFA, sponsors, global media, and host cities won out. FIFA’s managers viewed hosting another World Cup principally in the United States as a veritable pot of gold for FIFA and its collaborators. FIFA has estimated its own revenue over the 2023-26 budget cycle, which includes the 2026 World Cup, at $13 billion, revised up from an initial projection of $11 billion, and 72% higher than the previous revenue cycle. Of that total, FIFA is estimated to have generated $8.9 billion from the Cup itself in revenue from TV rights ($3.92 billion), sponsorships ($2.69 billion), ticket sales ($3.1 billion), licensing rights, and other sources. A joint study by FIFA and the World Trade Organization estimates that the World Cup will contribute over $40 billion to global GDP, including nearly $14 billion in direct visitor spending in the three host countries (but principally in the United States, which hosted the lion’s share of the matches). The FIFA World Cup is now reportedly “the single most lucrative recurring commercial property in global sport.” And yet, notwithstanding the Trump government’s uses of the World Cup for sports anti-diplomacy, and the climate of anxiety that this created for participants and spectators, diplomacy that did not depend upon governments was able to thrive at the World Cup. Examples of successful people-to-people diplomacy were legion, as citizens of towns and cities across the States, as well as in Mexico and Canada, welcomed team members, their families and supporters, to training sites across North America. Fans of different teams joined together in person in stadiums for matches, at watch parties and bars, and at welcome events sponsored by host cities. The joy and camaraderie shared between the citizenry of Boston and Scotland’s “Tartan Army” of fans is but one example of how the “Beautiful Game” brings people together. Friendships forged across continents are likely to endure well beyond the Cup final. Even those achievements cannot be seen as unalloyed, however. As South African football fan Byron Pillay commented to Al Jazeera, “Football is called the Beautiful Game for a reason, for its ability to unite people. But it’s hard to believe in that magic with the politics and war rhetoric off the field of play, especially when one of the tournament hosts is central to that.” Ultimately, the experience of the 2026 FIFA World Cup illustrates that, as international sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. As long as there is the possibility of diplomatic progress in mediating estrangement between governments or between peoples, there is a broad and overarching public interest in international sport. Likewise, as it would be difficult to put on an international sport mega-event without international sporting organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), global media firms, and companies purchasing sponsorships, public and private interests in international sport must coexist, most likely somewhere on a shifting spectrum between partnership and rivalry or cross purposes. As the World Cup wraps up, the IOC needs to consider its lessons before the scheduled 2028 Los Angeles Olympics if they want to avoid a media-hyped Trump version of the 1936 Berlin Olympiad. The IOC and the National Olympic Committees need to set conditions on and make demands of Trump’s government with clearly articulated consequences for non-compliance, up to and including cancellation of the Games. Time is running out for the IOC, as unlike with the FIFA World Cup, there is no at-the-ready alternate venue for Los Angeles.
Think you need 10,000 steps a day? Science says otherwise
Granted, we typically recite the 10,000-step goal as if it is gospel, but whether you're clocking up the miles on your commute to work or walking around in circles in the kitchen last thing at night, the truth of the matter is, you might already be walking enough.
Judge temporarily blocks Boone Health from interfering with PulsePoint Cardiovascular
A Boone County judge granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday in favor of PulsePoint Cardiovascular amid an ongoing legal dispute with Boone Health.
A stock award for AMC Entertainment (AMC)'s CFO is set to vest over three Januaries, subject to service.
Granted September 24, the stock rights each represent one Class A share. One-third is scheduled to vest each January from 2027 through 2029, subject to service.
Judge temporarily blocks Boone Health from interfering with PulsePoint Cardiovascular
A Boone County judge granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday in favor of PulsePoint Cardiovascular amid an ongoing legal dispute with Boone Health.
Seattle granted NFL Franchise on this day 52 years ago
Seattle was awarded an NFL franchise 52 years ago today. Look back at the origins of the Seahawks and their 1976 start.
Democrats seek to block a Trump-linked crypto bank
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approval for the Trump family's World Liberty Trust Co. to become a bank handling cryptocurrency and digital assets.
Court Orders Reddit Moderator to Pay Nintendo $4.5 Million Over Switch Piracy
A federal court in Washington has ordered Reddit moderator James "Archbox" Williams to pay Nintendo $4.5 million in damages over alleged Nintendo Switch piracy. US District Judge Lauren King granted Nintendo's motion for default judgment in full on September 23, along with a permanent injunction...
Ex-Ole Miss starters granted restraining order for 5th year
Former Ole Miss starters Dae'Quan Wright, Zxavian Harris and Wydett Williams, all of whom signed with NFL teams this summer, are among a group of athletes who were granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday to return to college for one more season.
Severely ill prisoners granted early release are left stuck behind bars
Prisoners with severe medical conditions can be granted compassionate release, but without a long-term care facility willing to accept them, many continue to wait in prison as their conditions worsen.
Raiders’ Fernando Mendoza shares ‘adversity’ insight following preseason debut
Rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza isn't taking his budding professional career for granted after making his preseason debut on Thursday.
Trump rejected nearly 6,000 clemency applications amid hope of pardon wave
Expectations were raised for a raft of pardons in connection with the country’s 250th birthday but the president granted fewer than 20 on July 3.
Wladimir Klitschko granted temporary guardianship of Hayden Panettiere estate
Wladimir Klitschko appeared in virtual court on Thursday alongside 11-year-old daughter Kaya, who he shares alongside Panettiere. Kaya is the sole heir of the “Heroes” star’s estate, following the death of the actor Aug. 16.
Judge says injunction doesn't cover football players who signed pro deals
The judge who granted the right to play another year of college sports to some athletes whose eligibility ran out last school year issued a new order Sunday that makes clear that does not include football players who signed pro contracts this summer.
Brendan Sorsby granted injunction vs. NCAA, eligible to play in 2026
Texas Tech star quarterback Brendan Sorsby has been granted a temporary injunction against the NCAA and will be eligible to play for the Red Raiders in 2026.
“Entered A Really Complicated Place”: Mike Greenberg Sounds Off On Sports Betting Debate After Brendan Sorsby’s NCAA Victory
Texas Tech Red Raiders quarterback Brendan Sorsby was granted an injunction by a judge in Texas on Monday. He is now allowed to play for the Red Raiders in the 2026 season and won’t enter the NFL supplemental draft.
Lawsuit over Amazon ‘Subscribe & Save’ alleges ‘deceptive’ business practices: 4 things to know
If the suit is granted class-action status, millions of Amazon customers from across the nation could be pulled into the litigation.
Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta Strikes Major Deal to Acquire Caesar's Entertainment
Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has grown his business portfolio quite significantly, of late. This month, Fertitta was granted team ownership of the WNBA
‘Mythic Achievements’ now available for Xbox Insiders
“Mythic Achievements” are now available for Xbox Insiders, which are granted for completing all original achievements for a game, Xbox announced.
'Top class' Liverpool star contacted by Euro giants
Liverpool's squad is going to undergo another revamp this summer. hardly any of their transfers have worked out.Granted, a lot of their poor performances are due to the number of injuries that they've...
Pacific Beach boardwalk-driving suspect ignites mental health diversion debate
San Diego County judges granted mental health diversion in over three hundred felony cases in 2025, and suspects reoffended in more than a quarter of those cases.
Rural Health Transformation Program grants Kentucky $213M to improve healthcare
The Rural Health Transformation Program has granted Kentucky $213 million to improve healthcare in rural areas.
Trump wants to turn his West Palm Beach golf course into the new Camp David
The plan calls for the federal government to be granted part of the property, with the rest maintained as a private course.
SCCSD Board approves purchase of school supplies & science curriculum
The South Conway County School District will once again be providing school supplies for all students in grades K-12 in the 2026-27 school year. The purchase of over $40,000 in supplies from the Arch Ford Education Service Cooperative is among the approvals granted by the […]
Judge gives college basketball players a chance with injunction
CINCINNATI — An Ohio judge has granted a preliminary injunction for 24 men’s and women’s college basketball players suing the NCAA for eligibility, claiming the new age-based model unfairly shuts them out of further competition. Judge Christopher Wagner said Thursday the NCAA eligibility rules have been applied to 2022 high school graduates in an arbitrary […]
Science|Business summer reads of 2026
As most people in the European research and innovation policy bubble are going on a well-deserved summer break, we have come up with a list of our favourite books, podcasts and essays from the past year that ask deeper questions about science, technology and politics.BooksPasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation, by Donald StokesIf you haven’t read Pasteur’s Quadrant yet, now is the time. In the EU and elsewhere, we’re living through a period of dwindling faith that curiosity-driven research automatically leads to economic growth and technological progress. Pasteur’s Quadrant, published in 1997 by the Princeton academic Donald Stokes, is the most influential critique of the standard “linear model” of R&D: the idea that new discoveries made in ivory-tower labs get neatly passed on for commercialisation by start-ups. In reality, Stokes argues, practical applications often inspire more theorical lines of inquiry. Of course, we have long known that things are more complex than the linear model, but even today, it’s still often assumed in Brussels discourse. The book is a useful corrective, and is being used now to argue for new types of scientific institutions. David MatthewsThe Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism, by Jacob Hale Russel and Dennis PattersonAre society’s problems solvable by technical expertise alone? “If only the benighted would listen,” say Jacob Hale Russel and Dennis Patterson, two professors at Rutgers Law School who got frustrated with how scientists and politicians handled public health communication during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the book, they argue that clichéd mantras about scientific evidence and expertise perpetrated by academics, journalists and politicians have harmed public trust in the very institutions they were trying to defend. Paradoxically, slogans such as “we believe in science,” “follow the science” and “defer to the experts” can fuel mistrust in science, experts and democratic institutions. The authors criticise “condescension” and “technocratic paternalism” in the public discourse and make the case for a more nuanced approach to scientific and expert policy advice that rests on humility, doubt, scepticism and open dialogue. “Most complex social questions in fact revolve around values, not the recitation of unambiguous facts,” they say. Florin ZubascuBreakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan WangIn this book, Dan Wang compares the structural differences between the US and Chinese industrial policies, but raises a very timely question for innovation policy wonks: how can advanced manufacturing know-how contribute to technology-intensive economic growth? Wang says technology has three components: the tools, the blueprints and patents, and the process knowledge. The third component represents the “proficiency gained from practical experience, which isn’t easily communicated and requires years of implementation.” According to Wang, rather than seeing tools and blueprints as the ultimate ends of technological progress, policymakers should see them as milestones in the training of better scientists and manufacturers. Over the past decades, China has amassed “process knowledge” because capital flowed to complex fabrication facilities, while investors in the West have parked their money in capital-light businesses such as digital platforms or chip companies that focus on design. As it turns out, thanks to its oversized focus on manufacturing, China has gained remarkable advantages in the global technology race. Florin ZubascuBaltic: The Future of Europe, by Oliver MoodyWhat can Europe learn from the nine countries surrounding the Baltic Sea? Alongside the familiar stories about Estonia's digital transformation, the book examines how the region has used technology, resilience, education, governance and long-term thinking to respond to geopolitical, economic and security challenges. Innovation policy wonks might find fresh perspectives on how innovation can strengthen defence, societal resilience and Europe's capacity to adapt in an uncertain world. Whether or not you agree with all of Oliver Moody's conclusions, the book is a useful guide to a region that is increasingly shaping European debates on security, competitiveness and technology. Goda NaujokaityteThe Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf This book chronicles the wild and adventurous life of natural science pioneer Alexander von Humboldt who at some point in the 19th century seems to have been just about the most famous person in the world. Through scientific expeditions to the Andes Mountains and to the depths of Siberia, von Humboldt contributed a host of discoveries and concepts. During his life he met and formed relationships with historical figures as different as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simon Bolivar, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles Darwin. He is also claimed to be the person in the world with most things named after him, a list that includes an ocean current, a penguin and a region of the Moon. Still venerated in Germany, with numerous scientific institutions named after him, von Humboldt has slipped out of public consciousness in most of the rest of the world. For anyone not familiar with him, this book does a good job of describing his fascinating life. Ole EllekrogCareless People, by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsYou may have heard this referred to as the book Meta doesn’t want you to read. The 2025 memoir from Sarah Wynn-Williams, former director of global public policy at Meta, then just called Facebook, includes explosive claims about everything from a toxic workplace culture to how the company worked with advertisers to target vulnerable teens, and the lengths it was prepared to go to in order to break into China. It’s a fascinating insight into how and why the tech company gradually shifted its approach to policy, whether in the US, Europe or Asia. Meta has denied the allegations in the book, and last year won an emergency ruling to prevent Wynn-Williams from promoting it. In response, the author is now suing her former employer. If that doesn’t make you want to read it. Martin GreenacrePodcastsThe Europeans: Europe’s anti-ElonThis podcast is a great choice for a light-hearted dose of European policy and culture news. Most of it has little to do with research, innovation and technology, but this particular podcast features an interview with Mastadon’s founder Eugen Rochko. He talks about his experience running an open-source, federated, European-made social media platform, and leaving it all behind. The conversation, which starts 14 minutes in, gently encourages us to reflect on what kind of technology we, as Europeans, want to make. Goda NaujokaityteSolarpunk and how we escape dystopiaNew technologies are very often taken from science fiction. Alberto Santos-Dumont, inventor the airship, was inspired as a child by the adventure stories of Jules Verne. OpenAI’s attempt to build a personal assistant with the voice of Scarlett Johansson was lifted from the 2013 film Her, completely ignoring the movie’s cautionary message. So if we want better tech, we need to imagine it first. Unfortunately, the state of current sci-fi is relentlessly dystopian, giving inventors precious few ideas or hope. However, a new genre, Solarpunk, which envisages a technologically advanced but ecologically harmonious future, is now taking off. The actual tech the genre imagines, such as permaculture, renewable energy or community repair workshops, while nice, isn’t all that inspiring or ambitious. But it’s a first step towards rescuing sci-fi from its pessimistic Blade Runner rut. David MatthewsEveryday AbundanceLaunched in June, Everyday Abundance is a podcast that tells the stories of the inventions we now take so for granted that we barely given them a second thought. For example, the washing machine, which liberated women from a lifetime “bent over washtubs and washboards.” Or modern dentistry, which ended the reality that “tooth pain was simply part of human life.” Historians of technology, Virginia Postrel and Charles C Mann are very much on the optimistic end of the spectrum when it comes to the capacity of invention to improve human life. Here, they set out their case: if it wasn’t for progress, you might be hunched over a washtub with toothache rather than reading these words. David Matthews‘We will not know what we lost’: Conservation fallout a year after USAID shutdownSince his return to the White House, Donald Trump has been on a mission to undermine science. He slashed jobs at federal agencies, terminated grants in some research areas, took unprecedented control over university affairs and, within hours of his inauguration, suspended the US Agency for International Development. While its initial focus was to administer health and food aid around the world, it had since expanded to conservation projects. The result? Some of these projects were stopped abruptly. In this Mongabay podcast, environmental reporter Michelle Nijhuis tells the story of the EcoGuard conservation programme in Liberia, whose local patrols had helped protect rainforests, monitor endangered wildlife and track illegal threats. From one day to the next, these were left without salaries. Luckily, she notes, the initiative was able to get emergency funding from international NGOs, but its future remains “incredibly uncertain.” Juliette PortalaEssaysThe Mars Delusion, by Henry WismayerWhy is humankind so fixated on establishing a colony on Mars? asks London-based writer Henry Wismayer. From space evangelists promoting Martian settlement as an insurance policy, to billionaire Jeff Bezos, who said humans should settle on Mars “because it’s cool,” the mission is not running short of advocates. However, in this essay, Wismayer reminds us that some critics expect any future Mars pioneer to end up “irradiated, sick, mad and dead.” Scientists have already looked into the possible effects of prolonged exposure to Martian gravity, and it’s not pretty: muscle shrinking, bones weakening, changes to the central nervous system and other biological modifications to make us all reconsider the journey. “Some researchers have forecast that the future settler, after generations of evolutionary conditioning, will look less like an Übermensch and more like ET,” Wismayer writes. Juliette Portala
Venezuela says 131 political prisoners freed amid post-Maduro talks
As detainees granted 'alternative' to imprisonment, US welcomes release as crucial step for Venezuela's reconciliation.
Meet the 2026 tenured professors in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
The MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences announced that five MIT faculty were granted tenure.
New Jersey health inspectors find Delaney Hall food premises ‘satisfactory’
The Democratic governor was also granted limited entry to the immigrant detention center, but remained concerned about conditions.
Georgia, Nebraska ban teams from scheduling Texas Tech in wake of Brendan Sorsby ruling
The memo from the school's compliance director comes after Sorsby was granted a temporary injunction to play despite a history of gambling.
Bruno Genesio denies he will resign as Marseille manager
It has been a historically bad start to the season for Olympique de Marseille. Granted, there is a context around it, with the siphoning off of assets in order to balance the books and keep promises m...
Efzimfotase alfa demonstrated improvements in bone health in treatment-naïve pediatric patients with hypophosphatasia achieving median difference of 1.67 vs placebo in RGI-C Score at week 25 in MULBERRY Phase III trial
Positive results from the MULBERRY Phase III trial showed that efzimfotase alfa (ALXN1850), an investigational enzyme replacement therapy, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in bone health in children (2 to
Judge temporarily grants request for 5th year eligibility in NCAA case involving OU athletes
Former OU baseball player Dayton Tockey and seven other athletes from various schools were granted a temporary restraining order Thursday afternoon at the Cleveland County Courthouse in a case seeking
Mozambique strengthens regulation of medicines and imported vaccines, boosting health protection
Mozambique has reached a major milestone in strengthening the regulation of medicines and imported vaccines, with its national regulatory authority recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as having a stable, well-functioning and integrated regulatory system.The Autoridade Nacional Reguladora de Medicamentos de Moçambique (ANARME) has achieved Maturity Level 3 (ML3) for the regulation of medicines and imported vaccines under WHO’s global classification of national regulatory authorities.Mozambique becomes the 10th country in Africa to reach ML3, joining Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe and marking further momentum in strengthening regulatory systems across the region.For people in Mozambique, stronger regulation means greater assurance that medicines and vaccines are appropriately evaluated for quality, safety and efficacy and monitored throughout their lifecycle. It also strengthens the country’s ability to identify and respond to safety concerns and substandard or falsified products, while supporting timely access to quality-assured health products.“Mozambique’s achievement is the result of sustained investment in regulatory capacity that will deliver crucial benefits for public health,” said Dr Sylvie Briand, WHO Chief Scientist and Assistant Director-General a.i. for Health Systems, Access and Data. “Strong regulatory systems protect people, build confidence in health products and help countries respond more effectively to evolving public health needs and challenges. Mozambique’s progress also contributes to advancing regulatory capacity across Africa and promoting more equitable access to safe and quality-assured medicines and vaccines.”Building a stronger regulatory systemMozambique’s achievement follows years of sustained efforts to build the institutions and capabilities needed for effective regulation.WHO worked closely with ANARME throughout this process, assessing the national regulatory system and supporting the authority in addressing identified gaps and strengthening priority areas.WHO evaluates national regulatory systems using its Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT), which assesses the regulatory functions required to ensure the quality, safety and efficacy of medical products. These include registration and marketing authorization, licensing, market surveillance and control, pharmacovigilance, regulatory inspection, laboratory testing and oversight of clinical trials, as applicable. WHO’s maturity levels range from 1 to 4. Reaching ML3 confirms a stable, well-functioning and integrated regulatory system, while ML4 represents an advanced system focused on continuous improvement.Benefits for Mozambique and the African continentAn ML3 regulatory system can support more timely and predictable regulatory decisions, reinforce safety monitoring and help ensure that health products entering and remaining on the market meet appropriate standards.It also creates greater opportunities for regulatory cooperation and reliance – approaches that help authorities make use of the work and decisions of trusted regulators, reduce unnecessary duplication and allocate limited resources more efficiently, while maintaining rigorous standards for quality, safety and efficacy.As the first Portuguese-speaking country in Africa to reach ML3, Mozambique’s experience can also contribute to strengthening regulatory systems and fostering greater cooperation, knowledge sharing and reliance among Portuguese-speaking countries and across the African continent. Its achievement further reinforces a more connected African regulatory ecosystem, providing a solid foundation on which the newly established African Medicines Agency can build to advance regulatory convergence and cooperation across the region.Strengthening confidence in regulatory recognitionMozambique’s achievement comes as WHO strengthens the process through which the performance of national regulatory systems is recognized.The newly established Technical Advisory Group on Regulatory Systems Strengthening (TAG-RSS) brings together independent international experts to advise WHO on whether recommendations concerning regulatory authorities reaching ML3 and ML4 and WHO-Listed Authorities, are supported by the findings of WHO evaluation processes. Its recommendations provide an additional level of independent assurance, strengthening the impartiality, transparency and credibility of WHO’s recognition process.Mozambique is among the first countries to achieve ML3 following consideration and recommendation by the TAG-RSS. As part of the same TAG-RSS process, South Africa was recommended to retain its ML3 status for the regulation of vaccines manufactured, imported or distributed in the country, following an additional WHO assessment. This extends the recognition first granted in 2022 and underscores the sustained performance of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA).The two recognitions highlight continued progress in strengthening regulatory systems across Africa, as well as the importance of continued performance, improvement and assessment in sustaining regulatory maturity.WHO will continue working with ANARME and SAHPRA to sustain these gains and support continuous improvement as science, technologies and public health needs evolve.
South County Health becomes first health system in Rhode Island to join Mayo Clinic Care Network
South County Health (SCH) and Mayo Clinic today announced SCH has become the first healthcare organization in Rhode Island to join the Mayo Clinic Care Network, a select group of independent healthcare organizations carefully vetted by Mayo Clinic and granted special access to Mayo Clinic's knowledge, expertise and resources.
Surprise new Elizabeth Holmes documentary follows Theranos founder's final weeks before prison
The former CEO granted filmmakers extensive access to a project that was kept largely secret for three years.
The Wingman
Mark Kelly’s résumé and the goodwill he’s accrued as Gabby Giffords’s spouse have granted him a high level of admiration. Can it translate to excitement for a presidential campaign?
Public Health is Losing in Court: Amicus Briefs Are One Way We’re Fighting Back - Petrie-Flom Center
In the last several years, notable shifts in Supreme Court jurisprudence have eroded the deference that courts have historically granted to health officials.
Despite gambling ban, judge says Texas Tech QB can play
A Texas judge granted Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby a temporary injunction that clears the way for him to play this fall despite being declared ineligible by the NCAA for wagering on college sports, including bets made on his own team while he was at Indiana. The decision sent shock waves across college sports since […]
Judge gives Kennedy Center until noon Saturday to remove Trump’s name
(CNN) — A judge has granted the Kennedy Center’s request for additional time to fully remove President Donald Trump’s name from the building, giving the arts center until noon Saturday
China grants singer a rare exemption after she includes unapproved tribute song
Authorities in Chengdu, China, have granted a rare exemption to singer Na Ying after she performed an unapproved song at a weekend concert.
Academic Excellence Award Winner
Academic Excellence Award Winner Erin shares her experiences as a Public and Community Health Major, with double minors in Legal Studies and Health Policy and Management:"I came to Ithaca from the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts knowing that I wanted an education that would allow me to change the world in a positive light. Admittedly, I was unaware when choosing the public health major just how much of an impact I could make, but through my experiences in this rigorous program, I know public health is where I am meant to be. Being a public health major during the COVID-19 pandemic was a unique experience. My education granted me the opportunity to work on and off campus with different populations to provide support during the pandemic. Professor Srijana Bajracharya was my professor for Research Methods in Health. She encouraged her class to create research projects that would benefit our communities. She was a mentor for me and helped me find my passion in research, which I have brought with me to my job as a research assistant for Rescue - The Behavior Change Agency. I thank Professor Bajracharya for her guidance and support throughout my time as a public health student."
Judge makes pivotal ruling in favor of former NFL players attempting to return to college football
A federal judge has granted an injunction that could reshape the LSU Tigers’ roster and college football eligibility, paving the way for more than 40 athletes, including potential LSU transfers Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, to return to the college…
The coming election and mischief in the making
America’s tribalism is such these days that we struggle to even agree on the basic rules. Elections have always been hotly contested. As the saying goes, “Politics ain’t beanbag.” The process has long involved elements of nastiness and underhanded conduct. Still, we used to be able to take some things for granted. We had a […]
Accused Virginia murderer flees US after 48-hour pass from mental health facility
Fox News correspondent David Spunt reports on an accused murderer who fled the United States after being granted a 48-hour pass from a Virginia mental health facility on ‘America Reports.’
Is 50 the new 60?
Subscribe TL;DR: Younger generations are showing signs of worse health compared to earlier-born cohorts at the same age This backward “drift” is showing up both in mortality risk and chronic disease Worsening trends in obesity and diabetes are the most consistent signals Taking the long view, we’ve made astonishing gains in health and life expectancy in the last century. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled from 32 years in 1900 to 73 years in 2024. (But don’t forget, there were still old people when life expectancy was 32). As people lived longer, they also generally lived healthier along the way. It turns out that avoiding things that can kill you early, like malnutrition and lots of childhood infections, also keeps you healthier later in life. In a classic 2004 paper, Finch and Crimmins proposed that cohorts of children who benefited from fewer early life infections had less lifetime exposure to inflammation and cardiovascular disease later in life, accelerating mortality improvements at older ages. Poor nutrition in the womb has also been linked to a higher risk of later chronic disease. The upshot is that improvements in childhood health can pay dividends many decades later. The combination of better living conditions (nutrition, sanitation) and medical advances (antibiotics, vaccines, blood pressure meds, etc) meant that people’s healthy lifespan generally expanded, even as they lived longer. Aging researchers call this best-case scenario “compression of morbidity”—meaning we delay the onset of disease and disability even faster than the years of life we are adding. During my 20+ year research career, we could generally bank on the idea that younger generations would not only live longer but also keep getting healthier along the way. “60 is the new 50” as they say… Enter “Generational Health Drift” Sadly, this expectation of steady progress may be changing. You’ve probably heard that US life expectancy gains have slowed to a crawl in the past couple of decades. Mortality improvements are also slowing (though less dramatically) in many other high-income countries (you can read more about that in a review paper I wrote here). Mortality is a very blunt health measure, but it is often a good barometer for the broader population health trends happening underneath. And we are now seeing that younger generations may be in worse health at similar ages compared to earlier born cohorts. My collaborator Prof. George Ploubidis at University College London coined this worsening health in more recently born cohorts “generational health drift.” “Generational health drift” is bad news on multiple fronts. Most obviously, we don’t want our health progress to go backward. But the timing is also bad, since our populations are aging. In demographic terms, “population aging” means that the proportion of the population at older ages (i.e >65 years) is increasing. Fun demography fact: Current population aging is not due to the recent declines in the birth rates making the news, but declines in fertility decades ago, after the “baby boom.” As baby boomers reach older ages, the smaller cohorts behind them mean the percentage of older adults will increase. For example, the share of the population age 65 and older in the US increased from 12.4% in 2004 to 18.0% in 2024. This story of population aging was written long ago. Many worry that population aging will put pressure on health care and pension systems. But if people reach older ages in better health than in years past, those fiscal pressures would be less dire than projected. Healthy older people can also continue to contribute to society in many valuable ways, including paid work, caregiving, community service….even high political office 🤷. On the flip side, if younger generations reach retirement age in worse health and with more disabling conditions, this could magnify the societal challenge of population aging. Evidence for worsening generational health A recent paper that I LOVED in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dr. Leah Abrams and colleagues examined which birth cohorts (aka generations) were behind worsening US mortality. Behold the Lexis diagram (cue swooning demographers). Calendar time is on the x-axis, age on the y-axis. Birth cohorts can be followed over time as they age on the diagonal lines moving up and to the right. This figure plots the year-on-year % change in all-cause mortality at a given age. Green shading indicates mortality improvements over time, white is stagnation, and gray shading indicates worsening mortality. Following the diagonal line for those born in 1950, you can see a noticeable shift from green to gray that follows this cohort for most of their lives. This gray shading shows generally worsening mortality for the 1950 to 1959 birth cohorts compared to their predecessors across all ages. Concerningly for my GenX and elder millennial peeps, there was also a deterioration in mortality for birth cohorts born in the 1970s and 1980s, visible as dark gray areas at ages 30 to 45 during the 2010s. While some of these mortality changes reflect specific shocks such as the opioid epidemic, most deaths still occur from major causes of death such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. For cancer, the gray in the top left corner of the figure below reflects the legacies of smoking for older cohorts, followed by a period of green with improvements in cancer mortality as smoking rates declined. But the white/gray shading in the bottom right corner highlights a stagnation and reversal of the cancer trends, with cohorts born around 1970 to 1985 experiencing worsening cancer mortality. This deterioration was most noticeable for colon cancer mortality, possibly linked to obesity or dietary factors. Not just dying more, but less healthy along the way. A recent paper by Dr. Laura Gimeno of University College London (of which I am a co-author), found evidence that more recently born cohorts in Great Britain have stagnating or worsening health. A stylized picture of what“generational health drift” might look like: The review paper found: Rates of childhood overweight and obesity were highest among Gen Z. Rates of diabetes in the 40s almost doubled from 3.1% among the Baby Boomers to 5.9% in Generation X. Gen Z reported higher rates of poor mental health in adolescence compared to earlier-born groups. These UK results are consistent with studies showing worsening health across generations in the US as well. A 2021 US study found that more recently born cohorts had worse biological markers (like blood pressure and blood sugar) than earlier generations at the same age. A separate 2022 study of Americans aged 50 and over found that more recently born generations had a higher number of chronic diseases, with younger age of disease onset. A 2024 Lancet paper found that in the US, women born in 1945 had 33% obesity prevalence at age 50, rising to 48.2% for women born in 1970 turning 50. So what’s going on, and can we turn it around? We don’t have a definitive answer for what’s causing the deteriorating health of younger cohorts, but circumstantial evidence points to worsening trends in obesity and diabetes in both the US and UK. Remember that cohort trends reflect lagged effects of early environments, and younger generations have faced both earlier onset and more severe obesity across their lifetimes. Despite these very concerning trends, the future is not set in stone. We’ve reversed poor generational health trends before: drops in smoking are a major reason cancer and heart disease deaths fell so dramatically in recent decades. GLP-1 drugs may finally turn the tide against rising rates of obesity and diabetes, though it is still early days. But things could also get worse…for example from a return to higher levels of childhood infectious diseases that can have a lasting impact on health. See for example: [ ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) [ Don’t You Forget About Me(asles): The Virus That Erases Immune Memory ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) Jenn Dowd, PhD · March 24, 2025 [ Read full story ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) Even as an optimist, emerging data on the “generational health drift” has my full attention. For most of my research career, we took it for granted that each generation would be healthier than the last. But if present trends continue, **50 could be the new 60….**and Gen Z celebrities will soon look older than Paul Rudd :). Stay well, Jenn Share the Health! If you found this post useful, please share it with a friend. Share
Xtreme One Entertainment Granted Summary Judgment; Court Orders Williamsburg Venture Holdings to Return 6.6 Million Shares Sold in Alleged Fraudulent Transfer of $XONI Stock
Xtreme One Entertainment, Inc. (OTCQB: XONI) (“Xtreme One”), a diversified media and live-event
Indian tribunal allows Zee Entertainment to proceed with warrants issue; shares rise
An Indian appeals tribunal granted Zee Entertainment partial relief from a securities market ban on Friday, allowing the television broadcaster to proceed with a fundraise through an issue of warrants.
Kansas State Adds Former Temple CB Ben Osueke
Temple Owls cornerback Ben Osueke was granted an extra year of eligibility and has decided to play for the Kansas State Wildcats
Supreme Court Action Revives FCC Media Bureau’s Political Ad Guidance
Late this afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of the Fourth Circuit’s decision setting aside the FCC Media Bureau’s guidance on entitlement
Trump Team’s Use of Arcane Budget Rule Threatens Medicaid Coverage
The decision by federal officials, citing authority granted under President Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spending law, suggests the GOP-led state’s predicament could foretell other repercussions in how states are allowed to run the program under federal waivers.
San Diego Foundation Grants Nearly $1M in Binational Water Health Grants
The San Diego Foundation Wednesday granted nearly $1 million in the Binational Resilience Initiative for 10 projects ranging from addressing Tijuana River pollution to restoring coastal habitats in the California-Baja region.
Trump Rewrites Corporate Norms With Arctic Mining Deal
The federal government granted a permit to build a road through Alaskan wilderness. In exchange, it gets part of a mining company.
Business Restructuring Review Vol. 25 No. 4 July-August 2026
In This Issue New York Bankruptcy Court: Premature Allegations of Creditor Mistreatment Insufficient to Deny Chapter 15 Recognition of Foreign Restructuring Proceeding In In re ARD Finance, S.A., No. 25-12794 (MG), 2026 WL 817458 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Mar. 25, 2026), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York was presented with a petition seeking chapter 15 recognition of Luxembourg's recently enacted bankruptcy law governing judicial reorganization proceedings. The court granted the petition, turning aside challenges to recognition voiced by a creditor group arguing that recognition should be denied based upon allegations of unfairness to creditors in the Luxembourg proceeding that would make recognition manifestly contrary to U.S. public policy. According to the bankruptcy court, recognition was warranted because: (i) the rules and procedures governing the proceeding under Luxembourg law were fundamentally fair; (ii) the petition otherwise satisfied chapter 15's recognition requirements; and (iii) the creditor group's allegations were premature, given the fact that the Luxembourg court presiding over the debtor's restructuring proceeding had not confirmed a restructuring plan, and all creditors had the right to participate fully and voice their objections in the proceeding (including the right to appeal an order approving a plan). [read more …] Florida Bankruptcy Court Examines Scope of Discovery in Chapter 15 Cases In In re Banco Master, S.A., No. 25-24568-SMG, 2026 WL 931729 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. Apr. 6, 2026), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida granted in part and denied in part post-recognition motions filed by an insider of a foreign debtor seeking to bar or limit discovery sought by the debtor's foreign representative concerning allegedly voidable transfers involving the debtors' U.S. real property. According to the court: (i) although chapter 15 includes its own discovery provisions among the relief that may be granted to a foreign representative, the expansive discovery available in cases under other chapters of the Bankruptcy Code is also available in chapter 15 cases; (ii) the discovery sought by the foreign representative was permissible; (iii) discovery regarding matters that were the subject of a pending adversary proceeding had to be undertaken under the more restrictive rules applicable to such proceedings; and (iv) a discovery request would be barred to the extent that it sought production of documents or testimony from a subpoenaed entity that exceeded the geographic limitations specified in such rules. [read more …] Delaware District Court Affirms Chapter 15 Recognition Order Enforcing Nonconsensual Third-Party Releases In U.S. Int'l Dev. Fin. Corp. v. Credito Real S.A.B. de C.V. SOFOM, E.N.R. (In re Credito Real S.A.B. de C.V. SOFOM, E.N.R.), 677 B.R. 192 (D. Del. 2026), appeal filed, No. 26-2356 (3d Cir. June 5, 2026), the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware affirmed a bankruptcy court order granting chapter 15 recognition to a Mexican "concurso mercantile" proceeding and enforcing nonconsensual third-party releases approved by the Mexican court. Agreeing with the bankruptcy court that the releases were not manifestly contrary to U.S. public policy, the district court concluded: "It is well settled that U.S. bankruptcy courts can give effect to foreign orders in recognized foreign proceedings pursuant to the authority granted in Chapter 15, even when those orders contain relief unavailable under U.S. law. [The appellant's] arguments misconstrue the Supreme Court's narrow holding in Purdue, applicable in Chapter 11 cases, as well as the statutory framework of Chapter 15 and its core policy objectives. Accordingly, I will affirm the Enforcement Order." The ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. [read more …] Fifth Circuit: Bankruptcy Court, Not State Court, Had Jurisdiction to Allow or Disallow Administrative Expense Claim In Storey Minerals Ltd. v. EP Energy E&P Co., LP (Matter of EP Energy E&P Co., LP), 169 F.4th 609 (5th Cir. 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed lower courts' rulings disallowing a creditor's administrative expense claim. It also rejected the creditor's argument that, because the claims were predicated on state law, a state court should adjudicate the merits of the state law causes of action before the bankruptcy court could allow or disallow the claim as an administrative expense. According to the Fifth Circuit, even though the causes of action were based on state law, the bankruptcy court had jurisdiction to determine whether the creditor's claims should be conferred with administrative expense priority in the debtors' chapter 11 case. [read more …] New York Bankruptcy Court: Dismissal of Involuntary Chapter 11 Case Filed Prior to Commencement of Foreign Restructuring Proceeding Unwarranted In In re Xinyuan Real Estate Co. Ltd., No. 25-10745 (PB), 2026 WL 592250 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Mar. 3. 2026), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York considered the bona fides of an involuntary chapter 11 petition filed by certain holders of U.S. dollar-denominated notes against a holding company for a group of Chinese property development companies that filed a restructuring proceeding in the Cayman Islands after the noteholders filed the involuntary chapter 11 petition. The court denied the debtor's motion to dismiss the chapter 11 case. Given the timing of the filing of the Cayman Islands restructuring proceeding, the absence of any progress in the proceeding for seven months, the debtor's need to restructure notes governed by U.S. law, and the debtor's lack of any meaningful contacts to the Cayman Islands, dismissal of the chapter 11 case was unwarranted under the applicable provision of the Bankruptcy Code, international comity, or the doctrine of forum non conveniens. [read more …] Bankruptcy Court Evaluates Trustee's Authority to Sell Avoidance Actions and Right of Target Defendants to Object In In re Law Enf't Officers Sec. Union, No. 24-70277-JAD, 2026 WL 560452 (Bankr. W.D. Pa. Feb. 27, 2026), a chapter 7 trustee sought court approval to sell certain avoidance actions to a creditor of the debtor's estate. Potential targets of the subject avoidance actions objected, arguing that such claims were nontransferable powers of the trustee rather than saleable estate property and urging the court to approve their competing settlement with the trustee. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania disagreed with the potential defendants, holding that they lacked standing to object to the proposed sale, that avoidance actions are indeed estate property, and that the sale—rather than the settlement—best served the estate's interests. [read more …] U.S. Supreme Court Bankruptcy Roundup in Brief In Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction Inc., No. 25-6, 2026 WL 1686028 (U.S. June 11, 2026), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Fifth Circuit decision judicially estopping a chapter 13 debtor from asserting a personal injury claim against a construction company because the debtor failed to disclose the claim during his bankruptcy case. In so ruling, the Court held that "[t]he Fifth Circuit erred by artificially narrowing its inquiry to whether the debtor had knowledge of the underlying facts or a potential motive to conceal the claim." It represents the first time that the Court has applied judicial estoppel in the bankruptcy context, although it has suggested in other contexts that it may be inappropriate where an inconsistent legal position resulted from "inadvertence or mistake." Also in June, the Court denied petitions for certiorari in a few notable bankruptcy cases. [read more …] Newsworthy Heather Lennox (Cleveland/New York) (Star Individual), Bruce Bennett (Los Angeles) (Senior Statesperson), Kevyn D. Orr (Washington) (Eminent Practitioner), Gregory M. Gordon (Dallas) (Band 1), Carl E. Black (Cleveland), Corinne Ball (New York) (Senior Statesperson), Brad B. Erens (Chicago), Jeffrey B. Ellman (Atlanta), T. Daniel Reynolds (Cleveland), and Dan T. Moss (Washington/New York) were recognized as leading lawyers in the practice area Bankruptcy/Restructuring in the 2026 edition of Chambers USA: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business. The 2026 edition of Lawdragon 500 Leading Bankruptcy and Restructuring Lawyers ranked the following lawyers: Corinne Ball (New York) (Hall of Fame), Bruce Bennett (Los Angeles), Carl E. Black (Cleveland), Jeffrey B. Ellman (Atlanta), Brad B. Erens (Chicago), Gregory M. Gordon (Dallas), Heather Lennox (Cleveland/New York), Joshua M. Mester (Los Angeles), and Kevyn D. Orr (Washington). Fabienne Beuzit (Paris) and Jasper Berkenbosch (Amsterdam) were among the "Leading Individuals" ranked in the 2026 edition of The Legal 500 EMEA guide in the field of Restructuring and Insolvency or Insolvency. Rodolphe Carrière (Paris) was named a "Next Generation Partner" in the practice area Insolvency. Sid Pepels (Amsterdam) was selected by Global Restructuring Review's 40 under 40 2026. He was identified as a Rising Star within the global cross-border restructuring community. Global Restructuring Review is a leading digital subscription service, news outlet, and information platform dedicated exclusively to cross-border insolvency and corporate restructuring law. Fabienne Beuzit (Paris), Rodolphe Carrière (Paris), and Isabelle Maury (Paris) were recognized in the 2027 edition of The Best Lawyers in France™ in the practice area Insolvency and Reorganization Law. An article written by Corinne Ball (New York) titled "Comity and Fairness are Critical to Granting Additional Assistance under Chapter 15: A Canadian Reverse Vesting Order and Related Releases in Proceedings Involving Canadian and U.S.-Affiliated Companies Are Approved" was published in the June 24, 2026, edition of the New York Law Journal. An article written by Caitlin K. Cahow (Detroit) titled "New York Bankruptcy Court Weighs In on Adequate Assurance of Future Performance under Assigned Leases and Chapter 11 Plan Exculpation Provisions" was published on June 8, 2026, in Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Trisha L. Mowbray (Real Estate; Chicago) and Ryan Sims (Washington) titled "Chapter 11 Plan that Abridged Non-Debtor Lessee's Rights to Remain in Possession After Rejection Unconfirmable as Having Been Proposed in Bad Faith" was published on June 16, 2026, in the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable. An article written by Dan T. Moss (Washington/New York), Corinne Ball (New York), Isel M. Perez (Miami), and David S. Torborg (Washington) titled "Texas Bankruptcy Court Adopts Barnet Rule Requiring Foreign Debtor to Have U.S. Assets to Be Eligible for Chapter 15 Relief" was published on June 10, 2026, in Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Daniel J. Merrett (Atlanta) and Nathaniel Parr (Atlanta) titled "Southern District of Texas Clarifies Post-Purdue Course for Consensual Third-Party Releases and Gatekeeping Provisions" was published on June 11, 2026, in Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Corinne Ball (New York) titled "LMEs, Sophisticated Investors and Equitable Mootness: The Fifth and Third Circuits Warn Against Testing the Limits of Chapter 11" was published in the June 2026 issue of the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal. Nicholas J. Morin (New York) was quoted in an article titled "Serta Ruling Offers Damages Road Map in Lender-on-Lender Disputes," published by Bloomberg Law on July 7, 2026. The article discussed U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez's July 7, 2026, ruling that participating lenders in Serta Simmons Bedding's 2020 non-pro rata uptier exchange breached the credit agreement's ratable-sharing provision, and awarding excluded lenders more than $261 million in damages. The opinion resolves six years of litigation related to Serta's 2020 transaction, where it raised $200 million in new financing and exchanged $1.2 billion of term loans for $875 million in superpriority debt. Judge Lopez found that the debt-for-debt exchange constituted a "payment" under the credit agreement, requiring proportional sharing among lenders, and dismissed various defenses raised by the participating lenders. The case is Serta Simmons Bedding LLC v. AG Centre Street Partnership (In re Serta Simmons Bedding LLC), 2026 WL 1968535 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Jul. 7, 2026). The New York Law Journal has recognized Andrew M. Butler (New York) as a 2026 "Rising Star" in Restructuring/Bankruptcy as part of the New York Legal Awards. The Rising Star category recognizes New York's most promising lawyers age 40 and under who have distinguished themselves through exceptional legal work, leadership, and contributions to the profession. Lawyer Spotlight: Daniel J. Merrett Dan Merrett, a partner in the Atlanta Office, has spent nearly 20 years representing all manner of stakeholders in complex corporate restructurings and chapter 11 reorganizations. His practice extends to related transactions and disputes involving acquisitions; divestitures; credit facilities; securities; environmental obligations; and vendor, employee, and governance matters. Dan has substantial experience managing mass tort liabilities, including the restructurings and related chapter 11 cases of affiliates of Georgia Pacific and Johnson & Johnson, implemented to resolve asbestos and talc liabilities. He also represents key parties in energy and infrastructure matters, including facility owners, EPC contractors, and joint-venture parties. Dan was a key player in the restructuring teams in the historic bankruptcies of the City of Detroit and Chrysler. His other significant representations in chapter 11 cases include AFA Foods, Alpha Natural Resources, Dana Corporation, M&G Chemicals, McDermott International, Monster/CareerBuilder, Transtar Industries, and Westinghouse. He is licensed in both the United States and England & Wales and recognized in restructuring by Chambers USA and Best Lawyers.
Supreme Court rejects Trump's push to toss $5M verdict in E. Jean Carroll case
The decision comes about two years after the court granted Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution
US authorities detain Nicaraguan political exiles stripped of citizenship, raising fears of deportation
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday reported that US immigration authorities detained 8 Nicaraguan exiles who were previously granted protected status in 2023 after fleeing political prosecution. On Fe...
Court halts order, denies extra year of eligibility
In a legal victory for the NCAA, a federal appeals court has temporarily halted a court order that would have granted thousands of athletes who left college an extra year of eligibility.
Kansas Health Science University Granted Accreditation by the WASC Senior College and University Commission, Meeting Rigorous Quality Assurance Standards
Wichita, Kan., July 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kansas Health Science University (KHSU) has been granted accreditation by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), a significant milestone in the school’s mission to produce forward-thinking, empathetic healthcare leaders. WSCUC is an institutional accreditor recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. The agency’s outcomes-focused accreditation supports institutions in building and sustaining innovative educational programs
Newcomer Creamery Gains Outdoor Entertainment License
Salt & Honey Creamery, a craft gelato parlor that recently opened at the former location of Sweet Caroline’s Ice Cream, has been granted an entertainment license by Sandwich Select Board.
Dolly Parton's estate granted temporary restraining order against singer's nephew
A Tennessee judge has granted Dolly Parton’s estate a temporary restraining order against the late singer’s nephew Bryan Seaver and his private security company. She’s Alive, the entity founded to
Why US water systems are vulnerable to foreign cyberattacks
A cyberattack on water systems in a dozen states is exposing years of under-investment in critical infrastructure and how US adversaries can threaten services that everyday Americans take for granted, according to industry experts and current and former US officials.
Google Pixel Watch Fitbit Sensor Permission Bug Leaves Health Tracking Broken for Some Users
The Google Pixel Fitbit sensor permission bug locks users out of Google Health apps by demanding sensor access already granted. Even factory resets do not fix it.
Commodore Bar is granted license for live entertainment
Conditions are attached to address neighbors' concerns.
The U.S. Healthcare System is Already Mostly Socialized
Now that Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s open Senate seat, the outcome of this crucial race will depend mainly on two things: Whether Republicans succeed in demonizing El-Sayed because he’s brown and a Muslim, and whether they succeed in demonizing him as a left-wing radical. I will defer for the now the question of whether bigotry will be effective this year, although I will address it another day. What I want to address instead is El-Sayed’s signature issue — healthcare. Yes, El-Sayed advocates Medicare for All, a position the usual suspects denounce as “socialism.” I will get to the politics of his stance soon. Today, however, I want to talk about the substance. We should be clear that El-Sayed doesn’t even call himself a socialist. On the contrary, he explicitly disavows the label, saying “I’m a capitalist who just knows about capitalism”. In fact, as I explained in a previous post, the policies that El-Sayed advocates qualify him as a social democrat, not a socialist. Still, El-Sayed advocates a system under which the government would pay almost all medical expenses. Isn’t that socialism? Well, if that is the criterion then much of U.S. healthcare is already socialist. In fact, the government’s role is so large that U.S. healthcare is better described as partially privatized socialism than as anything resembling a free market. Let’s start with the raw numbers on health insurance, which pays the bulk of Americans’ medical expenses. Americans receive health insurance either from private companies or from public programs, overwhelmingly Medicare and Medicaid. Here’s what the breakdown of coverage and spending between private and public looked like in 2024: While a majority of Americans with health insurance get it from private companies, well over 100 million of us are covered by government programs instead. And these government programs pay more total dollars for medical bills than the private insurers do. Why do government programs that cover a minority of the population account for a majority of health insurers’ outlays? Mainly because Medicare covers seniors, and we’re expensive. Also, while Medicaid covers many younger Americans, disabled and elderly beneficiaries account for most of its spending. Even by the raw numbers, then, U.S. health insurance looks as much public as private. But that understates the government’s role: Private health insurance in the U.S. is both highly regulated and heavily subsidized. This is obviously true for the insurance coverage purchased by tens of millions of Americans through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act. But employment-based health insurance, which covers 161 million Americans, is far more of a government creation than most people realize. For employment-based insurance exists largely because of huge implicit government subsidies that come with major strings attached. Here’s how that works. If your employer pays you $10,000, that’s taxable income. But if your employer pays $10,000 toward a company health insurance plan that meets certain criteria, it isn’t taxable. That’s a huge effective subsidy, running at more than $300 billion a year. Take that subsidy into account, along with the more than $100 billion per year spent subsidizing policies purchased under the ACA, as well as the outlays on Medicare and Medicaid, and net effect is that the government pays for more than two-thirds of Americans’ health insurance. Granted, there are strings attached. Roughly speaking, employment-based health plans can’t discriminate based on medical history — that is, they can’t deny coverage to employees with pre-existing conditions — and they also can’t offer the plans only to highly compensated employees — a health plan that is only for the C-suite is considered taxable income. So given the restrictions of the federal tax code, employer-based health insurance is a lot like Obamacare, which also prohibits discrimination based on medical history and provides subsidies to make insurance affordable to lower-paid workers. The fact is that virtually all of private healthcare insurance is already well under some form of government control through regulation and tax subsidies. How should we think about this system? First of all, is Medicare socialist? Don’t tell anyone, but the way Medicare operates — it covers every senior’s medical expenses, whatever they turn out to be, while being funded by taxes that depend on one’s income — could be summarized by the old Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And back in 1961, when Ronald Reagan was the face of a last-ditch effort by the American Medical Association to block the creation of Medicare, he denounced Medicare as “socialized medicine” and warned that it would destroy our freedom. In reality, American freedom survived until Jan. 20, 2025, while Medicare is immensely popular, with an 82 percent favorable rating in the most recent KFF survey. Medicaid, government health insurance for lower-income Americans, comes in at 73 percent. This is in sharp contrast to public views about private insurers, who are widely disliked if not hated and accused of denying essential care. Furthermore, if Medicare is socialism, then the whole U.S. health insurance system, with the government paying most of the bills and placing conditions on private insurers, is almost equally socialist. If you insist on calling any program the government pays for and regulates socialist, then U.S. healthcare would best be described as a partially privatized form of socialism. And one must ask, what is the point of the part that is privatized? Do private insurers add anything positive? Or are they simply parasites, skimming off money that could have been paying for care? The case for viewing insurers as parasites is strong. Many Medicare benefits are now delivered via Medicare Advantage, that is, plans paid for by the government but run through insurance companies. MedPAC, an independent advisory commission, estimates that last year Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by $84 billion, thanks to practices such as “upcoding,” in which patients’ health problems are overstated to get larger sums from Medicare. Assessing the waste from employer-based insurance is harder, but most evidence suggests that private insurers have substantially higher administrative costs than Medicare does. Furthermore, the complexity of private insurance, with multiple payers all trying to deny care when they can, is a huge burden both on providers — doctors, nurses, and hospitals — and on patients. What do private insurers offer to compensate for these costs? One must go through intellectual contortions to avoid the conclusion that they are, in fact, parasites. Which brings me back to El-Sayed. In supporting Medicare for All, he’s basically calling for an end to the partial, parasitic privatization of a healthcare system that is already hugely dependent on public funding. When one looks at it that way, it’s not at all a radical proposal. Admittedly, the political lift requires overcoming the opposition to higher taxes to pay for Medicare for All. Political realism rather than economics was the reason I and many other progressives supported Obamacare, with all its complexities, rather than demanding an immediate move to Medicare for All. But the political calculus may very well have shifted since the 2000s, as Americans are fed up with a system of unaffordable premiums, rampant claim denials, and byzantine claim administration. Moreover, funding healthcare insurance through taxation would allow for a much more progressive distribution of the cost. That is, compared to the present system, middle-income households would pay less as high-income households would pay more. And the U.S. would stop wasting large sums on pointless administrative costs. So let’s be clear: El-Sayed’s healthcare platform is perfectly reasonable on the merits of cost, fairness and health efficacy. And with private insurers never more hated, while millions of Americans are losing their health insurance, 2026 may be its time. MUSICAL CODA
Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. I am particularly pleased that it goes out for free to thousands of subscribers around the world. But, writing this newsletter takes a lot of work. If you are enjoying it and would like to support the project, sign up for one of the subscription options here. It is the equivalent of a fancy cup of coffee per month! Subscribe
Cavaliers Granted High Win Total Prediction Entering Crucial NBA Season
The Cleveland Cavaliers are again being viewed as a top team in the NBA entering the season.
Gasperini schedules team dinner
Gian Piero Gasperini has granted four days of rest to the players who remained at Trigoria: from Svilar to Malen, who is recovering from knee problems. Their return to the field is scheduled for Tuesd...
Novant Health drives $4.33B in regional economic impact, study says
Novant Health Coastal Region generates an annual overall economic impact of $4.33 billion in the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), according to a new report. Commissioned by Novant Health and conducted by Mouhcine Guettabi, associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the area’s regional economist, the report evaluates population growth in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties and whether the area’s healthcare infrastructure is positioned to meet the region’s demand. According to the study, while healthcare employment has kept pace with population growth in New Hanover and Pender counties, it has not kept up with the rapid population growth in Brunswick County, which is skewed toward an older population. “It points very clearly to Brunswick County being the bottleneck, or being the place where investment is most needed,” Guettabi said to the Business Journal Friday, “because the growth is the fastest, the composition of the growth is older (adults) and demand for healthcare is much higher for the subpopulation.” The Novant Health Coastal Region employs 8,295 full-time equivalent workers, according to the report, and is the region’s largest employer. Overall, through direct, indirect and induced impacts, the Novant Health Coastal Region supports 19,573 jobs, the report said. Using data collected from internal payroll, financial and capital reports, the report estimates that Novant Health Coastal Region pays approximately $1.15 billion in total compensation to its employees. According to the study, the provider’s annual operating expenditures, or direct economic impact, total $2.36 billion. That direct impact ripples through the regional economy through spending at its suppliers, or indirect impact, and household spending by staff and its suppliers’ workers, or induced impact. The report estimates the Novant Health Coastal Region’s indirect economic impact is $786 million, reflecting the multiplying effect of the provider’s operating expenses on expenditures like medical supplies, facilities, food, IT and professional services. Because 86.9% of Novant Health Coastal Region employees live within the tri-county region, the report estimates that wages paid by Novant circulate into the regional economy, creating an induced economic impact of $1.17 billion. “That money just doesn’t go into thin air,” Guettabi said of the wages paid to Novant Health Coastal Region employees. “Some of that money is being re-spent, and therefore it’s supporting grocery stores, hiring, restaurants and bars, and there are a lot of other companies or organizations whose employment, whose activity partially depends on that.” The combination of direct ($2.36 billion), indirect ($786 million), and induced ($1.17 billion) impacts totals an estimated $4.33 billion, according to the report. A study commissioned by Novant Health in 2024 and conducted by FTI Consulting’s Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy found that Novant Health generated nearly $2 billion of direct impact, with $628 million in indirect impact and $857 million in induced impact. Healthcare investments in the pipeline for Brunswick County Additionally, the study found that while healthcare employment has kept pace with population growth in New Hanover and Pender counties, it lags in Brunswick County. “Once you go below the metro level and you decompose the three counties that make up the Wilmington Metro,” Guettabi said, “it becomes fairly clear that Brunswick is the standout. And not only that, but clearly the growth there is fully domestic migration and largely retiree-driven migrants.” Using data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on per-capita healthcare spending among age groups, Guettabi estimates that adults aged 65 and older demand 2.44 times the healthcare of working-age adults. “The share of the population in Brunswick County that’s over the age of 65 is 33%,” Guettabi said, “which is so much higher than the average share of people over the age of 65 within the state or within the country.” The report emphasizes that Brunswick County is the “strongest candidate” for new healthcare investment, adding that patient discharge records show Brunswick residents rely heavily on facilities in New Hanover County for inpatient care. “Investments in Brunswick County would not only meet the demand for those residents, but it would also relieve pressure for New Hanover County residents,” Guettabi said. Laurie Whalin, president of the Novant Health Coastal Region, told the Business Journal Friday that the provider plans to expand services at Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center, in addition to other investments in the area. In April, the state granted conditional approval to both Novant Health and Columbus Regional Healthcare System to build new hospitals, just miles apart, on either side of the Columbus County and Brunswick County borders. Columbus Regional’s $214 million 30-bed hospital would be located at the former Acme-Delco Middle School in Delco, according to the application. The project’s approved timetable has construction slated to finish in May 2029, with the hospital open for service by October 2029. The Whiteville-based provider, which Atrium Health manages, broke ground on an Advanced Care facility in December 2025 and operates four specialty clinics in Leland. Meanwhile, Novant Health’s proposed $251 million 20-bed hospital would be built just miles from Columbus Regional’s proposed hospital, near the Compass Pointe community in Leland. The provider estimates the hospital will open by 2030. State officials also approved Novant Health in March to build a freestanding emergency department in Carolina Shores, near U.S. 17. The project is estimated to cost $24 million, according to the application, and will operate under the Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center license. Additionally, Novant Health’s 16,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center is slated to open in Leland by year’s end, officials said.
Big 12 pursues legal action against Texas Tech, Texas Attorney General in Brendan Sorsby case
The Big 12 seeks clarity in its authority to enforce bylaws after a previous judge granted the Texas Tech QB an injunction to play in 2026 despite gambling on his team's games
How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy
Hey all, Jason here. Money20/20 is still two weeks away, but I’ve already started packing (not procrastinating for once!). My calendar is already filling up with various sessions I want to catch, meetings, and of course happy hours, dinners, and other side events. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to catch up, let me know by replying to this email, and we can try to find a time amidst the chaos of the Venetian. A big if not totally unexpected piece of news dropped on Friday: the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents smaller U.S. banks, filed a lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould, arguing that the regulator’s move to grant trust bank charters to firms seeking to use them to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authorities granted to the OCC by Congress. I haven’t had time to fully digest the legal filing or speak to folks in my network about it, but you can expect to see coverage and analysis on it in next week’s newsletter. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading The NerdCon agenda just dropped. It’s stacked. Partner content: Nubank built an AI-first bank. Chime built its own banking core. Figure and Valon are rebuilding the mortgage stack. At NerdCon, you’ll hear from the people behind those bets: what they chose, what they learned, and what they’re still figuring out. The agenda is live, with leaders from Nubank, Chime, OpenAI, Remitly, Mercury, Figure, Valon and more. Follow the mainstage conversations, bring the problem your team is wrestling with to a hands-on workshop, or pull up a chair at a roundtable. Pick your quests. Meet us in San Diego, November 18–20. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% with code FBW20. Explore the Agenda Things To Know & Other Good Reads Federal Reserve Board finalizes changes to enhance the transparency and public accountability of its stress test and reduce volatility in its stress test-related capital requirements (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) FDIC Announces Conclusion of Independent Monitorship (FDIC) Modernizing Financial Regulation: Initial Observations from eSLR (Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman) The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI (Fed Governor Christopher Waller) Financing the AI buildout (Brookings) Q3’26: Rules for Banks but Not for Crypto (Fintech Takes Banking) The Inevitability of Local Stablecoins (Lombard Notes) Delusions of AI Governance: The Human-in-the-Loop Comfort Blanket (Fintech Snark Tank) Stripe agrees to acquire Parafin to expand revenue opportunities for platforms and help small businesses grow (Stripe) Listen: Fighting Fraud in the Age of AI, with SEON’s Tamas Kadar (Fintech Business Weekly) How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy If there is one overarching theme across the economy and politics in the U.S. at the moment, it’s “affordability.” The term is vague enough to encompass a panoply of factors shaping Americans’ day-to-day lives: rising costs for the hallmarks of being “middle class,” including healthcare, housing, childcare, and education, inflation and rising interest rates, and a job market with the specter of AI hovering over it. At the same time, policy shifts under the Trump administration have resulted in reduced subsidies to those who get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and new restrictions on qualifying for Medicaid and SNAP, the impacts of which have yet to be fully felt. These factors are contributing to declining consumer confidence and general dissatisfaction with the economy, despite continuing GDP growth and stock market records. This divergence is encapsulated in the idea of the “K-shaped” economy, in which a small proportion of Americans have seen their wealth balloon, while the majority of American households struggle to preserve the lifestyle they have. Perhaps the greatest determinant of which branch of the “K” a household is on is whether their wealth and income are primarily derived from employment vs. from assets. Nearly two decades of low interest rates and, more recently, elevated rates of inflation have benefited asset owners, while those whose income is primarily or solely derived from labor have largely seen real purchasing power stagnate or decline. This is reflected in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that labor share of U.S. GDP — the fraction of economic output that accrues to workers as compensation in exchange for their labor — dropped to just 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since the BLS began keeping records. In 1947, approximately 2/3rds of economic output accrued to workers; even as recently as 2001, labor’s share of GDP was 64.1%. Against this backdrop, we’ve seen the rise of more credit and credit-like products: cash advance apps, “no-fee” overdraft, earned wage access, and buy now pay later, which are often used as small-dollar short-term borrowing mechanisms to meet immediate consumption needs or pay other bills (eg utilities, cell phone, other debt payments). With the markers of a middle class existence and, increasingly, basic financial stability seemingly out of reach for many, it should be no surprise there’s been an increase in “financial nihilism,” something industry peers like Alex Johnson and Frank Rotman have discussed and analyzed the roots of. The explosion of gambling and gambling-adjacent products and services — often marketed under the guise of being an “investment” — is inextricably intertwined with the rise of financial nihilism. Crypto, sports betting, and, more recently, prediction markets offer an escape or even hope of sorts, like a contemporary, digital version of a scratch-off lottery ticket, while leaving the overwhelming number of people who use such products worse off. Share of Households That Are Financially “Vulnerable” Ticks Up The Financial Health Network’s 2026 Financial Health Pulse® report adds context on how American households are faring. (I linked to this report in last week’s newsletter, but wanted to take time to further unpack the data in the report this week.) The Financial Health Network publishes the report annually, providing insight into how Americans’ financial circumstances are changing over time. The 2026 report is derived from a survey fielded in April and May 2026. The report leverages survey responses to assess indicators of financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning/protecting and to determine a zero to 100 “FinHealth” score. Those with scores between 0 and 39 are considered “Financially Vulnerable,” consumers with scores ranging between 40 and 79 are defined as “Financially Coping,” and those with scores of 80 to 100 are “Financially Healthy.” The report found that moderate improvements in 2025 were reversed, with the share of respondents considered financially “vulnerable” rebounding to 17%. The longitudinal data reflect the impact of pandemic-era programs, like expanded unemployment, cash stimulus payments, and pauses of federal student loan payments. The positive impacts of those programs, as reflected in the Financial Health Pulse reports, had largely disappeared by 2023. While pandemic-era inflation — to be fair, in part caused by the various support and stimulus measures — had come down from as high as 9% in 2022, it has rebounded since the start of Trump’s second term, with tariffs and energy market disruptions owing to the war in Iran pushing prices back up. Specific indicators in the survey that deteriorated from 2025 to 2026 include the share of respondents spending less than their income over the past 12 months, the share paying all bills on time over the past 12 months, the share that have a manageable amount or no debt, the share that are “moderately” or “very” confident their insurance is adequate to cover them in an emergency, and the share that “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that their household plans ahead financially. Unsurprisingly, lower- and moderate-income households are more likely to struggle to pay their bills on time and have any funds leftover to save. The share of low-income households whose income exceeded their spending dropped from 35% in 2025 to 31% in 2026, while the share of upper-income households whose income exceeded expenses remained unchanged at 63%. Households with student loans or revolving credit card debt reported having “a bit more” or “far more” debt than was manageable at rates far higher than those not carrying these types of debts. The share of those with student loan debt indicating their debt load was too high to manage increased from 50% in 2025 to 55% in 2026, while the share of those with revolving credit card debt saying the same ticked up from 51% in 2025 to 54% in 2026. Households that had student loans were markedly more likely to be financially “coping” or “vulnerable” vs. those without student loans. In 2026, 27% of households with student loans were considered financially vulnerable, a jump of 6% points vs. 2025. Households without student loans saw just a 1% point increase (not statistically significant) in those considered financially vulnerable. Households’ perception of the affordability of categories of goods and services paints a stark picture, with less than one-fourth considering higher education affordable, about a third deeming childcare affordable, and less than half viewing healthcare as affordable. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Democratic Senate Report Highlights How Iran Uses Tether to Evade U.S. Sanctions Iran uses stablecoins, specifically Tether, to evade sanctions, fund regional proxies, and to purchase military drones, a report released last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says. The report was authored by committee ranking member Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the minority staff. Crypto and stablecoin proponents will often push back on criticism that criminals make use of these assets by arguing that, on an absolute dollar basis, far more illicit funds flow through traditional banking systems and payment rails than via crypto and stablecoins. And while that is likely true, it elides the reality presented in news story after news story: whether state actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea — or criminal groups, those looking to engage in illicit transactions increasingly favor stablecoins and, specifically, Tether (USDT). The report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released last week adds context to how Iran uses Tether has a lynchpin in its shadow banking system. The report analyzed 846 wallets that have been sanctioned or targeted for seizure, finding that 84% of them transacted exclusively or primarily in Tether. The ability to create near limitless, anonymous wallets and to move funds effectively instantaneously and irreversibly have made crypto a favored financial mechanism for bad actors. Stablecoins solved key drawbacks of bitcoin, namely, the original cryptocurrency’s highly volatile value in dollars. And while Tether (the company) has the technical ability to “freeze” or destroy funds, the company is often limited and reactive in its approach to doing so, the Senate report argues. Tether, which is nominally based in crypto-friendly El Salvador, “has stated that its compliance with OFAC sanctions is ‘voluntary’ and that it follows ‘OFAC guidelines,’” the Senate report says. Owing to these favorable attributes, Tether “became a primary cryptocurrency for Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis beginning in 2023 and has expanded in scale since,” according to the report. Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking system, the report says, is enhanced by crypto exchanges like Bybit, Kyrrex, OKX, Gate, and Binance, and through “over the counter” exchanges and hawala networks. The consequences of these financial flows aren’t hypothetical. The Senate report links Tether as a funds transfer mechanism to Iranian proxies in the region, including Hizballah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Tether has also been used to make payments to secure components necessary to manufacture drones, the report says. The report concludes by arguing that “[s]tablecoin issuers with a significant nexus to the United States, particularly those that offer dollar-denominated stablecoins, should be subject to American sanctions law rather than being allowed to hide behind foreign jurisdictions.” Stablecoin issuers like Tether must be held accountable for repeated failures to prevent illicit finance and sanctions violations by law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OFAC, the report argues. [Paying Subscriber Exclusive] OUSD Goes Live, Make Your Own Neobank, U.S. Sanctions Russia’s A7 Network As “Transnational Criminal Organization” OpenUSD, the stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium that includes Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, core providers, crypto firms, and numerous banks, went live last week. Social commerce platform Whop raised eyebrows in fintech by offering creators on its platform the ability to launch their own neobanks, which the company describes as “great businesses that are easy to run,” in just 15 minutes. And OFAC and FinCEN target Russia’s “shadow banking” A7 Network — more on these stories after the paywall.
World Cup 2026: Belgium granted appeal after FIFA reversed USMNT's Folarin Balogun 1-game ban after red card
Facing tight race, Gov. Tina Kotek taps friendly influencers to spread message
The Democratic governor has granted in-person interviews to a cast of social media users this year.
Center Kate Koval receives NCAA waiver to transfer from LSU
Former LSU center Kate Koval is officially in the transfer portal and will be immediately eligible to compete after being granted a waiver, a source with knowledge of the decision confirmed to The Athletic. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the situation. Per NCAA rules, waivers to transfer outside of sport-specific transfer windows are granted only in an “exigent event outside the student-athlete’s control unrelated to athlet
State Dept. to revoke tourist, business visas for those who claimed asylum
The move is expected to apply to those granted B1 and B2 visas between 2016 and 2026 who have since sought asylum.
Roundup: Louisiana International Terminal / Ethane demand / Robot rush
Gateway to growth: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted the federal permit for the Louisiana International Terminal, clearing the way for construction of a major new container port on the Lower Mississippi River. Backed by Port NOLA, Terminal Investment Limited and Ports America, LIT is designed to handle the world’s largest container ships […]
Hayden Panettiere's ex Wladimir Klitschko gets legal status to protect their daughter's inheritance
A California court has granted Wladimir Klitschko legal authority to protect his daughter Kaya’s inheritance following her mother Hayden Panettiere’s death
Millwall confirm signing of new winger after delay
Millwall have completed the signing of Montpellier winger Yanis Issoufou after FIFA confirmed the player’s international clearance could be granted.The 19-year-old has joined the Lions on a long-ter...
Missouri S&T researcher receives joint appointment with Savannah River National Laboratory
Dr. Michael S. Moats, a professor of materials science and engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, has been granted a joint appointment with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). “Savannah River National Laboratory has assembled an exceptional team of researchers advancing critical minerals and materials technologies that are vital to our nation’s energy security...Continue Reading Missouri S&T researcher receives joint appointment with Savannah River National Laboratory
Caleb Williams Named EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 27 Cover Athlete
Williams Is the First Chicago Bears Player To Appear On A Madden NFL Cover Fans Can Expect Full Game Reveal on Thursday, June 4, and Worldwide Launch on Aug. 13 EA SPORTS™ announced today that Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams will grace the cover of EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 27, making him the first player in Chicago Bears history to do so. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams lands on the cover of EA SPORTS Madden NFL 27. Williams’ record-setting season, playoff victory and NFL Moment of the Year — his walk-off, game-winning 46-yard touchdown pass in overtime against the Green Bay Packers — make him one of the most compelling quarterbacks to watch in 2026. Off the field, he’s known as one of the sport’s most distinctive cultural presences, styling his own gameday looks with unique nail art throughout the season. Williams appears on the Standard Edition cover showcasing his signature jump pass, while the Deluxe Edition cover features his iconic celebration that granted him the
Former UCF F Keyshawn Hall Granted TRO, Gains Eligibility
A New York court ruling clears the path for the dynamic "Big Guard" to join Rick Pitino at St. John’s, bolstering the Red Storm’s offensive arsenal.
Judge Releases 1999 Murder Defendant Amid Health Issues
DC Superior Court Judge Rainey Brandt granted a homicide defendant’s unopposed motion for release on Sept. 11. George Mudd, 72, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder, with aggravating factors of being especially heinous or cruel while committing or attempting to commit a robbery. The charges stem from his alleged involvement in the […]
Iowa’s water pollution poses risks to health so testing crucial
We often think about staying healthy through the food we eat, the physical activity we get and the preventive care we receive, but many other factors influence our health, too, especially those that we use every day, including water. Access to clean water shouldn’t be taken for granted. When we understand where our water comes […]
China grants a singer a rare exemption over censorship after an unapproved tribute song
Authorities in Chengdu, China, have granted a rare exemption to singer Na Ying after she performed an unapproved song at a weekend concert.
Reform and the UAE – a threat to British politics
By Alex Carlen The United Arab Emirates likes to present itself as part of the solution to the climate crisis. The oil-rich Gulf state has committed to Net Zero by 2050, hosted COP 28, and even declared “championing climate action” as one of three strategic objectives for this week’s session of the United Nations General Assembly. But behind the scenes the UAE has quietly built one of its closest political relationships in Europe with the party most hostile to climate action in Britain: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. There is no evidence that the UAE is funding Reform. But a new FairSquare report, Petro-populism: the UAE–Reform threat, published today, documents a growing political relationship that should concern anyone interested in the integrity of British democracy. Reform’s leaders have embraced the UAE’s political model and promoted positions that align closely with the Emirati government’s priorities, while the UAE has given Farage and his party unusually warm access and public backing. What is emerging is not simply a relationship between British politicians and a wealthy Gulf state, but a channel through which an authoritarian government can cultivate political influence here, and abroad. Democracy for Sale relies on its readers. If you already support us, thanks so much. If you don’t, sign up to support fearless independent investigative journalism. Subscribe Back in January, Nigel Farage appeared at a GB News event in Dubai. On the 50th floor of a tower overlooking the luxury resorts and upscale residences of Palm Jumeirah, the Reform leader declared: “I want Clacton to look like this.” At the event – which Farage never declared on his official register of interests – senior Emirati officials mixed with British expats. Farage was keen to flatter. “We recognise you are our friends”, he said, assuring them that “a Brexit London, a Reform London, will remember you.” Controversy surrounding Reform’s finances and its susceptibility to foreign influence have centred around high-profile donations from billionaire crypto donors, and the jailing of Nathan Gill, Reform’s former leader in Wales, for accepting bribes to give pro-Russia speeches. Far less attention has been paid to Reform’s blossoming new alliance with the UAE, an oil-rich authoritarian state with a track record of ruinous anti-democratic interventions. Farage wasn’t always so fond of the UAE. Back in 2023 he called it an “absolute monarchy with an abysmal human rights record.” Now Reform’s hierarchy calls the UAE home. Deputy leader Richard Tice splits his time between his constituency and Dubai and has called on the UK to learn from the UAE. The party’s treasurer Nick Candy runs a firm which has been in partnership with a UAE-state linked firm since 2024. Nadhim Zahawi sits on the board of an Abu Dhabi think tank alongside an array of the most senior UAE officials and is reportedly close to three brothers of the country’s despotic ruler Mohammed Bin Zayed. Reform’s leading lights have effusively praised the UAE’s governance model, defended it from criticism, and advanced its political agenda in the UK. GB News, whose two major shareholders – the Legatum Foundation and Paul Marshall – have strong links to the UAE, has been more than happy to broadcast UAE propaganda and was forced to pay damages in 2025 after airing a false claim about a UK charity by the UAE “disinfluencer” Amjad Taha. The UAE has responded in kind. When the UAE Minister for Foreign Affairs conducted an official visit to the UK in May, Farage was the only non-government figure granted an audience. UAE state media publicised the meeting, and said that they discussed “the strategic relations between the two countries and ways to enhance them in a manner that serves mutual interests.” For the UAE these ‘mutual interests’ largely concern its paranoia over political Islam, and in this regard the UAE-Reform alliance is part of a broad and troubling pattern. Following a crackdown on dissent at home in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the UAE has offered material and political support to a range of violent and authoritarian actors willing to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood with no regard for the consequences. Its meddling in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and most notably Sudan, have been devastating. The UAE’s strategy of seeking out partners on the political fringes who it believes will advance its interests is not unique to Britain – it extends beyond the Middle East to Europe and the US. In France, it has offered clandestine support to Marine Le Pen through secret meetings, as well allegedly funding trips to the region after which Le Pen returned with a renewed focus on the UAE’s perceived enemies – Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. Left-wing opposition leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has accused the UAE of smearing him and of “encouraging discrimination, hatred or violence”. In the US, the UAE actively supported the rise of Donald Trump, establishing itself as a key ally during both his first and second terms. Around these relationships sits a wider ecosystem of figures willing to amplify UAE narratives, that even extends to Andrew Tate and Tommy Robinson. Subscribe In Britain, the UAE has used a combination of aggressive diplomacy and illicit, disruptive tactics to achieve its policy goal of eliminating any perceived threat from political Islam. In 2012, for instance, it threatened to block billion-pound arms deals with the UK and stop inward investment if David Cameron did not act against the Muslim Brotherhood and rein in the BBC’s coverage of the group – going so far as to suggest, with no supporting evidence, that the group had infiltrated the BBC. It has financed smear campaigns against a high-profile UK charity and funded a mercenary to secretly surveil, and possibly assassinate, a British national on British soil. In Reform UK, the UAE has finally found an ally willing to not only ban the Muslim Brotherhood, but to publicly vilify the group and repeat the UAE’s claims that dangerous Muslims are a fifth column in British society, a narrative that aligns with the Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiments that underpin Reform’s populist politics. The Rycroft review into foreign interference concluded that “hostile states and non-state actors have a clear incentive to attempt to undermine UK democracy.” The UAE’s network and alliance with Reform must be understood within that framework. It is a powerful, disruptive and deeply authoritarian actor with the resources and networks to intervene in our politics, and a track-record of doing so in a multitude of other countries. The evidence of the threat the UAE poses is overwhelming. The question is whether parliamentarians are willing to call the UAE out and demand action using the tools that the government has to respond. Placing the UAE on the “Enhanced Tier” of the Foreign Registration scheme alongside Russia and Iran would send a powerful signal to the UAE that its meddling will no longer be tolerated, and would place Farage’s next trips to the UAE under the scrutiny they deserve. Alex Carlen is research and advocacy manager at London based human rights organisation FairSquare and author of its new report Petro-populism: the UAE–Reform threat. Subscribe
Plan for RV, boat storage business advances
Jefferson County Planning and Zoning recently granted preliminary approval for the development of a High Ridge RV and boat storage business.
MAGA's attack on science is even worse than it looks
In my post on America’s 250-year anniversary, I argued that respect for the individual was the “secret sauce” in the U.S.’ long-lasting preeminence among nations. But it was certainly not the only factor. There were plenty of institutional innovations that helped the U.S. stay on top — economically, militarily, and in terms of the attractiveness of its society. One of these was American science. Today we take things like the modern research university, government grants for science, public-to-private research spinoffs, etc. for granted, but a lot of that infrastructure wasn’t there before World War 2. It was either invented or scaled up massively by the U.S. government in the postwar period, led by far-sighted scientist-bureaucrats like Vannevar Bush (pictured above). If you want to read about this history, a good place to start would be Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson’s excellent book Jump-Starting America. Those scientific institutions didn’t exist in a vacuum, however. They were backed by the U.S. government’s abiding faith in the power of science — and, even more fundamentally, by deep popular trust in the scientific enterprise. Science gave us radar and the atom bomb in wartime, and in peacetime it gave us plastics, vaccines, cheap food, and a thousand other things that made our lives easier. Science was also the driver behind American industry — chemicals, aerospace, telecommunications, computers, electronics, and so on. We owed science our jobs, our livelihoods, our comfortable living standards, and our greatness and power as a nation. It’s little wonder that both political parties, even as they fought viciously over other issues, were steadfast in their support of science. For a long time, the only people who distrusted science were a hippie fringe on the left who disliked modernity (or thought they did, anyway), who also disliked American industry and American power, and who subscribed to an early version of degrowth environmentalism. America’s scientific enterprise is still strong, especially compared to the systems in Europe, Japan, Korea, and other developed countries. It has lost a lot of ground to China in a relative sense, but a lot of that is because of China’s incredible growth; as China has poured untold amounts of money and talent into its research labs, spending and output have overtaken the U.S. by some measures. There are a few ways in which China’s rise creates problems for American science — for example, top scientists can choose to work in China instead of in the U.S. — and of course there’s the concern that China’s technological strength will help its military to reign supreme. But overall, China’s rise in science should be good for American science, since American scientists can use Chinese discoveries for free and build on them. The much bigger problem is that the scientific enterprise America built during and after World War 2 is now being threatened with absolute decline. The biggest problem, of course, is that much of the country — the Republican half — has basically lost faith in the scientific enterprise. To what degree this loss of faith is justified is an open question, and deserves to be discussed openly. But the larger point — that the system that powered American dominance is under threat — is true either way. Most Americans still trust science, but MAGA Republicans don’t There’s a myth, popular in right-wing circles, that scientists have lost the trust of regular Americans — either due to the increasingly left-wing composition of academic departments, or to misbehavior during Covid, or to DEI-related research taking over science, etc. This also fits with a wider narrative that Americans are losing trust in all of our institutions. But it just isn’t true. Poll after poll shows that on the whole, Americans still trust scientists and want to spend more on science. For example, here’s a Pew poll from late 2025 showing that although about a fifth of Republicans did lose confidence in science in 2020, two thirds still have at least “a fair amount” of confidence: That same poll found that scientists are among America’s most trusted groups — even better trusted than the military! In fact, Americans trust scientists more than people in most other countries do. Other polls show that although Republican trust in science has dropped somewhat, Republican support for spending more on science remains very strong: A Pew poll in 2023 found the exact same thing: So when MAGA types tell you about scientists losing their credibility, or a drop in trust in science, they’re only talking about themselves. Whatever left-wing politicization of science happened during the Biden administration — and there was definitely some of that — it was not enough to make most Republicans lose faith in the scientific enterprise, or favor research cuts in order to purge unwanted ideology from the system. That doesn’t mean I think progressives should continue down the path of politicizing scientific research. They should not, and Biden made real missteps in this area. Objectivity clearly matters for public trust of science in the long term. But as of right now, there’s no crisis of trust in science, except among the smallish minority of people who are running around screaming that there’s a crisis of trust in science. But despite science’s overwhelming popularity and public trust, Trump and his administration are launching an unprecedented and devastating attack on American science — cutting funding, and forcing science projects to undergo ideological review by government commissars. Trump’s comprehensive attack on science
Jaguar Health Receives Fee Waivers from FDA
Company remains sharply focused on its ongoing rare disease intestinal failure global development program for microvillus inclusion disease (MVID) and SBS for crofelemer powder for oral solution, targeting an NDA filing for MVID mid-2027SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESS Newswire / September 22, 2026 / (NASDAQ:JAGX) (Jaguar) family company Napo Pharmaceuticals (Napo) today announced that the U. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Napo's request for a waiver of the fee associated with the Pres
Medicaid is about to end in NC for thousands of refugees
Thousands of refugees and people granted asylum who are living in North Carolina will lose their Medicaid coverage due to cuts made in the 2025 federal spending bill.
Dolly Parton’s sister addresses family feud rumors amid nephew restraining order
Dolly Parton’s sister Freida has addressed a rumored rift among the family after the late country singer’s estate was granted a temporary restraining order against her nephew Bryan Seaver. “I’ll
No decision in pied-à-terre case after city and homeowners make arguments
The judge granted both sides more time to prove their points.
Former Lions Star Linked To Matthew Stafford And The Rams
Taylor Decker’s time with the Detroit Lions has officially come to an end after the veteran left tackle and the organization failed to resolve a contract impasse.Following unsuccessful negotiations on a new deal earlier this offseason, Decker asked to be released, and the team ultimately granted his request. However, Decker remains a free agent and […] The post Former Lions Star Linked To Matthew Stafford And The Rams appeared first on HEAVY.
SEERS’ AI-powered wearable ECG monitor wins Health Canada approval
SEERS, a wearable AI diagnostic monitoring company, said Monday that its AI-powered wearable electrocardiogram analysis solution mobiCARE has received a Class II Medical Device Licence (MDL) from Health Canada.Health Canada granted the licence last Thursday (local time), following an application sub
Plans for 54-bed mental health hospital in Exeter approved again
Cygnet Health Care was first granted permission for the project in 2018 but building did not begin.
Dolly Parton estate gets restraining order against nephew Bryan Seaver
NEW YORK — Representatives for Dolly Parton’s estate have been granted an order of protection against the late singer’s nephew and former head of security Bryan Seaver. Seaver is also
Olivier Martinez granted temporary restraining order against Halle Berry after accusing her of abusing their son
Olivier Martinez has been granted a temporary restraining order against ex-wife Halle Berry. He’s accused her of abusing their 12-year-old son, Maceo.
Seventh Son can resume THC drinks after judge grants restraining order
A federal judge granted a restraining order allowing 14 businesses to sell THC drinks and hemp products in Ohio.
State approves Salem Health-Santiam merger
The Oregon Health Authority has granted a proposed merger between Salem Health and Santiam Hospital & Clinics, state officials said Friday. But the deal can’t close until Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield gives his sign off.