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Breast cancer survivors join together as CHI Health St. Elizabeth shines pink for October

CHI Health hosted its 16th annual ladies night on Wednesday, celebrating those impacted by the disease as they gathered to support one another.

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Oct 7 • 11:21 PM EDT • Health • 1011now.com
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Cass County Mental Health Initiative is shining light on suicide prevention awareness

Cass County Mental Health Initiative shines light on the community and those that are struggling with mental health

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Sep 30 • 4:36 PM EDT • Health • wlfi.com
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Lancaster businesses remove skill games in days up to Supreme Court’s deadline

On Thursday afternoon, an employee of K&S Games wheeled three skill games out of House of Pizza in downtown Lancaster. The machines, which generated significant revenue for House of Pizza

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Oct 10 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • lancasteronline.com
Bishop’s computer science chair says AI is eliminating ‘grunt work’ and reshaping digital jobs

Dr. Russell Butler, chair of Bishop’s University’s Department of Computer Science, says artificial intelligence is increasingly taking over routine digital “grunt work,” changing the skills students and workers may need in the years ahead. Photo courtesy of Bishop’s University. Click here to read our platform! Get local news like this every morning. Subscribe free below. Subscribe Pulse Newsroom Artificial intelligence is already taking over some of the routine digital work once performed by entry-level employees, according to Bishop’s University Computer Science chair Dr. Russell Butler — a shift he believes will make expertise, judgement and the ability to evaluate AI-generated work increasingly important. Butler described the change as automation reaching what he calls the “bottom of the cognitive pyramid” during an interview with The Pulse about AI, university education and the future of digital work. His argument is not that humans are disappearing from the workplace. Instead, he sees their role changing as AI becomes capable of handling more of the repetitive tasks involved in computer-based work. “Everything’s converging on just AI basically doing all the grunt work,” Butler said. The bottom of the cognitive pyramid Butler is from Lennoxville, completed his undergraduate studies at Bishop’s and later earned his PhD at the Université de Sherbrooke. He joined Bishop’s in 2019 and now chairs its Department of Computer Science. He uses AI in research, teaching and other creative work, and said the technology is increasingly capable of handling routine digital tasks that once required substantial human time. “You’ve got the grunt work, like moving things around in Excel, doing basic programming tasks,” Butler said. “That’s like the bottom grunt work that the entry-level worker would have done two or three years ago.” Butler went further, saying in his view that much of this type of work has already been absorbed by AI tools. He connected that change to a shift he sees taking place in computer science, where entry-level roles have declined while experienced workers can use AI to increase what they can produce. “A senior developer now has access to essentially an unlimited amount of junior developers on demand,” Butler said. He was describing AI systems metaphorically, not literal employees. His point was that one experienced developer can now ask AI tools to produce code or other technical work that might previously have been assigned to more junior workers. That raises a broader question for universities and employers. If some of the simpler work traditionally given to newcomers can now be done by machines, how do people gain the experience needed to become senior workers themselves? Students doing work that once required years of programming Butler said he is already seeing the change inside his classroom. He created a Bishop’s course called CS208, Coding in Plain English, to show students — including those without traditional programming backgrounds — what they can accomplish using AI. Some come from disciplines such as psychology or neuroscience with no previous programming experience. “What I’m finding is that students who have zero programming experience, they come in from another discipline like psychology or neuroscience or something, they are now able to get up and running with real data sets,” Butler said. Butler’s own doctoral work involved neuroimaging, and he said he has assigned students work he considers comparable to the kinds of analysis he performed during his PhD. He described giving students a real dataset, an expected result and instructions to use AI to complete the analysis. Butler said those students have been able to carry out work at a level he associates with tasks he once performed after years of programming experience. That does not mean a student using AI instantly acquires the same knowledge as an experienced computer scientist. But Butler sees it as evidence that AI can dramatically lower the technical barrier between having a problem to solve and producing a working result. The role of the person using the system then changes. They need to know what to ask for, understand enough about the subject to judge the answer and take responsibility for what is ultimately produced. What about AI hallucinations? One persistent concern surrounding generative AI is hallucination — when a system produces information that sounds convincing but is false or unsupported. Butler said that problem has improved substantially in newer systems and is not as severe as it was with earlier models. He pointed in particular to newer AI systems’ ability to search the web, consult scientific databases and return source links rather than simply generating a citation from their internal model. Butler nevertheless said users should verify what AI produces. “You should verify,” he said while discussing citations generated with AI. His position is that hallucinations have become less common in the systems he uses, not that incorrect AI output is impossible. Human checking remains part of the process. Hours of work compressed Butler offered another example from his administrative work at Bishop’s. The university has been comparing CEGEP courses with first-year Bishop’s courses to determine where students may qualify for advanced standing. Traditionally, Butler said, that means reviewing two sets of course descriptions and manually matching one institution’s courses with another’s. As department chair, that could require hours of reading and comparison. He said AI can now be given both sets of material and asked to generate an initial mapping automatically. “It saves me hours and hours of work,” Butler said. Butler said the AI-generated mapping can also produce a better result than he would produce himself. He sees similar opportunities in businesses. A company may receive specifications, drawings, emails or other digital material from customers and then have employees convert that information into an internal format before anything can be manufactured or delivered. AI can increasingly perform parts of that intermediate processing. In Butler’s view, the employee does not necessarily disappear. Instead, the job becomes more about checking the result. “The human is still there,” he said. Judgement could become more valuable That change is central to Butler’s view of where digital work may be headed. If AI can produce a first draft, write basic code, compare documents or process large amounts of information, he argues that knowledge and judgement become increasingly important. “The real scarce resource going forward is going to be domain knowledge, expertise, and… credentials, authority, the ability to work with other people,” Butler said. He is therefore encouraging students not only to learn AI tools but also to broaden their education. He mentioned acting, fine art and photography as examples of courses that can help develop what he described as taste and intuition — the ability to recognize what is good, what is not and what should be changed. “And that’s the skill that they need now because the grunt work has been automated and now it’s about evaluating what the AI produces and telling it how to improve or expand the output,” Butler said. That does not remove the need for technical knowledge. Butler’s argument is that the emphasis may shift away from manually completing every step of a task and toward directing, checking and improving work produced with AI assistance. He also stressed that humans remain responsible for final decisions. “At the end of the day, the human has to make the final call,” Butler said, pointing to the question of accountability. Physical work may be different Butler draws a distinction between digital work and jobs requiring people to manipulate the physical world. He expects AI to continue advancing quickly in tasks performed almost entirely on computers. He is more cautious about claims that humanoid robots will soon be able to replace workers such as plumbers or electricians. Butler said those trades would not be replaced “anytime soon” in his view and described some current robotics demonstrations as overhyped. He described the situation as counterintuitive. “It’s almost like we solved the highest level first,” he said, contrasting advances in digital AI with the harder problem of building robots capable of operating reliably in the physical world. Butler’s argument is that some digital occupations could face automation sooner than trades requiring complex physical work. The wider AI shift in the Townships Butler’s comments come as local institutions are increasingly grappling with how AI should be used. The federal government recently announced up to $162 million over five years for 10,000 AI-related placements through Mitacs. The Université de Sherbrooke told The Pulse that the number of its collaborative research and innovation projects supported through Mitacs has approximately doubled since 2018-19, while the number of placements has approximately tripled. UdeS also said it already has projects involving both AI adoption and the application of AI to other fields. At Bishop’s, Butler said part of his role involves building the Computer Science department’s local presence, connecting students with regional partners and strengthening relationships with the Sherbrooke technology ecosystem. Those developments put universities in a difficult position. They have to prepare students to use the tools employers increasingly have available while also making sure graduates understand enough to recognize when those tools are wrong, incomplete or being applied to the wrong problem. The risk of losing human skills Butler does not see AI as risk-free. Later in the interview, he raised a separate concern: as AI becomes better at reading, writing, programming and other cognitive tasks, people could lose some of the underlying skills that historically helped produce new ideas. “The other danger is that we’re going to lose the human skills,” Butler said. He specifically mentioned reading and writing and argued that people could lose some of the lower-level understanding that contributes to breakthroughs. Butler said AI systems are based on existing human knowledge and argued that they become much more powerful when paired with a capable person. That tension runs through his view of the technology. AI can remove hours of routine work. It can allow beginners to perform tasks that once required substantial technical training. It can give experienced workers significant leverage. But the more capable the technology becomes, the more important it may be for people to develop the judgement needed to decide what should be done in the first place. For Butler, that is where education may have to change. Students still need to understand their field. They still need to know when something is wrong. And they still need to be able to make the final decision. But if AI increasingly handles the bottom of the cognitive pyramid, the value of a worker may depend less on how quickly they can perform the grunt work and more on whether they understand what the work is supposed to accomplish. Don’t miss the next story that affects your community. Join thousands of readers getting The Pulse every morning—plus breaking news alerts when it matters most. If you value this kind of local journalism, consider supporting it. Subscribe, share and like! Subscribe Share

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Oct 2 • 1:57 PM EDT • Science • publisherpt.substack.com
The age of nuclear clocks is here: A new tool for probing the laws of physics

Chinese and European scientists have unveiled prototypes that usher in a new era of timekeeping, using thorium-229 as their ‘pendulum’

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Oct 7 • 11:27 AM EDT • Science • english.elpais.com
Case Keenum Shines as Bears Dominate Eagles in Statement Win!

The Chicago Bears delivered one of their biggest performances of the young season Monday night, taking down the Philadelphia Eagles 27-7 at Soldier Field. With starting quarterback Caleb Williams sidelined by a hamstring injury, Chicago turned to veteran Case Keenum, and the longtime NFL quarterback delivered when his team needed him most. Keenum threw for…

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Sep 28 • 11:28 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Steelers report card: Jaylen Warren hot streak continues; Aaron Rodgers shines

The Pittsburgh Steelers graded out well in their 34-22 win over the Indianapolis Colts. Here's the breakdown by position group for the victory.

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Oct 11 • 4:40 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Did Jaguars' Pass Rush Turn a Corner in Sunday's Victory?

The Jacksonville Jaguars had their most productive pass-rushing game of the season in Sunday's victory, with the EDGE pair of Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker leading the way.

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Oct 5 • 12:24 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Science begins for Smile

On 23 September, the European-Chinese Smile mission was declared ready to start revealing how Earth responds to the wind of charged particles from the Sun. This follows a busy in-space commissioning period since the spacecraft launched on 19 May and reached its target orbit for science operations on 20 June.

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Sep 29 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • esa.int
‘No brainer’: Growing trend of Chinese tourists booking business-class flights

Chinese holidaymakers are increasingly upgrading to ‘premium travel’ to make their well-earned leisure time more pleasurable, say insiders.

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Oct 3 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • scmp.com
India-born US citizen drives research into light at sanctioned Chinese school

At the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Arup Neogi’s team explores how light and sound interact.

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Oct 7 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
Trump says he discussed release of political prisoners with Xi

US President Donald ​Trump said on Wednesday he discussed the release of ‌political prisoners with Chinese President Xi Jinping when the two leaders met last week.

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Sep 30 • 5:51 PM EDT • Politics • reuters.com
Chinese desalination plant cuts 60% energy use, turns brine into industrial salt

Technology may help to solve the global problem of discharging concentrated by-products of drinking water production into the sea.

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Oct 12 • 12:15 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
Wellness Vending Machines Spread to Juneau, Seward, and More

Wellness vending machines by Tlingit and Haida in Juneau and Qutekcak Native Tribe in Seward join a statewide network.

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Sep 30 • 2:30 PM EDT • Business • akbizmag.com
How traditional Chinese medicine is shaping Kazakhstan’s health system

Partnership is latest move by Beijing to engage the resource-rich country amid expanded ties in energy, security, trade and infrastructure.

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Oct 6 • 8:04 AM EDT • Health • scmp.com
Around the Big Ten: Dylan Raiola shines after vicious hit on Dante Moore

Sports writer Connor Krumme looks at each Big Ten school after most of them made their yearly football conference debut. He looks at Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Washington, Maryland and more as they prepare for the full conference slate and the College Football Playoffs.

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Sep 28 • 1:00 AM EDT • Sports • dailynebraskan.com
From a landmark discovery by Chinese scientists to global nanozyme research and science art

From enzyme-like nanoparticles to a global research field, nanozymes now inspire art that makes advanced chemistry accessible to wider audiences.

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Oct 4 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • nanowerk.com
In the race for AI dominance, the U.S. relies on a surprising ally: China

The Trump administration paints AI development as a winner-take-all contest, but U.S. data centers are full of made-in-China equipment and many U.S. companies rely on Chinese AI.

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Oct 11 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • washingtonpost.com
War Department’s $350 Million Quantum Push

The Department of War announced approximately $350 million in quantum computing initiatives, including a conditional $150 million loan to PsiQuantum, alongside broader efforts to modernize American defense research and strengthen domestic technological leadership.

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Oct 9 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • dallasexpress.com
Chinese researchers say missile lidar model can spot US F-35 at up to 61.5km
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Sep 30 • 6:43 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
Legends Radio spotlights JB Berkow’s lifelong art passion

JB Berkow is the founder of Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts in Lake Worth Beach. LEGENDS RADIO / COURTESY PHOTO This week's Legends Radio Local Artist Spotlight shines on accomplished artist and passionate advocate for the arts, JB Berkow. For more than five decades, JB Berkow has dedicated her life not only to creating art but also to making sure art has a place to thrive. Her work has been exhibited throughout the country in galleries, museums, and universities, and is held in permanent collections, including the Vatican’s Contemporary Art Collection in Italy, Boston University, and Palm Beach International Airport. Her passion for supporting other artists began early. At age 26, Berkow founded Touchstone Gallery in Washington, D.C., which became a highly successful cooperative gallery. She later brought that same entrepreneurial spirit to South Florida, founding Frenchman’s Art Gallery and Studios in Juno Beach in 1995. She opened Rosetta Stone Fine Art Gallery in 2003. In 2015, JB took her commitment to arts education even further by founding the nonprofit Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts. The 15,000-square-foot facility in Lake Worth Beach is home to Florida’s largest publicly accessible glassblowing hot shop and offers instruction in glassblowing, fusing, flameworking, and glass casting. The center also provides free classes to approximately 1,000 underserved children and young adults with disabilities each year. Its “Fragments Reimagined” art therapy program for veterans with PTSD recently received a $100,000 Impact 100 grant. In addition to her work as an artist and advocate, Berkow has authored four books, including Shades of Love and What They Didn’t Teach You in Art School. For JB, art has always been about more than creating something beautiful. It’s about opening doors, inspiring others, and making creativity an important part of life.That is why JB Berkow is in this week’s Legends Radio Local Artist Spotlight.

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Oct 5 • 5:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • floridaweekly.com
Politics and Film: American Factory (2019), Sept. 30

Come and join the Political Science Department on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 5:30 p.m. in Wehr Chemistry 002 for a showing of the film American Factory (2019), a documentary about a Chinese firm setting up a factory in Ohio. Refreshments are provided. Register online here.

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Sep 28 • 1:21 PM EDT • Politics • today.marquette.edu
Trump Expected to Award Science Medal to SpaceX's Elon Musk, Fox News Reports

Elon Musk is set to receive the National Medal of Science from President Donald Trump. Discover the news here.

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Oct 7 • 3:43 PM EDT • Science • gvwire.com
Breast cancer survivors join together as CHI Health St. Elizabeth shines pink for October

CHI Health hosted its 16th annual ladies night on Wednesday, celebrating those impacted by the disease as they gathered to support one another.

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Oct 7 • 10:14 PM EDT • Health • 1011now.com
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VistaJet receives luxury and business awards

VistaJet was commended by a luxury magazine, while also receiving an award for brand image and service at a Chinese finance summit.

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Oct 6 • 2:47 PM EDT • Business • privatejetcardcomparisons.com
The Math Singularity Is Here, and Science May Be Next

OpenAI has released an extraordinary body of mathematical work produced by an unreleased frontier model: 722 manuscripts spanning 372 research families across fields including number theory, complexity theory, and mathematical physics. Each result required, on average, the equivalent of roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro reasoning. A New Era of Discovery We may be witnessing the beginnings of a “math singularity”: a point at which machine-generated discovery accelerates beyond humanity’s ability to independently reproduce, verify, or fully absorb it. If frontier models can generate hundreds of meaningful results in the time it takes a human researcher to investigate one, the constraint will no longer be producing new mathematics. It will be our capacity to validate, interpret, and integrate it. This does not make mathematicians obsolete. It changes their role. They may increasingly serve as guides, critics, and meaning-makers. Increasingly, they will decide which questions matter, determining which results can be trusted, and explaining why they are important. Mathematical insight may become abundant, while human judgment becomes more valuable than ever. Mathematics May Be Only the Beginning Every scientific discipline could eventually experience a similar acceleration. AI systems could generate and test hypotheses, connect findings across specialized fields, and explore possibilities at a scale no human research community could match. In medicine, imagine models identifying overlooked disease mechanisms, designing drugs and clinical trials, personalizing treatments, or discovering cures in months rather than decades. In materials science, AI could help create better batteries and cleaner industrial processes. In climate science, it could accelerate advances in energy, forecasting, and carbon removal. In biology, it could uncover relationships hidden across enormous genomic and molecular datasets. The result would not simply be faster research. It could expand the frontier of what is scientifically possible. The New Bottleneck Scientific discovery, however, is not the same as scientific progress. A medical breakthrough must still survive laboratory testing, clinical trials, regulatory scrutiny, manufacturing constraints, and real-world deployment. As machine-generated ideas multiply, the bottleneck may shift from producing breakthroughs to validating them safely and translating them into practice. We may soon have more hypotheses than laboratories can test, more drugs than clinical trials can evaluate, and more mathematical results than experts can review. That imbalance will require better systems for automated verification, reproducible research, prioritization, peer review, and collaboration between AI and domain experts. The importance of OpenAI’s work is not merely the number of manuscripts produced. It offers a glimpse of a world in which intelligence can explore thousands of intellectual paths in parallel. If ideas cease to be scarce, humanity’s defining challenge will be deciding which are true, which matter, and how to turn them into progress. The math singularity is not the end of human inquiry. It is the beginning of a new kind—one in which machines expand the frontier of knowledge and humans decide where it should lead. Subscribe Share Leave a comment

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Oct 8 • 4:22 AM EDT • Science • douglevin.substack.com
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Darline Graham opposes Chinese manufacturing. Her husband’s employers rely on it.

The senator and sister of the late Lindsey Graham has said the U.S. must “stop depending on Communist China for things America can make ourselves.”

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Oct 10 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com
America wants to wean itself off Chinese technology. Will the pain pay off?

Seven years after founding a robotics startup in San Francisco, Rajat Bhageria is confronting a daunting new task: building robots without any help from China.

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Oct 3 • 12:11 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com
Business owners brace for removal of skill machines
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Oct 9 • 11:54 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com
Honor Magic 9 series global launch scheduled for January 2027

Honor Magic 9 series is set to hit the global launch stage in January 2027. As per the company’s official announcement, the flagship smartphone is coming to overseas markets, starting in Europe early next year after a successful Chinese launch. Magic 9 series made its debut in China last week, and Honor has begun preparing […]

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Oct 4 • 10:49 PM EDT • Technology • huaweicentral.com
Brock Bowers shines in debut

Las Vegas Raiders TE Brock Bowers has 10 grabs in season debut

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Sep 27 • 10:09 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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In race for Pelosi’s seat, Wiener and Chan court Chinese American vote

Both campaigns have invested significant resources in reaching out to Chinese American voters at a time when several federal government policies have impacted this group.

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Oct 12 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • sfchronicle.com
LGBTQ+ Gen Z Voters More Likely to See Climate, ICE, and Gaza as Urgent Issues

New data shines a light on the priorities of a large swath of young adult voters.

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Oct 5 • 3:13 PM EDT • Politics • them.us
PLOS and Chinese Academy of Sciences join forces on open science programme

Agreement will see the organisations explore cooperation on scientific and open science resources and open science capacity-building

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Oct 1 • 6:31 AM EDT • Science • researchinformation.info
Are your muscles thanks to a 47,000-year-old gene? Scientists stunned by discovery - Futura-Sciences

A genetic handshake across millennia The interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans didn’t just give anthropologists lots to write about—it left functional traces in our very DNA. An August 5th study published in the journal Current Biology shines a spotlight on one especially eye-catching legacy: a variant of the gene...

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Sep 27 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com
State police launch skill game compliance info webpage

PSP has opened a new webpage to help business owners better understand compliance requirements for the removal of skill game machines. Starting Oct. 14, business owners may be subject to criminal charges for maintaining the machines.

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Oct 7 • 5:00 PM EDT • Politics • kten.com
Health officials address spoiled food issues at closed Happy Days

The state Health Department says spoiled food has been removed from the kitchen area of the shuttered Happy Days Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Kaimuki following a partial roof collapse.

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Sep 30 • 9:45 PM EDT • Health • staradvertiser.com
As Politics Divide, Bard’s China Now Festival Seeks Connection Through Music

Opening this weekend, the ninth annual China Now Festival aims to promote the study and performance of contemporary Chinese music.

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Oct 1 • 5:10 PM EDT • Politics • thedailycatch.org
NamiWalks Georgia Shines Light on Mental Health

Saturday, October 10 at Brookhaven City Centre

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Oct 8 • 1:47 PM EDT • Health • atlantanewsfirst.com
Lyanco shines in stoppage time, scores equaliser and celebrates result

One of the standout players in the match against Athletico-PR, center-back Lyanco played a decisive role in securing Atlético’s 2–2 draw in Curitiba. In the final moments of stoppage time, the No...

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Oct 9 • 5:51 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Debt service and the Pentagon. Private equity and the politics of the US housing market. The return of black lung disease & the Franco-Prussian War in color.

Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. RALPH BALSON. 1890—1964. Oil and enamel, signed. Source: Gavekal This going to hurt - the two 7s in the US: diesel and mortgage rates Source: Gavekal In the US housing market, costs are soaring and the role of corporate, private equity-backed buyers is high on the mid-term election agenda. HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $60. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe It is striking how, since 2020, big banks have dropped out of the political spotlight in the US. For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Rates of the lung disease pneumoconiosis among working US coal miners have risen to levels not seen in nearly 40 years Source: Bloomberg Chinese Clean Technology Exports For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Ralph Balson (1939) Portrait of Grace Crowley Cole, G. O. & Haseman, S. M., (2023) “‘The Substance of Paint’: Class and Materiality in the Work of Ralph Balson”, Open Library of Humanities 9(2). Ralph Balson (1890–1964) was an English plumber and house painter who emigrated to Australia in 1913 and subsequently became a key member of Sydney’s artistic avant-garde. He is credited with having the first solo exhibition of purely abstract painting in Australia in 1941. Despite his role in developing Australian non-objective painting, Balson remained principally a house painter, working on his art practice at weekends. In 1955 he retired on a state pension and became a full-time artist. Balson’s artistic education and methods were critically shaped by his working-class background. He did not travel abroad until 1960 and was an avid auto-didact. His materials, palette, techniques and compositional strategies were likewise informed by his trade. Balson’s profession as a painter-decorator made him conspicuous within the predominantly middle-class Sydney art scene, though his painting partner Grace Crowley considered it an advantage in their pursuit of constructive painting. This paper explores the impact of Balson’s trade on his trajectory towards pure abstraction. While his art was at odds with the predominantly figurative mode of class-conscious art in Australian Modernism, we argue that it is embedded in the experience of class through its creative adaptation of labour into aesthetics. Source: OLH Svetlana Alexievich, The Art of Oral History No. 1 Paris Review Issue 257, Fall 2026 Interviewed by Elena Kostyuchenko INTERVIEWER How were you able to go to Chernobyl? Did you need special papers? ALEXIEVICH It was a time of chaos. They let me right into the zone. … More than anything, there was confusion. Adamovich [Ales Adamovich, the Soviet Belarusian writer], I remember, persuaded Gorbachev to send in the scientists, who showed up without even bringing their shaving kits. They were told that there had been an explosion at a nuclear power plant, but for some reason they thought that they’d be there for only a day or two. The first time I went was several months later, and people kept telling me about things they didn’t understand—how the fishermen couldn’t find worms, because they’d burrowed deep into the earth, how the milk wouldn’t curdle at the cheese factories. The honeybees wouldn’t come out of their hives. The evacuations started, I think, in the first month. The old women hid, they wouldn’t leave. I mentioned radiation to one of them and she said, “I’ve seen that radiation, all right! It’s yellow with green in it. I saw puddles of it in my garden, and I told the other women, and we ran and looked, and she had it in her garden, and the other one, too!” God, it was wild, the way the mind made sense of it. There was a story going around about Gorbachev telling the scientists to show him the radiation. “We can’t, it’s invisible.” “But I want to see it!” I also ran into the soldiers who’d been flown in on helicopters from Afghanistan. I asked them, “What are you doing here with your machine guns?” They said, “We’re collecting the radiation, that’s what.” So you had some of them running around with their guns, others out in the village washing off firewood or burying soil in the soil. These were the kinds of things that exploded our worldview. They made you realize that culture was just a chest filled with old manuscripts. There were no books in there that could help me. Our philosophers turned out to be useless when faced with the unprecedented. Derrida, Baudrillard—philosophy fell silent. What was happening? How would we live with it? That’s when I decided it simply needed to be witnessed. Which is what I did. INTERVIEWER I wanted to ask about how you talk to people. … ALEXIEVICH Yes, we sit and we talk—about what interests me and about life in general. About love, about everything in the world. That way, what comes out is three-dimensional. If you cut straight to the part you need, which is what journalists do, it won’t be interesting, and it won’t be the truth, either. Not the whole truth. INTERVIEWER Do people always open up when you ask questions, or can questions get in the way? ALEXIEVICH You have to ask questions, of course. Your job is to scour away the banality and return people to their true selves, to make them face what they rarely tap into. With every new person, you have to find a new way to do it. When you ask an interesting question or you share what happened to you, you help people really think about what they’re saying and not just repeat whatever they’ve picked up from the newspaper. But not everybody is capable of it, not everyone wants to put themselves through that. Either the chemistry starts to kick in or it doesn’t. A person might be wonderful, but you can tell that the conversation just isn’t going to happen. You can try to push it, but it will be a product of your own intellect, rather than of that mysterious connection. Life doesn’t come from the mind. Some people I can call two years after our last conversation, and they’ll say, “Oh, Svetochka! I think of you all the time,” and we’ll start talking again. With others, that won’t happen. That doesn’t mean they’re not extraordinary people, just that you can’t connect with them. They might have some insight, but you don’t have the right antenna to pick up their signal. Source: The Paris Review Colorized Franco-Prussian war … the ruins of Strasbourg with a French photographer and his mobile dark room. Ralph Balson (1961) Matter Painting If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe

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Sep 30 • 6:25 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com
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Kalif Raymond shines on Monday night to continue hot start

Kalif Raymond led all players on Monday night with 90 yards on six receptions in the team's Week 3 win over the Eagles.

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Sep 29 • 2:33 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Anta Sports officially becomes largest Puma shareholder

The Chinese sports giant finalized its acquisition of a roughly 29% stake in the athletics brand for about $1.7 billion.

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Oct 7 • 11:23 AM EDT • Sports • finance.yahoo.com
Everton Player Ratings Season Averages As Jarrad Branthwaite Shines

Let's take a look at the average player ratings for Everton from the first seven games of the season, with Jarrad Branthwaite and Tyler Dibling standing out.

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Sep 27 • 6:08 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
From pickups to idle plants: automakers seek lifeline from defence boom

Western automakers are chasing a defence spending boom as a way to sell more vehicles and make use of underemployed factories, though executives say military work will not make up ​for slowing car sales and growing Chinese competition.

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Sep 28 • 3:04 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com
Auroras appear in broad daylight in Smile spacecraft's eerie first images of Earth ‪—‬ Space photo of the week

The joint European-Chinese Smile satellite officially began its science operations this week, sharing a ghostly image of Earth's sunlit North Pole ringed by giant auroras.

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Oct 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com
In Shanghai’s ‘Science City,’ China’s ascendant biotechs make their pitch to the world

For two years, American labs and board rooms have been riven with excitement and anxiety over the vertiginous rise of Chinese biotech.

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Oct 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • bostonglobe.com
Leading Chinese mathematicians unite behind use of AI in research

Fields medallist Shing-Tung Yau, who is leading the project, warned that the country is lagging behind the US in using the technology.

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Oct 11 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
Argonne Uses AI Agents to Get Closer to Self-Driving Microscopes

Scientists often wait months to get their hands on some of the world’s most powerful research instruments, such as state-of-the-art microscopes. At facilities like Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, these machines allow researchers to use extremely bright X-rays to study materials at microscopic scales. Once they get access to such instruments, every hour counts. […]

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Oct 7 • 9:58 AM EDT • Science • hpcwire.com
2 giant pandas arrive in Atlanta under a US-China government agreement

Two giant pandas have arrived in Atlanta as part of an agreement between the Chinese and American governments

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Sep 28 • 12:59 PM EDT • Science • latimes.com
Lawmakers withdraw request to delay skill game crackdown

Harrisburg, Pa. — Four state lawmakers, including Sen. Gene Yaw, have withdrawn their request asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to delay enforcement against skill game machines until February.

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Oct 7 • 12:30 PM EDT • Politics • cbs19news.com
How Machines and Magnets Taught Science a New Way to Explain the World

A new historical analysis argues that cognitive science and statistical physics independently converged on a shared simulative methodology, the synthetic method, as the only viable path to understanding complex systems.

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Oct 8 • 12:43 AM EDT • Science • bioengineer.org
Chinese Academy of Sciences sets sci-tech progress priorities in 5-year plan

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has released its development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, setting priority directions for sci-tech breakthroughs in three major fields: basic research, strategic high technologies and sustainable development.

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Sep 28 • 11:01 PM EDT • Science • chinadailyhk.com
Washington Should Prepare for a Chinese Political Takeover of Taiwan

A bloodless political victory may be far harder for Washington to handle.

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Oct 6 • 3:19 PM EDT • Politics • foreignpolicy.com
Trump says he did not discuss the possibility of the US selling weapons to China, contradicting his ambassador

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he did not discuss the US selling weapons to China during his recent meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, contradicting an assertion

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Sep 28 • 3:30 PM EDT • Politics • wkow.com
164 slot machines seized in Sarasota County illegal gambling bust

The slot machines were taken from three locations in Englewood, officials say.

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Oct 2 • 3:00 PM EDT • Business • businessobserverfl.com
Russia lifts plague lab-related quarantine measures. Should China be relieved?

Moscow says the incident is over but questions remain among Chinese commenters and others on social media globally.

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Oct 9 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
How a controversial camera system is monitoring mental health patients

The Lampard Inquiry started back in September 2024 and I remember going to the first hearing in Chelmsford. Subscribe The bereaved families made placards of their loved ones, they stood outside in silence and then laid flowers to mark the moment. Now, two years on, in a process meant to last another two years, there’s been a development. Last week, we were told the chair, Baroness Lampard, pictured below, could be looking at making interim recommendations. Throughout the process, she has remarked that although this inquiry is looking at almost 2,000 people who were under the care of Essex mental health services from 2000-2023 when they died, the findings could have national implications for other trusts. ‘Records 24 hours a day in patient’s bedroom’ So why has this happened? One system that the inquiry is going to take a closer look at is a controversial monitoring system called Oxevision. It monitors some vital signs of patients remotely by using a camera placed in a room. It’s used by 40% of NHS mental health trusts. But campaigners, particularly the group Stop Oxevision, have asked for this technology to be removed from mental health wards as soon as possible. I spoke to a member, Hat Porter, today and they described to me what they thought this technology did and explained their concerns: “It records 24 hours a day and it’s located in a patient’s bedroom, which is obviously somewhere you’d usually expect to be a private place. “Our concerns are that the use of the technology has been has been kind of implemented as a substitute for proper in-person support, that it’s kind of over relied on and that there’s a lot of misunderstandings and that the presence of a camera, which has often been used without people’s consent, sometimes without even their knowledge, that that has a really big impact on privacy, dignity and human rights.” ‘Not sufficient’ I put it to them that the company behind Oxevision would dispute their claims about consent and in videos I’ve seen online from NHS trusts, they make it clear that the technology is complementary to trained staff and not a replacement. [ ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/the-nottingham-inquiry-what-lessons) [ How the Nottingham inquiry shines a spotlight on other key mental health care failings ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/the-nottingham-inquiry-what-lessons) Victoria Macdonald · Feb 12 [ Read full story ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/the-nottingham-inquiry-what-lessons) A team of lawyers has been working on the inquiry and with bereaved family members who have concerns about this technology. I spoke to solicitor Priya Singh, from Hodge Jones & Allen, who made the point that questions usually asked by nurses would be missing from using devices like this. “It’s not sufficient to say, oh, the patient is moving around. Somebody must go in and say, are you okay? Are you distressed? Do you want help? Is there anything I can do? Share Channel 4 News “How are you spending your time? So I think a lot of our families cannot see the function of it when ultimately the patient should only really be observed when they’ve been prescribed to be observed, they can be observed more, but that more should really be happening face to face.” The Chair will hear evidence over the next two weeks and then a decision made after that, which could have national impact if she does decide this technology should be investigated or even removed. The Department of Health and Social Care said: “The Government is committed to ensuring that lessons are learned from the Lampard Inquiry to improve patient safety. “We are confident that the Inquiry will play an important role in identifying wider learnings for the health system following the tragic events in Essex and will contribute to improvements in patient safety.” We approached LIO Health, which runs Oxevision, for comment. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment

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Oct 5 • 2:03 PM EDT • Health • channel4news.substack.com
China sanctions Paraguay, Belize ministers over Taiwan ties

Chinese Foreign Ministry cites national sovereignty and Taiwan separatist activities as reasons behind the measures.

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Oct 12 • 12:58 AM EDT • Politics • aljazeera.com
International Business Machines (IBM) Unveils Real Time App Security Collaboration

International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) announced a new collaboration with Zscaler and Red Hat to tighten application security for enterprise clients. The joint effort combines IBM and Red Hat software platforms with Zscaler threat intelligence to provide real-time protections at the application layer. The partners plan to coordinate vulnerability discovery, automated policy updates, and validated software remediation workflows for shared customers. This IBM, Zscaler and Red Hat security...

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Oct 10 • 11:16 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
Police urge Pennsylvania businesses to remove skill games as legal deadline approaches

Months after a justice ruled that skill games are legally slot machines, a deadline is fast approaching for the machines to be removed.

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Oct 5 • 1:42 PM EDT • Business • cbsnews.com
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Is International Business Machines (IBM) Stock Worth More Than Its Cash Flow Suggests?

International Business Machines has almost doubled shareholders' money over the past 5 years, yet after a sharp setback this year and fresh headlines around quantum computing and AI, the key issue for you is whether the current share price lines up with the cash the business is expected to generate. With IBM stock now around US$227 a share, the gap between the recent price path and its cash flow story matters more than ever. IBM has delivered a 99.1% total return over 5 years, which puts...

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Oct 10 • 5:25 PM EDT • Business • simplywall.st
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Columbine Brutal Reminder on Epidemic of School Violence

Colorado Politics looks back at Ken Salazar’s reflections on the Columbine shooting and a landmark court ruling that reshaped election security standards for Colorado voting machines.

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Oct 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com
Arista Networks vs. International Business Machines: Which Tech Stock Is a Better Buy in 2026?

One just posted revenue growth of 38%; the other generates robust free cash flow and pays a dividend.

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Sep 29 • 9:30 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
Asurion completes Domestic & General takeover

From washing machines to smartphones, Asurion now owns the cover. Its D&G deal has officially closed.

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Oct 8 • 6:49 PM EDT • Business • insurancebusinessmag.com
22 arcade machines stolen from Fort Myers business, suspect arrested

A man is now in custody after 22 arcade gaming machines worth around $95,000 were stolen from a Fort Myers business, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

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Oct 2 • 5:11 PM EDT • Business • winknews.com
Trump asked China\'s president if he wants to buy US arms, ambassador says

The U.S. ambassador to China says President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping if he wanted to buy weapons from the United States. David Perdue made the statement on

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Sep 27 • 8:13 PM EDT • Politics • lancasteronline.com
Business owners brace for removal of skill machines

It’s a challenging reality for many in the state right now that, after Oct. 13, skilled games will be considered illegal.

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Oct 9 • 11:54 PM EDT • Business • wpxi.com
See the brilliance: Dunn artist creates and sells glass artwork that shines brightly

Cindy Akers-Gilford creates stained glass, fused glass, mosaics, handmade glass jewelry, pendants, suncatchers and other original glass artwork in her studio in Dunn, N.C. Photos provided by Cimply Broken.Self-made Artist and Founder of Cimply Broken, Cindy Akers-Gilford is helping people “see the brilliance” in all things with her glass artwork. Akers-Gilford started her business right after she retired from 20+ years as a civilian contractor at Fort Bragg. The official opening date for Cimply Broken was Nov. 8, 2021.“It’s been quite the adventure ever since. Not only did I have to learn how to manage a small business, but I’ve never taken a class in stained glass or anything I currently do,” shared Akers-Gilford. Her work includes stained glass, fused glass, mosaics, handmade glass jewelry, pendants, suncatchers and other original glass artwork.“I chose glass art just by happenstance. I saw a video on YouTube with a gentleman using plates and resin to make beautiful windows. I used that idea and created a simple picture frame-sized piece for myself. It was beautiful. I put it up in my window and pretty much forgot about it for a few days. Well, one beautiful sunny morning I went up to my studio, and the sun was rising and the light was shining beautifully through that piece. It was absolutely stunning. I thought that it was the perfect reflection of how God’s light shines through each of us. It was broken glass, so it changed ever so slightly as the sun continued to rise in the sky. I thought it poignant – like each of us – we all shine bright and differently in God’s glorious light, and we are all simply broken as well. We are all made beautiful in his light,” explained Akers-Gilford.The name of the business was inspired by the artist’s name and her faith-driven mission. “Simply became ‘Cimply’ as a play on my name and ‘simply’… and ‘Broken’ because we are all Cimply Broken – but each of us is beautiful,” added Akers-Gilford.Akers-Gilford sells her glass art at the Dunn Farmers Market when the weather is bearable, but mostly from her website at www.cimplybroken.com. “I enjoy getting lost in the creative process. I work out of my home, and I often compare my studio to Walmart returns after Christmas time. It’s hectic, busy and there are always at least 10 things being created simultaneously- it is fun!” shared Akers-Gilford. Her goal for the business is to continue to watch customers as they spot a piece of work from a distance and walk up to it in awe. “That is my biggest joy! I don’t speak to them until they speak – that is their moment to ‘See The Brilliance,’ which is my moniker,” shared Akers-Gilford. She also shared she would love to someday become part of an artist collective in Dunn.

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Sep 27 • 8:15 PM EDT • Business • bizfayetteville.com
Christos Tzolis shines as Greece makes history against Germany

Christos Tzolis has taken his fine form onto the international stage, helping Greece beat Germany for the first time in the UEFA Nations League.The winger moved to Arsenal at the start of this season ...

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Sep 28 • 5:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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China’s thorium-229 nuclear clock beats Vienna’s on stability, studies show

Chinese and European teams in ‘fierce but friendly’ competition to develop the next-generation timepieces.

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Oct 7 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
Pennsylvania attorney general warns businesses to remove skill game machines ahead of deadline
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Sep 30 • 5:46 PM EDT • Business • cbsnews.com
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Beijing warns of retaliation if Europe imposes curbs on Chinese businesses

China must "respond firmly" if the EU introduces restrictions on Chinese businesses or products, the Commerce Ministry said, according to a CNBC translation.

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Sep 29 • 10:31 PM EDT • Business • cnbc.com
New quantum chip taps into weird quasiparticles to get qubits to communicate over long distances

Scientists have developed a new type of architecture for quantum computing chips, and it could pave the way for machines capable of large-scale processing.

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Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com
Apple Reportedly Waiting on Samsung for Ultimate Bezel-Free iPhone Display

Apple is waiting on Samsung to perfect a next-generation OLED display technology that wraps almost vertically around a phone and essentially makes the sides themselves part of the screen, claims a Chinese leaker. Xiaomi's 2021 concept phone – bearing a striking resemblance to Samsung's rumored technology According to the Weibo-based leaker Instant Digital, the technology is internally described by Samsung as a "full-surround, full-screen display".

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Oct 7 • 8:20 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
IBM is Building a Bigger Software Business. Can Its Balance Sheet Keep Up?

On September 24, International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) announced two key capabilities designed to strengthen its digital asset infrastructure for tier-one financial institutions, governments, and regulated entities. In a new beta rollout, IBM Digital Asset Haven clients can connect to SWIFT’s blockchain-based shared ledger, linking into a cooperative network of over 12,500 financial institutions across […]

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Sep 28 • 7:36 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
Gabriel Delfim shines again in goal for Atlético

Goalkeeper Gabriel Delfim once again delivered a great performance and helped Atlético secure a good result at Arena da Baixada. With outstanding saves in both halves, Atlético’s number 1 left the...

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Oct 9 • 6:01 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
US police report raises questions over Chinese researcher Wang Danhao’s death

Key details about semiconductor scientist’s visit from US federal agents the day before he took his own life mysteriously wiped from report.

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Sep 28 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
Climate change and farming gave rise to ‘genetically distinct’ swan goose: study

New population of the migratory waterbird has emerged in the Chinese capital over the past century, according to researchers.

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Oct 7 • 12:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com
China-linked hackers impersonated US AI insiders as global race heats up

Suspected Chinese hackers impersonated an Anthropic employee and ex-US officials in an espionage campaign aimed at gaining insights into American AI developments, a US cybersecurity firm said Thursday.

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Oct 1 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Yankees news: Should Boone Stay or Should Boone Go

Calls for the skipper’s dismissal mount as logistics make it unlikely; Kilby shines in AFL; Goldy’s renaissance

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Oct 10 • 5:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
IPM Food Pantry adds a new harm reduction vending machine

The Ohio Department of Health lists nearly 100 Naloxone vending machines all across the state

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Oct 6 • 11:08 AM EDT • Health • spectrumnews1.com
Chinese carmakers increasingly rely on overseas markets as September exports surge

A Chinese industry association says passenger car exports surged 64% in September compared to the same month last year. Chinese automakers are increasingly relying on exports to drive growth amid

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Oct 12 • 5:04 AM EDT • Business • rutlandherald.com
Senator Yaw leads push to stay skill games seizure into 2027

Harrisburg, Pa. — Skill game machines in bars, clubs, and shops across the state could stay safe from police seizure until February if four state lawmakers, primarily Sen. Gene Yaw,

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Oct 7 • 11:30 AM EDT • Politics • cbs19news.com
Dylan Harper Shines in Spurs' Preseason Loss vs. Hawks

The San Antonio Spurs opened the preseason against the Atlanta Hawks, and without De'Aaron Fox in the lineup, Dylan Harper was able to show off.

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Oct 9 • 8:10 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
22 arcade machines stolen from Fort Myers business, suspect arrested

A man is now in custody after 22 arcade gaming machines worth around $95,000 were stolen from a Fort Myers business.

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Oct 2 • 1:40 PM EDT • Business • winknews.com
Breast cancer survivors join together as CHI Health St. Elizabeth shines pink for October

CHI Health hosted its 16th annual ladies night on Wednesday, celebrating those impacted by the disease as they gathered to support one another.

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Oct 7 • 11:21 PM EDT • Health • foxcarolina.com
Bobby Kotick’s lawyers sent me a bad email (and later apologized)

The message I had received was unsettling—for a moment. Then it was just really confusing. Back on January 20 of this year, at 5:15pm ET, I received an email with the subject line “Legal Correspondence re Bobby Kotick.” It was from the law firm Clare Locke, a firm I’d heard had been emailing reporters in recent years about their coverage of Kotick, the former, longtime CEO of Activision Blizzard. The letter was threatening. A lawyer from the firm introduced themselves as “defamation counsel to Bobby Kotick.” They issued a “demand” that I “correct” a Game File article I’d published a week prior. The article that had irked them had been a scoop of sorts. I’d written about a a 2022 lawsuit brought by a Swedish pension fund, AP7, over Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. The suit wasn’t news, but I was first to review and report about Kotick’s extensive pushback to the fund’s claims. The pension fund’s core contention was that the sale had been rushed by Kotick to avoid the consequences of sexual misconduct scandals swirling around the company in 2021. (He’d not been accused of misconduct himself in those suits, to be clear.) As I wrote at the time, Kotick had denied the allegations of the rushed sale. Beyond that, Kotick used a December 2025 reply to the Swedish fund’s lawsuit to assign blame for those workplace scandals, the bad press and even for the AP7 lawsuit. I’d found Kotick’s arguments novel and newsworthy. Across nearly 3,000 words, I explained Kotick’s take: that a Swedish gaming company was behind the Swedish fund’s lawsuit (the Embracer group; they denied it); that the Microsoft-Activision deal was not rushed and was secured at what Kotick felt history had proven to be an optimal price for shareholders; that he believed a conspiracy of people at unions government agencies, PR firms and the media had spun up claims of widespread workplace misconduct at Activision Blizzard in 2021. The article gave context for all of this, letting readers assess the claims and weigh their credibility. As I’d later write to Kotick’s lawyers: I would be surprised if you could point to any news article about Bobby Kotick in the last five years that has spent more of its wordcount articulating his point of view. He is welcome to do an interview with Game File any time. Nonetheless, there they were in my inbox that Tuesday evening: Clare Locke, the law firm that secured a $787.5 million settlement from Fox News over false statements about voting machines. They were emailing me, threatening that failure to comply with their demand could support a claim of “actual malice,” a legal standard for libel. Unless… Unless, they said, I added a key paragraph to my article. This was a paragraph that I already knew Kotick’s lawyers had been emailing reporters about for at least a year, and it was a paragraph that was already in my article. The paragraph they wanted is from a 2023 settlement that California’s Civil Rights Department struck with Activision Blizzard. The settlement had closed a two-year-old lawsuit over alleged sexual discrimination at the game maker. The paragraph basically said that claims of systemic or widespread sexual harassment—or of execs like Kotick tolerating such behavior—had never been proven. I’d already seen proof that Kotick’s lawyers had pushed for the settlement’s language to be added to reports about 2021 sexual discrimination and misconduct lawsuits brought against Activision Blizzard by California and, separately, by the U.S. federal government (both suits were since settled). I knew that Kotick and his lawyers felt that the California settlement language should be mentioned in the same breath as references to an article he hated and denied, a November 2021 Wall Street Journal article claiming Kotick knew “for years” of sexual misconduct at Activision Blizzard. So, in the Game File article that Clare Locke emailed me about, in the interest of ensuring I was being fair and balanced regarding the person I was covering, I had already included the following excerpt from the California settlement [emphasis added in bold]: (Kotick has repeatedly pushed back against that November article in the Wall Street Journal, citing among other things, language from a court-approved consent decree as part of Activision’s 2023 $54 million settlement over the California suit. It states: “no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations that: there has been systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard [or] that Activision Blizzard senior executives ignored, condoned, or tolerated a culture of systemic harassment, retaliation, or discrimination.”) On the evening of January 20, I was incredulous. How do you write a four page legal threat about a week-old article and miss this? While scrambling to also make my kids dinner, I wrote a lengthy reply to Clare Locke’s lawyers, basically asking them to cool it with the threats and to start making sense. In part, I wrote: I hope you can understand why I am having trouble understanding what you’re asking for, when the statement you’re demanding to see in Game File’s article already appears in Game File’s article. Actual malice, as you know, refers to a reckless disregard for the truth. I’m not sure what your argument is when my article already states your client’s position. Here is where I should remind you, the reader, that I am an independent journalist. I publish on Substack, and have availed myself of the Substack Defender program that provides writers on the platform with legal support. But I’m no Wall Street Journal or New York Times, nor even IGN or GameSpot when it comes to such things as, well, having a legal department. There are more fun things for me to do as an independent journalist than writing back to a powerful law firm representing a very rich person. On the evening of January 20th, I was just trying to cook some pasta, broccoli and chicken nuggets for hungry twins. Nevertheless, I wrote back to them. Two hours later, I got a reply. Summarizing: A lawyer for Clare Locke said they’d “reviewed an incomplete version” of my article and they “apologize for the confusion.” (My guess: Someone didn’t read past the piece’s paywall, even though they’d had a full week to scrounge up the funds to do so. What I’d published above the paywall was balanced, as was what came after.)1 That was almost that, but something about the situation bothered me. The letter had been marked “confidential.” I hadn’t agreed to that, and I disliked the idea that powerful people on the beat that I cover would act like they could unilaterally control what I might tell my readers about. On the morning of the 21st, having already gotten the powerful law firm to back off, I oh-so-wisely re-approached them with just one more thing. I thanked them for clearing things up the night before but noted that I’d never agreed to keep their letter confidential. I’m all for agreeing with a source to keep things off the record, but that’s the thing. We have to agree. You can’t just declare it. I’m not bound by that. I wrote to Clare Locke’s lawyer and said, in part: I trust the matter is resolved. It was disappointing to have to spend less time with my kids last night in order to address your legal letter. Family time’s precious. I will add, for clarity’s sake, that, while your letter stipulated that it was confidential, I did not agree to those terms. In the future, should you wish to communicate with me confidentially, I am happy to agree to classifying our communication as “off the record” prior to the actual communication—as is standard with any professional journalist. The firm’s lawyer replied, not directly addressing the confidentiality issue but asserting that the matter was resolved. Why I didn’t write about this until now In May, I told this story on an episode of Simon Parkin’s podcast My Perfect Console, but I held off on sharing it directly with Game File readers. I held off to avoid stepping on the toes of another reporter, the journalist Mikhail Klimentov. He’d interviewed me in the spring of 2025 about an investigation he was working on regarding Bobby Kotick lawyers pressing the media to add the California settlement language to stories referencing the 2021 lawsuits. And about how some outlets had changed their stories and how some simply deleted them. Initially, I was a third-party source for Klimentov’s reporting, providing on-the-record context about the state of the games media. I’d heard about the letters but hadn’t put the time into pursuing the story. I thought it was interesting, and I was glad he was covering it. When the outlet that Klimentov was going to run his reporting in dropped the story, I began talking to him about potentially publishing his reporting on Game File. This was tentative. Then, in January, when I got my own Clare Locke letter, I told Klimentov that I didn’t think it would make sense for me to publish him, not with me now being part of the story. I had my own version of this situation to tell. But I wished him well and said I’d refrain from telling my tale until he could get his reporting out there. Last Friday, Klimentov finally ran his investigation, in a nearly 48-minute video report for People Make Games. It covers various Clare Locke letters, how media outlets reacted to them and what to make of all this. His video weighs the merits of Kotick’s request and looks at some of the articles that were changed (one of which had a glaring error). I highly recommend watching it: (Note, I did some editorial consulting for a People Make Games video last year but nothing to do with this report.) While many outlets haven’t left any public evidence that they updated their Kotick coverage at Kotick’s counsel’s request, at least one has. Back in October 2025, the mainstream outlet Reuters applied the most transparent article update I’ve seen. On the 3rd of the month, they published an article about the state of the Swedish pension fund’s lawsuit. Days later, they added this: In an October 7 letter sent after publication of this article, Kotick’s defamation counsel disputed claims of widespread harassment at Activision. “Not a single investigation, court finding, verdict, or ruling ever concluded that there was any merit” to the allegations of widespread harassment at Activision, Tom Clare and Nick Brechbill of Clare Locke wrote. I’ve never added a statement to my article on Game File, because none was needed. Not for fairness’ sake, nor to meet any demands of Kotick’s lawyers. I’ve nevertheless wanted to be transparent with Game File readers. If someone powerful is questioning my reporting, is threatening a lawsuit over it… if that threat is part of a pattern involving other games media outlets and if, in my case, the whole thing ran into a ridiculous ditch, I want you to know about it. I also share this as a real example of how I handle threats to Game File. I stand up for my own reporting, even when it’s not comfortable to do so. (In that same category of standing up for the work I do, I’ll point to an incident in late August. Asocial media post I published to X/Twitter regarding reporting I did about Take Two and GTA VI was hit by bogus copyright claim by a firm working for the publisher. I pushed back and got it reversed; even while a bigger games media outlet let themselves be censored. This is the other reason I’m sharing this story: To emphasize that dealing with threats from powerful people is one of the costs of covering the video game industry independently and as fearlessly as possible. This is where you come in. Your support, through free and paid subscriptions (sign up here!), can help me keep doing that. It can ensure that I’ve got the back-up I need. And it can help make fiascoes like this even less of a worry, so I can spend my evenings dealing with more important things, such as making sure I steam the kids’ broccoli just right. 1 That pension fund lawsuit I wrote about in January has all but gone away. In May, the fund and Activision Blizzard owner Microsoft agreed to settle. Lawyers for the fund brokered a $250 million settlement for former Activision Blizzard shareholders. In the settlement, the fund’s lawyers changed their rhetoric. Where once they’d questioned the meaning of the California settlement language, they adopted a version of it for themselves. Several weeks ago, while seeking to get a court to sign off on the terms of the settlement, they proposed their fee for their work in the case: $60 million.

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Sep 28 • 4:13 PM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
Sunderland 0-2 Brighton Player Ratings and Fan Reaction

Ferdi Kadioglu dominates and Yasin Ayari shines as the Seagulls return from the break in style. Discover who dazzled and who struggled in this comprehensive individual performance breakdown.

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Oct 11 • 7:13 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Health officials address spoiled food issues at closed Happy Days

The state Health Department says spoiled food has been removed from the kitchen area of the shuttered Happy Days Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Kaimuki following a partial roof collapse.

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Sep 29 • 9:45 PM EDT • Health • staradvertiser.com
Digital Science appoints Charlesworth as strategic sales partner in China

Agreement builds on Charlesworth’s existing work with the Chinese scholarly publishing community and knowledge of market

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Oct 5 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • researchinformation.info
How Chinese Brands Are Putting Aesthetics Before Business

As China’s consumer market matures, a new generation of brands is trading speed and scale for cultural depth, craftsmanship and a more deliberate sense of place.

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Oct 12 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • wwd.com
Lawmakers withdraw request to delay skill game crackdown

Harrisburg, Pa. — Four state lawmakers, including Sen. Gene Yaw, have withdrawn their request asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to delay enforcement against skill game machines until February.

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Oct 7 • 12:30 PM EDT • Politics • kten.com
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Chicago police issue alert about sting of overnight business burglaries on North, West Sides

In each incident, four unknown suspects arrived at a business, targeting cash registers, cash in gaming machines and store merchandise for theft, police said.

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Sep 30 • 7:00 PM EDT • Business • cbsnews.com
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Fraser Minten shines as late surge lifts the Bruins past the Rangers 3-0

Fraser Minten broke a scoreless tie with just over four minutes left, followed by goals by JJ Peterka and an empty-netter by Mark Kastelic 23 seconds apart, and the Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers 3-0 on Tuesday night in the season opener for both teams.

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Sep 30 • 9:02 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com
The Journalism, Publicity, and PR Masterclass Shines A New Light On Careers In the Entertainment Industry

Nafissatou Yattassaye

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Oct 1 • 9:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • ccnycampus.org
Trump says he discussed release of political prisoners with Xi

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he discussed the release of political prisoners with Chinese President Xi Jinping when the two leaders met last week.

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Sep 30 • 6:19 PM EDT • Politics • staradvertiser.com
In Shanghai's 'Science City,' China's ascendant biotechs make their pitch to the world

A small conference with big ambitions mirrors the rapid growth of Chinese biotech, invites comparisons to U.S. biotech gathering also known for deal-making.

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Oct 1 • 4:30 AM EDT • Science • statnews.com
Review: Ghost of Yotei: Complete Edition (PS5) - Atsu Shines in Story DLC, But Most Wanted Mode Steals the Show

Wanted dead

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Oct 1 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • pushsquare.com
Microsoft’s new Nvidia PCs are cool for extreme power users - but I’ll wait for AI PC 3.0

Has Microsoft given up on its Copilot+ PC for the mass market? After this week's launch of powerful new Nvidia-based machines for AI developers, that's the obvious conclusion.

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Oct 9 • 8:22 AM EDT • Technology • zdnet.com