Business Sentiment
Sentiment Legend:
Negative < 44
Mixed 46-54
Positive > 56
Some AI companies are using techniques and financial products seen in the run-up to the great financial crisis of 2008.
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Over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become extremely popular in Silicon Valley and is widely regarded as the most transformative technology in the 21st century. In fact, it is already reshaping sectors like education, transportation, finance, health care, media, and telecommunications. Indeed, it is estimated that about 60 percent of jobs in advanced economies may be impacted by AI, which means that it could affect economic growth, employment, and wages. As a result, investment in AI is booming across industries, echoing the late-1990s dot-com era, with investors pouring billions into AI in the hope for a big payday. Nearly $1.6 trillion has been put into this technology since 2013, and Big Tech companies are expected to add over $400 billion into AI efforts before the year ends, with even bigger spending planned for 2026.
Unsurprisingly, there are concerns about an AI bubble, and there are indeed some striking similarities between the AI market today and the dot.com bubble of the 1990s that imploded in 2000, resulting in massive losses for investors and the collapse of major companies, with the U.S. economy eventually entering an economic recession in 2001. If the AI bubble were to burst, not only would virtually every company be affected, but the entire economy could collapse like a house of cards. So is the AI boom a looming bubble? What causes bubbles? How do they work? Professor Gerald Epstein, a world-leading authority on banking, finance, and financial crises, addresses these questions in the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows. Epstein is professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University Massachusetts Amherst. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
C.J. Polychroniou: There are growing concerns about an AI bubble and what may happen if it bursts. In your own view, are we in an AI speculative bubble, and what are the real threats behind a bubble?
Gerald Epstein: Concerns about AI are certainly understandable. But to be clear on what the true threats (and possible benefits) are and what to do about them, we need to distinguish among the short, medium, and long term.
In the short term, the potential problem is that our current economic growth and performance generally has gotten far too tied up with the AI boom in capital expenditure. Capital expenditure in new manufacturing plants, equipment, and technology is a major driver of both our current economy — including job creation — and also of our longer-term growth of productivity and the economy overall. In recent months, AI-related expenditures account for a significant percent of our capital expenditures, with most of this being for the building of data centers (more on this in a moment). So, the short-term state of our economy has become highly dependent on one industry, and a new and untested one at that. If that industry were to severely falter, it could lead to a significant short-term decline in the economy overall and even perhaps cause a recession.
To make the short-term risks even greater, as is often the case with a building frenzy such as AI data centers, a financial frenzy forms around it and makes it riskier for the economy. During the railway building boom in the U.S. in the 19th century, various financial scandals spread, leading to financial crises and bankruptcies. Similarly, with the AI boom, various speculative frenzies, including massive increases in stock values of NVIDIA, the AI chips maker, and speculative lending and borrowing, threaten to destabilize the economy (more on this below).
The medium-term problems include the environmental and industrial problems associated with a massive investment (and perhaps overinvestment) in data centers. These data centers are huge computer server farms that require enormous amounts of energy, water to cool down the computers, and land. Much of the electricity for these centers will come from fossil fuels with obvious disastrous effects on climate change, and will use scarce water in many states. But not only will they take water and energy from other uses and groups in society — they are bidding away all kinds of other goods and inputs from other industries and uses. Just as they are raising the cost of electricity to small businesses, households, and farmers, they are bidding up the prices of computer chips, steel, and other inputs into making AI computers, etc. In other words, they are transforming the whole supply chain and industrial structure, if this growth continues.
In the medium to long term, as AI increasingly is used in the workplace, it is likely to displace workers, leading to more unemployment, eliminating entry-level jobs, and knocking out the lower rungs of job ladders. It is too early to see how this will all play out, but it appears that younger people who need entry-level jobs might initially get most impacted.
Meanwhile, our landscape will be littered with data centers.
What are the common traits in financial bubbles? How do they work?
Bubbles come in many varieties. First, it is important to distinguish between overbuilding or investment in the “real economy” and “financial bubbles.” The tricky part, though, is that these are often intertwined. In terms of an overbuilding frenzy, the massive AI investment in data centers is often compared to the so-called “dot-com bubble” of the late 1990s. In this case, internet companies such as WorldCom grew rapidly, expanding their internet infrastructure and capacity (the real economy), while at the same time there was a massive run-up in their stock price. The stock prices eventually collapsed, and the company went out of business, but the internet cables and other internet capacity remained.
The problem with building too much capacity in the internet or AI is that you could sell enough of the output to earn the expected return on your investment. And if you have borrowed money in order to build the data centers, then you have to scramble to get the money to pay off your debts, possible putting stress on the financial system.
The short-term state of our economy has become highly dependent on one industry, and a new and untested one at that.
Of course, “financial bubbles” vary quite a bit, but, building on ideas developed by Hyman Minsky, by looking at hundreds of years of economic history, Charles Kindleberger and his colleagues developed a schema that helps us understand these bubbles. They identified the following sequence: (1) Displacement: Some new idea or project catches on, often due to publicity spread by the press, inside players, or currently the internet; (2) Boom: More wealth is invested in the asset which drives it price higher as more investors catch on; (3) Euphoria: Investors check their caution and rational calculation at the door, and are motivated by FOMO (fear of missing out), and herding to follow the crowd; (4) Profit taking: Some investors wake up to their senses and begin to realize that the returns on these assets no longer justify their high prices; they sell in order to take profits; others see the “overtrading” and begin to bet against the asset, as with “The Big Short” during the great financial crisis of 2008-2009; (5) Panic: As prices stall out and fall, investors panic and rush for the exits, trying to sell their assets as rapidly as possible in an attempt to rescue at least some of their investments. At this point, the asset prices collapse, perhaps all the way to zero.
Already, AI promoters are suggesting that they might need “support” (i.e., a bailout) from the government if confidence in AI's future falters.
The overall size, pace, and destructiveness of these bubbles — both on the way up and on the way down — is much greater if they are fueled by debt or what economists call “leverage.” If you pay $100 for an asset, but borrow $80 to do it (so you only put in $20 of your own wealth into it), if the price of the asset drops by just 50 percent ($50) then you not only lose your whole investment, but you have to come up with $30 someplace else to repay your debt.
Fears of an AI bubble have spread into credit markets. Can you talk a bit about how AI is transforming the finance industry and what the connection is between AI and debt?
Increasingly, AI companies are borrowing money (issuing debt) to finance their data centers, and even to buy stock in AI companies. By some estimates, they are poised to borrow $1 trillion over the next several years. Some of this money is being borrowed by major companies like Amazon, but smaller companies, hoping to be part of the AI supply chain, are also borrowing significant sums of money. They are even using some of the techniques and financial products that were used in the run-up to the great financial crisis; these include asset-backed securities held off of their balance sheets in “special purpose vehicles” financed by short-term borrowing. These are designed to hide risk and use leverage to increase returns, but they are also very risky. They also create an interconnection between the AI and data center industries with the wider financial system.
Despite warnings and fears of an AI bubble, the market expectation is that AI stocks will continue to surge. Is that rational behavior? Or is it simply capitalist logic at work?
Well, as the Minsky-Kindleberger cycle suggests, market expectations can change rapidly and dramatically. Also, as this theory of bubble cycles suggests, investors suspend their “rationality” when their “euphoria” takes over. As increasing concerns about an “AI bubble” take root, and as some AI firms begin having trouble refinancing their debts because banks and other financiers get cold feet, it is reasonable to expect a “correction.” How big a “correction” and how much spillover there is from it will largely depend on the amount of leverage in the system, and how much hidden risk.
If the AI bubble pops, could it crash the U.S. economy and cause a global recession?
The damage from the “popping” of an AI bubble would depend not only on the amount of leverage and hidden interconnectedness to other firms and sectors, but also on whether the government will bail out the AI sector.
Already, AI promoters are suggesting that they might need “support” (i.e., a bailout) from the government if confidence in AI's future falters. They say the government would need to bail out the industry to prevent China from winning the AI race. And, despite the speciousness of this argument, they might just get their bailout. This is due, in no small part, to the connections of Donald Trump's supporters (and even some cabinet members) in the AI business. Take, for example, Howard Lutnick, Trump's commerce secretary. According to The New York Times, Lutnick's family promotes foreign investment in data centers that they then broker, help build, and cash in on. This is just one example of the interconnections between Trump world and AI.
So if there is a crash in AI investment, yes, it would put downward pressure on economic activity. But that could be easily managed by more government investment in housing, schools, education, medical research, green energy, and health care. If by some miracle, that were the response, then an AI bubble burst would be a big blessing in not so big a disguise.
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C.J. Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism's politico-economic project. He is a columnist for Global Policy Journal and a regular contributor to Truthout. He has published scores of books, including Marxist Perspectives on Imperialism: A Theoretical Analysis; Perspectives and Issues in International Political Economy (ed.); and Socialism: Crisis and Renewal (ed.), and over 1,000 articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into a multitude of languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. His latest books are Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021); Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2023); and A Livable Future Is Possible: Confronting the Threats to Our Survival (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2024).
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Live Updates
• Death toll rises: At least 15 people have been killed and 27 are in hospitals after a shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach yesterday. The attack, declared a terrorist incident, targeted Jewish Australians and is the country's worst mass shooting in almost 30 years.
• The victims: Those killed were aged between 10 and 87. A Holocaust survivor, as well as two rabbis are among the victims. A “heroic” bystander who wrestled the gun from one attacker is recovering in the hospital.
• The suspects: The father-son duo were identified as 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who moved to the country in 1998 and was killed at the scene, and 24-year-old Naveed Akram, who was born in Australia and is in custody. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said they were “driven” by extreme ideology, and were interviewed by security services in 2019 but “weren't part of a wider cell.”
• Gun laws: Albanese announced Australia's plans to strengthen its already tough gun laws with new measures that will restrict who gets a license.
It's the early hours of Tuesday morning in Sydney, and we are tracking the latest developments on the Bondi Beach shooting as the city begins to wake up.
For those just joining us, here's what we've been covering on the terror attack today:
Victims named: The identities of some of those who were killed in Sunday's attack have been released. Among the 15 killed are a 10-year-old girl named Matilda and a Holocaust survivor, as well as two rabbis and at least two foreign nationals.
Injured in hospital: At least 27 people are in hospitals following the attack, including a police officer who is in serious but stable condition and a bystander who wrestled a gun from one of the alleged attackers. Ahmed al Ahmed was described as a “real-life hero” by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns.
The suspects: A 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son have been named by Australian media as the suspected perpetrators of the attack. Sajid Akram, the father, was killed at the scene, while Naveed Akram is in custody. Australian authorities believe the suspects “weren't part of a wider cell,” helping them to evade detection, though they were interviewed by security services in 2019, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told public broadcaster ABC.
The reaction: Tributes to those impacted by the shooting have come from around the world. People have left flowers and candles at a memorial near the site of the shooting, while money has been raised for the “heroic” bystander. Pope Leo also called for an end to antisemitic violence in a post on X.
CNN's Helen Regan, Kunal Seghal, Issy Ronald, Sandi Sidhu, Todd Symons, Lex Harvey and Billy Stockwell contributed to this reporting.
A man who has the same name as one of the suspected Bondi Beach shooters has released a video urging people not to share his information in relation to the attack.
Naveed Akram, a Pakistani man who lives in Sydney, said that pictures of him have been circulated online claiming that he is the shooter.
“I have nothing to do with that incident or with that person. That is a different person, and I am completely outside of this matter,” he said in a video posted to Facebook by the Pakistan Consulate General in Sydney.
“This issue is very serious, and I'm very stressed and scared about this, and I cannot even go outside safely. So I just want everyone's help, to help me stop this propaganda,” Akram said, calling on the public to report any social media posts accusing him of being the shooter.
Among the victims of yesterday's fatal shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach were two rabbis: Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, both of whom worked at the Chabad of Bondi.
Schlanger was a key organizer of the “Chanukah by the Sea” event at Bondi Beach and served as assistant rabbi at the Chabad of Bondi, according to the Jewish organization.
Aged 41, he had five children, including a baby boy born just two months ago, Chabad said.
Born in London, Schlanger studied in France before being ordained as a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York City, the organization said.
As well as working as an assistant rabbi, he also served as a community chaplain in hospitals and prisons, “working tirelessly to bring warmth, faith, and Jewish pride to everyone he encountered,” a crowdfunding page endorsed by Chabad and dedicated to Schlanger said.
“I remember him as passionate, energetic, he was a happy personality,” Rabbi Zalmy Fogelman, a rabbi who studied with Schlanger, told Chabad.
Schlanger will be laid to rest in Jerusalem, Chabad said.
Levitan was a “profoundly beloved and active member of the Sydney Jewish community,” according to a crowdfunding page endorsed by Chabad.
A husband and father, Levitan was the “cornerstone of his family,” the crowdfunding page said, calling him a “a man of quiet devotion, known for his kindness and tireless work in assisting others.”
As well as serving as general manager at the Chabad of Bondi, he was also a secretary at the Sydney Beth Din, which Chabad describes as a Jewish court of law. Levitan was a “key figure” in educational initiatives at BINA, an organization which describes itself as a “Jewish center of learning,” according to the crowdfunding page.
More than 1.4 million Australian dollars (around $950,000 US dollars) has been donated to a GoFundMe page in support of the bystander who wrestled a gun from one of the alleged attackers during the mass shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach.
“After witnessing the extraordinary actions of the hero who helped disarm one of the attackers during the Bondi tragedy, an act that prevented the loss of countless more lives, we felt compelled to act,” the fundraiser's organizers said in a statement posted on the crowdfunding platform.
Earlier Monday, the bystander was identified as Ahmed al Ahmed, whose refugee parents had just arrived from Syria, according to Australian officials and media.
Fundraiser organisers said the campaign was launched to “honour this absolute hero and help support him through recovery.”
GoFundMe confirmed to CNN on Monday that it was working “directly with the fundraiser organizers to help ensure funds raised safely reach Ahmed,” as well as his family.
“All funds remain held with payment processors during our verification process until we can make sure funds can be transferred safely to him,” GoFundMe said.
More now from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who spoke to public broadcaster ABC earlier on Monday. He rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's accusation that recognizing a Palestinian state fuelled antisemitism following the deadly attack on Bondi Beach, which targeted a Jewish gathering.
Asked about the criticism from Netanyahu, Albanese told ABC he did not see a link between the two events.
“And overwhelmingly, most of the world recognizes a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East,” Albanese added. His government recognized a Palestinian state in September, alongside several other countries like Britain, Canada and France.
For context: Jewish leaders had warned the Australian government about rising antisemitism for years. A report by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry found that there were 1,654 antisemitic incidents last year, a threefold annual increase since the October 7 attacks in 2023.
Albanese appointed a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism last year as well as an anti-Islamophobia envoy, to address retaliation against the Palestinian community and their supporters.
Following the attack, Albanese said on Sunday his role was to “bring the nation together” in a “moment of national unity.”
Mourners gathered today near the scene of yesterdays' fatal shooting at Bondi Beach, paying tribute to the victims of the attack.
Flowers and candles were laid at the memorial site, with Israeli flags also among the tributes being left. A menorah was lit by Rabbi Levi Wolff at the scene.
See some images below from the tribute:
Long queues formed at a Sydney blood donation center today, as people showed up to support their community following yesterday's fatal Bondi Beach shooting.
Around 40,000 people booked appointments to donate blood across Australia on Monday, the Australian Red Cross told CNN in an email – an increase of 30,000 appointments compared to a usual day.
“This has been the biggest community response we've seen since the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009,” the Australian Red Cross told CNN, referencing a tragedy in the state of Victoria in southern Australia that claimed 173 lives.
“I just want to donate blood because I felt super helpless at home just sitting and doing nothing and I felt that there was something that you have to do, so I just came here and here we are,” one woman waiting at the donation center told Australia's Seven Network
“We just wanted to help, we just wanted to do something,” another woman told Seven Network. “It's the most minuscule thing that we can do to help,” she added.
Antisemitism should have been taken seriously sooner, according to the Australian Jewish Association CEO.
Speaking with CNN's Rosemary Church on “Newsroom” earlier, Robert Gregory described how grief has turned to anger toward the government in the wake of Sunday's deadly terror attack at Bondi Beach, as he said lawmakers have missed opportunities to tackle a reported rise in antisemitic sentiment in the country.
“The government appointed a commissioner on antisemitism that's made some recommendations which have not been adopted yet,” Gregory explained, citing university campuses and media outlets as identified “hotspots” for antisemitism.
He claimed that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's swift commitment to tighten gun laws is a “deflection” and will not implement meaningful change, which Gregory said must address the issue at its root.
“We want the government to focus on fighting the root cause, fighting the incitement,” Gregory said, before adding that the protection of Jewish community buildings including children's nurseries must now be prioritized as the community is “bearing a very heavy burden.”
For context: In an address to the nation yesterday, Albanese condemned the attack and urged Australians to hold onto the “true character” of Australia. When asked by a journalist how his government is responding to reports of rising antisemitism in the country since October 7, 2023, he said, “Yes we have taken it seriously, and we've continued to act.”
The proportion of Jewish people in Bondi Beach is 34 times the national average, census data shows.
A total of 4,441 people in the area gave their religion as Judaism in the country's latest census, making up 13.6% of the Bondi Beach postcode's population. Across all of Australia, Jewish people make up just 0.4% of the population, or 99,956 people, the census said.
An analysis of the census by the Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA) found that the majority of Jewish people in Australia live in either Melbourne or Sydney.
According to the JCA analysis, Australia had the eight largest Jewish population in the world in 2021, with 0.8% of the estimated global Jewish population living in the country.
Germany was also home to 0.8% of the world's Jewish population in 2021, the JCA said, with the majority of Jewish people living in either Israel or the United States.
Pope Leo has posted about yesterday's Bondi Beach shooting on X, calling for an end to antisemitic violence and offering prayers for the victims of the attack.
“Let us #PrayTogether for all those who suffer due to war and violence. Today I particularly wish to entrust to the Lord the victims of the terrorist massacre carried out yesterday in #Sydney against the Jewish community,” Leo said.
“Enough with this antisemitic violence!” he continued. “Let us eliminate hatred from our hearts.”
It has been more than a day since two men opened fire on Sydney's Bondi Beach, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more.
Here's what we've learned about the fatal shooting so far today:
Victims identified: The names of some of those who were killed in the shooting are beginning to be released. A ten-year-old-girl, two rabbis, and a Holocaust survivor are among those who were killed, as well as a French national and a Slovak citizen.
Hero bystander: The man who was filmed tackling and disarming one of the attackers has been named as Ahmed al Ahmed. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns met with Ahmed in hospital, calling him a “real-life hero.”
Suspects named: The suspected perpetrators of the terror attack have been named by Australian media as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram. The younger man was born in Australia while his father immigrated to the country in 1998, according to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.
Injured officers: The two police officers who were injured in the shooting are in a serious but stable condition, New South Wales (NSW) Police said today. One of the officers was named as Constable Scott Dyson. He had been attached to Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command for 18 months, according to NSW Police.
Tightening gun laws: Australia plans to strengthen its gun laws with new measures that will restrict who gets a license, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced earlier. Under the plan, only Australian citizens will be entitled to hold a gun license, with limits on the number of guns they can own and the type of firearms that can be bought.
CNN's Hilary Whiteman, Helen Regan, Sandi Sidhu, Todd Symons, Lex Harvey, Laura Sharman, Kunal Seghal and Issy Ronald contributed to this reporting.
A rise in antisemitic attacks across Australia caused the Jewish community to fear a violent incident, according to the communications manager for the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council.
Speaking to CNN's Audie Cornish, Dionne Taylor described Sunday's Bondi Beach event, which marked the first night of the Jewish festival Hanukkah, as a joyous celebration turned tragedy.
“We are not surprised by last night's attack. We are shocked, but we are not surprised,” Taylor revealed, adding, “Every attack that has happened up until last night was the warning sign that last night was inevitable.”
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry's record of antisemitic incidents shows that in 2024 there were 1,713 episodes of antisemitism recorded, up from 2023's 1,200 reports. Taylor said the rise has been clear since October 2023, when she said antisemitic acts of graffiti, hate speech, physical violence and arson attacks started to become more common, “And now, murder,” she added.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told journalists at a conference on Monday that Australia is a nation committed to protecting its people, listing the criminalization of hate speech and a ban on the Nazi salute and other hate symbols, which could result in massive fines or imprisonment, among evidence for this.
But Taylor claimed the measures have not been effectively implemented, “Our government has been particularly weak in enforcing any of the laws that they have,” she said, adding, “The Jewish community … has been calling out the government's weak leadership”
Australian authorities believe the two men suspected of killing 15 people on Sydney's Bondi Beach “weren't part of a wider cell,” helping them to evade detection, though they were interviewed by security services in 2019, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told public broadcaster ABC.
As we've reported, the suspects have been named by Australian media as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, but Albanese did not name the father-son duo in his interview.
“There's no evidence that these people were part of a cell,” Albanese said, while underlining that they were motivated by an extremist, antisemitic ideology. “It's extreme perversion of Islam that has resulted in these catastrophic consequences,” Albanese added.
Police made the assessment that the suspected duo acted alone based on searching two premises connected to them, since they have not been able to interview the surviving suspect who remains in hospital, Albanese said.
The pair were known to security services, he said. The son was investigated for six months by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in 2019 “because of his connections with two people who subsequently … went to jail,” but that investigation concluded there was “no evidence” he had been radicalized, Albanese said.
The father was interviewed as part of that investigation, but also showed “no indication of any radicalization,” Albanese added. He said he did not know if authorities questioned whether the father possessed weapons at the time.
Some context: The father has held a firearms license since 2015, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters at a separate news conference, adding that police “know very little about them.”
One of the people killed in yesterday's shooting on Sydney's Bondi Beach was a Slovak citizen named Marika Pogány, according to the Slovak Jewish Association.
Slovakia's President Peter Pellegrini also confirmed this, writing on X that a Slovak woman named Marika was among the victims of the “senseless, violent rampage.”
Pogány was “active, smiley and humane,” the Slovak Jewish Association said in a statement on its official Facebook page. She was a close family friend of Slovakia's former President Zuzana Čaputová, who said she first met Pogány during a visit to the Auschwitz Nazi Concentration Camp.
“Only her mother and her uncle came back from Auschwitz. No other member of this prominent family from Rožňava survived. Sydney was a safe haven for her, away from fascism and communism,” Čaputová said in a statement posted on the organization's Facebook page.
The former president said Pogány began visiting Slovakia every year following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which saw the end of the communist regime in the then Czechoslovakia.
Pogány was an “extraordinary woman who lived her life to the fullest,” Čaputová said. “In her last message to me, Marika said ‘Live is a fight, take it as it is'.”
In his post on X, Pellegrini said that “it is terrifying to see how far sick, faceless hatred toward strangers can go — hatred fueled simply by differences in faith, skin color, origin, or orientation.” He offered his “heartfelt and sincere condolences to Marika's family and loved ones.”
The two police officers who were injured in Sunday's Bondi Beach shooting are in a serious but stable condition, New South Wales Police said today.
Constable Scott Dyson, one of the injured officers, had been attached to Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command for 18 months, NSW Police said. No further details have been released about the second injured officer.
In a statement, the families of the injured officers offered their “thoughts to the loved ones of those who were killed and injured in the Bondi shooting tragedy.”
They also expressed their “heartfelt gratitude to all first responders who acted with courage, in particular the police officers and paramedics who responded. They also wish to thank their hospital team, and especially those in ICU.”
In the statement, the families thanked the community for its support, but also asked for privacy while their loved ones “focus on recovery and healing.”
Intelligence agencies are forced to make difficult decisions using limited resources, according to Levi West, an expert in the field of terrorism and counter terrorism who spoke to CNN.
“There's a significant difference … between people who have been radicalized to use the language that we would usually use to refer to people who've adopted extremist positions, and people who are actually going to follow through and undertake something like what happened yesterday,” West told CNN's Polo Sandoval on Monday.
West's comments followed news that the younger suspect in the deadly Bondi Beach attack, named by Australian media as Naveed Akram, came to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in 2019.
West explained the number of people who adopt extreme views outweigh those who risk committing violence, “and so the challenge for any intelligence service is always trying to sift between those who might … present with having … Islamic state ideology or Al Qaeda ideology or neo-Nazi ideology, and those who actually appear as if they're going to go and do something.”
Akram, the 24-year-old currently in hospital suspected of orchestrating the attack which killed at least 15 people with his father, was investigated by ASIO in 2019 for an alleged proximity to other people on their radar. Despite a six month assessment, it was determined he was not an ongoing threat for engaging in violence, a decision revisited by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a news conference on Monday.
“There's every possibility the assessment … he wasn't an imminent risk of violence was entirely accurate at the time,” West said before observing, “Counter-terrorism resources are a finite pie, and decisions have to be made about what to prioritize.”
Ahmed al Ahmed, the bystander who wrestled a gun from one of the alleged attackers, has been pictured in hospital recovering from the gunshot wounds he sustained during the incident.
The 43-year-old met with New South Wales Premier Chris Minns on Monday, who praised him as a “real-life hero” whose “incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk.”
Ahmed, a father of two girls, was shot several times in the shoulder, his parents said, according to ABC.
A man seen running toward one of the Bondi shooters in footage on social media has been identified by his lawyer as a Middle Eastern refugee and father of two.
Lawyer Alison Battisson told CNN that her client, who lacks permanent legal status in Australia, hid behind a tree with a detective and waited for the shooter to reload. After the attacker was struck by police fire, he ran towards the shooter and kicked away his gun.
She declined to give her client's name but identified him as “AB”.
Footage circulating on social media showed Naveed Akram, the younger of the two shooters, firing repeatedly from a bridge and then dropping to the ground after being struck.
AB, dressed in black, can then be seen approaching the downed shooter with his hands raised.
“He ran towards the shooting, yelling for help,” Battisson, Director Principal for Human Rights for All and Heretic Law, told CNN after speaking with her client.
“The government won't give him a permanent visa. He has no right to stay here, yet he still ran forward to assist the Australian community.”
AB, whose pregnant wife and two children are Australian citizens, sprang into action when he arrived at Bondi Beach by taxi and heard gunshots erupt, Battisson said.
“He comes from a country where you know when there is gunfire,” Battisson said. “He just knew he needed to run towards it to help stop it.”
AB approached the shooter on the bridge and took cover behind a pine tree with a detective, Battisson said.
“He worked his way to the stairs and when the shooter went down, he ran up the stairs,” she added. “The shooter was still holding his gun and he kicked the gun away.”
Approaching the gunman, AB stepped into the line of police fire, according to Battisson who said it was not clear if the officers “knew the shooter was properly down.”
“He kicked the gun away and it got a bit confusing as people thought he was the shooter so the police shot at him,” Battisson said.
“Then the detective ran up and said ‘no, he's with me.'”
CNN has contacted New South Wales Police for comment.
The father and son duo suspected to have carried out the massacre at Sydney's Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed have been named by Australian media as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram.
Public broadcaster ABC as well as 9News and 7News – both CNN affiliates – named the two Akrams, citing sources, as did the Sydney Morning Herald.
New South Wales police declined to comment.
Separately, an imam who provided Quran lessons to Naveed Akram at Sydney's Al Murad Institute told CNN he was able to identify the younger shooter from video of the attack as the man he had taught.
Sheikh Adam Ismail said in statement that Akram had approached the center for lessons in 2019 seeking Quran recitation and Arabic language classes. He continued his lessons for a year.
“I condemn this act of violence without any hesitation,” said Ismail in a video message. “What I find deeply ironic is that the very Quran he was learning to recite clearly states that taking one innocent life is like killing all of humanity. This makes it clear that what unfolded yesterday at (Bondi) is completely forbidden in Islam.”
“Not everyone who recites the Quran understands it or lives by its teachings, and sadly, this appears to be the case here,” he said.
Ismail said he produced a video message to clarify his relationship with Naveed Akram after a photograph was circulated of them together from the Al Murad Institute in 2022.
Australian authorities have yet to formally name the Akrams but they have given details about the two suspects in multiple briefings to the media.
The younger man was born in Australia while his father, who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police at the scene, had immigrated to the country in 1998, Home Affairs minister Tony Burke said on Monday.
Raids were conducted at properties linked to the pair on Monday, including a short-term rental address in the southwest suburb of Campsie which is believed to have been where the pair stayed in the lead up to the attack. Two firearms and several suitcases were taken from the property by police on Monday afternoon, according to CNN affiliate 9News.
The 24-year-old is currently in hospital and is likely to face criminal charges linked to the shooting, police said on Monday.
He had previously come to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) which spent six months assessing his links to other people on their radar in 2019.
“The assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a news conference on Monday.
Naveed's father Sajid Akram had arrived in Australia in 1998 on a student visa and later transferred to a partner visa in 2001.
In the years since then, he had taken just three trips overseas, returning on a resident return visa each time, said Burke. Police have yet to officially name the pair and officials would not confirm Sajid Akram's country of origin.
He had held a firearms license for about 10 years, according to police, who seized six guns he owned following the attacks.
“The father has held a firearms license since 2015. We are very much working through the background of both persons” said New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon. But he added that police “know very little about them.”
“He met the eligibility criteria for a firearms license” and held a “recreational hunting license,” Lanyon said
There are two types of hunting licenses, Lanyon said: the ability to hunt on a property or also as part of a hunting club — or “gun club” — which is the type of license the suspect held.
A property connected to the men in the southwest suburb of Bonnyrigg, was also swarmed by police following the attack.
Residents living nearby described CNN scenes of chaos and fear as officers swarmed their normally quiet street.
Renato Padilla, who has been living in Bonnyrigg for more than 25 years, said the street quickly filled with police vehicles as authorities launched a raid on a nearby house believed to be connected to the attack.
CNN's Rhea Mogul, Hilary Whiteman & Helen Regan contributed reporting
A 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor and a young French national were among at least 15 people killed in the Bondi Beach attack on Sunday.
The victims of Australia's worst mass shooting in almost 30 years are yet to officially be identified, but their families and friends are paying tribute to those they have lost.
Read more about those who lost their lives here.
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Representative says her son was let go once he showed ID as Trump ramps up operation targeting Somali population in Minneapolis
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar told a Minneapolis broadcaster that her son had been stopped over the weekend by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, after Donald Trump ordered an operation targeting the Minnesota city's Somali population.
“Yesterday, after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by [ICE] agents, and once he was able to produce his passport ID, they did let him go,” Omar said on Sunday in an interview with WCCO.
She added that her son, who she did not name, had earlier been praying at a mosque when ICE agents arrived and entered, before leaving without incident. She noted that he “always carries” his passport with him.
Following that encounter, Omar said she told her son, “just how worried I am, because all of these areas that they are talking about are areas where he could possibly find himself in and they are racially profiling, they are looking for young men who look Somali that they think are undocumented.”
Omar, who has represented Minnesota's largest city in the House of Representatives since 2019, is the first Somali American congresswoman, and a frequent target of attacks from Trump and his allies.
The president recently went on a racist rant against Somalis, calling them “garbage” and saying Omar “should be thrown the hell out of our country”. Omar was born in Somalia but became a US citizen in 2000.
The Trump administration has deployed immigration agents to Minnesota's Twin Cities area to target undocumented Somalis and Latinos. Last week, Omar sent a letter to Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, and Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, saying the enforcement, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge”, has resulted in “blatant racial profiling, an egregious level of unnecessary force, and activity that appears designed for social media rather than befitting a law enforcement agency.”
Zionism turned the moral of the Hanukkah story on its head to praise militarism. In truth, it is a holiday of peace.
Zionism turned the moral of the Hanukkah story on its head to praise militarism. In truth, it is a holiday of peace.
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When I was 19 years old, I traveled to Israel to find long-lost relatives who had survived the Holocaust. While I was there, I was “picked up” on the street by an ultra-orthodox woman who offered me free lodging in a hostel exclusively for Jewish travelers in the Old City of Jerusalem. I was a broke teenager at the time, so I said yes. It was Hanukkah, and all across the Jewish Quarter, picturesque oil menorahs twinkled in the windows and doorways of ancient-looking buildings built from a pearly-pink marble called “Jerusalem stone.”
I didn't grow up celebrating Hanukkah, so my hosts explained to me that in 167 BCE, the ancient Jewish Temple, which once stood just around the corner from where I was staying, had been occupied by the mighty Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. Luckily, a small group of rebels known as the Maccabees fought back and recaptured the Temple. Since then, they said, Jews have kindled Hanukkah candles every year in honor of this marvelous battle, and dreamed of a return to reoccupy these very homes, in this exact neighborhood. The fact that we were finally there, they said, was the Hanukkah miracle come true.
I was captivated. It was an inspiring story, perfectly matched by the stirring ancient setting. Unfortunately, almost none of it was true.
The pearlescent stone buildings that looked age-old to my teenage eyes had actually mostly been constructed in the last few decades, on top of Palestinian homes that were bulldozed after Jerusalem was seized by the Israeli military in 1967. John Tleel, a Palestinian whose family lived in the Old City for 400 years, describes how the residents of the neighborhood where I was staying were given only 12 hours to evacuate. New homes and plazas were hastily built over what is now known as the Jewish Quarter, and constructed to look as if they'd always been there.
Likewise, Hanukkah, as a tale of a glorious battle, is a thin Zionist facade, pasted onto an old story that conveyed the opposite meaning for thousands of years. Traditionally, Hanukkah was a quiet, pacifist festival that taught an age-old lesson about the dangers of zealotry and the wisdom of gentleness in the face of force.
It is true that in 167 BCE, there was a Jewish uprising against the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, led by a group of rebels known as the Maccabees, which means “the hammers.” However, the Maccabees were not just fighting against the Hellenists. They were also fighting with many other Jewish groups who they saw as weak collaborationists because they wanted to negotiate with, instead of fight, the Seleucid Empire. In the end, the Maccabees' military tactics led to a lot of bloodshed and a short-lived victory. The Temple was soon destroyed. For the next two thousand years, Jews lived all over the world, ate different foods, and spoke different languages. It was not retaking the land or rebuilding an army that led to our cultural survival, but telling shared stories that fostered a sense of belonging across generations and around the world.
Hanukkah was a quiet, pacifist festival that taught an age-old lesson about the dangers of zealotry and the wisdom of gentleness in the face of force.
For centuries, the Maccabees didn't make it into these Jewish sacred stories. The Book of Maccabees, which records their battle, is a holy text in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but it's not included in Jewish holy books. In the Talmud, the ancient texts that lie at the center of all Jewish laws and practices, the rabbis ask: “What is Hanukkah about, anyway?” They knew the history of the Maccabees, but their question implies that they didn't see this event as worthy of celebration. Instead, they offer a very different tale to explain the season: “For when the Hellenists entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils in it, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed over them and defeated them, they searched and found only one bottle of oil sealed by the High Priest. It contained only enough for one day's lighting. Yet a miracle was brought about with it, and they lit with that oil for eight days.” (Shabbat 21b)
Early Zionists took the Maccabees from obscurity and claimed them as heroes precisely because traditional Judaism had dismissed them as unpleasant zealots.
This story is a consciously gentle miracle. Instead of celebrating the Maccabees' military might, it lifts up spiritual values of faith, trust, and patience in a little bit going a long way. The choice to remember the perseverance of small flickering lights, and not a battle, is a decision to not canonize bloodshed even when “our” side is the winner. This message is explicit in the prophetic biblical passage from the Book of Zechariah read on the shabbat of Hanukkah in synagogue: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.”
Zionism arose in the late 19th century as a secular European colonial movement, and many of its early tropes were explicitly a rebuke of religious Judaism. Early Zionists took the Maccabees from obscurity and claimed them as heroes precisely because traditional Judaism had dismissed them as unpleasant zealots. Early Zionists named sports clubs and athletics contests after the Maccabees, and argued that they were models for a new “muscular Jewry.” Israeli pop songs scoffed at the miracle of oil, and instead reframed the Hanukkah miracle to glorify the newly established gangs of Zionist militias that were chasing Palestinians off their lands.
This was a completely new and intentionally irreligious version of Hanukkah. And yet historical memory can be very short. Today, many people, including leftists, have forgotten that there is another, more ancient version of Hanukkah underneath the modern, Zionist facade. In this time of ongoing genocide in Palestine and cascading worldwide catastrophes, remembering the original meaning of Hanukkah, and its refusal to celebrate violence, is particularly important.
The word Hanukkah means rededication, because the Temple was defiled by the Hellenist Empire, and the menorah needed to be kindled to rededicate it. Since October 7, 2023, ancient Jewish symbols like the Star of David have been burned into Palestinian farmlands and branded onto the cheeks of Palestinians as signs of domination. Today, we again need to rededicate what has been defiled by this monstrous disregard of life.
As authoritarianism rises worldwide and many of our systems of care fragment, we need to save our age-old stories like seeds in a seed bank, as they contain vital spiritual nourishment. Within the story of Hanukkah's oil, there are timeless, universal truths that we will need in order to survive this era: tales last longer than Temples, and faith can be more powerful than force. The night is often long, with only a little bit of fuel to warm and light it, but when we work together in solidarity, there is enough for everyone.
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Rabbi Elliot Kukla (he/they) is an author and activist who has spent the past 20 years working at the intersection of justice and spiritual care to the dying and bereaved. His book on hidden grief, The Heart Lives by Breaking, is forthcoming in Fall 2027 from Schocken (Knopf Doubleday).
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U.S. negotiator Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff leave the U.S. Embassy on Monday in Berlin, Germany.Christian Mang/Getty Images
Russia has indicated it's open to Ukraine joining the European Union as part of a potential peace deal aimed at ending Russia's war on Ukraine, and there's now consensus on about 90 per cent of the U.S.-authored peace plan, U.S. officials said Monday.
The officials said that robust negotiations between President Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team led to progress on narrowing differences on security guarantees Kyiv said must be provided to Ukraine as well as the contentious issue on Moscow's demand that Ukraine concede land in the eastern Donbas.
Kushner and Witkoff are expected to meet over dinner on Monday evening with Ukrainian as well British, German and French leaders for further talks. Trump, who has been briefed twice on the Berlin talks, plans to dial in to the dinner from Washington.
The negotiators and others involved in the peace talks will likely meet in Miami or elsewhere in the United States this weekend to continue their work, according to the U.S. officials.
Kyiv digs in for a war-weary winter in Ukraine
The U.S. officials also said the administration plans to put forward the security guarantees agreement before the Senate for its approval, although they didn't specify whether it would be ratified like a treaty, which needs two-thirds approval from the chamber.
The U.S. officials who briefed reporters after Witkoff and Kushner met with Zelensky and other European officials in Berlin over the last two days said that such an offer over Ukraine joining the EU would be a major concession by Moscow. But Russia has previously said it does not object to Ukraine joining the EU.
The U.S. officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly by the White House and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the U.S. has also agreed to provide unspecified security guarantees to Kyiv as part of the deal but that such an offer won't be on the table “forever.”
The latest round of talks between Zelensky and U.S. envoys ended Monday as Kyiv faces Washington's pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal while confronting an increasingly assertive Moscow.
A police officer works at the site of the Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on Sunday.Stringer/Reuters
Ukraine's lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said on social media that “real progress” had been achieved at the talks in Berlin with President Donald Trump's special envoy Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner as well as European officials. The talks lasted roughly 90 minutes, after a five-hour session Sunday.
The U.S. government said in a social media post on Witkoff's account after Sunday's meeting that “a lot of progress was made.”
The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
Zelensky has expressed readiness to drop Ukraine's bid to join the NATO military alliance if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine's preference remains NATO membership as the best security guarantee to prevent further Russian aggression however this option doesn't currently have full backing from all allies.
Zelensky ditches NATO ambition as U.S. envoy Witkoff sees progress in peace talks
Still, Ukraine has continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of Donetsk region still under its control as one of the key conditions for peace.
Zelensky's itinerary on Monday also included meetings with German and other European leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron's office confirmed he would travel to Berlin later Monday.
“The issue of security in particular will ultimately determine whether this war actually comes to a standstill and whether it flares up again,” a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Stefan Kornelius, told reporters.
The Russian president has cast Ukraine's bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow's security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February, 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelensky emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
The Kremlin said Monday it expected to be updated on the Berlin talks by the U.S. side.
Asked whether the negotiations could be over by Christmas, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said trying to predict a potential time frame for a peace deal was a “thankless task.”
“I can only speak for the Russian side, for President Putin,” Peskov said. “He is open to peace, to a serious peace and serious decisions. He is absolutely not open to any tricks aimed at stalling for time.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
In London, meanwhile, the new head of the MI6 spy agency was set to warn on Monday how Putin's determination to export chaos around the world is rewriting the rules of conflict and creating new security challenges.
Blaise Metreweli was using her first public speech as chief of the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence service to say that Britain faces increasingly unpredictable and interconnected threats, with emphasis on “aggressive, expansionist” Russia.
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The next time somebody famous dies, head to Wikipedia. It's likely that the entry for that individual will have already been updated to acknowledge the death.
It's a small example of the big success of an internet operation that was initially ridiculed. How could a loose grouping of volunteers match the strength of the experts who had built the knowledge base encompassed in the weighty books produced by Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book? In today's polarized climate, we might add this other huge barrier: How could they ever find agreement on controversial entries – indeed, any entry, given the passionate disagreements that would inevitably arise over factual accuracy.
But they did topple the existing encyclopedia giants and have become something we take for granted today. While other tech companies may disappoint, with their algorithms and ads and noise, Wikipedia quietly does the job its founder, Jimmy Wales, set out to accomplish. There are now more than 300 versions in other languages, with total annual page views of 300 billion on a planet with only eight billion people.
“Wikipedia is no longer a crazy idea. It isn't debated and mocked. It isn't embroiled in scandal. Wikipedia is simply read by immense numbers of people who trust the information it provides,” he writes in The Seven Rules of Trust, along with Ottawa's Dan Gardner, his writing partner for the book.
He stresses that the Wikipedians who build it know that the archive has flaws and failings. But he insists for simple facts – such as how old is Tom Cruise – Wikipedia is outstanding.
“And as a starting point on more difficult subjects, as a way to get your bearings, to find good sources and begin exploration, Wikipedia is wonderful – on almost any subject under the sun, from the trivial to the profound,” he says.
Crucial to its success, he believes, was clarity of purpose. At the start, he would repeat regularly, “Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.” That made it clear to the many volunteers what their job was since they all had a mental model of what an encyclopedia does. If he had made a big deal about it being a new way to share information, he would then have a lot of explaining to do to get their attention and have them sign on and then point them in the right direction. This way, people immediately knew its value, what topics to tackle and how it should be written.
“Wikipedia is an encyclopedia” was the first of five pillars his team set out for those volunteers, framing the culture for the organization. The other four were: Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit and distribute. Wikipedia editors should treat each other with respect and civility. Wikipedia has no firm rules.
The pillars tended to attract people who were concerned with accuracy. “In time, Wikipedia developed a culture that is obsessed with accuracy,” he writes. “Millions of wonderful hairsplitting details … can be found in Wikipedia because the people who write Wikipedia are overwhelmingly passionate about getting facts right.”
From the beginning, Wikipedia has had the following policy: “Assume good faith.” People are expected to assume the people they are working with – who might have quite different views on the information that should be shared in an entry – have good intentions.
He shares as an example when a new, anonymous editor might have replaced a paragraph on American presidential politics with something different – and objectionable to you – as an editor. “While you may suspect in the back of your mind that this person is a rotten, self-promoting, partisan hack, you will not respond that way. You will assume this is someone honestly trying to improve Wikipedia. They may be doing a bad job. But they're trying,” he says.
That changes the focus and tone of your response to factual disagreement. Rather than stir up the other person with a vehement attack, you nudge them to a similarly civil stance. Of course, you may not come to an agreement and, after three rounds of discussion, the rule is others are brought into the conversation.
He notes any organization that needs to draw on the knowledge and skills of a wide array of people must create a healthy environment and for that civility is essential. Some people get a kick out of being rude and abusive, he adds, but most Wikipedians are nice people; they just love to argue – about everything. His team tries to celebrate those who do so in a civil manner, setting them up as examples for others to follow.
“But civility does not mean – I can't underscore this strongly enough – minimizing or downplaying disagreements, much less avoiding arguments altogether. We not only should disagree when we have sincere, thoughtful objections. We must. Disagreement is how we learn from others and get smarter together,” he writes.
In 2005, the scientific journal Nature compared 42 entries in Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia, finding an average of three inaccuracies for each in Britannica and four for Wikipedia. Britannica published an open letter complaining the study was flawed. Wikipedia's editors asked the journal to identify the errors so they could be fixed.
At the core of Wikipedia's success is trust. The people working to produce it have to trust each other. The people using Wikipedia have to trust its information. “In a little more than two decades, Wikipedia has grown from a ridiculous idea that could never work to a globally trusted source of information,” he says.
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Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn't Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.
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Vladimir Zelensky's statement of Kiev's willingness to drop its much-discussed but unrequited aspirations to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees reads more like a belated acknowledgment of a reality that has existed for years, which is that Ukraine was never going to be admitted to the bloc in the first place.
Zelensky's “compromise” may also be little more than a semantic maneuver. Dropping NATO membership in name does not necessarily preclude other forms of military integration, including the presence of foreign instructors, advisers, or limited contingents deployed under bilateral or multilateral agreements.
Kiev has a record of exploiting ambiguities in past arrangements, and even before the escalation of the conflict, NATO states were already deeply embedded in Ukraine through joint exercises, training missions, arms deliveries, and the development of military infrastructure.
Ukraine's courtship of NATO began shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kiev joined the bloc's Partnership for Peace program in 1994, cooperating through joint exercises and political dialogue.
The process culminated in NATO's 2008 Bucharest Summit, where the bloc declared that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members” at some point in the future. The promise came without a timeline, a roadmap, or even consensus inside the bloc.
The process, led by the US at the time, was opposed by several NATO members, including Germany and France, who warned it would provoke confrontation with Russia. Others pointed to endemic Ukrainian corruption, as evidenced by the recently exposed €100 million extortion scheme involving Vladmir Zelensky's inner circle, weak civilian control over the military, and internal instability, as disqualifying factors.
Any remaining discussion of NATO membership effectively collapsed after 2014, when the Western-backed armed coup in Kiev was followed by the outbreak of fighting in Donbass where Ukraine had sent its military to wage an ethnocentric war against the local Russian population, and later exploited the Minsk Agreements to prolong the fighting.
Ukraine found itself in a domestic conflict with unresolved territorial disputes, while its military lagged behind NATO standards. Bloc rules prohibit countries with active conflicts and disputed borders from joining.
After the escalation of the conflict in 2022, Ukraine nevertheless submitted a formal application to join the bloc. What followed was a prolonged exercise in political theater. Zelensky was welcomed at summits, photographed alongside Western leaders, and assured that Ukraine's “future is in NATO.” Yet the bloc repeatedly refused to offer even a provisional timeline.
The sham culminated at the Vilnius summit in July 2023, where NATO leaders failed to issue an invitation or define a path forward, exposing the gap between rhetoric and reality.
Zelensky himself acknowledged this publicly at the time, saying there was “no readiness, neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the bloc.” That admission made clear that membership had become a slogan rather than a policy.
We value our allies. We value our shared security. And we always appreciate an open conversation.Ukraine will be represented at the NATO summit in Vilnius. Because it is about respect.But Ukraine also deserves respect. Now, on the way to Vilnius, we received signals that…
Western media are now portraying Zelensky's latest statement as a diplomatic breakthrough while in practice, it is a concession only in name. Kiev is giving up something it never had – and was never going to get.
Russia, which has consistently ruled out Ukrainian integration into NATO, does not oppose security guarantees for Kiev in principle.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that any such security guarantees for Ukraine must be paired with reliable promises to respect Moscow's vital interests.
Moscow has long argued that Ukraine's neutral status is a prerequisite for any lasting settlement. Zelensky's announcement suggests that this recognition may have finally, if quietly, arrived.
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Tributes paid to two people killed as authorities search for a gunman who also injured nine others in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday
Two victims named in Brown University shooting as police continue search for killer
The two people killed in Saturday's shooting have been identified as Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, according to reports.
Aspiring neurosurgeon Umurzokov was identified by his family in a Gofundme page. In a message on the site, they said: “He was incredibly kind, funny, and smart. He had big dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and helping people. He continues to be my family's biggest role model in all aspects.
“He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need without hesitation, and was the most kind-hearted person our family knew. Our family is incredibly devastated by this loss.”
The Gofundme appeal had raised nearly $230,000 by Monday morning.
The Providence Journal reports that Cook's death was announced during a service at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, where she was reportedly a parishioner. The Rev Craig Smalley said in livestreamed remarks: “Many of you heard about the tragedy ... And sadly, tragically, one of those people is one of our parishioners.”
Smalley said Cook was a “bright light”, “incredibly grounded and generous and faithful”.
We are going to be taking a brief break in this blog while we await more updates, as authorities continue to search for the gunman who killed two students and injured nine others.
Here is a quick summary of the latest:
On Sunday night, officials said that the hunt for the gunman was continuing and announced that they were releasing a person of interest that had been detained in connection with the shooting.
The Providence Police also said that since the first call to 911, they have “not received any specific threats to our community.”
One of the victims fatally shot has been identified as Ella Cook. She was identified as one of the victims during a church service at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Reverend said she attended.
Both Alabama Senators paid tribute to Cook, as did Martin Bertao, the president of the College Republicans of America, who said that Cook was the vice President of the Brown College Republicans
Another victim was named as MuhammadAziz Umurzakov, from Uzbekistan. Umurzokov was identified by his family in a Gofundme page. They described him as “incredibly kind, funny, and smart. He had big dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and helping people. He continues to be my family's biggest role model in all aspects.”
The US ambassador to Uzbekistan also paid tribute to Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, as did Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Virginia's governor-elect Abigail Spanberger.
Brown University announced that it was temporarily delaying the release of admissions decisions for applicants who were meant to find out whether they had been admitted to the school today.
On Sunday, Brown University said that the school had cancelled “all remaining in-person exams” for Fall 2025 courses in the wake of the shooting.
FBI director, Kash Patel, said on Sunday that the FBI had activated its “cellular analysis survey team to provide critical geolocation capabilities” to aid with the investigation.
The University of Rhode Island said that it will not hold in person exams today.
As the investigation continues, authorities in Rhode Island have asked “anyone with relevant information, including video or photo evidence, to submit it by phone or through the FBI tip line”.
Michelle R Smith reporting from Providence, Rhode Island:
Tensions ran high in Providence on Monday near the Brown University campus, after authorities said they were still searching for a suspect and would release a person of interest they detained over the weekend.
In midmorning, sirens could be heard racing through the city's East Side, where Brown is located. Police later said in a post on X that they responded to a call of shots fired at an apartment complex a few blocks from Brown's campus. Police said the reports were unfounded: the loud noise came from a boiler backfire in the building. But they said they set up a perimeter around the area and cleared the building as a precaution.
Meanwhile, all Providence public schools were open with what the district told parents would be an increased safety presence, while many private schools in the neighborhood closed.
Foot and car traffic in the area around Brown was notably diminished from a typical Monday in early December, and a news helicopter circled the neighborhood all morning.
US Representative Seth Magaziner, a Democrat of Rhode Island, who is an alumni of Brown University, told MS NOW that people in Providence are feeling “shocked” “sad and upset”.
“The last couple of days, people have really been stepping up to look out for each other” Magaziner said. “Rhode Island's a small state, providence is a small, tight-knit city. It's a place where people help each other and grieve together. This is also a place where things like this do not happen often. “
“Prior to the terrible shooting at Brown, there had only been two homicides in the city of Providence all year, and so I think the mood here is that people are feeling shocked, people are sad and upset” the Congressman added. “But more than anything else, I think people are looking out for each other.”
Magaziner said that he spoke with the director of the Rhode Island Blood Center, who told him that Sunday was the busiest day the center had had “since 9/11” because “so many people had turned out to donate blood”.
Magaziner said now that authorities do not have anyone in custody, “everyone's concerned and people are taking precautions, some schools in the area have been shut down, for example.”
He said that he knows that the authorities and police are going to “work around the clock as hard as they can for as long as it takes until they find this guy.'
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said on social media that he was praying “for the victims of the horrendous act of evil at Brown University”.
“Ella Cook from Birmingham, Alabama, and Midlothian High School's own Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov” he wrote. “We lift up their families, friends and communities in a prayer of comfort and peace.”
Virginia's governor-elect Abigail Spanberger has also paid tribute to one of the two shooting victims, Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov.
“I am heartbroken to learn that Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov — who just graduated from Midlothian High School — is among the victims of the horrific act of violence at Brown University” Spanberger said on X. “Adam and I are praying for his family and all those impacted by this tragedy.”
On Sunday, Brown University President Christina Paxson said that in addition to the two students who were killed in the shooting, seven students were in critical but stable condition, one student remained in critical condition, and said that one student was treated on Saturday and released.
“Our prayers continue to be with them and their families” Paxson said on Sunday. “We have reached out to the families of all the hospitalized shooting victims and are offering any support we can. I have spoken to some of the families and expect to speak to others soon. Our hearts go out to all of them, and we stand ready to give them anything they need.”
Jack Reed, Democratic senator of Rhode Island, said that the shooting has “touched everyone in Rhode Island, particularly our law enforcement officers”. He added that the officers will “not rest until they have brought this individual to justice, and they are working overtime, triple time to get the job done”.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Reed said that “as the mayor has indicated, he's doing an excellent job, along with state officials and all of our law enforcement personnel, they have gathered a great deal of information.”
Reed said that authorities had thought that the evidence “pointed towards the individual they took into custody” but that then, “they were able, I think appropriately, to determine that was not accurate” he said. “But they are relentless.”
“I think we'll get there,” he added, “but this is a disappointing setback. What they've done is determined that shelter in place is not necessary, but they've intensified police operations in the city, particularly around the campus.”
The mayor of Providence conceded on Monday that the release of the person of interest arrested a day earlier in connection with the Brown University shooting was a “setback”.
But Brett Smiley stressed the investigation had proceeded “at full speed” while the person was in custody, and repeated his belief that there was no threat to the community even while the gunman remained at large.
The Democrat was speaking on CNN, where he said investigators were “running down tips that have come in [and] leads that have been developed”.
Smiley said: “I want to be clear that while we certainly were focused on processing evidence for the person of interest who was detained, that didn't mean that the other pieces of the investigation were stopped or in any way paused.
“Obviously we're disappointed that the person needed to be released because of the evidence that had been examined, and it's a setback, to be clear. Those frustrations, I'm sure, are being felt by more than just me.”
Smiley said the lack of a “credible or specific threat” since the shooting at about 4pm on Saturday assured him that there was no further threat to public safety.
He said several “false” calls were received, but “we believe it is safe and appropriate for residents in Providence to be sending their kids to school today, and to be out in the community”.
“The setback is not necessarily in terms of the investigation. Other aspects of the investigation remain at full speed,” he said.
He said it was “an emotional letdown” to release the person: “The 24 hours where we thought we had a person of interest that might lead to something more concrete… [it] turns out that we've got a lot more work to do.”
As the investigation continues, authorities in Rhode Island are asking “anyone with relevant information, including video or photo evidence, to submit it by phone or through the FBI tip line”.
Alabama senators have paid tribute to Ella Cook, one of the victims of the shooting, who was from Alabama.
“I am heartbroken to hear that Mountain Brook's Ella Cook was among those killed over the weekend at Brown University” Senator Tommy Tuberville said. “Our hearts and our prayers are with the Cook family and everyone impacted by this senseless killing.”
In another post, Senator Katie Britt said that she joins the “Mountain Brook community and all of Alabama in mourning the heartbreaking loss of one of our own, Ella Cook, who was senselessly killed over the weekend on Brown University's campus.”
“There are no words that can ease the pain Ella's family and friends are enduring right now” she said.
The University of Rhode Island said that it will not hold in person exams today.
Online exams, the school said, will proceed as scheduled.
“Importantly, there is no known threat to our campuses” the university said. “This decision follows consideration of concerns shared by members of our community.”
Providence mayor Brett Smiley appeared on Good Morning America this morning, and said that after authorities reviewed the evidence in the case, it was “determined that this person of interest needed to be released”.
“We continue with our investigation” Smiley said. “To be clear, we've never stopped our investigation. Providence police and our partners at the State Police, the FBI and others have continuously run down leads and worked this case beyond the person of interest who had been detained.”
“As you have seen many times, we do have a short small clip of video footage that we do believe is the person that we're looking for” he said. “And right now we don't have any evidence to suggest that it was more than that individual which has been seen in that video.”
The mayor said that there is currently enhanced police presence both on campus at Brown and throughout the city of Providence.
One of the victims killed in Saturday's shooting has been identified as student Ella Cook, who was from Alabama.
Her name was announced during a church service at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Reverend said she attended.
“Tragically, one of our parishioners, Ella Cook, was one of those who was killed yesterday,” Reverend Craig Smalley said during the service on Sunday, which was live streamed. “And those of you who knew her, those of you who know her, she was an incredible, grounded, faithful bright light.
“Not only here growing up here at the Advent in the myriad ways in which she served faithfully and the ways in which she encouraged and lift up those around her, but at Brown University she was an incredible light in that particular place,” Smalley said.
The New York Young Republican Club also put out a statement on Sunday expressing their “deepest condolences to the family of Ella Cook” who they said was “the Vice President of the College Republicans at Brown University.”
In another statement, Martin Bertao, the president of the College Republicans of America, said that “we are devastated to learn of the loss of our Brown College Republicans Vice President, Ella Cook.”
“Ella was known for her bold, brave, and kind heart as she served her chapter and her fellow classmates” they added.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted the College Republicans of America post, and wrote: “There are no words. Thinking of her family and friends, especially her parents. God please bless them.”
Former House speaker, 85, expects woman to assume Oval Office this generation but concedes she may not live to see it
Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing congresswoman and former House speaker, has conceded that she may not see a woman be elected US president in her lifetime.
The California Democrat said as much in a USA Today interview published on Sunday with her retirement looming after four decades in Congress – and invoked a turn of phrase referring to a metaphorical barrier impeding advancement in a profession that often confronts women and racial minorities.
“It's not a glass ceiling. It's a marble ceiling,” Pelosi told the publication while discussing the defeats her party colleagues Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris respectively endured against Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections – as well as institutional resistance she met during her own rise on Capitol Hill.
“I thought certainly the American people are far ahead of the Congress in terms of their acceptance or their enthusiasm for a woman to be president of the United States.”
She added: “I always thought that a woman would be president of the United States long before a woman would be speaker of the House.”
With that not occurring, USA Today reported that Pelosi had adjusted her timetable – and even “tempered” her optimism – for when a woman may assume the Oval Office.
“I think it's … maybe not in my lifetime,” Pelosi, who turns 86 in March, said to the outlet. But she made it a point to predict “within this next generation, there'll be a woman” serving as US president.
Pelosi's comments in some ways mirror ones delivered by former first lady Michelle Obama in November about whether the US could soon join its North American neighbors Mexico and Canada in having a female chief executive.
“Sadly, we ain't ready,” the attorney, author and wife of Barack Obama – the US president between 2009 and 2017 – said during a conversation posted on her YouTube page.
“That's why I'm like: ‘Don't look at me about running ‘cause you all are lying – you are not ready for a woman.' We got a lot of growing up to do and there's still … a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman, and we saw it.”
Nonetheless, Harris, the former US vice-president, has been leading or placing highly in polls of potential 2028 Democratic candidates for the White House. As Axios noted, she also expanded a tour promoting her 2024 campaign memoir 107 Days and appeared before the Democratic National Committee in moves interpreted by many as signs that she is potentially gearing up for another presidential run.
Pelosi joined Congress in 1988 to represent San Francisco. She won election to the post 20 times and was the first woman to serve as US House speaker, a role she held from 2007 to 2011 and 2019 to 2023.
In the USA Today interview, she revisited her role in convincing Joe Biden, her fellow Democrat and longtime political friend, to drop out of seeking re-election to the White House in 2024. She said she and Biden have not spoken ever since he shelved his 2024 campaign before Trump – whom he defeated four years earlier – won a second term.
“I'm saddened by it because I love him and I respect him,” Pelosi told USA Today of her estrangement from Biden. “But I respect his decision in that regard.”
Pelosi did say that she was grateful Biden issued a statement declaring her “the best speaker of the House in American history” when she announced in November that she would retire at the end of her final term in January 2027.
Of her decision to retire as an octogenarian, Pelosi said to the publication, “It was time. I mean – I've been ready for a while.”
Pelosi also reportedly said, with an exasperated tone, that she is commonly asked: “What are you going to do next?”
Pelosi told USA Today she mostly replies with something to the effect of: “I don't have to do anything – I'm old!”
BRUSSELS, December 15. /TASS/. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said that, now that Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance is "out of the question," the European Union would need to provide concrete security guarantees to the former Soviet republic.
"Now if this [Ukraine's NATO membership] is not in question, or this is out of the question, then we need to see what are the security guarantees that are tangible. They can't be papers, or promises, they have to be real troops, real capabilities," she explained to reporters in a doorstep interview ahead of an EU Foreign Ministers meeting.
Kallas reiterated that "in the last 100 years, Russia has attacked at least 19 countries," a remark she has lately been using in any comment on Russia. Based on this, she claimed that "the security guarantees are needed for all other members" in the EU.
The EU foreign policy chief also called for enhancing efforts to provide military aid for Ukraine as she emphasized that the EU delivered on its promise to supply Kiev with 2 million artillery shells this year, without elaborating.
Earlier, Vladimir Medinsky, a Kremlin aide who chairs the Russian Military Historical Society, said, commenting on Kallas' remark about the "19 countries" allegedly attacked by Russia, that he is ready to personally give a detailed history lesson to the EU's chief diplomat.
For decades, reducing salt intake has been promoted as a cornerstone of healthy living. Many opt for a low-sodium diet and cook with only a pinch of salt. However, salt isn't just a seasoning—it's an essential mineral the body relies on to maintain both physiological and energetic balance.
Michele Singer Reiner and Rob Reiner were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, officials said.KEVIN WOLF/AP
The son of filmmaker Rob Reiner was arrested on homicide charges after the director of beloved movies like When Harry Met Sally ... and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home, a police official said on Monday.
Nick Reiner was being held in a Los Angeles County jail on a US$4-million bond, according to jail records. An official with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department said he had been arrested on homicide charges.
Police said they found two bodies at the Reiners' home at 3:40 p.m. Pacific Time in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Sunday, whom they did not identify. Other officials confirmed the victims were Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele, 68.
Local media reported the couple had been stabbed to death. Nick Reiner spoke openly over the years about his struggles with substance abuse and about being homeless at times when he was on the run and refusing to go into rehab. He told People Magazine in a 2016 interview that he first went into rehab for drug abuse at age 15 – and that he eventually had at least 17 stays in rehab facilities over the years.
Rob Reiner and son Nick in New York in 2016.Rommel Demano/Getty Images
Rob and Nick Reiner co-wrote the film Being Charlie, based on Nick's experiences with heroin addiction and homelessness. “It was the most personal thing I've ever been involved in,” Rob Reiner told podcaster Marc Maron in 2016.
Nick told People, “when I was out there, I could've died.” Tributes poured in for Rob Reiner, who was active in politics, supporting liberal causes.
“This is a devastating loss for our city and our country. Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
As an actor, Reiner was best remembered for his role on the 1970s CBS television comedy hit All in the Family as Mike “Meathead” Stivic, the son-in-law and liberal foil of the lead character.
The role garnered Reiner two Emmy awards for outstanding supporting actor.
Reiner went on to have a prolific Hollywood career as a director, starting with This is Spinal Tap, a 1984 mockumentary about a fictional hard rock band. The film became a cult classic, known for its mostly improvised script, with Reiner playing the faux documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi.
“That was the trick – to make fun of it and at the same time, honour it,” Reiner told CBS' 60 Minutes this year as he promoted a sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
Director of the movie Rob Reiner with cast members Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan at the 30th anniversary screening of 'When Harry Met Sally' in Hollywood in 2019.Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Reiner directed nearly two dozen films in all, including classics such as Stand by Me, a 1986 coming-of-age drama about four boys who set out to find the body of a missing youth, as well as 1989's When Harry Met Sally ..., often cited as one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time.
That movie featured the famed line, “I'll have what she's having,” delivered by the director's real-life mother, Estelle Reiner, reacting to a faked orgasm in a restaurant.
Reiner also directed the 1987 fairy-tale adventure The Princess Bride, the 1990 psychological thriller Misery, and the 1992 military courtroom drama A Few Good Men.
Rob Reiner in 1997.Aaron Rapoport/Getty Images
Michele Reiner was at one time a photographer who captured the image of Donald Trump that appears on the cover of his book Trump: The Art of the Deal.
Rob Reiner, the son of the late comedy writer and actor Carl Reiner, also made campaign ads for 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and campaigned against a 2008 California effort to ban same-sex marriages.
Prior to Nick Reiner's arrest, Trump said on social media that their deaths were “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
Reiner was first married to Penny Marshall, who starred in the TV sitcom Laverne & Shirley, and was also a producer and director. He was an adoptive father to Marshall's daughter and had three children with Michele Singer.
Editor's note: In a previous version of this article, a photo caption misidentified the Reiners' sons. This version has been updated.
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Since its founding in 1922, Foreign Affairs has been the leading forum for serious discussion of American foreign policy and global affairs. The magazine has featured contributions from many leading international affairs experts.
JUSTIN BRONK is Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute.
Why the Lessons of Ukraine Don't Apply to a Conflict With China
Justin Bronk
After nearly four years of fighting, few aspects of Russia's war in Ukraine have gained as much attention among Western militaries as the rapid expansion of drone warfare. Since 2023, both sides have deployed millions of cheap quadcopter-type drones across the battlefield. In some parts of the front, these small drones now account for up to 70 percent of battlefield casualties. Meanwhile, Russia is using thousands of Geran-2 and Geran-3 propeller-powered one-way attack drones in almost nightly long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities, and Ukraine has been using a wide array of its own one-way attack drones for regular strikes on Russian bases, factories, and energy infrastructure.
Watching these developments, many Western defense strategists have made urgent calls to shift military priorities. In June, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to accelerate drone production. Since then, the U.S. Department of Defense has made several policy changes to facilitate the rapid integration of low-cost drones into the U.S. arsenal, and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called for the United States to establish “drone dominance.” In the private sector, meanwhile, software and AI companies that have bet heavily on developing uncrewed military technologies, such as Anduril, Palantir, and Shield AI, are racing to win lucrative new defense contracts. It is certainly the case that small uncrewed aircraft systems have fundamentally changed the way that infantry combat is fought, and that the U.S. Army and other parts of the force are behind on these capabilities—and, more concerning, on counter-UAS technologies—compared to Russian or Chinese forces.
But the assumption that large-scale acquisition of AI-enabled drones will strengthen U.S. defenses against China is misguided. For one thing, lessons from the war in Ukraine—an attritional, inconclusive struggle between two fundamentally land-centric armed forces—often do not apply directly to other kinds of conflicts. The realities of Beijing's military arsenal and the likely nature of any potential confrontation in the Indo-Pacific mean that such a conflict would be decided by very different factors. Despite having the largest and most advanced drone industry in the world, China has actually been prioritizing crewed military hardware. Each year, the People's Liberation Army receives eye-watering numbers of modern and highly capable combat aircraft, large warships, and cutting-edge ground-based, maritime, and air-launched missile systems. If the United States focuses too heavily on drone development and acquisition, it risks losing its slim remaining edge over the PLA in the high-end air force and navy capabilities that would dominate any Indo-Pacific conflict.
Over the past few years, military analysts and defense industry executives alike have focused on the lessons that Western militaries should supposedly take from Ukraine's remarkable defense against Russia. One result of this interest has been an oversaturation of new defense products and technologies that are being marketed to Western militaries as “transformational,” based on vaguely described combat use in Ukraine. In fact, many such systems, especially Western-made drones from tech startup firms, have proved ineffective or even failed outright on the battlefield in the face of omnipresent Russian (and Ukrainian) electronic warfare and hard environmental conditions.
A larger problem, however, is that the war in Ukraine features many characteristics that would not apply to U.S. and Chinese forces in an Indo-Pacific context. Russia's ongoing ground invasion of Ukraine has resulted in sparsely manned frontlines stretching more than 600 miles from Kharkiv Oblast in the north to Kherson in the south. Neither side has achieved air superiority, making airpower far less significant than in other modern conflicts. Since both Russian and Ukrainian armored formations and other elite units suffered catastrophic losses in the early phases of the war, neither side has been able to conduct large-scale combined-arms maneuver warfare since mid-2023. As a result, both armies have had to rely heavily on small infantry units with attached tank, artillery, and drone support to make probing attacks through minefields against fixed defensive lines. Progress is grindingly slow and costly in both directions.
Under these conditions, short-range, lightweight, cheap, and mass-produced quadcopter-type drones have proved highly effective. Especially as conventional artillery and long-range rocket artillery ammunition and launchers have become increasingly scarce, both sides have used cheap drones to inflict attrition and suppress the enemy's resupply and tactical movements within six to 12 miles of the frontlines. By 2024, frontline combat had indeed come to be dominated by ever greater numbers of drones and the constant development of new technologies such as fiber-optic drones and AI-assisted terminal imaging guidance. Counterdrone defenses such as netting, electronic jamming, and specialized shotgun and cannon ammunition types have likewise become critical and continue to evolve rapidly. However, many active counterdrone defense systems are overstretched in Ukraine due to the widely dispersed nature of forces on the frontlines and constant attrition.
Even so, the expansion of drone warfare is arguably not what has prevented Ukrainian forces from holding key positions against Russian forces in 2024 and 2025. Instead, it is the hundreds of heavy glide bombs that Russia is delivering by Su-34 fighter-bombers against the frontlines each week. These 500kg–3000kg glide bombs can demolish even deep, hardened fighting positions and kill dug-in troops far more effectively than small drones, and Ukraine still lacks an effective way to intercept the launch aircraft that release the bombs from more than 40 miles behind the frontlines. Drones inflict the majority of day-to-day attrition against infantry and vehicles on the move in and around the frontlines, but concentrated glide bomb attacks pose a much greater threat to dug-in troops. Relentless Russian glide bomb strikes on key positions have been particularly difficult for Ukrainian troops fighting to hold heavily fortified strategic locations, such as the hilltop city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast.
In sharp contrast to the operational conditions in Ukraine, any likely conflict between U.S. forces and China's People's Liberation Army would unfold predominantly in the air and at sea, with combat between land forces likely limited to key islands such as Taiwan or the Senkakus (known in China as the Diaoyus). In this context, success for the United States would depend on the ability to rapidly and repeatedly bring decisive airborne and maritime firepower to bear at those key points at critical moments. This would mean projecting power across thousands of miles of ocean against numerous highly advanced Chinese missile, air, and maritime threats. Such operations would require highly trained personnel manning advanced fighter aircraft, bombers, and warships conducting mutually supporting actions in carefully synchronized joint operations. In other words, the conflict would involve very different kinds of forces and equipment from what either Ukraine or Russia is using in the current war.
In an Indo-Pacific conflict, drones would likely still play a significant role in land and amphibious operations. Taiwan, for example, could greatly benefit from being able to deploy hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of small drones to repel a PLA landing force on its beaches. It would also be essential for Taiwanese forces to have counterdrone capabilities that could sustainably intercept and jam PLA one-way attack drones and surveillance drones flying from the mainland or from ships off the beaches. Yet such uncrewed systems would be useless to the U.S. Air Force and Navy in their efforts to assist with air cover and, ultimately, maritime support, which would require projecting power from Guam or other distant U.S. bases.
Distances are punishing in the Indo-Pacific. The greatest shortcoming of the current generation of “exquisite” American fighter aircraft—the F-22, F-35, and F/A-18E/F—against growing Chinese threats is not that they are expensive and comparatively few. It is their comparatively limited range. With combat radii of between 350 and 600 miles, they require aerial refueling tankers to reach contested areas from viable bases, which in conflict would have to fly dangerously close to Chinese missile and fighter aircraft threats. Small drones cannot solve this problem. Even the longest-range fiber-optic-cable-equipped first-person view drones in common use in Ukraine are limited to around 15 miles, and most small FPVs have significantly shorter ranges than that. In other words, the one weapons system that has made combat in Ukraine significantly different from that of previous state-on-state wars would be largely irrelevant in the critical early phases of a conflict between Chinese and American forces.
Even if small drones could be delivered rapidly across the required ranges, none of the varieties currently in use in Ukraine by either side could effectively defend U.S. forces against Chinese attacks. Beijing already operates thousands of high-end ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles that would be used to strike U.S. forward bases, aircraft carriers, tanker aircraft, and other key large assets. To counter such threats, the U.S. military would unavoidably have to rely on multimillion-dollar missile defense systems such as the Patriot PAC-3 MSE, THAAD, SM-6, and SM-3. Intercepting hundreds of increasingly capable Chinese combat aircraft will, likewise, require large quantities of advanced air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-260 JATM and the AIM-174B, as well as the AIM-120D AMRAAM. These will be needed in large quantities regardless of whether they are launched by crewed fighters or, potentially, in the future by AI-enabled uncrewed systems. Small drones simply cannot intercept combat aircraft operating at high altitudes and speeds.
Moreover, the many types of uncrewed systems that would potentially be far more useful in the Indo-Pacific will entail large costs of their own. For example, stealthy Collaborative Combat Aircraft—automated or AI-enabled uncrewed combat aircraft intended to accompany and support traditional fighters—are expected to cost as much as $20 million to $30 million apiece. The less ambitious designs that are intended to be little more than forward sensors and weapon-launching “trucks” will still cost many millions of dollars. There may well be significant benefits to their development and adoption, but they cannot be “swarmed” or expended en masse on a regular basis given their cost.
Operating these systems will also require large numbers of human maintainers, armorers, logisticians, force protection personnel, and other specialists to prepare them for flight, recover them after use, maintain them, and move them to launch locations in theater—personnel who will have to be reassigned from other activities. CCAs also will not fundamentally change the U.S. military's position relative to the PLA, since China is developing similar systems.
Simpler, one-way attack, decoy, or stand-in jamming-type drones can be somewhat cheaper to produce and could still perform vital roles within a complex joint strike package. But even these drones will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to have the required range and performance. AI-enabled swarming behaviors in flight may increase the effectiveness of such drones or missiles in various tactical situations, but the data links and processing power required will further increase unit cost, and thus quantities will remain limited. Weapons that serve much the same purposes—smart stand-off attack, decoys, and stand-in jammers—have already existed for decades in the form of cruise missiles and decoys such as the ADM-160 MALD-X. The issue is not that these existing tools are unable to perform the required roles; it is that the United States does not have enough of them.
For the United States, it is unavoidably clear that a significant peer conflict will require very different resourcing than the overseas interventions and counterinsurgency operations that it has conducted in recent decades. In any confrontation with China, the U.S. military would need vast stockpiles of ammunition, spare parts, medical supplies, and other logistical necessities. Washington currently has significant shortfalls of key long-range strike, antiship, and interceptor missiles, and most of its allies lack them to a greater degree still. The United States also has a shrinking and increasingly aging conventional force structure thanks to more than a decade of deferred air force and navy modernization during the global war on terrorism. The sheer cost of bringing back “combat mass” with conventional high-end military systems has driven an almost frantic search by many defense analysts and policymakers for a way to get AI-enabled technology, including drones, to deliver “cheap mass.”
The PLA, by contrast, increasingly has both mass and quality. Strikingly, despite having by far the world's largest and most advanced drone-manufacturing industrial base, China's major military focus is on acquiring more crewed combat aircraft, large warships, and advanced missile systems. The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is on course to have a fleet of around 1,000 J-20s—China's primary fifth-generation stealth fighter—by 2030. China is also building many hundreds of advanced antiship and long-range surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, and tens of advanced destroyers and cruisers per year. Especially in the air-to-air and surface-to-air missile domain, many of these Chinese systems are starting to exceed the performance of their U.S. equivalents in some key areas. Almost all of this production is going to the PLA rather than to export customers like Pakistan, and much of it would likely be brought to bear in any Chinese attempt to capture Taiwan, as well as any other conflict involving Beijing in the East China or South China Seas.
By comparison, while Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighters are being built at a slightly higher rate than China's J-20A and J-20S, only some of that production is being purchased by the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force purchased just 48 F-35As in 2025 and plans to purchase fewer than that in each of the remaining years of the current decade. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are acquiring other variants of the fighter, but most of the balance of Lockheed Martin's current output is destined for U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. The next generation F-47 fighter, which is expected to cost more than $300 million apiece, is not scheduled to enter U.S. Air Force service until the early 2030s as a production standard combat asset. An equivalent next-generation program for the U.S. Navy, called F/A-XX, will come even later still, assuming the program goes ahead. By that point, however, the next-generation Chinese J-36, J-XDS, and J-50 equivalents, all of which are already in flight testing, will likely also be in service. They may be marginally less capable than the F-47 on a per-aircraft basis but they will likely be produced faster and in greater numbers.
Another area in which China's high-end capabilities are already outstripping those of the United States is in airborne long-range early warning and command system (AWACS) aircraft. These aircraft are huge force multipliers because they provide air forces and joint forces with long-range, wide-area radar coverage for early warning, battlespace management, and targeting. The PLA already has roughly 60 modern AWACS, all equipped with the latest active electronically scanned array-type radars and advanced data link and satellite communications capabilities to act as network nodes. More are being produced each year.
By contrast, the U.S. Air Force has only 16 serviceable AWACS, and these are the nearly obsolete and badly worn-out E-3G Sentry. The plan to acquire the Boeing E-7A Wedgetail to replace this rapidly shrinking fleet was canceled by Hegseth in June 2025, citing concerns over cost overruns, delays, and operational vulnerability. Congress included $400 million to continue the program in the bipartisan bill to end the U.S. government shutdown in November, but even if the program does survive, it may be downsized and still faces significant delays. That means that the United States will face an airborne sensor and airborne networking and battle management node gap with China for at least a decade. Both nations are pursuing advanced space-based sensor and networking capabilities, but these are not yet ready to replace AWACS coverage.
The uncomfortable fact is that there are no easy answers to the challenge posed by China's growing air, maritime, and missile capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. To an overwhelming degree, the U.S. military relies on its air force and navy to credibly deter Chinese military aggression against Taiwan or elsewhere. There is no way to change the entire joint force to a fundamentally different structure in time to face the threat in the coming years. Trying to replicate Ukraine's emphasis on drones at a vast scale will not solve the problem. American military and political decision-makers should focus instead on fixing the increasingly large gaps in existing conventional air and maritime forces. To do this, Washington has few alternatives to urgent, heavy investment in far greater production capacity and rapid procurement of existing long-range air-to-air, surface-to-air, and air-to-surface missiles, as well as F-35, F-47, and B-21 combat aircraft and nuclear attack submarines.
Dealing with these critical shortfalls will require either major budget increases—unlikely in the current environment—or major cuts elsewhere in the joint force structure. But unless the United States can maintain air and maritime superiority over key contested areas, it will find that the rest of its military force structure will struggle to produce relevant combat power against China in any Indo-Pacific clash. Millions of battlefield quadcopters and tens of thousands of one-way attack drones have not enabled Russia to defeat Ukraine, or vice versa. Even if the Pentagon acquires similar capabilities, they will not change its rapidly degrading balance of power with China in the Indo-Pacific, no matter how good swarms of AI-enabled drones might look on PowerPoint slides.
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Former Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been found guilty on two national security charges and a lesser sedition charge, in a landmark two-year trial widely viewed as a measure of the city's shrinking freedoms under Beijing's rule.
Self-made billionaire Lai, 78, is one of the highest-profile critics of Beijing charged under a sweeping security law imposed on the semi-autonomous city in 2020 following months of huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.
He founded Apple Daily, a fiercely pro-democracy tabloid newspaper known for its blistering broadsides against the Chinese Communist Party until its forced closure in 2021.
Lai had pleaded not guilty to all charges, and now faces possible life in prison. Monday's verdict marks the end of a tumultuous legal saga that had drawn condemnation from supporters and foreign leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump – who had once vowed to “get him out.”
The imposition of the national security law has transformed Hong Kong, with authorities jailing dozens of political opponents, forcing civil society groups and outspoken media outlets to disband, and transforming the once-freewheeling city into one ruled by “patriots only.”
Hong Kong and China's leaders say it has “restored stability” following the 2019 protests.
Lai is a British citizen, and the UK government has previously called for his release.
At a news conference in London on Monday, Lai's son, Sebastian, said he was “heartbroken” about his father's condition and called on the UK government to do more to secure his freedom.
“Now it's time to put action behind words, and make my father's release a precondition to closer relationships with China,” Lai said. “Because how can you expect a fruitful relationship if they can't even put a 70-year-old man – who's in such ill health – on a plane and send him back home here in the UK where he belongs?”
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on Monday condemned Lai's verdict as “politically motivated,” saying Beijing's national security law had been imposed to silence China's critics.
In delivering their verdict, judges said there was “no doubt that (Lai) had harbored his resentment and hatred of the PRC (People's Republic of China) for many of his adult years.”
They pointed to Lai's lobbying of US politicians during Trump's first term – much of it before the security law was enacted – as evidence of sedition and colluding with foreign forces, including his meetings with then-Vice President Mike Pence, then-State Secretary Mike Pompeo, and attempts to meet Trump himself.
They also pointed to his WhatsApp messages with other pro-democracy activists and Apple Daily leaders, and a New York Times opinion piece he had written in May 2020 – in which he suggested ways to punish China for its repression of Hong Kong, such as revoking student visas for the children of government officials.
His urging US officials to take actions against China in the name of helping the Hong Kong public “would be analogous to the situation where an American national asks for help from Russia to bring down the US Government under the guise of helping the State of California,” the judges said in their ruling.
“We are satisfied that (Lai) was the mastermind of the conspiracies” laid out in all three charges, they concluded. They added that the evidence showed Lai's “only intent … was to seek the downfall of the (Chinese Communist Party).”
The judges said they would announce the date of his sentencing at a later point. Collusion is punishable by life imprisonment under the security law.
The judges had earlier warned everyone inside to maintain “absolute silence” as their verdict was read out.
Lai appeared calm throughout, greeting his wife and son at the start with a wave. He did not respond when the verdict came down but took off his glasses and wiped his face before he was led out of the courtroom.
Throughout his trial, prosecutors accused Lai of using his Apple Daily newspaper to call for sanctions against Hong Kong and China during the 2019 protests, and after the national security law was introduced.
He was arrested under the law in late 2020, and has spent more than 1,800 days in a maximum-security prison, much of it in solitary confinement. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on unrelated charges of fraud.
Lai's supporters – many of whom had stood in line overnight to secure a seat inside the courtroom – expressed dismay but not surprise at the verdict, with many saying they no longer held faith in Hong Kong's judicial system.
“I've got no anticipation (that) Jimmy Lai will be released,” one woman told CNN, describing the city's transformation as “too sad.”
Another supporter said he, too, had held no hope for Lai's release, and described feeling numb to Beijing's crackdown on the city. But, he said, “We're still here … You can't really arrest us all.”
Both supporters asked not to be named.
Lai was born in mainland China and arrived in British-ruled Hong Kong at 12 years old, working his way up from factory laborer to clothing tycoon.
He then pivoted to media and founded Apple Daily in 1995, two years before Hong Kong was handed over to China. The outspoken publisher and his newspaper were at the forefront of the city's pro-democracy movement.
A vocal supporter of Trump, Lai traveled to Washington at the height of the 2019 protests, meeting with Pence and other US politicians to discuss the situation.
At the time, massive demonstrations sparked by a controversial piece of legislation were drawing hundreds of thousands onto the streets – many of whom feared that Beijing could encroach on the city's autonomy and rare freedoms of speech, press and assembly.
Trump has vowed to free Jimmy Lai. A Hong Kong court is about to decide the media mogul's fate
“Mr. President, you're the only one who can save us,” Lai said in an interview with CNN in 2020 weeks before he was arrested, addressing Trump. “If you save us, you can stop China's aggressions. You can also save the world.”
Taking the stand in his own defense during the trial, Lai said he had never spoken with Trump.
Trump had raised Lai's case when he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in October, an administration official told CNN. The official added that Trump believes Lai should be released and wants to see that happen.
Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has a separate judicial system to that of mainland China.
Both the Chinese Embassy in Washington and the Hong Kong government have warned against “external forces” interfering with internal affairs and judicial process.
Following Lai's conviction, China's foreign ministry said the central government “firmly supports (Hong Kong) in safeguarding national security and punishing crimes endangering national security in accordance with the law.”
In a separate statement on Friday, responding to a US congressional committee report on China's human rights record, which included criticism of Lai's imprisonment and treatment, the Hong Kong government accused US officials of trying to “interfere with the judicial proceedings in (Hong Kong) by means of political power in order to procure a defendant's evasion of the criminal justice process.”
Critics fear the national security law has brought Beijing's authoritarian and opaque judicial norms to Hong Kong, with all national security trials so far heard by a panel of specially selected judges, not juries – a departure from the city's common-law tradition.
The final stretch of the trial was marked by health concerns for Lai. His lawyers told the court that Lai had been experiencing palpitations and episodes of light-headedness; his son Sebastien said at the time he was deeply concerned about his father's deteriorating health, including his old age and diabetes.
In an opinion piece in The Washington Post last Tuesday, his daughter Claire Lai wrote that “solitary confinement is taking its toll on his body,” and claimed the family had little knowledge what medical care he was receiving as no outside physicians were allowed to examine her father.
In its statement on Friday, the Hong Kong government said Lai had received “adequate and comprehensive” medical services while in custody, and the prison had arranged “daily medical checkups” for Lai. There had been “no complaints at all regarding the medical services he was receiving,” it said.
It added that he had been placed in solitary confinement “at his own request.”
CNN's Samra Zulfaqar contributed to this report.
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Editor's Note: This is a developing story.
A wave of Ukrainian drones targeted the Russian capital overnight on Dec. 14-15, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin claimed.
The attack comes less than a week after Ukraine reportedly attacked Moscow with over 30 drones in a mass strike on Dec. 10.
Russian air defense units have shot down at least 18 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) en route to Moscow, Sobyanin said. Emergency response crews are clearing wreckage from the attack sites.
No casualties or damage have been reported. Temporary restrictions have been imposed at Moscow's Zhukovsky and Domodedovo airports.
Residents of the Istrinksy district, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Moscow, have reported over a dozen loud explosions, according to the Russian Telegram news channel Shot. Residents of Kashira and Kolomna in southern Moscow Oblast also reported explosions.
The Russian Defense Ministry later reported at 7:18 a.m. local time that 25 drones were shot down over Moscow Oblast, including 15 flying towards the capital. A total of 130 drones were intercepted across Russia during the night, the ministry said.
Sobyanin announced at 7:41 a.m. that three more drones were shot down during their flight to Moscow, bringing the total to 18.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify these reports at the time of publication.
Ukraine regularly uses long-range drones to target military and industrial targets in Russia. On Dec. 13, Ukrainian forces struck a number of assets in Russia and in occupied territories, including the Afipsky Oil Refinery in Krasnodar Krai, the Uryupinsk oil depot in Vologograd Oblast, and two fuel depots in Crimea.
Previous attacks on Moscow have disrupted aviation operations, grounding and delaying hundreds of flights despite the drones being intercepted by air defenses.
Senior News Editor
Abbey Fenbert is a senior news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a freelance writer, editor, and playwright with an MFA from Boston University. Abbey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2008-2011.
Kyiv and Washington made "real progress" toward peace in Ukraine during two-day talks in Berlin, top security official and negotiator Rustem Umerov said on Dec. 15.
Encircled Russian troops in Kupiansk are still getting limited drone drops — and a Ukrainian official says some included flags, not food.
For the first time, Ukrainian underwater drones have successfully attacked a Russian submarine, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) reported on Dec. 15.
Nadya Tolokonnikova, a co-founder of the group, said the verdict aims "to erase Pussy Riot's very existence from the Russian consciousness."
A KIIS poll found 75% of Ukrainians rejected a Donbas pullback plan without security guarantees, while most supported freezing the front line with strong protections.
Ukraine's Security Service said its long-range drones struck Russian offshore oil platforms in the Caspian Sea for the third time in a week, halting operations at one site.
Less than one-tenth of Ukrainians support holding immediate elections, even in the absence of a ceasefire with Russia, according to a recent poll.
A thermal power plant in Belgorod, known as "Luch", was damaged during a wave of drone attacks on Russian territory overnight on Dec. 15, Astra reported, citing local residents.
Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz floated the idea of transferring Warsaw's remaining Soviet-designed MiG-29s to Kyiv in exchange for Ukraine's drone and anti-drone technology.
The International Chess Federation's (FIDE) General Assembly on Dec. 14 allowed teams from Russia and Belarus to participate in international tournaments and permitted youth chess players to compete under national symbols.
Russian air defense units have shot down at least 15 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) en route to Moscow, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said.
The attack caused "serious damage" to an unspecified facility, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Local Telegram channels reported explosions at a key thermal power plant.
MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. Russia welcomes the decision of the General Assembly of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to allow Russian chess players to compete at international tournaments under the national flag and to the tune of the country's anthem, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"We welcome the decision of the General Assembly of the International Chess Federation to allow our athletes and our chess teams to participate in international competitions under the national flag and anthem. We deeply appreciate this decision made following the vote of the General Assembly," Peskov, who is also the chairman of the Russian Chess Federation's (RCF) Board of Trustees, told journalists.
"We believe that it was the right step towards the depoliticization of sports, especially in such field as chess," he continued.
"And we hope that this decision of the international federation reflects it in full. Other interpretations of fair voting may only provoke our disappointment," Peskov added.
On February 28, 2022, FIDE announced that chess players from Russia and Belarus would be allowed to participate in international competitions under a neutral status, adding, however, that the federation had barred both countries from hosting official chess competitions.
On March 16, 2022, the world governing body of chess barred teams representing Russia and Belarus from all international competition.
On June 7, 2024, the FIDE Ethics Commission ruled to suspend the membership of the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) with the global federation for the two-year period because the RCF included as its members chess associations from the country's new territories.
On June 26, 2024, Russia's governing chess body filed an appeal against the decision of the FIDE Ethics Commission and requested a complete overhaul of the Ethics Commission, as well as the return of the flag and anthem to Russian athletes.
On September 13, 2024, the Appeals Chamber of the FIA Ethics Commission overturned the body's earlier decision to revoke the RCF's membership, upholding the appeal of the Russian Chess Federation.
In July, 2025, FIDE allowed the Russian women's national team to participate in the World Team Championship under the FIDE banner while the European Chess Union (ECU) opposed this decision. The Russian team eventually won the tournament.
On December 14, 2025, FIDE ruled that "youth athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport should no longer be restricted in their access to international youth competitions, in both individual and team sports… In addition, the standard protocols of the IF [International Federations] or the International Sports Event Organizer regarding flags, anthems, uniforms and other elements should apply, provided that the national sports organization concerned is in good standing.".
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Photos of suspects of a terror plot are shown on a screen during a press conference Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis, right, speaks in front of LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell while announcing developments on a terrorism investigation during a press conference Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli, right, speaks during a press conference announcing developments on a terrorism investigation Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis announces developments on a terrorism investigation during a press conference Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli, right, speaks in front of LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell during a press conference announcing developments on a terrorism investigation Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple U.S. companies on New Year's Eve in Southern California, announcing the arrests of members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.
The four suspects were arrested Friday as they were testing explosives in the desert east of Los Angeles, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference.
Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the four suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table shortly before their arrests.
In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.
Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. Each faces charges including conspiracy and possession of a destructive device, Essayli said, adding that additional charges were expected in coming weeks.
It wasn't immediately clear if they had attorneys and The Associated Press was unable to reach family members.
Essayli said Carroll last month created a detailed plan to bomb five or more locations across Southern California on New Year's Eve and were trying to hit multiple companies. He declined to name the companies but described them as “Amazon-type” logistical centers.
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“Carroll's bomb plot was explicit,” Essayli said. “It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs... and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.”
The plan included planting backpacks filled with explosive devices at multiple businesses that were set to blow up simultaneously at midnight on New Year's Eve, according to officials and the criminal complaint.
Two of the group's members also had discussed plans for future attacks including targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in 2026, according to the criminal complaint.
“Carroll stated that some of those plans would quote ‘take some of them out and scare the rest,'” Essayli said.
The plans were discussed both at an in-person meeting with members in Los Angeles and through an encrypted messaging app, Essayli said.
Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.
The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.
The plan stated that the backpacks would contain complex pipe bombs and included instructions on how to manufacture them and also how to avoid leaving evidence behind tracing anything back to the group, officials said. The suspects recently had acquired precursor chemicals and other items, they added.
Last week they were rehearsing their attack and testing devices in the desert near Twentynine Palms, California, before federal authorities moved in, officials said.
“They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb at that location,” he said.
Authorities issued search warrants and found posters for the Turtle Island Liberation Front at Carroll's home that called for “Death to America,” and “Death to ICE,” Essayli said. In Page's residence, police found a copy of the detailed bomb plan, he added.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said while federal and local officials disagree on the Trump administration's immigration raids, they come together still to protect residents. The LAPD does not stop people or take action for any reason related to immigration status, and it doesn't enforce immigration laws, a practice that has been in place for 45 years.
“The successful disruption of this plot is a powerful testament to the strength of our unified response,” McDonnell said.
The suspects, who were taken into custody without incident, were scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles Monday afternoon.
_____
Watson reported from San Diego.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacts during a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the Bellevue Palace for talks with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center left, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, center right, attend the German-Ukrainian Economic Forum in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/dpa via AP)
The flags of the participating nations are seen at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber,Pool)
BERLIN (AP) — The U.S. has agreed to provide unspecified security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a peace deal to end Russia's nearly four-year war, and more talks are likely this weekend, U.S. officials said Monday following the latest discussions with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin.
The officials said talks with President Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, led to narrowing differences on security guarantees that Kyiv said must be provided, as well as Moscow's demand that Ukraine concede land in the Donbas region in the country's east.
Trump was expected to dial into a dinner Monday evening with negotiators and European leaders, and more talks are likely this weekend in Miami or elsewhere in the United States, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly by the White House.
The U.S. officials said the offer of security guarantees won't be on the table “forever.” They said the Trump administration plans to put forward the agreement on security guarantees for Senate approval, although they didn't specify whether it would be ratified like a treaty, which needs the chamber's two-thirds approval.
The U.S. officials also said there is consensus on about 90% of the U.S.-authored peace plan, and that Russia has indicated it is open to Ukraine joining the European Union, something it previously said it did not object to.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the Ukrainians, Americans and Europeans agree that “a ceasefire should be secured by substantial legal and material security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe,” calling it a “truly far-reaching, substantial agreement that we did not have before, namely that both Europe and the U.S. are jointly prepared to do this.”
Questions over Ukraine's postwar security and the fate of occupied territories have been the main obstacles in talks. Zelenskyy has emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
Zelenskyy on Monday called talks “substantial” and noted that differences remain on the issue of territories.
Zelenskyy has expressed readiness to drop Ukraine's bid to join the NATO military alliance if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine's preference remains NATO membership as the best security guarantee to prevent further Russian aggression.
Ukraine has continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of Donetsk region still under its control as a key condition for peace.
The Russian president has cast Ukraine's bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow's security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Asked whether the negotiations could be over by Christmas, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said trying to predict a potential time frame for a peace deal was a “thankless task.”
“I can only speak for the Russian side, for President Putin,” Peskov said. “He is open to peace, to a serious peace and serious decisions. He is absolutely not open to any tricks aimed at stalling for time.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
Russia fired 153 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight Sunday into Monday, according to Ukraine's Air Force, which said 133 drones were neutralized, while 17 more hit their targets.
In Russia, the Defense Ministry on Monday said forces destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. An additional 16 drones were destroyed between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time.
Eighteen drones were shot down over Moscow itself, the defense ministry said. Flights were temporarily halted at the city's Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports as part of safety measures, officials said.
Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.
___
Madhani reported from Washington. Seung Min Kim in Washington, Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP's coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Director-actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were the two people found dead Sunday at a Los Angeles home owned by Reiner, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
Actor, director and activist Rob Reiner has died at age 78. Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were found dead Sunday afternoon in their home in Los Angeles, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. Authorities were investigating it as an “apparent homicide.” Reiner was an actor and director, helming films like “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride. (Dec. 15)
CORRECTS IDENTITY OF NICK AND JAKE REINER - FILE - Honoree Rob Reiner, second left, poses with his wife Michele, left, and children Jake, center, Romy, and Nick at the 41st annual Chaplin Award Gala at Avery Fisher Hall, April 28, 2014, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
A police officer blocks off a street near Rob Reiner's residence Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Rob Reiner arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards, in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner arrive on the red carpet at the State Department for the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner, Dec. 2, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton speaks near Rob Reiner's residence Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
▶ Follow live updates on the death of Rob and Michele Reiner
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rob Reiner's younger son, Nick Reiner, was in police custody Monday for what investigators believe was the fatal stabbing of the director-actor and his wife at their Los Angeles home a day earlier, police said.
Police Chief Jim McDonnell said Nick Reiner, 32, has been “booked for murder” and is being held on $4 million bail in connection with the deaths of his parents. McDonnell said the department's robbery and homicide division is handling the investigation.
“They worked throughout the night on this case and were able to take into custody Nick Reiner, a suspect in this case,” McDonnell said. He was held on $4 million bail.
McDonnell called the deaths “a very tragic incident.”
Representatives for Reiner's family did not immediately respond to a request for comment and it wasn't immediately clear if Nick Reiner had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Nick Reiner has spoken publicly of his struggles with addiction. By 18, he had cycled in and out of treatment facilities with bouts of homelessness and relapses in between. Rob and Nick Reiner explored their difficult relationship and Nick Reiner's struggles with drugs in a semi-autobiographical 2016 film, “ Being Charlie.”
Rob and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead Sunday at their home in Los Angeles, and investigators believe they suffered stab wounds, the law enforcement official said.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30 p.m. and found a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman dead inside. Reiner turned 78 in March.
Detectives with the Robbery Homicide Division were investigating an “apparent homicide” at Reiner's home, said Capt. Mike Bland with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Los Angeles authorities have not confirmed the identities of the people found dead at the residence in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood on the city's west side that's home to many celebrities.
Reiner was long one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work included some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and '90s, including “This is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “The Princess Bride.”
His role as Meathead in Norman Lear's 1970s TV classic “All in the Family,” as a liberal foil to O'Connor's Archie Bunker, catapulted him to fame and won him two Emmy Awards.
The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner was married to photographer Michele Singer Reiner since 1989. The two met while he was directing “When Harry Met Sally” and had three children together: Nick, Jake and Romy.
Relatives of Lear, the legendary producer who died in 2023, said their deaths left them bereft.
“Norman often referred to Rob as a son, and their close relationship was extraordinary, to us and the world,” said a Lear family statement. “Norman would have wanted to remind us that Rob and Michele spent every breath trying to make this country a better place, and they pursued that through their art, their activism, their philanthropy, and their love for family and friends.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called it a devastating loss for the city.
“Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Bass said in a statement. “An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others.”
Reiner was previously married to actor-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981. He adopted her daughter, Tracy Reiner. Carl Reiner died in 2020 at age 98 and Marshall died in 2018.
Killings are rare in the Brentwood neighborhood. The scene is about a mile from the home where O.J. Simpson's wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were killed in 1994.
__
Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Ohio State defensive lineman Kayden McDonald (98) celebrates after recovering a fumble during an NCAA football game on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Champaign, Ill. (AP Photo/Melissa Tamez, File)
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) throws a pass during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Penn State , Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger, File)
Iowa offensive lineman Beau Stephens (70) looks to make a block during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Indiana, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025, in Iowa City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
Southern California wide receiver Makai Lemon, right, makes a catch while under pressure from Iowa defensive back Zach Lutmer during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
Navy defensive tackle Landon Robinson (96) celebrates with cornerback Phillip Hamilton (36) during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Army, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Daniel Kucin Jr., File)
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Four players from Ohio State are among 10 first-team picks from the Big Ten on The Associated Press All-America team released Monday, a group headed by repeat selection Caleb Downs of the Buckeyes and AP Player of the Year Fernando Mendoza of Indiana.
The AP has named an All-America team every year since 1925, and Notre Dame's two first-team picks this season increased its all-time lead to 87.
Downs, the Big Ten defensive player of the year, has made the first team each of his two seasons at Ohio State after landing on the second team as a freshman at Alabama in 2023. He is one of 12 players on the 27-man first team who did not start their careers at their current school. Downs is joined on the first team by fellow Buckeyes Jeremiah Smith, Kayden McDonald and Arvell Reese.
Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy over the weekend, led the top-ranked Hoosiers to a 13-0 record and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff after transferring from California. He has thrown a nation-leading 33 touchdown passes and is the catalyst of one of the most productive offenses in the country.
A total of 18 schools are represented on the first team, including seven of the 12 in the CFP.
Iowa has had at least one first-team player seven straight years and in 10 of the last 12. This is the fourth year in a row Miami, Notre Dame and Ohio State have had at least one.
Punter Cole Maynard gave Western Kentucky its first-ever first-team pick. Defensive lineman Landon Robinson is Navy's first since 1975 and kicker Kansei Matsuzawa is Hawaii's first since 1986.
Big Ten — 10
SEC — 6
Big 12 — 3
ACC — 1
Independent — 3
Conference USA — 2
American — 1
Mountain West — 1
___
The AP All-America team was selected by a panel of 52 college Top 25 poll voters.
Wide receiver —Makai Lemon, Southern California, junior, 5-11, 195, Los Angeles.
Wide receiver — Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State, sophomore, 6-3, 223, Miami Gardens, Florida.
Wide receiver — Skyler Bell, UConn, senior, 6-0, 185, New York, N.Y.
Tackle — Francis Mauigoa, Miami, junior, 6-6, 335,Ili'ili, American Samoa.
Tackle — Spencer Fano, Utah, junior, 6-6, 308, Spanish Fork, Utah.
Guard — Emmanuel Pregnon, Oregon, senior, 6-5, 318, Denver.
Guard — Beau Stephens, Iowa, senior, 6-5, 315, Blue Springs, Missouri.
Center — Logan Jones, Iowa, graduate, 6-3, 202, Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Tight end — Eli Stowers, Vanderbilt, graduate, 6-4, 235, Denton, Texas.
Quarterback — Fernando Mendoza, Indiana, junior, 6-5, 225, Miami.
Running back — Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame, junior, 6-0, 214, St. Louis.
Running back — Ahmad Hardy, Missouri, sophomore, 5-10, 210, Oma, Mississippi.
Kicker — Kansei Matsuzawa, Hawaii, senior, 6-2, 200, Tokyo.
All-purpose — KC Concepcion, Texas A&M, junior, 5-11, 190, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Edge rusher — David Bailey, Texas Tech, senior, 6-3, 250, Irvine, California.
Edge rusher — Cashius Howell, Texas A&M, senior, 6-2, 248, Kansas City, Missouri.
Interior lineman — Kayden McDonald, Ohio State, junior, 6-3, 326, Suwanee, Georgia.
Interior lineman — Landon Robinson, Navy, senior, 6-0, 287, Fairlawn, Ohio.
Linebacker — Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech, senior, 6-1, 235, Wichita Falls, Texas.
Linebacker — Arvell Reese, Ohio State, junior, 6-4, 243, Cleveland.
Linebacker — CJ Allen, Georgia, junior, 6-1, 235, Barnesville, Georgia.
Cornerback — Leonard Moore, Notre Dame, sophomore, 6-2, 195, Round Rock, Texas.
Cornerback — Mansoor Delane, LSU, senior, 6-0, 190, Silver Spring, Maryland.
Safety — Caleb Downs, Ohio State, junior, 6-0, 205, Hoschton, Georgia.
Safety — Bishop Fitzgerald, Southern California, senior, 5-11, 205, Woodbridge, Virginia.
Defensive back — Jakari Foster, Louisiana Tech, senior, 6-0, 211, Piedmont, Alabama.
Punter — Cole Maynard, Western Kentucky, senior, 6-1, 180, Mooresville, North Carolina.
Wide receiver — Carnell Tate, Ohio State, junior, 6-3, 195, Chicago.
Wide receiver — Malachi Toney, Miami, freshman, 5-11, 188, Liberty City, Florida.
Wide receiver — Danny Scudero, San Jose State, sophomore, 5-9, 174, San Jose, California.
Tackle — Kadyn Proctor, Alabama, junior, 6-7, 366, Des Moines, Iowa.
Tackle — Carter Smith, Indiana, junior, 6-5, 313, Powell, Ohio.
Guard — Olaivavega Ioane, Penn State, junior, 6-4, 323, Graham, Washington.
Guard — Ar'maj Reed-Adams, Texas A&M, graduate, 6-5, 325, Dallas.
Center – Jake Slaughter, Florida, senior, 6-4, 303, Sparr, Florida.
Tight end — Kenyon Sadiq, Oregon, junior, 6-3, 245, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Quarterback — Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt, graduate, 6-0, 207, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Running back — Emmett Johnson, Nebraska, junior, 5-11, 200, Minneapolis.
Running back — Kewan Lacy, Mississippi, sophomore, 5-11, 210, Dallas.
Kicker — Tate Sandell, Oklahoma, junior, 5-9, 182, Port Neches, Texas.
All-purpose — Wayne Knight, James Madison, junior, 5-7, 190, Smyrna, Delaware.
Edge rusher — Rueben Bain Jr., Miami, junior, 6-3, 270, Miami.
Edge rusher — John Henry Daley, Utah, sophomore, 6-4, 255, Alpine, Utah.
Interior lineman — A.J. Holmes Jr., Texas Tech, junior, 6-3, 300, Houston.
Interior lineman — Peter Woods, Clemson, junior, 6-3, 310, Alabaster, Alabama.
Linebacker — Sonny Syles, Ohio State, senior, 6-5, 243, Pickerington, Ohio.
Linebacker — Anthony Hill Jr., Texas, junior, 6-3, 238, Denton, Texas.
Linebacker — Red Murdock, Buffalo, graduate, 6-1, 240, Petersburg, Virginia.
Cornerback — D'Angelo Ponds, Indiana, junior, 5-9, 173, Miami.
Cornerback — Chris Johnson, San Diego State, senior, 6-0, 195, Eastvale, California.
Safety — Dillon Thieneman, Oregon, junior, 6-0, 205, Westfield, Indiana.
Safety — Louis Moore, Indiana, senior, 5-11, 200, Mesquite, Texas.
Defensive back — Hezekiah Masses, California, senior, 6-1, 185, Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Punter — Brett Thorson, Georgia, senior, 6-2, 235, Melbourne, Australia.
Wide receiver — Eric McAlister, TCU, senior, 6-3, 205, Azie, Texas.
Wide receiver — Chris Brazzell II, Tennessee, junior, 6-5, 200, Midland, Texas.
Wide receiver — Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State, junior, 6-2, 200, Allen, Texas.
Tackle — Keagen Trost, Missouri, graduate, 6-4, 316, Kankakee, Illinois.
Tackle — Brian Parker II, Duke, junior, 6-5, 305, Cincinnati.
Guard — Keylan Rutledge, Georgia Tech, senior, 6-4, 330, Royston, Georgia.
Guard — Evan Tengesdahl, Cincinnati, sophomore, 6-3, 320, Dayton, Ohio.
Center — Iapani Laloulu, Oregon, junior, 6-2, 329, Honolulu.
Tight end — Michael Trigg, Baylor, senior, 6-4, 240, Tampa, Florida.
Quarterback — Julian Sayin, Ohio State, redshirt freshman, 6-1, 208, Carlsbad, California.
Running back — Cam Cook, Jacksonville State, junior, 5-11, 200, Round Rock, Texas.
Running back — Kaytron Allen, Penn State, senior, 5-11, 219, Norfolk, Virginia.
Kicker — Aidan Birr, Georgia Tech, junior, 6-1, 205, Kennedale, Texas.
All-purpose — Jadarian Price, Notre Dame, junior, 5-11, 210, Denison, Texas.
Edge rusher — Caden Curry, Ohio State, senior, 6-3, 260, Greenwood, Indiana.
Edge rusher — Nadame Tucker, Western Michigan, senior, 6-3, 250, New York.
Interior lineman — Tyrique Tucker, Indiana, junior, 6-0, 302, Norfolk, Virginia.
Interior lineman — Lee Hunter, Texas Tech, senior, 6-4, 330, Mobile, Alabama.
Linebacker — Aiden Fisher, Indiana, senior, 6-1, 231, Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Linebacker — Caden Fordham, North Carolina State, graduate, 6-1, 230, Ponte Vedra, Florida.
Linebacker — Owen Long, Colorado State, sophomore, 6-2, 230, Whittier, California.
Cornerback — Avieon Terrell, Clemson, junior, 5-11, 180, Atlanta.
Cornerback — Treydan Stukes, Arizona, senior, 6-2, 200, Litchfield Park, Arizona.
Safety — Michael Taaffe, Texas, senior, 6-0, 189, Austin, Texas.
Safety — Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, Toledo, senior, 6-2, 202, Tampa, Florida.
Defensive back — Bray Hubbard, Alabama, junior, 6-2, 213, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Punter — Ryan Eckley, Michigan State, junior, 6-2, 207, Lithia, Florida.
___
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During forensic testimony, Saman Saleem, a DNA unit supervisor, confirmed that testing revealed Ana Walshe's single-source DNA on the alleged murder weapons recovered from the trash. (Credit: Pool)
Jurors have convicted Brian Walshe of murdering his wife, Ana, after she disappeared on New Year's Day in 2023.
The decision was reached Monday morning after jurors began deliberating on Friday.
Brian's lawyers rested their case on Thursday morning without calling him to the stand. He previously pleaded guilty to lying to police officers after Ana disappeared and improperly disposing of her body, but he denied killing her. Sentencing for Walshe has been set for Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Brian killed his wife before disposing of her remains. He made a series of incriminating internet searches on Jan. 1, 2023, they said, which included "how long for someone to be missing to inherit," "best way to dispose of a body" and "best way to dispose of body parts after a murder."
BRIAN WALSHE DECLINES TO TESTIFY AT MURDER TRIAL AS HE'S ACCUSED OF DESTROYING DAD'S WILL BEFORE MURDER CASE
Brian Walshe appears at Quincy District Court on a charge of murdering his wife Ana Walshe, in Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S. on January 18, 2023. (Ana Walshe, Craig F. Walker/Pool via REUTERS)
Larry Tipton, Brian's attorney, said during closing arguments that his client "loved Ana Walshe, the mother of his three children."
"There's no evidence that he deliberately premeditated the murder. There's no evidence that he ever intended to kill Ana Walshe. None whatsoever. Brian Walshe is not guilty. He's not guilty," he said on Friday during closing arguments.
Assistant Norfolk County DA Anne Yas, however, said that Brian murdered Ana then hid her body to hide the crime.
"Ana Walshe is dead because he murdered her and he intended her death. And Walshe was not missing," Yas said. "Dying a sudden death from natural causes defies common sense. She was in great shape."
BRIAN WALSHE TOLD COPS HIS MISSING WIFE LEFT FOR A FLIGHT ON JAN 1, JETBLUE RECORDS KEEPER SAYS OTHERWISE
Brian Walshe arrives at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
Brian Walshe enters the courtroom clutching papers and a rosary during his murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Dedham, Mass., Dec. 1, 2025. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
On Tuesday, a forensic scientist testified that DNA consistent with Ana's profile was found on a hatchet and hacksaw recovered from the trash.
Saman Saleem, a DNA unit supervisor at the state police crime lab, also said that several items found at a Peabody, Massachusetts, trash collection site also had Ana's DNA on it, which included pieces of a rug, a Tyvek suit, unknown tissue and slippers.
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Brian Walshe is seen on surveillance camera at Lowe's in Danvers on Jan. 1. 2023 with a shopping list buying $463.26 in goods, including cleaning supplies. This evidence was presented in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
Brian Walshe is seen via surveillance camera at Lowe's in Danvers on Jan. 1. 2023, where he bought cleaning supplies, among other goods. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
Brian's wife had a $2.7 million life insurance policy which he was the beneficiary of, court records show. He owed nearly $500,000 in restitution for his federal case.
Fox News Digital's Michael Ruiz and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
Adam Sabes is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Adam.Sabes@fox.com and on Twitter @asabes10.
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Former Vice President Kamala thanked her supporters Friday at the Democratic National Committee's annual winter meeting for "standing up for our democracy" and "the rule of law."
It appears to be game on in the race for the next Democratic presidential nomination, as two of the party's most high-profile politicians, who are considered potential top-tier 2028 contenders, stirred more speculation at a major Democratic Party summit.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats' 2024 standard-bearer after then-President Joe Biden exited the race, showcased an edgier stump speech as she railed against both major parties and the political status quo in an address at the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) winter meeting this past weekend.
And California Gov. Gavin Newsom landed the red carpet treatment, as he mingled with delegates during the opening day of the DNC's confab, which was held this year in Los Angeles, home turf to both Harris and Newsom.
The main focus for the hundreds of committee members and party officials who attended the summit was reviewing the party's decisive victories in last month's 2025 elections and better than expected performances in this year's special elections, and training sessions to prepare for next year's crucial midterm contests.
21 DEMOCRATS WHO MAY RUN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2028
Former Vice President Kamala, seen speaking at an event in San Francisco in April, delivered a major address on Friday at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, which was held in Los Angeles. (Camille Cohen/AFP via Getty Images)
But with the unofficial start of the next White House race less than a year away, and what's likely to be a bruising battle among Democrats over the party's presidential nominating calendar getting underway, 2028 was also in the spotlight.
"Obviously, we must focus on the midterms," Harris said in her Friday speech. "But Democrats, we must also have a clear vision for what comes after the midterms. And then after Trump. We need to answer the question. We need to answer the question: what comes next for our party and our democracy?"
Harris argued that "both parties have failed to hold the public's trust" and that "people are done with the status quo, and they're ready to break things to force change."
2028 LOOMS LARGE: HARRIS, NEWSOM, PRITZKER CONVERGE AT MAJOR DNC MEETING
And Harris, who was swept by President Donald Trump in all key battleground states in the 2024 election, said that Trump is representative of a bigger problem plaguing the nation's politics.
"He and the rise of the MAGA movement, I believe, are a symptom of a failed system that is the result of years of outsourcing and offshoring, financial deregulation, growing income inequality, a broken campaign finance system and endless partisan gridlock all contributing to how we got here today," she emphasized.
"The vice president received a very warm and enthusiastic reception," a committee member told Fox News Digital.
And when she alluded to who would be in contention for the 2028 nomination, some in the room shouted, "You."
According to those in the room, Harris also landed a warm welcome less than 24 hours earlier as she spoke at the United Farm Workers annual gala.
Expect to see more of Harris in the new year, helping Democrats from coast to coast as the party works to win back congressional majorities in the midterms.
And Harris has added more 2026 stops to her book tour promoting "107 Days," her reflections on her abbreviated 2024 presidential campaign. Among the stops is one in South Carolina, a crucial early-voting primary state in the Democratic Party's presidential nominating calendar.
SUCCEEDING TRUMP IN 2028: SIX REPUBLICANS TO KEEP YOUR EYES ON
While Newsom didn't address the delegates at Friday's general session, he was treated like a VIP on Thursday as he held meetings and mingled with delegates during the opening day of the winter meeting.
A DNC committee member who witnessed the commotion told Fox News Digital, "Newsom received a rock star reception as he was mobbed by party leaders and activists alike while he attempted to walk from meeting to meeting."
Newsom on Thursday met with the Democratic Party chairs from New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state, and Nevada, another crucial early voting state.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, seen speaking at the 2025 New York Times DealBook Summit in New York City on Dec. 3, enjoyed a very warm reception as he held meetings at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, on Thursday in Los Angeles. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
"We had a great discussion on a wide range of issues," longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told Fox News Digital.
Newsom's stature in his own party has soared this year, thanks to his very vocal and visual pushback against the president, including his viral social media trolling of Trump and his successful California push to counter the Republican congressional redistricting effort.
"Newsom has shown an ability to stand up to Trump in a bold and highly effective manner without shying away from core democratic values," veteran Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo told Fox News Digital.
While both Newsom and Harris made a splash at the DNC winter meeting, they both have plenty of detractors who worry that neither would be electable in 2028 when the Democrats try to win back the White House.
And if one or both of them launch presidential campaigns, they'll likely be joined by a large crowd of other contenders.
One of those possible White House hopefuls is Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who was also making the rounds during the opening day of the DNC meeting.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, seen attending a Veterans Day ceremony in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on Nov. 11, 2025, held a major fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, on the sidlelines of its winter meeting, in Los Angeles on Thursday. (Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital confirmed that the billionaire governor helped raise over $1 million for the DNC at a fundraiser Thursday night.
A DNC insider said the appearances by Harris, Newsom and Pritzker gave "them an opportunity to start honing in on a winning message for Democrats in 2028."
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There are more than a dozen other Democrats thought to be potential 2028 White House contenders. And most of them have also been paying visits to the early voting states, as well as parachuting onto the 2025 campaign trail.
Among them are Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan; Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut; progressive superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, another leading progressive; and two moderate Democrats, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former Chicago mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast."
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Federal authorities disrupted what the Justice Department described as a “massive and horrific” terrorist plot targeting Los Angeles on New Year's Eve, arresting multiple alleged members of a left-wing extremist group accused of planning coordinated bombings across Southern California.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Monday that the DOJ, working with the FBI, prevented a series of planned attacks by a group that calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front, which officials characterized as pro-Palestinian, anti-government, anti-capitalist, and hostile toward law enforcement.
After an intense investigation, the Department of Justice, working with our @FBI, prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California (Orange County and Los Angeles).The Turtle Island Liberation Front—a far-left,…
“After an intense investigation, the Department of Justice, working with our FBI, prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California,” Bondi said in a statement posted to X. She added that the group planned bombings beginning on New Year's Eve and intended to target Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles.
According to federal authorities, four alleged members of the group were arrested over the weekend in Lucerne Valley, a desert area northeast of Los Angeles, where authorities believe they were preparing to test improvised explosive devices ahead of the planned attacks. Each of the four members has been charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device.
The suspects identified themselves as part of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front and were allegedly plotting coordinated IED attacks on five separate locations in Los Angeles. Bondi described the group as motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government ideology.
Federal authorities said on Monday that a fifth individual believed to be connected to the same extremist network was arrested in New Orleans, according to Fox News. That suspect is accused of planning a separate attack and faces related federal charges, according to the FBI.
Public social media posts linked to the Turtle Island Liberation Front reflect the group's ideological framework. An Instagram account attributed to the groups says its founding chapter is based in Los Angeles and calls for the liberation of “Turtle Island,” an Indigenous term often used to describe North America, from what it describes as the “illegal American empire.”
“Free Palestine. Free Hawaii. Free Puerto Rico,” the account says. Other posts feature images of masked demonstrators wearing keffiyehs and holding signs that say “DEATH TO ICE!!!” and denounce U.S. law enforcement and capitalism.
A post shared by Turtle Island Liberation Front (@turtleislandliberationfrontla)
One post declares that “freeing the world from American imperialism is the only way to a safe and peaceful future.”
Bondi praised the work of federal prosecutors and investigators in stopping the alleged plot before it could be carried out, calling the operation an example of aggressive counterterrorism enforcement.
“This was an incredible effort by our U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the FBI to ensure Americans can live in peace,” she said. “We will continue to pursue these terror groups and bring them to justice.”
FBI HUNTING MORE THAN 350 PEOPLE IN ‘764' CRIME NETWORK TARGETING CHILDREN
Federal authorities said additional charges or arrests are possible as the investigation continues.
The Washington Examiner contacted the FBI field offices in Los Angeles and New Orleans.
Day 15 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar
Day 15 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Turbulent Lagoon. Back in 2018, to celebrate its 28th anniversary in space, scientists pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at the Lagoon Nebula, a roiling cloud of gas and dust about 4,000 light-years away, to capture this image, which shows just a small section of a much larger star-forming region.
See the full advent calendar here, where a new image will be revealed each day until December 25.
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Film director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their California home this weekend, sparking many questions.
Nick Reiner, the couple's 32-year-old son, was arrested on Sunday and is being held on a felony charge with a $4 million bail, according to Los Angeles Police Department jail records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
The couple's son had spoken to the media in the past about his struggles with drug addiction, which he said made him drift from his home. He has also said he spent stretches of his life homeless.
The entertainment industry was stunned, as the Reiners' Brentwood home is in a wealthy area where many celebrities live. It's also the same area where O.J. Simpson was charged with murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Here's what we know about the incident so far.
Police found two bodies at the Reiners' home around 3:40 p.m. on Sunday after responding to a death investigation. The LAPD called the couple's death an “apparent homicide.”
Authorities blocked off the street with yellow tape as police cars and news vans crowded around the Reiners' home.
Deputy LAPD Chief Alan Hamilton said authorities were trying to obtain a search warrant for the home. The victims were not initially identified, but Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass confirmed the couple's deaths. Reiner was 78, and Singer Reiner was 68.
“This is a devastating loss for our city and our country,” Bass wrote on X. “Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice.”
A family member found the couple with their throats cut, TMZ reported, and told police a different family member murdered them.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” the family said in a statement. “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
Hamilton said the LAPD will speak to each family member to gather more information on what transpired.
Several major Democrats also mourned Reiner, a large donor to liberal causes.
Former President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and former Vice President Kamala Harris expressed their sorrow on social media.
Reiner donated to Democrats as recently as last year, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. He backed Harris in the 2024 presidential election and contributed more than $12,000 to her campaign. His largest donations came in 2020, when he backed former President Joe Biden with more than $100,000 in donations.
He also supported Obama in 2012 with a $40,000 donation.
“Michelle and I are heartbroken by the tragic passing of Rob Reiner and his beloved wife, Michele,” Obama wrote on X.
“Rob's achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen,” he added. “But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people—and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action.”
Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, said they are “heartbroken by the tragic loss of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner,” with the governor adding, “Rob will be remembered for his remarkable filmography and for his extraordinary contribution to humanity.”
Harris, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, said Reiner “has impacted generations of Americans.”
“The characters, dialogue, and visuals he brought to life in film and television are woven throughout our culture,” she wrote on X. “Rob loved our country, cared deeply about the future of our nation, and fought for America's democracy.”
Reiner directed entertainment hits in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Stand by Me, This Is Spinal Tap, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride.
He earned nominations at the Golden Globe Awards for three of those movies, as well as one for 1995's The American President. Reiner never won a Golden Globe but was widely acclaimed as a star director.
The Los Angeles Times described his work as having an “astonishing versatility,” as he directed everything from an intense courtroom drama to a romantic comedy.
Reiner also worked as an actor, making his mark as Mike “Meathead” Stivic on CBS's All in the Family, which ran from 1971 to 1979. He earned two Emmys for his performance as Stivic.
Among his most notable recent acting roles was a supporting part in 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese.
ROB REINER AND WIFE FOUND DEAD INSIDE LOS ANGELES HOME
He met his wife while directing When Harry Met Sally, and the couple married in 1989. Reiner said meeting his wife inspired him to change the ending of the movie so that the main characters end up together. They had three children.
Singer Reiner worked as a photographer, producer, and actress on some of her husband's projects and was nominated for an Emmy for his 2024 documentary, Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.
President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that film director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, died because of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The couple was found dead on Sunday in what police are calling an “apparent homicide.” Nick Reiner, the couple's 32-year-old son, was arrested on Sunday and is being held on a felony charge with a $4 million bail, according to LAPD jail records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. He had spoken to the media in the past about his struggles with drug addiction and said it made him drift from his home. He has also told interviewers that he spent stretches of his life homeless.
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”
Trump often says his opponents are afflicted with “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” an ailment once defined by Urban Dictionary as a “mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason.”
“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession with President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before,” Trump concluded. “May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
Reiner, a prominent Democratic donor, expressed fierce opposition to Trump online and deleted his X account following the 2024 election. He told the Daily Beast in September that Trump “doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.”
Reiner also compared Trump to a “zombie or a cockroach” during his 2024 presidential election campaign.
Trump's Truth Social post triggered negative reactions from across the political spectrum.
“Remember when people were cancelled for not expressing the proper Official Emotions of Grief for Charlie Kirk? Yeah, me too. In related news, Trump's grave will reek of ammonia for all eternity,” Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson wrote on X.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) called the president out for his social media post, suggesting it was in poor taste.
MAJOR DEMOCRATIC DONOR ROB REINER AND WIFE FOUND DEAD IN HOME: WHAT WE KNOW
“Rob Reiner and his wife were tragically killed at the hands of their own son, who reportedly had drug addiction and other issues, and their remaining children are left in serious mourning and heartbreak. This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” Greene wrote on X, adding that the situation “should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”
Massie had stronger words for the president: “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the [vice president], and White House staff will just ignore it because they're afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Officials in Providence, Rhode Island say they will release a person of interest detained in a Brown University shooting that killed two students and injured nine. Officials made the disclosure at a hastily convened news conference on Sunday night, more than 12 hours after revealing that they had detained a person in connection with the attack.
Crowds gathered at a Providence park Sunday evening to honor the victims of shooting at Brown University. (AP video shot by: Amanda Swinhart)
Dramatic footage showed students hunkered down in a room at Brown University before police arrived to escort them out of the building following a deadly shooting on Saturday.
People hold candles during a vigil, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., for those injured or killed during the Saturday shooting on Brown University campus. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Providence and Brown University community members gather during a vigil at Lippitt Memorial Park, a day after a shooting occurred on Brown University campus. Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Passers-by walk past crime scene tape at an entrance to Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following the Saturday, Dec. 13, shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A bouquet of flowers rests on snow, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, on the campus of Brown University not far from where a shooting took place, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A police vehicle is parked at an intersection near crime scene tape at Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a Saturday shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police renewed their search Monday for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, a day after they released a person of interest after determining the evidence pointed in a different direction.
Officials announced the man's release at news conference late Sunday, marking a setback in the investigation of Saturday's attack on the Ivy League school's campus. It also added to mounting questions about the shooting and investigation, including an apparent lack of video evidence and whether the focus on the person of interest might have given the killer more time to escape justice.
Providence residents and students were relieved early Sunday when officials announced they had detained a man at a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the attack and lifted a lockdown. But that relief was short-lived, as Mayor Brett Smiley said hours later that investigators didn't know whether the gunman was still in the area.
Colin Moussette, who has friends at Brown and is considering enrolling next fall, said he felt uneasy knowing that the suspect has not been caught.
“How someone got away, like in the middle of the day is, to me, not only heartbreaking but very concerning,” he said while visiting the campus Monday. “How they got access to the building is concerning.”
The last known sighting of the gunman was minutes after shooting. Authorities released a short clip of video of the suspect walking away from the scene, but his face wasn't visible.
The release of the person of interest left law enforcement without a known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble their efforts by asking neighborhood residents and businesses for video surveillance that might help identify the attacker.
“We have a murderer out there,” state Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
Authorities said Sunday that one of the reasons they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown's engineering building doesn't have many cameras.
The mayor said there have been no credible threats of further violence since the shooting, and the city's schools were open Monday.
Colleges and universities, including in the Providence and some Ivy League schools, are increasing security in the wake of the shootings. Yale said extra security would also be in place for Hanukkah celebrations.
On Sunday morning, officials took into custody a person of interest at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Providence. Two people familiar with the matter identified that individual as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin, though authorities never released his name.
“I've been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another, and that's exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,” Neronha said.
He said there was some evidence that pointed to the man authorities detained, but “that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed. And over the last 24 hours leading into just very, very recently, that evidence now points in a different direction.”
“Right now, we don't have any evidence to suggest that it was more than that individual,” Smiley said Monday on ABC's “Good Morning America.”
Despite an enhanced police presence at Brown, officials are not recommending another shelter-in-place order like the one that followed the Saturday afternoon shooting, when hundreds of officers searched for the attacker and urged students and staff to remain indoors.
The shooting occurred as final exams were underway at Brown, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious schools.
The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, getting off more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told AP. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom.
The attack set off hours of chaos on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods, as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter. During the lockdown, which wasn't lifted until Sunday, after the person of interest was taken into custody, many students barricaded there rooms and hid behind furniture and bookshelves.
One of the nine wounded students has been released from the hospital, Paxson said Sunday. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.
The mayor said he visited some wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope and gratitude. “The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” Smiley said.
___
Contributing were Associated Press journalists Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Holly Ramer and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire; Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington.
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FIRST ON FOX — Federal authorities say they disrupted a credible terrorist threat over the weekend, arresting four alleged members of a radical pro-Palestinian extremist group accused of planning coordinated New Year's Eve bombings in Los Angeles.
The FBI told Fox News Digital that the members self-identified as part of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), an extremist group motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government ideology.
According to the FBI, they were allegedly planning coordinated bombing attacks on New Year's Eve using improvised explosive devices, targeting five separate locations across Los Angeles.
The agency said the four were arrested in Lucerne Valley, where they were believed to be preparing to test explosive devices ahead of the planned attacks. They have each been charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device.
FBI INVESTIGATING MORE THAN 350 SUBJECTS TIED TO VIOLENT ONLINE ‘764' NETWORK
A break in the weather offers a clear view north along Avalon Boulevard in South Los Angeles on Nov. 9, 2022, after a record-setting storm swept through the region. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The FBI said Monday that a fifth individual believed to be connected to the same TILF extremist group was arrested in New Orleans for allegedly planning a separate attack.
FBI NABS 2 MEN FOR ALLEGEDLY PLACING INCENDIARY DEVICE UNDER FOX AFFILIATE NEWS VEHICLE
A TILF Instagram account said its founding chapter is in Los Angeles, and its goal is to free "Turtle Island," an Indigenous name used to refer to North America, from the "illegal American empire."
"Free Palestine. Free Hawaii. Free Puerto Rico," the account posted. "Freeing the world from American imperialism is the only way to a safe and peaceful future," it continued.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X that the Department of Justice worked with the FBI to prevent the alleged terror plot in the Central District of California.
She said TILF was also planning to target United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles.
The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, home to the FBI headquarters, is seen on June 9, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
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"This was an incredible effort by our U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the FBI to ensure Americans can live in peace," Bondi wrote. "We will continue to pursue these terror groups and bring them to justice."
Ashley Carnahan is a writer at Fox News Digital.
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Actor, director and activist Rob Reiner has died at age 78. Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were found dead Sunday afternoon in their home in Los Angeles, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. Authorities were investigating it as an “apparent homicide.” Reiner was an actor and director, helming films like “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride. (Dec. 15)
Director-actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were the two people found dead Sunday at a Los Angeles home owned by Reiner, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
Writer-director Rob Reiner poses for a portrait, May 2, 2016, in New York. (Photo by Brian Ach/Invision/AP, File)
Carl Reiner, left, and his son Rob Reiner pose together following their hand and footprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre, April 7, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
Sally Struthers plants a kiss on the cheek of Rob Reiner, right, Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton hold hands during a reunion of the cast of “All in the Family,” at O'Conner restaurant, Feb. 12, 1991, in Beverly Hill, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Martinez, File)
Rob Reiner talks on the phone at his office at Castle Rock Enterprises, seeking donations for anti-smoking campaigns, July 29, 1988, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
Rob Reiner arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards, in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
Actor and director Rob Reiner, center, poses for photographs while stumping along with actor Martin Sheen, not seen, for Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, Jan. 14, 2004, at the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. (Rick Chase/The Courier via AP, File)
Rob Reiner, the son of a comedy giant who became one himself as one of the preeminent filmmakers of his generation with movies such as “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally …” and “This Is Spinal Tap,” has died. He was 78.
Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found fatally stabbed Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Department on Monday arrested the Reiners' 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, and booked him on suspicion of killing his parents.
It was a tragic, shocking end to a life and career that began with a complicated father-son relationship. Reiner grew up thinking his father, the legendary funnyman Carl Reiner, didn't understand him or find him funny. But the younger Reiner would in many ways follow in his father's footsteps, working both in front and behind the camera, in comedies that stretched from broad sketch work to accomplished dramedies.
“My father thought, ‘Oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of a famous father,'” Reiner told “60 Minutes” in October, recalling the temptation to change his name. “And he says, ‘What do you want to change your name to?' And I said, ‘Carl.' I just wanted to be like him.”
After starting out as a writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” Reiner's breakthrough came when he was, at age 23, cast in Norman Lear's “All in the Family” as Archie Bunker's liberal son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic. But by the 1980s, Reiner began as a feature film director, churning out some of the most beloved films of that, or any, era. His first film, the largely improvised 1984 cult classic “This Is Spinal Tap,” remains the quintessential mockumentary.
After the 1985 John Cusack summer comedy, “The Sure Thing,” Reiner made “Stand By Me” (1986), “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “When Harry Met Sally …” (1989), a four-year stretch that resulted in a trio of American classics, all of them among the most often quoted movies of the 20th century.
Rob Reiner arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards, in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
For the next four decades, Reiner, a warm and gregarious presence on screen and an outspoken liberal advocate off it, remained a constant fixture in Hollywood. The production company he co-founded, Castle Rock Entertainment, launched an enviable string of hits, including “Seinfeld” and “The Shawshank Redemption.” By the turn of the century, its success rate had fallen considerably, but Reiner revived it, and this fall released the long-in-coming sequel “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”
All the while, Reiner was one of the film industry's most passionate Democrat activists, regularly hosting fundraisers and campaigning for liberal issues. He was co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which challenged in court California's ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8. He also chaired the campaign for Prop 10, a California initiative to fund early childhood development services with a tax on tobacco products. And Reiner was an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump.
“Beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people — and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement.
Political engagement ran in the family, too. Reiner's father opposed the Communist hunt of McCarthyism in the 1950s and his mother, Estelle Reiner, a singer and actor, protested the Vietnam War.
“If you're a nepo baby, doors will open,” Reiner told the Guardian in 2024. “But you have to deliver. If you don't deliver, the door will close just as fast as it opened.”
Robert Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 6, 1947. As a young man, he quickly set out to follow his father into entertainment. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles film school and, in the 1960s, began appearing in small parts in various television shows.
Carl Reiner, left, and his son Rob Reiner pose together following their hand and footprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre, April 7, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
But when Lear saw Reiner as a key cast member in “All in the Family,” it came as a surprise to the elder Reiner.
“Norman says to my dad, ‘You know, this kid is really funny.' And I think my dad said, ‘What? That kid? That kid? He's sullen. He sits quiet. He doesn't, you know, he's not funny.' He didn't think I was anyway,” Reiner told “60 Minutes.”
On “All in the Family,” Reiner served as a pivotal foil to Carroll O'Connor's bigoted, conservative Archie Bunker. Reiner was seven times nominated for an Emmy for his performance on the show, winning in 1974 and 1978. In Lear, Reiner also found a mentor. He called him “a second father.”
“It wasn't just that he hired me for ‘All in the Family,'” Reiner told “American Masters” in 2005. “It was that I saw, in how he conducted his life, that there was room to be an activist as well. That you could use your celebrity, your good fortune, to help make some change.”
Lear also helped launch Reiner as a filmmaker. He put $7.5 million of his own money to help finance “Stand By Me,” Reiner's adaptation of the Stephen King novella “The Body.” The movie, about four boys who go looking for the dead body of a missing boy, became a coming-of-age classic, made breakthroughs of its young cast (particularly River Phoenix) and even earned the praise of King.
“Rest in peace, Rob,” King said Monday on X. “You always stood by me.”
With his stock rising, Reiner devoted himself to adapting William Goldman's 1973's “The Princess Bride,” a book Reiner had loved since his father gave him a copy as a gift. Everyone from François Truffaut to Robert Redford had considered adapting Goldman's book. It ultimately fell to Reiner (from Goldman's own script) to capture the unique comic tone of “The Princess Bride.” But only once he had Goldman's blessing.
“At the door he greeted me and he said, ‘This is my baby. I want this on my tombstone. This is my favorite thing I've ever written in my life. What are you going to do with it?'” Reiner recalled in a Television Academy interview. “And we sat down with him and started going through what I thought should be done with the film.”
Actor and director Rob Reiner, center, poses for photographs while stumping along with actor Martin Sheen, not seen, for Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, Jan. 14, 2004, at the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. (Rick Chase/The Courier via AP, File)
Though only a modest success in theaters, the movie — starring Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, André the Giant and Robin Wright — would grow in stature over the years, leading to countless impressions of Inigo Montoya's vow of revenge and the risky nature of land wars in Asia.
Reiner was married to Penny Marshall, the actor and filmmaker, for 10 years beginning in 1971. Like Reiner, Marshall experienced sitcom fame, with “Laverne & Shirley,” but found a more lasting legacy behind the camera.
After their divorce, Reiner, at a lunch with Nora Ephron, suggested a comedy about dating. In writing what became “When Harry Met Sally …” Ephron and Reiner charted a relationship between a man and a woman (played in the film by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) over the course of 12 years.
Along the way, the movie's ending changed, as did some of the film's indelible moments. The famous line, “I'll have what she's having,” said after witnessing Ryan's fake orgasm at Katz's Delicatessen, was a suggestion by Crystal — delivered by none other than Reiner's mother, Estelle.
The movie's happy ending also had some real-life basis. Reiner met Michele Singer, a photographer, on the set of “When Harry Met Sally …” In 1989, they were wed. They had three children together: Nick, Jake and Romy.
Reiner's subsequent films included another King adaptation, “Misery” (1990) and a pair of Aaron Sorkin-penned dramas: the military courtroom tale “A Few Good Men” (1992) and 1995's “The American President.”
By the late '90s, Reiner's films (1996's “Ghosts of Mississippi,” 2007's “The Bucket List”) no longer had the same success rate. But he remained a frequent actor, often memorably enlivening films like “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) and “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013). In 2023, he directed the documentary “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.”
In an interview earlier this year with Seth Rogen, Reiner suggested everything in his career boiled down to one thing.
“All I've ever done is say, ‘Is this something that is an extension of me?' For ‘Stand by Me,' I didn't know if it was going to be successful or not. All I thought was, ‘I like this because I know what it feels like.'”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2025 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.
In 2024, Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations California chapter, said the organization was expanding into political work to challenge AIPAC. (Credit: MEMRI TV)
FIRST ON FOX: A Senate Republican wants to nix the tax-exempt status of a national Muslim advocacy group that both Texas and Florida have designated as a terrorist organization.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, intends to introduce legislation that would remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) tax-exempt status. Currently, an organization's tax-exempt status is suspended if it is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.
Cornyn's bill would lump CAIR in with designated federal terrorist organizations, like Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, by extending that prohibition to include groups that provide material support or resources, such as finances, services or training to a terrorist organization.
TEXAS GOV ABBOTT DECLARES CAIR, MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AS TERRORIST GROUPS, PREVENTING LAND PURCHASES
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wants to remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations' tax-exempt status in the wake of Texas and Florida designating the group a terrorist organization. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The Texas Republican said in a statement to Fox News Digital he was moving ahead with the legislation, "because no organization who bankrolls terrorists should get a tax break, period."
"CAIR is a radical group of terrorist sympathizers with a long history of undermining American values and trying to unconstitutionally impose Sharia law on Texas, which is why I stand behind Gov. Abbott's decision to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization," he said. "I also call on President Trump to do so at the federal level to ensure this breeding ground for anti-American hate is starved of funding and forced to close its doors once and for all."
Cornyn's bid to revoke the organization's tax-exempt status comes after both the governors of Texas and Florida designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations earlier this year. CAIR has long argued that it is not connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is affiliated with offshoot federally designated terrorist organizations, like Hamas.
COTTON CALLS ON IRS TO PULL MUSLIM ADVOCACY GROUP'S NONPROFIT STATUS
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott arrives during a press conference for Eli Lilly and Company in Houston, Sept. 23, 2025. (Antranik Tavitian/Reuters)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took executive action last month to prevent the organizations from "acquiring any real property interest in Texas."
His proclamation charged that "CAIR and its members have repeatedly employed, affiliated with, and supported individuals promoting terrorism-related activities," and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered the organization a "front group" for Hamas.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis similarly ordered that all Florida agencies "undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support."
MUSLIM GROUPS, OTHER LEADERS DEMAND ABBOTT RESCIND CAIR'S ‘TERRORIST' DESIGNATION: 'DEFAMATORY'
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on AI in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Dec. 11, 2025. (Al Drago/Reuters)
Neither CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) at the federal level by the State Department.
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However, President Donald Trump, in an executive order late last month, ordered that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent determine which chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, be designated as FTOs and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
Fox News Digital did not immediately hear back from CAIR for comment on Cornyn's legislation.
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
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FILE -California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a session at the We Mean Business Pavilion during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fight over California's new congressional map designed to help Democrats flip congressional House seats will go to court Monday as a panel of federal judges considers whether the district boundaries approved by voters last month can be used in elections.
The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. The lawsuit asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order by Dec. 19 — the date candidates can take the first official steps to run in the 2026 election.
Voters approved California's new U.S. House map in November through Proposition 50. It's designed to help Democrats flip as many as five congressional House seats in the midterm elections next year. It was Newsom's response to a Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump.
The redistricting showdown between the nation's two most populous states has spread nationally, with efforts aiming to determine which party controls Congress for the second half of Trump's term. Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have adopted new district lines that could provide a partisan advantage.
Some plans are facing legal challenges, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to allow Texas to use its new map for the 2026 election. The Justice Department has only sued California.
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The U.S. Justice Department, joining a case brought by the California Republican Party, has accused California of gerrymandering its map in violation of the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters. Republicans want the court to prohibit California from using the new map. Voters approved the map for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. State Democrats said they're confident the lawsuit will fail.
“In letting Texas use its gerrymandered maps, the Supreme Court noted that California's maps, like Texas's, were drawn for lawful reasons,” Newsom's spokesperson Brandon Richards said in a statement. “That should be the beginning and the end of this Republican effort to silence the voters of California.”
New U.S. House maps are drawn across the country after the Census every 10 years. Some states like California rely on an independent commission to draw maps, while others like Texas let politicians draw them. The effort to create new maps in the middle of the decade is highly unusual.
Paul Mitchell, a redistricting consultant who drew the map for Democrats, is expected to offer testimony. The Justice Department alleges that Mitchell and state leaders admitted that they redrew some districts to have a Latino majority.
The lawsuit cites a news release from state Democrats that says the new map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters” while making no changes to Black majority districts in the Oakland and Los Angeles areas. The federal Voting Rights Act, passed in the 1960s, sets rules for drawing districts to ensure minority groups have adequate political power. The lawsuit also cites a Cal Poly Pomona and Caltech study that concludes the new map would increase Latino voting power.
“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California's pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California's congressional district lines,” the lawsuit said.
House Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to take control of the chamber, which would imperil Trump's agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans hold 219 seats, to Democrats' 214.
_____
Nguyễn reported from Sacramento.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
A jury in Dedham, Massachusetts, convicted Brian Walshe of first-degree murder Monday morning in the 2023 killing of his wife, Ana Walshe, whose body was never found.
The panel deliberated for around six hours before returning its decision. Walshe is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole – the mandatory punishment for first-degree murder in Massachusetts.
Walshe had no visible reaction when the verdict was read. He had no comment as he was led out of the courthouse in handcuffs and shackles.
Walshe was accused of killing his wife, Ana, on January 1, 2023, hours after ringing in the new year and with their three young children still in the house. Prosecutors said Walshe dismembered her body and disposed of her remains in area dumpsters near their home in Cohasset, Massachusetts.
Before the trial, Walshe pleaded guilty to misleading police and illegally disposing of his wife's body, so he's expected to face additional prison time for those convictions.
The jurors had to believe the murder was deliberately premeditated to convict Walshe of first-degree murder, the most serious homicide charge available in Massachusetts.
Brian Walshe faces a first-degree murder charge, but the jury can convict him of a less severe homicide charge. Here's why
Walshe now faces up to 20 years for misleading police – an enhancement triggered by the murder conviction – and can be sentenced to another three years for pleading guilty to the illegal conveyance of a body.
Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey thanked the jury for their work on “a very difficult case” and “an incredible effort” on the journey to a conviction in a news conference after the verdict.
“It's not about winning or losing, it's about getting the right answer. And this was the right answer,” Morrissey said.
While the family of Ana Walshe hasn't publicly shared a statement following the verdict, her sister told Morrissey, “Justice has been served.”
Walshe has denied killing his wife, and his attorneys have said he found her inexplicably dead in their bed that morning.
Ana Walshe, 39, wasn't reported missing until January 4, 2023, when Brian Walshe called her employer in Washington, DC, where she worked and lived part time. Walshe told investigators he hadn't seen his wife since New Year's Day, when he said she left around 6 a.m. to travel back to DC to handle a work emergency.
The prosecution called about 50 witnesses over eight days, including two of Ana's close friends and others who described their interactions with her in the final days of her life. Walshe ultimately chose not to testify, and the defense rested its case without presenting any evidence.
The attorneys for Walshe and the commonwealth gave their closing arguments Friday morning before the jury received the case.
The commonwealth did not offer the jury a theory of how Walshe killed his wife, but prosecutors say it's fair to infer she met a violent death in her family home.
During deliberations Friday, the jury sent a note asking to see a photo of Ana Walshe lying on a rug in the living room of their Cohasset home that prosecutors had submitted as trial evidence.
Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Anne Yas in her closing argument pointed to that rug as evidence of the murder: Investigators recovered pieces of a rug from a dumpster at the apartment complex where Brian Walshe's mother lived. The rug was cut up and covered in Ana's blood, prosecutors say, with a piece of necklace stuck in the fibers.
The commonwealth asserts the bloody rug is the same rug in the photo of Ana before her death. Prosecutors say Brian Walshe threw away that rug, which was covered in blood, and bought a new one at HomeGoods on January 2, 2023.
Jury deliberations resume Monday in the Brian Walshe murder trial
Prosecutors have suggested Walshe was motivated to kill his wife after learning of her monthslong affair with a man she met in DC.
Walshe's defense team, however, says he panicked after discovering her dead in their bed, thinking no one would believe he had nothing to do with her death.
And while defense attorney Larry Tipton argued there's no evidence Walshe knew about his wife's affair before her death, he acknowledged to the jury there's evidence he disposed of Ana's body and then lied to police about it.
Unbeknownst to the jury, Walshe pleaded guilty on the first day of jury selection to the improper conveyance of a body and misleading police – a decision that allowed his attorneys to admit those factors to the panel during the trial.
The defense strategy to admit Walshe disposed of his wife's body and then misled police could effectively take the sting out of the commonwealth's strongest evidence for a first-degree murder conviction, Boston defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr. told CNN.
Brian Walshe is on trial for the murder of his wife Ana. Here's a timeline of the case
During the commonwealth's case, the jury saw digital data revealing extensive internet searches made on Brian Walshe's devices about how to dispose of a body and how to clean up blood – searches his attorney admitted were “dark” and “troubling.”
“They began at 4:52 a.m. on January 1st of 2023, and the first one is, ‘how do you dispose of a body?' It causes chills. It causes disgust,” Tipton said Friday.
But there's no evidence Walshe planned to kill his wife, the defense attorney said – only evidence he reacted after her death.
“Why is the man searching now if he had planned to kill his wife?” Tipton asked. “Where is the evidence of premeditation in thousands of pages of records?”
First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury could have considered second-degree murder, which would have given Walshe parole eligibility.
Separately, Walshe is serving a 37-month prison sentence tied to a federal case from 2018, in which he pleaded guilty to charges connected to selling forged Andy Warhol artwork. That sentence is set to run concurrently with his prison time for the state case connected to his wife's death.
Victim impact statements from Ana Walshe's family are expected to be read at Wednesday's sentencing.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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Australia has agreed to new gun restrictions after a mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration killed at least 15 people at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Sunday.
The new laws would tighten access to firearms in the nation in a way not seen since the 1996 Tasmania shooting, which left 35 people dead.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has proposed new firearm restrictions governing how many guns an owner can obtain, as well as reviewing existing license-holders regularly.
“The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary,” Albanese said. “Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws. People's circumstances can change. People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity.”
The 1996 shooting, named the “Port Arthur Massacre,” resulted in landmark gun control measures called the National Firearms Agreement. The agreement restricted ownership of rapid-fire weapons and initiated a buyback program.
Gun deaths in the country dropped following the legislation, which still kept it legal for certain people to own firearms. But the laws that remain are stricter than those in the United States.
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, said his state's laws could change without elaborating. Sydney, where Bondi Beach is located, is the state capital of New South Wales.
“It means introducing a bill to Parliament to — I mean to be really blunt — make it more difficult to get these horrifying weapons that have no practical use in our community,” Minns said.
“If you're not a farmer, you're not involved in agriculture, why do you need these massive weapons that put the public in danger and make life dangerous and difficult for New South Wales Police?” Minns asked.
Australian leaders have also proposed “additional use of criminal intelligence” to decide who is eligible for a gun license.
A father-son duo took part in the shooting, which also injured at least 38 people. The 50-year-old father, who died at the scene, had a gun license and legally owned six firearms. His 24-year-old son did not have a license and remains in a coma.
Albanese said the son had been investigated by the country's main spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Agency, for six months in 2019. He had been reportedly investigated for ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State group cell. Albanese said no red flags pointing to violence surrounding the 24-year-old had been found.
“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” Albanese said.
A bystander, Ahmed al Ahmed, wrestled one of the gunmen down and took his firearm. He has been praised for saving lives but is recovering in a hospital from gunshot wounds sustained during the attack. Minns deemed him a “real-life hero.”
BYSTANDER WHO DISARMED GUNMAN DURING BONDI BEACH SHOOTING HAILED AS HERO
“Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns wrote. “There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for [Ahmed's] selfless courage.”
The Bondi Beach shooting is Australia's deadliest mass shooting since the 1996 attack.
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West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey shares what is 'powerful and moving' after visiting the National Guardsman wounded in a shooting in Washington on 'The Story.'
Former top Biden administration decision makers were silent on whether they stand by the vetting procedures deployed for "Operation Allies Welcome," the Afghan resettlement program that was utilized by the alleged National Guard attacker to get to the U.S.
The heinous incident that claimed the life of one West Virginia National Guard member and gravely wounded another on Thanksgiving Eve sprung back to the forefront last week when House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., infuriated Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when he referred to it as an "unfortunate accident."
The attack renewed questions over whether Democrats still stand by the vetting processes put in place by the previous administration — and whether officials involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal and refugee resettlement would revise those decisions today.
Fox News Digital has reached out to several members of the Biden administration with roles directly or tangentially related to the Afghanistan withdrawal and the resettlement of Afghan refugees.
SENATOR RENEWS PUSH TO MANDATE VETTING FOR AFGHAN EVACUEES AFTER NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTING
Inquiries to former President Joe Biden's office, former Vice President Kamala Harris and a second request to an individual listed as Harris' literary agent were not returned within a week.
Messages sent to former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley [Ret.], as well as via an official at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs – where he is listed as a visiting professor – also went unanswered.
Milley, though a general, was not in a command position – as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is an advisory role.
In that regard, he did not make any operational decisions, but instead was in the president's ear when it came to military advice. Milley later told senators on Capitol Hill that he recommended maintaining a small, 2,500-troop force in Afghanistan.
Fox News Digital also reached out to former Central Command (CENTCOM) commander, Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie via his new role at the University of South Florida, for comment – which was not returned.
AFGHAN EVACUEE ARRESTED BEFORE DC SHOOTING FEDERALLY CHARGED WITH THREATENING TERROR ATTACK
CENTCOM covers the Middle East and was tasked with overseeing security and evacuation operations out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
Messages sent to addresses listed for National Security Adviser Jacob Sullivan and Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer were not returned. Finer is now a visiting fellow at Columbia University's School of Public and International Affairs, and Sullivan's wife – Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., is in her first term in Congress.
Sullivan was a key adviser to Biden during the withdrawal and was later pressed by CNN whether he feels "personally responsible for the failures" therein.
He replied that the "strategic call President Biden made, looking back three years, history has judged well and will continue to judge well. From the point of view that, if we were still in Afghanistan today, Americans would be fighting and dying; Russia would have more leverage over us; we would be less able to respond to the major strategic challenges we face."
A woman who answered a line listed for former Secretary of State Antony Blinken redirected Fox News Digital to a press liaison. That request was not returned.
Blinken, as leader of the State Department, was the point person for the diplomatic aspect of the withdrawal. He advised Biden on what to do about the Taliban's "Doha Agreement" that was forged by the previous Trump administration, while the department coordinated overflight rights, temporary housing and other issues regarding the refugee outflow from Kabul.
SENATE REPUBLICANS LAUNCH INVESTIGATION INTO BIDEN IMMIGRATION PROGRAMS AFTER DC NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTING
Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, commander of the United States Central Command, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee on the conclusion of military operations in Afghanistan and plans for future counterterrorism operations on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rod Lamkey/Pool via AP)
A woman who answered an extension listed for former Pentagon chief Gen. Lloyd Austin III [Ret.] said she would take a message and that Austin would return the call if he wished.
As Pentagon chief, Austin was the top bureaucrat in the U.S. military structure at the time of the withdrawal.
After the Thanksgiving Eve attack, U.S. Citizenship for Immigration Services administrator Joe Edlow announced a review of the green card system, citing suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal's situation.
His predecessor, Biden-appointed Ur Jaddou, did not respond to a request for comment.
AFGHAN EVACUEES WITH CHILD-FONDLING, TERROR ARRESTS SWEPT UP IN DHS CRACKDOWN AFTER BOTCHED VETTING EXPOSED
Fox News Digital also reached out to alleged addresses linked to former Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, but did not receive responses. Fox News Digital also reached out to the Belfer Center at Harvard, which recently cited that Sherwood-Randall would be rejoining their ranks to lead their "Initiative on Bioconvergence, Biosecurity, and Bioresilience."
Fox News Digital also attempted to reach Harris' national security adviser, Phil Gordon, via his new role at a global advisory firm, but did not receive a response.
Efforts to reach Biden confidants Ronald Klain and Jeffrey Zients were unsuccessful.
FBI PROBES POSSIBLE TIES OF NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTER TO TABLIGHI JAMAAT, A ‘CATALYST' FOR JIHAD
Gens. Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin III, left, join Alejandro Mayorkas, right, behind Joe Biden, center-front. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Tracey Jacobson, now the chargé d'affaires for the U.S. in Dhaka, Bangladesh, led the administration's Afghanistan coordination task force charged with processing and relocating Afghan allies. She did not respond to an inquiry.
During the Afghan withdrawal, Jacobson was named by the Biden administration to lead an Afghanistan coordination task force as part of its "whole-of-government effort to process, transport and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies," according to Biden.
2021 AFGHAN REMARKS HAUNT GOP LAWMAKER'S SENATE BID AFTER DC GUARD SHOOTING
Former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus was asked by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign in 2022 or risk being the first Biden administration official fired, according to The New York Times.
DHS officials ultimately cut his access to the agency's social media accounts, according to the paper, and a report from Heritage Foundation fellow Simon Hankinson cited that he ultimately left the job soon after.
His role would have also placed him in the midst of the orchestration of Operation Allies Welcome and Operation Allies Refuge. He was also unable to be reached for comment.
Another Mayorkas deputy, then-FEMA Director Robert Fenton Jr., was reportedly tasked with setting up Operation Allies Welcome centers to help evacuees "integrate successfully and safely into new communities."
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Fenton remains the Region 9 administrator for the agency, tasked with an area covering the west coast and South Pacific protectorates. An inquiry to Fenton was not returned.
Mayorkas himself could not be reached directly for comment. Efforts to reach him via a law firm he was or is connected to, as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is a visiting scholar, were either unsuccessful or not returned.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.
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EXCLUSIVE — The Department of Housing and Urban Development has sent federal investigators into Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, to examine federally administered aid programs following the discovery of a massive welfare fraud scheme believed to have been carried out by Somali immigrants.
A HUD spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the department is the latest federal entity, following Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to send in its own staff to ensure HUD-funded programs are being carried out appropriately.
The HUD official said the department is putting the region “on notice, that we are taking enforcement and fiscal oversight seriously given the rampant fraud.”
HUD's Washington headquarters will also be reviewing data from Minnesota's public housing authorities to ensure all federal housing programs are not being defrauded.
The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority spends $108 million annually on housing choice vouchers and public housing, while St. Paul spends $46 million.
The arrival of HUD personnel comes after $1 billion in taxpayer money was siphoned from the state's social services programs to line the pockets of primarily Somali descendants in the region. The Treasury Department said it is looking into whether the money also went to a terrorist group, al Shabaab.
The primary scandal involved Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit organization that claimed to have provided millions of meals to children during the pandemic and received $300 million in reimbursement.
HUD Secretary Scott Turner said Saturday evening that the department has cut funding for Somalis who have temporary protected status.
WALZ SAYS HE WOULD ‘WELCOME MORE' SOMALIS AS FRAUD INVESTIGATION INTENSIFIES
TPS is a legal status that illegal immigrants from certain countries may apply for, and if granted, they will be protected from deportation for two years on the basis that the country of origin is not stable enough to repatriate them.
“Illegal immigration and the housing affordability crisis are directly correlated,” Turner posted Sunday on X. “Fix one, you fix the other. That's exactly what we are doing under the leadership of @POTUS.”
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Fox News Digital spoke to State Sen. Mark Koran, former prosecutor Joe Teirab, and columnist Dustin Grage about how claims of ‘racism' shielded fraud within the Somali community in Minneapolis.
The ongoing investigations into fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota have another chilling angle: possible links to jihad.
President Donald Trump's new national security strategy wants to move on from the days when the Middle East dominated foreign policy. But the Minnesota welfare fraud schemes are a warning sign. Closing the door on radical Islam's ideology – and its greedy tentacles here in America – may be harder than it looks.
EXPERT REVEALS KEY FACTOR THAT LED TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEME
Treasury Secretary Scott BessentScott Bessent was worried enough to launch an investigation into whether money was transferred from Minnesota to the infamous al-Shabaab jihadist group in Somalia.
"A lot of money has been transferred from the individuals who committed this fraud," Bessent told Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation" earlier this month. Much of that money "has gone overseas, and we are tracking that both to the Middle East and to Somalia to see what the uses of that have been," he said.
The main motive, of course, was "pure, unmitigated greed," as U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel said in her Aug. 6 sentencing of Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, who was convicted in a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the question is whether the sheer volume of remittances to Somalia may have directly or indirectly benefited terror networks.
TRUMP REWRITES NATIONAL SECURITY PLAYBOOK AS MASS MIGRATION OVERTAKES TERRORISM AS TOP US THREAT
Remittances are the target. Somalia's GDP in 2024 was just $12 billion. Cash flows from the U.S. to Somalia totaled about $215 million last year. ISIS in Somalia runs a digital hawala network financing operations across Africa to fund terrorism, according to an Oct. 7 report from the Africa Defense Forum.
Americans aren't the only ones dealing with fraud, suspicious money flows and worries about terrorist ties.
On Nov. 24, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that over $100 million in Swedish taxpayer kronor intended for preschools and schools in Sweden was instead siphoned off by an Islamist network running a welfare fraud scheme. It's a network united by common family ties, criminal business and welfare crimes, according to Expressen. Swedish police also rounded up several individuals linked to radical and violent extremism at an apartment north of Stockholm. Expressen concluded that two networks engaged in pure, large-scale welfare crime for significant sums.
HOW MISREADING SOMALI POVERTY LED MINNESOTA INTO ITS LARGEST WELFARE SCANDAL
"The money disappears and does not fulfill its social purpose, while others get rich by appropriating public funds," Gothenburg Economic Crime Authority Chief Prosecutor Henric Fagher told the Swedish news site.
Beyond the disgust at large-scale fraud, concerns remain about terrorist recruiting and radicalization. In one well-known case, 30 ISIS fighters traveled from Gothenburg to Syria in 2013. Eventually, 300 Swedes joined jihadi groups, according to The Guardian, making Sweden second only to Belgium as a recruiting source. In 2023, 24 ex-ISIS fighters were found to be working as public employees in Sweden.
Americans have reason to be concerned. A year ago, 23-year-old Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan tried twice to leave Minnesota to join ISIS in the Islamic State in Somalia. He was arrested and pleaded guilty on Sept. 29 to attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Millions of dollars of welfare fraud taking place alongside known cases of ISIS radicalization is flat-out scary. "There is no margin for error when it comes to terrorism," Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in a statement.
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Finally, the Somali fraud schemes are yet another reminder that the overall U.S. refugee and asylum policy must be re-examined. Time was when asylum policy reflected U.S. national interests, like absorbing those who fled the Soviet Union. Asylum policy went adrift after the Cold War.
As the new national security strategy says, "who a country admits into its borders — in what numbers and from where — will inevitably define the future of that nation."
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The tragic shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., on the day before Thanksgiving should have been enough of a warning.
Admitting waves of refugees is not a sustainable policy.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REBECCA GRANT
Dr. Rebecca Grant is vice president of the Lexington Institute.
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No one wants to make it.
There's a reason dengue infections are also called “breakbone fever.”
Along with a mild fever, symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness include bone-deep, aching pain in the joints and behind the eyes. In severe cases, blood vessels begin to leak. And in the worst cases, that can lead to organ failure.
More than 14 million people contracted dengue last year, and the real number is likely several times higher. While it remains most common in South Asia and Latin America, it's no longer just a tropical disease. Warming temperatures are pushing dengue into southern Europe and the United States. Last year, Texas saw its highest case count in two decades, including locally acquired infections, meaning the virus is now circulating here, not just arriving with travelers.
The public health tools we have — the dengue vaccines, bed nets, fogging campaigns, public awareness to drain standing water — are all aimed at keeping mosquitos at bay and preventing infections in the first place. There's nothing for after: no antivirals — nothing like Paxlovid for Covid, or Tamiflu for the flu, or artemisinin for malaria. Once you're sick, the strategy is just supportive care and hope.
Earlier this month, though, that changed.
A new antiviral pill for dengue called mosnodenvir showed promising results in early phase 2 trials. In a study where volunteers were deliberately exposed to dengue, roughly half of those who received the highest dose never got sick at all. For a field that has struggled for decades to find an effective antiviral, it's the clearest evidence yet that a drug can prevent dengue — and researchers believe the same pill could eventually treat people who are already infected.
But, even before the results were published, Johnson & Johnson, the American pharmaceutical giant that developed mosnodenvir, had already abandoned any efforts to bring the drug to market.
Last year J&J announced it would wind down its dengue antiviral work, with a “strategic reprioritization” of its research toward non-communicable diseases like cancer and obesity. What this means is that one of the most promising dengue drugs ever tested is now without a pharma sponsor, waiting for someone else to carry it forward.
André Siqueira, who heads the dengue program at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), said mosnodenvir is “very, very promising” and said he wants to see it pushed into further trials “as quickly as possible.”
But why — if the drug shows much promise — would its maker walk away?
J&J's exit isn't an outlier; it's part of a broader retreat from infectious disease research across the pharmaceutical industry, as companies shift toward drugs for wealthier markets: cancer, obesity, autoimmune disorders.
Dengue already kills thousands every year, and it's getting worse. By 2080, climate models suggest, nearly 60 percent of the world's population could be living in areas where dengue spreads.
And, in this new world, watching the first antiviral pill that works against dengue get abandoned — while the disease spreads to new continents — reveals the gap between the drugs we need and the drugs the market will deliver.
To test whether mosnodenvir actually works, researchers did something uncommon: They deliberately infected people with dengue.
Over the past three years, 31 volunteers in Baltimore and Vermont, in what's called a challenge trial, agreed to take a pill for several days and then get injected with a weakened dengue virus. It's a faster way to get answers than waiting for people to get sick naturally, but it requires volunteers willing to sign up for a controlled case of dengue.
Among people who got the highest dose of mosnodenvir, 6 out of 10 never developed an infection at all. The other four had much lower levels of virus in their blood and milder symptoms than the placebo group, where everyone got sick. At lower doses, the drug delayed infection but didn't prevent it — a clear signal that the higher dose was doing something real.
“It's one of the most beautiful dose-response results I've seen,” Anna Durbin, the Johns Hopkins researcher who led the study, told Science last month.
Then, there's the field data. In 2023, J&J launched a trial across more than 30 sites in South America and Asia to test whether the drug could protect people in the same household who are at high risk of getting bitten by the same mosquitoes. Among 265 people who received the highest dose, not a single person developed symptomatic dengue. In the placebo group, 60 percent did. (This data hasn't been formally peer-reviewed yet, but it's posted publicly.)
For Neelika Malavige, a prominent dengue researcher at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka, the significance goes beyond the numbers. “It's a huge scientific breakthrough just doing the study,” she said, referring to the design of the challenge trial itself, which had never been done for a dengue antiviral before. For a disease with no approved treatment, this is as close to proof of concept as it gets.
“The dengue community may be closer than ever to a long-awaited treatment,” Xuping Xie of the University of Texas Medical Branch wrote in a commentary accompanying the paper.
The trial proved that mosnodenvir can prevent infection, a first for any dengue drug. But prevention isn't what dengue doctors need most. What they need is a treatment, something to give patients who are already sick to keep them from getting worse.
That's what makes an antiviral so valuable. Prevention strategies have a ceiling; you can reduce mosquito populations, but you can't eliminate them, and warming temperatures keep pushing them into new territory. A drug that works after exposure would be the first tool that doesn't depend on stopping the mosquito first.
The hope is that the same drug could do both. Mosnodenvir works by blocking the virus from replicating, and, in theory, that should help whether you take it before you're infected or shortly after. The question is timing.
That's where dengue gets tricky. Unlike malaria, where the parasite lingers, and you can kill it with drugs, the dengue virus moves through the body notoriously fast. By the time a patient feels sick enough to see a doctor — usually a few days into the fever — the virus is often already on its way out. The brutal symptoms that follow, the blood vessel leakage and organ damage, are driven largely by the body's own immune response, not the virus itself.
As a global health reporter, this story felt grimly familiar. The things we pay attention to get solved, and so-called neglected tropical diseases have become something that just happens elsewhere. It's the reason why tuberculosis is still the deadliest infectious disease and why it took 35 years to develop the first malaria vaccine.
This line from a 2004 article captures this quite well: “Probably the worst thing that ever happened to malaria in poor nations was its eradication in rich ones.”
I grew up in Mumbai, where dengue was a regular occurrence every monsoon season. But the disease isn't staying there anymore. It's spreading — into southern Europe, into the United States — and the question of who develops drugs for it is no longer someone else's problem.
This is why antivirals have been so hard to develop for dengue. The window to intervene can be narrow, and for many patients, it's already closing by the time they show up.
The scientists who developed mosnodenvir believe it could work as a treatment. “If you reduce the amount of replicating virus, you will also reduce the likelihood that the patient evolves towards severe disease,” said Johan Neyts, a virologist at KU Leuven whose lab co-discovered the drug. The logic is in line with how antivirals for, say Covid, work, but this hypothesis hasn't been tested in humans. Treatment trials were planned in Singapore, but the Covid pandemic made them impossible. By the time restrictions lifted, J&J had already decided to exit.
The dream, Malavige said, is simple, “You go to the doctor, get yourself tested, the test is positive, you're given an antiviral, and that's the end of the story.” The question is whether patients can get there early enough — and whether mosnodenvir can work.
There's also the question of resistance. In the human challenge trial, genetic mutations emerged in the virus among nearly all the participants who took mosnodenvir — mutations that could, in theory, make the drug less effective over time. And some dengue strains already circulating in nature appear to be harder to treat with this type of drug.
This is a real limitation. Mosnodenvir alone probably isn't a long-term solution, because, eventually, the virus might adapt. But that problem is a familiar one for drug makers. HIV and malaria both evolved resistance to early drugs, and the answer was combination therapy: multiple drugs that attack the virus in different ways, making it far harder to escape all of them at once.
For that strategy to work with dengue, though, we need more drugs to combine. Mosnodenvir may not be the whole puzzle, but it could be the first piece. “If people stopped at the first sign of seeing trouble,” Malavige said, “then the world will not progress.”
Johnson & Johnson's exit follows a well-worn path for big pharma.
Over the past two decades, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis, AstraZeneca, and other major drugmakers have all scaled back or abandoned infectious disease research, judging that these drugs simply couldn't compete with cancer and obesity blockbusters. A recent op-ed in the Financial Times called it a “textbook market failure.” The public health impact is massive, but the financial returns for addressing them aren't.
After J&J's exit, ownership of mosnodenvir is being transferred back to KU Leuven, the Belgian university where the drug was first discovered before J&J licensed it for development. “We will do all we can to make sure that mosnodenvir is further developed in clinical trials as soon as possible,” said Patrick Chaltin, who directs the university's drug discovery center. To do that, the university is working with the Wellcome Trust, a major global health funder, to find new partners and funding.
And fortunately, mosnodenvir isn't the only dengue drug that the pharmaceutical industry is looking into. The Swiss drug maker Novartis is running a phase 2 treatment trial for a different antiviral, and the Serum Institute in India is testing a monoclonal antibody.
Drug development is expensive and uncertain, and the people who need dengue treatments most are not the people who can pay the most. But these steps are encouraging.
In countries where dengue has always circulated — India, Brazil, the Philippines, Sri Lanka — people have learned to live around it, says Malavige. Life bends around when the mosquitoes are biting, and then bends back.
But dengue isn't locked in those places anymore. Warmer temperatures are carrying the mosquitoes — and the virus — somewhere new every year. And there's no sign that this expansion is slowing down.
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For nine hours, students at Brown University crouched under desks and behind locked door, making panicked phone calls and sending “I love you” texts that felt dangerously close to goodbyes.
An active shooter was on campus — and police were still searching for a suspect.
Late Saturday night into Sunday morning, they listened for footsteps, for sirens, for anything that might signal the end of another American nightmare.
It is a kind of story Americans know too well, and one that repeats with numbing regularity — again and again and again.
By the time Brown's campus lockdown lifted at 5:40 a.m., two students were dead and nine others had been injured, according to the university. One victim remains in critical condition, another is listed as stable and one person was treated and released.
So far in 2025, there have been at least 391 mass shootings and 13,929 shooting deaths in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Each number represents a shattered family, a traumatized community, another generation learning too early how to survive gunfire.
At the private university in Providence, Rhode Island, the nightmare began on a winter afternoon just two weeks before Christmas. Students were studying for finals at the library or taking exams. Others were attending review sessions, and some were hanging out with friends visiting the Ivy League campus when the first alert reached their phones at 4:22 p.m.
“Urgent: There's an active shooter near Barus & Holley Engineering,” the alert read.
Students should lock the doors, silence phones and hide until further notice, it said, adding to run and evacuate safely if you could.
“FIGHT, as a last resort, take action to protect yourself,” the alert said.
Ten more alerts would follow, reminding the community to stay sheltered in place and keep doors locked, letting students know where police were and which buildings were being evacuated, and, finally, telling them the shelter-in-place order had ended.
Saturday's shooting came on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school massacre, which claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 elementary students.
At least two students at Brown had survived previous school shootings.
Zoe Weissman was in middle school when she witnessed the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
The sophomore said she is overwhelmed not just by grief but by anger.
“I think the sadness will set in when we get all the victims identified and find out who we lost as a community,” Weissman told CNN.
“But right now, I'm just angry that there are kids like me in this country who have had to go through this not once but twice.”
Students were hustling around campus, coming and going on the penultimate Saturday of the semester. Many were entering the engineering building at Barus and Holley where final exams and review sessions were underway. The exterior doors were unlocked.
In room 166, one of the largest classrooms in the building, Joseph Oduro, a 21-year-old teaching assistant, was holding his final review session of the year. The session ended just after 4 p.m., a little later than planned.
Oduro, who helps teach economics to undergraduates, was delivering closing remarks to his class and watching his students stand up to leave when the sound of gunfire cut through the room.
Then came the screams.
Moments later, Oduro said, the gunman entered the auditorium from the back of the room and locked eyes with him.
“He came in, pointed the gun, and then screamed something,” Oduro recalled. “Then he just started shooting right after that.”
The first shots ripped into the chalkboard, exactly where Oduro had been standing seconds earlier. One of his students was shot in the legs.
Oduro and about 20 students ducked and huddled behind a desk in front of the auditorium, the only refuge available, and called 911. There wasn't much space behind the desk, Oduro said. He estimated it to be about 10 feet long.
“We made do,” Oduro said. “Because at the end of the day, we just all wanted to survive.”
It “felt like an eternity” before the gunfire stopped, Oduro said. He didn't lift his head until campus public safety officers entered the room and told them it was safe to leave.
Sophia Holman was searching for a classroom to study in at the engineering building when she heard gunshots.
At first, she thought it was sound from the school's woodshop, or an “experiment gone wrong,” she told CNN.
But then she saw someone run past her — so she started running, too. She ran one block east and then called police.
Police searched the engineering building but couldn't find any suspect. Over 400 local, state and federal law enforcement officials fanned out across the Brown campus, searching for the gunman they believed exited the building on Hope Street.
Law enforcement later said the suspect was dressed in dark clothing and believed to be in his 30s. The figure's face, officials said, was obscured, and witnesses told police he may have been wearing a gray camouflage mask.
An early alert from the university initially said police had a person in custody. But the person was later determined not to be the shooting suspect, the school said, and students were urged to remain vigilant.
Ethan Schenker, who was studying in the basement of a campus library when the lockdown began, described the hours as startling. Everyone in the library, he said, was “very on edge” as law enforcement cleared every classroom and patrolled the building.
“It didn't seem real,” Schenker, a former CNN intern, said.
Students sheltering in a library huddled on the ground as police banged on the door, video shows. Officers in tactical gear with long guns entered and cleared the room and escorted the students out.
About 160 students were in lockdown in the gym, according to Lydell Dyer, a Brown student and former CNN intern.
“We gathered everybody up. Went to the third floor of our building. We locked the doors. We had to turn off the lights, close the blinds, and then we sat there in silence and darkness for hours,” Dyer said. They were eventually moved to the school's track facility building, he said.
“I was there until 3:30 in the morning until they finally found a way to get us a shuttle and get us back to our dorms,” Dyer said.
By early Sunday morning, about 12 hours after the shooting, the school sent another alert, saying the shelter-in-place order had ended.
Investigators, meanwhile, had zeroed in on a person of interest — and a Hampton Inn — about 20 miles from Providence.
At a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, unsuspecting visitors and travelers were jolted awake shortly before dawn.
Law enforcement banged on one hotel door, ordering the man inside to open up, sources said. At least 20 officers — including local police, US marshals and FBI agents — filled the hotel corridors as they entered the room, CNN witnessed. Once inside, they asked where he had been that day and evening.
In the hotel the whole time, he responded.
“We have a warrant for your apartment,” one officer said. Moments later, the man inside was told he would be taken “back to the cruiser.”
But late Sunday night, officials released the man. The evidence “points in a different direction,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
“It's fair to say that there is no basis to consider him a person of interest,” Neronha said. “So, that's why he's being released.”
There are still a “lot of steps left to take” in the investigation, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said.
“After 30 years in law enforcement, there were a lot of twists and a lot of roads that I've walked down,” McKee said. “I can't tell you what direction it's going to take right now, but we're going to solve (this case).”
By Sunday afternoon, not all victims' families had been notified, a delay made more painful by timing and distance, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
For survivors, the horror of what unfolded inside the building is still coming into focus.
Mia Tretta knows the cost of gun violence in ways few people ever should.
A junior at Brown University, Tretta survived the 2019 Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, California. Tretta was shot in the stomach and lives with lasting physical complications.
When it came time to choose a college, Tretta deliberately sought out a campus that felt small, contained and safe, a place she believed might finally put distance between her and the violence that had already marked her life, she said.
So, when her phone first buzzed with an alert warning of a shooter in Brown's engineering building, she initially dismissed it.
“I didn't really think it was real,” she said.
That disbelief shattered as message after message flooded in.
As authorities searched for the gunman, panic spread across campus, and confusion ruled the night, Tretta said.
“It was just a really confusing time for everyone. I have friends who were stuck in basements of buildings and/or in the hallway of the library,” she said.
The night, Tretta said, carried brutal familiarity and proof that survival offers no immunity.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “gun violence doesn't care if you've already been shot in a school shooting.”
Smiley noted the generational impact of such violence: “We have a generation of kids who have had to do active shooter trainings. That's not something I had to do when I was a kid,” the mayor said.
For Oduro, the teaching assistant, the weight of what happened has barely begun to settle. He is now a survivor and a part of a generation all too familiar with mass shootings.
“Unfortunately, that's just part of the society we live in today,” he said.
His heart goes out to students who didn't make it out of the room or are in the hospital.
“I haven't really had the chance to process things myself, but I just want to make sure everybody else is OK,” Oduro said.
For Weissman, the Parkland high school graduate, the Brown attack reopened wounds from 2018. She immediately called her mother after Saturday's gunfire, just as she did years ago.
“It feels like I'm 12 again,” she said. “It feels like it's 2018 again for my family as well. We're going through the exact same emotions.”
Correction:
A prior version of this story misstated the distance between Providence and Coventry, Rhode Island. It is about 20 miles.
CNN's TuAnh Dam, Danya Gainor, Effie Nidam, Brian Todd, Leigh Waldman, Emma Tucker, Zoe Sottile, John Miller, Evan Perez, Maureen Chowdhury, Sharif Paget, Chris Boyette, Dalia Abdelwahab, Lauren Mascarenhas, Riane Lumer, Taylor Galgano, Curt Devine, Allison Gordon, and Yahya Abou-Ghazala contributed to this report.
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Chef Eric Levine, owner of 317 Main Street, shares his tips and tricks to making homemade bread on 'Fox & Friends Weekend.'
Having digestive issues? While experts often caution that eating bread will make these issues worse, there's an exception.
British researchers published new guidelines earlier this fall about foods that can relieve constipation.
King's College London said in a news release that the research is the "first-ever evidence-based dietary guidelines for adults with chronic constipation."
EASY NUTRITION TWEAK COULD TRANSFORM YOUR SLEEP — STARTING THIS EVENING
The main recommendations are kiwi, mineral water and — surprisingly — rye bread.
"Our guidelines found that there simply isn't enough evidence to suggest [that fiber] actually works in constipation specifically. Instead, our research reveals some new dietary strategies that could indeed help patients," study author Eirini Dimidi said in the October news release.
Rye bread may ease digestive issues, say researchers. This challenges long-held beliefs about bread and gut health. (iStock)
"At the same time, we urgently need more high-quality trials to strengthen the evidence on what works and what doesn't."
Rye bread's high fiber content "sets it apart from other breads," said Dr. Roshini Raj, a New York City-based gastroenterologist (she was not involved in the study).
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"In this study, they compared rye bread to white bread, and only rye bread helped constipation," Raj said.
"White bread is low in fiber and also contains refined flour, which can worsen constipation."
The new study compared rye to white bread — and found clear benefits only from the rye variety. (iStock)
Raj said rye bread also contains both soluble and insoluble fiber.
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This all helps "both stool consistency and stool frequency by adding bulk to the stool and drawing water into the intestine."
The "Gut Renovation" author also noted that rye contains iron, magnesium, zinc and B vitamins, which support everything from energy production to immune health and cognitive function.
Experts say pairing rye with more water and fiber-rich foods can further support digestive function. (iStock)
For those choosing to add rye bread to their diets, Raj cautioned that it should be done slowly, as it can cause bloating.
"There are many high-fiber foods, not just rye bread — so aim to get a variety to ensure you are not only getting fiber, but other nutrients as well," she said.
"Increasing water intake is also helpful for constipation."
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Debra Muth, a naturopathic doctor (ND) based in Wisconsin, who was also not involved in the study, added that rye "stabilizes blood sugar, keeps you full longer, feeds the microbiome and delivers minerals your body actually needs."
She added, "Most breads today are made from refined flour that's been stripped of fiber, so they make constipation worse, rather than better."
Rye bread is higher in fiber and lower on the glycemic index, making it more gut-friendly, a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
"Rye is different. It's higher in fiber, lower on the glycemic index and far more gut-friendly. It's one of the few breads that actually supports motility instead of shutting it down."
To start eating more rye bread, Muth recommended rye toast — but look out for real rye bread made with rye flour, she said, not wheat bread that's been dyed brown.
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"It's important to investigate why you're constipated in the first place," she added.
"Yes, constipation is inconvenient, but it's a signal. Your body is telling you something's off."
Andrea Margolis is a lifestyle writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Readers can follow her on X at @andreamargs or send story tips to andrea.margolis@fox.com.
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The person of interest detained in connection with the mass shooting at Brown University will be released, Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Brett Smiley announced.
Federal law enforcement officers had initially detained a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin after a manhunt for a suspect in the shooting that killed two people and injured nine others. But officials stressed that evidence “now points in a different direction.”
It marks a sharp turn in an investigation that now leaves officials with little to go on. Gov. Dan McKee (D-RI) expressed uncertainty about where it was headed, while Smiley said officials do not know if the gunman left the state.
Smiley did say authorities are looking for “additional video evidence” after a short clip of the suspected shooter did not reveal his face.
He also maintained that there is no need for a reimposition of the shelter-in-place order.
“The status of safety in our community remains unchanged, and we believe that you remain safe in our community,” Smiley said.
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The manhunt will now resume and stretch into this week after the shooting occurred on Saturday.
The shooting unfolded at around 4 p.m. that day, with a lone gunman entering a classroom in a campus building and opening fire, killing two and injuring nine. Students at the Ivy League School were just starting final exams this weekend, which have since been canceled.
This is a breaking story.
The United States and Australia suffered horrific mass shootings over the weekend. First, a gunman at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, opened fire in a classroom building during final exams, killing two students and wounding nine others, several critically. And on Sunday morning at Bondi Beach in Sydney, a pair of Islamic terrorists sprayed bullets into a public Hanukkah celebration, killing at least 15.
Unsurprisingly, prominent Democrats have labeled the attacks as instances of “gun violence,” emphasizing the role of guns and downplaying the motives and identities of the shooters.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) referenced both tragedies in an X post Sunday afternoon while decrying the “epidemic of gun violence” and marking the Sandy Hook anniversary. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) also invoked Sandy Hook in response to the Brown shooting, lamenting that “we've done far too little to stop these recurring attacks.”
These despicable and intellectually bankrupt comments are low even by the standards of Hochul and Booker. To ascribe fundamental blame to guns or gun laws in either case is deeply disconnected from reality — and cynically manipulative.
We know for certain that Islamist antisemitism inspired the Bondi Beach attack. Australian police declared the shooting a terrorist incident linked to antisemitism. The two shooters involved, a father and son of Muslim background, specifically targeted Jews celebrating a holy day. Reducing this atrocity to generic “gun violence,” as if it were indistinguishable from a teenager accessing the family rifle, whitewashes the anti-Jewish hatred at root and absolves Islamism of responsibility. Progressives dare not name the ideology for fear of offending their woke base, so they redirect attention to guns.
This framing is especially absurd given that both Australia and Rhode Island have some of the world's toughest gun laws on the books.
Following a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted sweeping reforms, featuring a mandatory government buy-back and a total ban on automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. In Australia, gun ownership is viewed as a privilege, not a right.
For its part, Rhode Island consistently ranks among the top states for strict firearm regulations according to gun-control advocacy groups, with universal background checks, red-flag laws, an assault-weapons ban, and high-capacity magazine limits. Brown University, meanwhile, is a “gun-free zone,” meaning that good guys with guns are unable to intervene in such instances.
Whether the shooter obtained his gun from out-of-state, as initial reports indicate, or he bought it in Rhode Island makes little tangible difference. The U.S. famously has more guns in circulation than people, including tens of millions of untraceable firearms on the black market. There is no way to “ban guns,” as progressives like to pretend, or to enact a government buyback program that wouldn't disarm law-abiding citizens while leaving armed criminals with nonregistered guns.
TWO DEAD, NINE INJURED IN MASS SHOOTING AT BROWN UNIVERSITY
It's understandable to want to “do something” in response to these atrocities. But enacting stricter gun laws wouldn't achieve much in the way of preventing future ones. It's wishful thinking at best and deliberate evasion at worst.
Democrats are quick to point to the “gun violence epidemic” following mass shootings because dealing with the true fundamental cause is politically inconvenient. Confronting the evil of Islamism and the sickness of our culture, which keeps churning out homicidal maniacs bent on mass murder, would force them to challenge their own assumptions. And we know that's not something they're willing to do.
The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new initiative dubbed the "U.S. Tech Force," comprising about 1,000 engineers and other specialists who will work on artificial intelligence infrastructure and other technology projects throughout the federal government.
Participants will commit to a two-year employment program working with teams that report directly to agency leaders in "collaboration with leading technology companies," according to an official government website.
Those "private sector partners" include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google Public Sector, Dell Technologies, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Palantir, Salesforce and numerous others, the website says.
The Tech Force shows the Trump administration increasing its focus on developing America's AI infrastructure as it competes with China for dominance in the rapidly growing industry.
The initiative was announced four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at establishing a national AI policy framework — a priority for industry leaders who opposed states crafting their own regulations.
Once Tech Force members complete their two terms, they can seek full-time jobs with those companies, who have committed to consider the programs' alumni for employment. The private partners can also nominate their employees to do stints of government service.
Annual salaries will likely fall in the range of $150,000 to $200,000, plus benefits.
"We're trying to reshape the workforce to make sure we have the right talent on the right problems," U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday morning.
The engineering corps will be working on "high-impact technology initiatives including AI implementation, application development, data modernization, and digital service delivery across federal agencies," the site says.
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President Donald Trump slammed Rob Reiner on Monday morning, a day after the famed Hollywood director and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found brutally slain in their Los Angeles home.
Trump's social-media screed against Reiner, who was a staunch critic of the president, came as the Reiners' 32-year-old son, Nick, was arrested and held on $4 million bond, according to LA County Sheriff's Department jail records. That online record for Nick Reiner did not show any charges.
Trump suggested that the couple was killed because of "the anger" Rob Reiner caused in other people due to his opposition to the president.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case, and the police have not provided any motive.
"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS," Trump wrote.
"He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before," the president wrote.
"May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, called out Trump for his post.
"Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered," Massie wrote.
"I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they're afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it," he added.
Massie has been targeted by Trump for months after co-sponsoring a petition in the House that led to passage of a law directing the Justice Department to release its investigative files about notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump had opposed that law until the last minute.
Reiner blasted Trump in an MS Now interview in October.
"Make no mistake; we have a year before this country becomes a full-on autocracy, and democracy completely leaves us," Reiner said in that interview.
"And we're looking at the election in 2026, and Donald Trump knows that in a free and fair election, he will lose," Reiner said. "He will lose the House, the House will flip and will become in Democratic hands. There will be committee chairs who will be able to hold meetings, and this is the last thing he wants."
Reiner's movies included "This is Spinal Tap," "The Princess Bride," "When Harry Met Sally," and "A Few Good Men."
He first gained fame as playing the son-in-law of Archie Bunker on the classic television show "All in the Family."
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Kevin Hassett's candidacy for the Federal Reserve chair, once seen by the market as almost a sure thing, has received some pushback by high-level people who have the ear of President Donald Trump, according to sources familiar with the matter.
There's concern that the National Economic Council director is too close to the president, the sources said, something that ironically made him the frontrunner to replace current chair Jerome Powell in the first place. The pushback could help explain why interviews with candidates were cancelled in early December and then, at least for Warsh, rescheduled for last week.
After telling reporters that he knew who he was going to pick for Fed chair, Trump surprised investors Friday when he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh had moved to the top of the Fed candidates list alongside Hassett. The comments sent Hassett's odds diving on the Kalshi prediction markets.
"I think the two Kevins are great," said Trump.
Hassett remains the favorite on Kalshi Monday with a 51% chance, although that's down from a high above 80% earlier this month. Warsh's odds are currently 44%, up from around 11% to start December.
The pushback has taken more of the form of promoting Warsh, rather than criticizing Hassett. On Thursday at a JPMorgan event, CEO Jamie Dimon spoke favorably of both Hassett and Warsh, but made some comments that made those in the audience believe that Dimon favored the former Fed governor.
Bloomberg News reported at the end of November that Hassett had emerged as the frontrunner to replace Powell, whose term ends in May.
But as December wore on, according to several sources, Hassett's candidacy received some resistance, with worries growing that the bond market could revolt over time if it sees him as too much in the pocket of Trump. That view could end up having the opposite effect Trump wants, with long-term yields eventually rising on concern Hassett wouldn't do enough to contain inflation should it ever rebound down the road.
Perhaps in response to some of this criticism, Hassett was more firm on the question of Fed independence in an interview with CBS News this past weekend.
Trump "has very strong and well-founded views about what we ought to do. But in the end, the job of the Fed is to be independent and to work with the group of people that are on the Board of Governors, at the FOMC, to drive a group consensus on where interest rates should be," said Hassett on "Face the Nation," according to a transcript.
When asked if the president's view would carry the same weight as a voting central bank member, Hassett said: "No, no, he would have no weight. It's just his opinion matters if it's good, you know, if it's based on data."
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This essay is based on a conversation with Jan Gerber, 44, who runs the Paracelsus Recovery clinic in Zurich. Business Insider has verified his admission to another Swiss clinic for burnout. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2022, I realized something was wrong. I had almost lost my company, my marriage was falling apart, and it felt like everything hit all at once. I did outpatient therapy while things were unraveling, but I was clearly getting worse.
About six months later, that December, I checked myself into an inpatient program in Zurich, where I was diagnosed with acute depression brought on by stress. The symptoms fit burnout, too — burnout and depression often overlap.
At the time, I had spent 12 years helping other people recover from burnout, depression, and addiction. I'm the founder of Paracelsus Recovery, a private clinic in Zurich that treats executives, founders, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals who require discreet and private care. A six-week stay can cost around $800,000.
This is the third installment of Business Insider's five-part series, The Burnout Cure, which examines how people recognize burnout, confront it, and rebuild their lives on the other side. Check out their stories below and share yours here.
I was an ambitious Amazon exec who solved my burnout without skipping a beat at work. Here's how.
I burned out from 2 years of job hunting, so I changed everything about how I apply. I won't let the job market break my spirit anymore.
It all started when a friend of a friend, the CEO of a major, publicly listed corporation, called my parents, who worked in the mental health space, for help, and moved into their guest room for treatment. The person needed very discreet treatment for alcohol addiction — if it went public, the stock market impact could have been in the billions.
I previously worked in consulting and medical concierge services, and had launched my own businesses in the travel sector. So, the entrepreneur in me realized there was a niche here: offering discreet treatment for people who couldn't just go to any old rehab.
In 2011, I co-founded a clinic in the high-end mental health space with my mother and then step-father, which initially offered one-on-one care. In 2012, this became Paracelsus Recovery.
In the early years of Paracelsus Recovery, we had a small number of clients, but it took years to establish a reputation. The high cost is a big hurdle for potential clients. We primarily find ultra-high-net-worth clients through family offices and membership organizations, such as Campden Wealth.
About half are members of wealthy families, the second or third generation with trust funds who often don't develop a sense of purpose or drive. The other half is a mix of royalty, entertainers, entrepreneurs, founders, and top executives — those who have the funds to come to us.
Clients rarely experience burnout on its own. In many cases, people are self-medicating and in a cycle of taking downers like sleeping pills in the evening, then stimulants in the morning, such as ADHD medication or illicit drugs like cocaine. Eventually, they reach a dead end.
Often, burnout is not solely prompted by the number of hours worked, but also by the responsibility of overseeing thousands of employees, investors, and business partners, which weighs heavily on their shoulders. If you're in the public eye or run a public company, where, for example, earnings aren't meeting expectations, that can also have a significant impact on stress levels.
The average worker typically seeks burnout treatment after a spouse, their kids, or employer tells them they can't show up late or get drunk every night anymore. Founders and professional executives tend to have much more to lose, and a network of people who help them conceal some of their issues. As a result, they'll hold on for dear life until they just can't anymore. And, in general, they seek help much later.
Sleep is usually the first to go. That was a massive red flag for me. I used to be a good sleeper, even in stressful times, but it started to deteriorate — not just a week or a month, but about half a year of restless nights. By the time these CEOs seek treatment, it's often when a substance is involved, and it's showing up as a fatty liver or cardiovascular issues, coming from alcohol abuse, for example.
We offer a 10-day program called an "Executive Detox." These programs don't solve everything, but they stabilize clients and buy them some time. On average, people stay with us for six weeks; however, in extreme cases, they may stay for six months or more.
A week at Paracelsus Recovery costs around £100,000, or about $131,000. This includes a private residence, a chef, a driver, a live-in therapist, and a daily schedule of psychotherapy, medical treatments, infusions, and complementary therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, and fitness training.
My own treatment at another clinic encouraged me to introduce treatments such as shiatsu and breath-work.
Success is relative. For me, it mostly means that someone leaves equipped with the tools to live a better life. Treatment at a clinic like Paracelsus Recovery is what I consider an acute stabilization, while the real work happens afterward. People should have ongoing therapy and support.
To recover from burnout, the most vital thing — and it's hard for career executives and entrepreneurs to hear — is to pull the emergency brake. If you continue to hold on for another week, another month, or step back halfway while the stress persists, you'll still crash.
You have to decide between investing in the quality of your life over just your career trajectory.
Personally, I didn't do that. For the sake of business continuity, I had to hang on. I still haven't fully recovered. I still feel brain fog from being burned out, and my memory is worse than it was. I'm not sure if it will ever return.
But my own experience, and my treatment at another clinic in Zurich, taught me about the value of proper inpatient treatment.
At Paracelsus Recovery, we typically treat only three or four clients at a time, which makes for a warmer and more personal experience, whereas the Swiss Clinic I attended had a capacity of about 75 patients.
Our patients stay in penthouse apartments with lake views, where most of their treatments take place. No day is like another, as treatment is tailored for each client. They have access to medical treatments, a midday IV to rebalance their biochemistry, as well as a personal trainer and private chef. Their food and supplements are curated based on their lab tests and genetics.
Yes, the price tag is very high, but you get a lot for your money. Besides, there's no price on health and well-being.
Correction: December 15, 2025 — An earlier version of this article misquoted Jan Gerber's comments about people with trust funds.
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Netflix's co-CEOs want to assure staffers that its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's key assets will be good for the company — and for jobs across Hollywood.
In a letter sent to staffers on Monday, a copy of which was also filed publicly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos said a combined Netflix-Warner Bros. is "pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, pro-creator, and pro-growth."
"We see this as a win for the entertainment industry, not the end of it," the Netflix co-CEOs wrote, addressing concerns that the combo of the streaming giant and one of the most iconic studios could bring about "the end of Hollywood."
Netflix this month announced its intention to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and studio assets for an equity value of $72 billion, which would be the biggest acquisition in the streamer's history.
Rival Paramount Skydance responded days later with a hostile bid to acquire all of WBD in a deal valued at around $108 billion.
Peters and Sarandos addressed the hostile bid in the letter, saying it was to be expected but that Netflix has a solid deal in place.
"It's great for our shareholders, great for consumers, and a strong way to create and protect jobs in the industry," they wrote.
The letter reiterated Netflix's previous arguments for why it's the best bidder for the WBD assets. Its bid faces strong opposition in parts of Hollywood, where many have long harbored suspicions toward Netflix because of its business model that has upended traditional film and TV conventions.
In particular, Netflix has favored a streaming-first distribution approach and has a practice of putting its movies in theaters for limited runs only. This has created tension with some big-name talent and movie theater owners. Sarandos previously said long, exclusive theatrical windows weren't "consumer-friendly," and that he thinks, over time, theatrical windows will continue to shrink.
In terms of regulatory approval, both bidders have made the case that they have the clearest path to getting a deal through. Paramount chief David Ellison has said its combo would lead to less market concentration in streaming than Netflix's.
Netflix, for its part, wants regulators to compare its market share to total TV watching time, including free platforms like YouTube. The co-CEOs emphasized this in a letter. They say Netflix plus Warner Bros. would only be 9% of the US market, behind YouTube and Disney. Paramount's argument is that the market should be defined by paid streaming, which is growing and where Netflix stands to expand its dominance.
A wild card is President Donald Trump. David Ellison and his father, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, are close to Trump, whereas Sarandos has long-standing ties to prominent Democrats. Still, Trump has publicly praised both Netflix and Sarandos. Trump also said that a combo of Netflix and Warner Bros. "could be a problem" due to the size, however.
When it comes to jobs, Netflix has lobbied Trump that it would be a job saver, not a job killer, since it wouldn't be combining two big studios like Paramount would. Some key numbers to look at are the planned "synergies," which often translate in part to job cuts. Paramount estimated $6 billion, compared to Netflix's $2 billion to $3 billion.
Read the letter from Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos to staffers in full below:
OUR DEAL WITH WARNER BROS
By: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos
As news around our deal with Warner Bros. continued this week, we wanted to keep you as informed as we can. Our position hasn't changed: we strongly believe that Netflix and Warner Bros. joining forces will offer consumers more choice and value, allow the creative community to reach even more audiences with our combined distribution, and fuel our long-term growth. We made this deal because their deep portfolio of iconic franchises, expansive library, and strong studio capabilities will complement—not duplicate—our existing business.
This is going to be a complex process over the next year or so and there's a lot we won't be able to share, but we did want to give you our thoughts on some of the most pressing questions we've heard since we connected last week.
How do we feel about Paramount's hostile bid? It was entirely expected. But, we have a solid deal in place. It's great for our shareholders, great for consumers, and a strong way to create and protect jobs in the industry. We're confident we'll get it over the finish line—and we're genuinely excited about what's ahead.
Are we confident regulators will approve? We believe in this deal—in the value it creates— and we're confident we'll get the approvals we need to make it happen. The fundamentals are clear: this deal is pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, pro-creator, and pro-growth. Also, if you look at it through the lens of Nielsen data, even after combining with Warner Bros., our view share would only move from 8% to 9% in the US—still well behind YouTube (13%) and a potential Paramount/WBD combination (14%). We believe the facts speak for themselves, and we're fully prepared to put ourselves in a strong position for approval.
Will we preserve theatrical releases as part of WBD's distribution model? Yes—we're fully committed to releasing Warner Bros. movies in theaters, just as they do today. Theatrical is an important part of their business and legacy, and we don't want to change what makes Warner Bros. so valuable. If this deal had happened two years ago, hits like Minecraft and Superman would still have premiered on the big screen as they did—and that's how we plan to keep it. We haven't prioritized theatrical in the past because that wasn't our business at Netflix. When this deal closes, we will be in that business.
Some feel this is the end of Hollywood. What's our response to that? This is something that we've heard for a long time—including when we started the streaming business. Our stance then and now is the same—we see this as a win for the entertainment industry, not the end of it. This deal is about growth: Warner Bros. brings businesses and capabilities we don't have, so there's no overlap or studio closures. We're strengthening one of Hollywood's most iconic studios, supporting jobs, and ensuring a healthy future for film and TV production.
What's next? We've got a small but mighty team of experts working on this so the rest of us can stay focused on the big 2026 ambitions we've established for our business. We've got huge potential still ahead of us—even before we factor in Warner Bros.—so our focus should remain on realizing that potential based on our organic growth. We know that's easier said than done with all the headlines and speculation, but continuing to deliver for our members is the best thing we can focus on.
Where is the best place to follow along? As a reminder, Take 5 is for employees only. We've launched a public site as our source of truth for external audiences—which will be updated further—and it's a resource you can share with friends and family who might have their own questions. You can also listen to our UBS webcast from earlier this week.
-Greg and Ted
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Thrive Holdings, launched by OpenAI and Stripe investor Thrive Capital, announced on Monday that it's tapped Palantir veteran Jim Siders to serve as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services.
Siders spent more than 12 years at Palantir, where he most recently served as chief information officer, overseeing global IT operations, business applications and infrastructure. He began his career at the company as an IT helpdesk engineer.
Palantir has been one of the best performers on the stock market during the artificial intelligence boom, jumping by almost thirtyfold since the end 2022.
Thrive, founded by Josh Kushner, launched Thrive Holdings in April, creating a division to own and operate companies that it believes could benefit from technological transformations. Shield was launched in June by Thrive Holdings and investment firm ZBS Partners, with over $100 million in initial funding.
Shield buys ownership stakes in IT services companies and tries to help them grow by giving them access to cutting-edge AI technology and engineering capabilities.
"If we're doing this right, we're going to see a lot of value created all the way up the chain, from end customer all the way through to us here at Shield," Siders told CNBC in an interview. "These are great businesses, and they're going to be rising up even more."
As of December, Shield works with seven companies and is expected to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year, Thrive said. Shield primarily works with small and mid-sized businesses, and has ambitions to expand its portfolio going forward.
In addition to its work with Shield in IT services, Thrive Holdings also operates in the accounting sector.
Earlier this month, OpenAI announced it took an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings and will embed engineering, research and product teams within its companies.
"We said, 'The way in which we're going to achieve the best results for our customers is if OpenAI is an owner in Thrive Holdings alongside us,'" Anuj Mehndiratta, a member of Thrive Holdings' founding team, said in an interview. "By being an owner, they will be enabled to actually focus on end outcomes in the same way that we are."
Shield's ownership structure is based on a similar line of thinking. To help align incentives and encourage companies to participate, the IT services organizations that Shield backs retain equity in their companies.
Siders kicks off his tenure as Shield CEO on Monday, and he said his initial focus will be on understanding its existing partners and searching for potential targets. He said Shield will be ambitious in the next few quarters.
"There's a whole industry out there, people who've spent their careers trying to deliver this value for everybody's benefit," Siders said. "This is a unique and special thing to attack that."
Correction: A prior version of this story mischaracterized part of the agreement between Shield and the organizations it backs. Those businesses retain equity in their companies.
WATCH: Joe Lonsdale on AI regulation: Don't want the populists to break the whole AI wave
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This is CNBC's Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox.
Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:
Rotation was the word on Wall Street's lips last week as investors iced out high-flying artificial intelligence stocks in favor of more traditional and cyclical names. Now, the question is whether that divergence will continue, as focus shifts to upcoming inflation and employment data.
Here's what to know:
Former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh has made his way to the top of Trump's list of candidates to lead the central bank.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that Warsh is a top contender for the role, joining National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett as a front-runner to succeed Jerome Powell. "I think you have Kevin and Kevin. They're both — I think the two Kevins are great," the president told the paper, adding that "there are a couple of other people that are great."
Trump also repeated his belief that the next Fed chair should consult the president on interest rate decisions, saying, "I'm a smart voice and should be listened to."
A new CNBC investigation found that in the midst of this fall's record-setting government shutdown, dozens of U.S. Food and Drug Administration staffers traveled to a Singapore resort.
Thirty-one staffers ranging from deputy directors to a program coordinator traveled to Singapore in mid-November to attend a conference of the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, according to internal FDA documents obtained by CNBC. In total, the trip cost the agency more than a quarter of a million dollars, or nearly $8,000 per attendee.
The travel was approved even as the FDA operated with reduced staffing and resource constraints amid the 43-day shutdown. The trip also comes as the agency faces a proposed 11.5% budget cut, broad layoffs and tumultuous leadership. In a statement to CNBC, the FDA said that sending employees to the conference was "mission critical." A spokesperson for the agency also noted that this year's delegation of staffers was smaller than that of the past two years.
Trump wants to make domestic shipbuilding great again, but as CNBC's Lori Ann LaRocco reports, he'll need help from international companies.
China wins as much as 75% of new ship orders and has more than 200 times the building capacity of the U.S., data shows. There are currently eight active U.S. shipyards, compared to China's more than 300.
As it tries to bolster the U.S. shipbuilding industry and make up ground, the Trump administration is tapping companies like South Korea's Hanwha through investment deals. As Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at Xeneta, told CNBC: "When you look at the orders, making American shipbuilding great again is a tall order. Foreign expertise needs to be brought in."
CNBC's Morning Squawk recaps the biggest stories investors should know before the stock market opens, every weekday morning.
Subscribe here to get access today.
Netflix will release the final episodes of its hit series "Stranger Things" at the end of the month, marking the end of an era. After being passed over by studio after studio, the underdog series has become one of the biggest success stories of the streaming world.
As CNBC's Sarah Whitten reports, the streaming giant has launched dozens of partnerships across merchandise and food tied to the 9-year-old series. Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the franchise was akin to a "'Star Wars' moment" for the streamer, given the show's role in shaping pop culture and leading to live events.
Here's what we're keeping an eye on this week:
CNBC Pro subscribers can see a calendar and rundown for the week here.
— CNBC's Sean Conlon, Brandon Gomez, Jeff Cox, Paige Tortorelli, Scott Zamost, Melissa Lee, Jeff Cox, Lori Ann LaRocco and Sarah Whitten contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.
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SINGAPORE — Sentosa Island boasts the luxury, five-star Ora and Michael hotels, with palm-tree-lined pools, lobbies flanked with luxury stores, and a casino that adjoins both hotels and buzzes with gamblers. The Singapore resort is also where a group of federal employees from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were sent for a work trip in the final hours of the government shutdown.
Internal FDA records obtained by CNBC show 31 agency staffers traveled to Singapore in mid-November for a conference of the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, or ICH — a trip that cost more than a quarter of a million dollars, or upward of $8,000 per person, according to the documents. The travel was approved when the agency was operating with reduced staffing and limited resources in part due to the shutdown.
The FDA is under significant pressure. The Trump administration proposed an 11.5% cut to the FDA's budget this year. Nearly 1,900 staffers were laid off, and around 1,200 others took early retirement packages, according to May testimony from FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. In addition, senior leadership has been in upheaval, and former FDA chiefs have publicly questioned the agency's handling of key issues such as vaccine policy.
The FDA attendees at the Singapore conference ranged from deputy directors to a program coordinator, records show. Their travel was approved about one week before the end of the government shutdown — the longest in U.S. history, at 43 days. Most staffers departed on Nov. 12, the same day the U.S. House of Representatives voted to end the shutdown, and the remaining travelers left Nov. 13 and 14, according to the documents.
The ICH, registered as a nonprofit under Swiss law, says it aims to unify the global standards for drug development and approval. The conference, held Nov. 18-19, took place in a series of meeting rooms on the island resort grounds.
ICH told CNBC in an email that "approximately 500 people attended in person," including regulators and pharmaceutical industry experts from around the world. It also wrote that the "FDA is one of the founding members of ICH" and helps develop the requirements for "safe, effective, and high-quality pharmaceuticals."
As part of the November assembly, three guidelines were adopted that aim to streamline global drug development and safety monitoring, according to the ICH. In a follow-up email, the organization said the first guideline provides a template to eliminate "inconsistent formats" in clinical trial protocols and ease electronic data sharing. The second seeks to ensure post-approval safety reports are "complete, accurate and timely" by aligning definitions and reporting practices, it said. The third adopted guideline sets international standards for noninterventional, real-world data studies to ensure they are "scientifically sound" and comparable across regulators.
FDA staffers contributed to all three of these guidelines, according to conference documents.
The FDA said in a statement to CNBC that sending staffers to the meeting was "mission critical" and that the purpose of the conference was to "support global alignment on drug development, approval standards, and regulatory science." A spokesperson for the agency said the conference required approval from leadership, including the FDA's chief operating officer, Barclay Butler. Attendance by FDA delegates in the prior two years ranged from 47 to 49, the spokesperson said, noting this year the agency sent 31.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of policy and government affairs at the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group that champions government accountability, said the optics of sending dozens of FDA staffers to an overseas conference during a government shutdown are not good.
"FDA is a critical organization that does really important work as far as our health-care system, our food system, our medical device system," Hedtler-Gaudette said. "I would hope that FDA leadership and the administration would place a higher degree of priority on making sure the organization, the agency is resourced completely rather than needing to attend specific conferences or events."
Hedtler-Gaudette said that even if the conference is important, that does little to quiet questions about the agency's priorities.
"At a minimum, it's a kind of bad look and it's poor optics," Hedtler-Gaudette said. "At the worst, it could be a kind of a dereliction of duty and a misuse of public resources."
The FDA told CNBC the trip did not rely on taxpayer dollars, saying it was funded through the agency's carryover user fees — money collected from companies that make drugs, devices and other medical products to pay for regulatory work such as product reviews and inspections.
"Those dollars are still public dollars," Hedtler-Gaudette said. "They still need to be treated and guarded with as much respect as direct tax dollars do."
An internal email from Butler, dated Oct. 1, said user fees should be applied only to work that is permitted to be funded by user fee carryover and "activities that are necessary to address imminent threats to the safety of human life or protect property."
The FDA itself seemed to be aware that any travel during the shutdown could be poorly received.
"Due to the optics of business travel conducted during a shutdown, conference approval will be handled by FDA's senior leadership on a case-by-case basis," the FDA said in a document that was posted on its website as recently as mid-November. On Dec. 3, the day after CNBC asked the agency for comment on the document, it was no longer available on the website.
"The agency routinely updates its webpages to ensure information remains accurate and consistent with current policy," an FDA spokesperson told CNBC.
In an internal email chain between FDA directors and Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Moncarz, obtained by CNBC, Director Michelle Tarver sought to "come to an agreement for legal and optics consistency on how we are handling travel during the lapse in appropriations." Tarver proposed to "cancel conference attendance and the associated local, domestic, and international travel." She went on to say that the FDA would "allow virtual speaking on exempt (i.e., user fee) topics only."
In a Nov. 6 email exchange about the ICH conference, the discussion of whether to send staffers to Singapore rose to the highest ranks of the FDA. In the email, FDA Deputy Chief Financial Officer Sahra Torres-Rivera wrote that the agency had "agreed to limit in-person participation at conferences" but noted that "the final decision ultimately rests with ... leadership."
Next year, the biannual conference will be held in Rio de Janeiro and Prague.
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European defense companies fell on Monday as talks over a potential peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine took a new turn.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over the weekend that Ukraine was prepared to abandon the country's longstanding aim of joining the NATO military alliance in exchange for alternative security guarantees to protect it from Russia. Joining NATO is unlikely given some members' opposition, but the announcement marks a major policy shift by Ukraine.
Rheinmetall, Germany's largest arms manufacturer, traded 1.9% lower at 2:48 p.m. in London (9:48 a.m. ET), paring earlier losses.
The company, which also makes air defense systems, anti-tank weapons, armored vehicles, and ammunition, led the sector's losses, as German counterparts Hensoldt and Renk slipped into negative territory.
Hensoldt, the military technology and surveillance specialist, was 1% off in afternoon deals, while tank maker Renk traded 1.1% lower. Swedish fighter jet manufacturer Saab traded slightly lower.
Zelenskyy's offer to ditch Ukraine's long-term NATO ambitions came during talks with U.S. officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which are continuing this week. Kyiv is now seeking separate security guarantees from the West, which it sees as vital to any lasting ceasefire.
Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp discussion with reporters on Sunday that such security guarantees would "provide an opportunity to prevent another outbreak of Russian aggression."
Russia remains steadfast in its opposition to any Ukrainian membership of NATO.
Protracted discussions on how to end the near four-year-long conflict — which entered a second day in Berlin on Monday — have thrust the continent's defense industry back into the spotlight.
The Stoxx Europe Aerospace and Defense Index was last seen 0.3% higher on Monday, erasing earlier losses. The benchmark has soared more than 50% year-to-date.
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Ukraine has said it's willing to give up its aspirations to join NATO in return for security guarantees, as part of a peace deal to end the almost four-year war with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered to drop Kyiv's NATO dreams during five hours of talks with U.S. officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Berlin over the weekend. Witkoff said "a lot of progress was made" during the talks, which are set to continue on Monday.
Ukraine's offer marks a major policy shift. It has long coveted membership of the Western military alliance, whose members are obliged to consider an attack on one as an attack on all under Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that the offer to drop NATO membership in return for security guarantees was a compromise, amid resistance among some of its Western allies to its NATO bid.
"From the very beginning, Ukraine's conditions – or perhaps more accurately, our ambition – was NATO membership. And that would have provided real security guarantees. Some partners from the United States and Europe did not support this direction," he said in answer to questions from reporters in a WhatsApp chat on Sunday.
"That is why today the bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States, specifically Article 5–like guarantees from the United States for us, and the security guarantees from our European colleagues for us, as well as from other countries such as Canada and Japan – these security guarantees for us provide an opportunity to prevent another outbreak of Russian aggression," Zelenskyy commented.
"And this already is a compromise on our part," he said.
Despite Ukraine publicly abandoning its NATO bid, the chances of it joining the alliance were vanishingly thin. Several members were resistant to the idea, including Moscow-friendly Slovakia and Hungary. Even Ukraine's allies within NATO worried about poking the Russian bear beyond Ukraine's borders.
Moscow vehemently opposes Ukraine joining NATO, and Russia has claimed the alliance's expansion in Eastern Europe was one of the reasons it launched its so-called "special military operation" against Ukraine in 2022.
Kyiv insists that security guarantees must be a part of a peace deal instead of NATO membership, and this remains a sticking point in negotiations with Moscow, which is refusing to allow Ukraine's allies to be part of any peacekeeping force in the country.
Talks about a draft peace agreement are continuing on Monday. Zelenskyy aide Dmytro Lytvyn said that the president would comment on the talks once they were completed, Reuters reported.
The Kremlin said Monday that it expected to be briefed later on the outcome of talks between Ukraine and the U.S. on Monday. When asked to comment on Kyiv relinquishing its NATO ambitions, and what security guarantees Russia could accept in a potential peace deal, Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said:"This issue is one of the cornerstones. And, of course, it requires special discussion against the background of all the others. But that is precisely what the negotiation process consists of, which I would like to emphasize once again - we do not want to engage in megaphone diplomacy."
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Taken from CNBC's Daily Open, our international markets newsletter — Subscribe today
The sell-off in artificial intelligence stocks continued unabated Friday stateside. Broadcom shares tumbled more than 11% as investors grew concerned over lower margins and uncertain deals. Names such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Oracle fell in sympathy, which caused major U.S. indexes to close lower.
It was a motif patterning the week. Even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1% week on week on the back of outperformance by financial stocks, tech names dragged down the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, which fell 0.6% and 1.6% respectively for the week.
That said, investors could have just been jittery amid the narrative of an apparent AI bubble, and were spooked by any sign of bad news. After all, Broadcom's earnings — as well as its guidance for the current quarter — breezed past expectations.
"Frankly we aren't sure what else one could desire as the company's AI story continues to not only overdeliver but is doing it at an accelerating rate," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, who has a "buy" rating on Broadcom, wrote in a Friday note.
Future prospects also look rosy, according to UBS. "We expect high profitability and the accelerating impact of the AI, power and resources, and longevity themes to drive 2026 performance," said strategist Sagar Khandelwal.
But in the near term, investors may still be flighty, unless something concretely reassuring, such as Oracle achieving positive cash flow, reassures them the snapping sound is just a twig in the forest.
U.S. stocks dragged down by AI names. Major indexes fell Friday, a day after they hit record highs. Asia-Pacific markets traded lower Monday. South Korea's Kospi retreated roughly 1.5% as of 2:45 p.m. Singapore time (1:45 a.m. ET), leading losses in the region.
China's economic slowdown deepens. Even though the country's retail sales and industrial production grew year on year in November, their increase missed forecasts and slowed from the previous month. Investment in fixed assets in the January-to-November period contracted from a year earlier.
The end of the 'Berkshire way'? Several aspects of Berkshire Hathaway's leadership transition are signaling that the conglomerate is drifting away from the famously decentralized "Berkshire way," CNBC's Alex Crippen writes.
Hong Kong court finds Jimmy Lai guilty. The 78-year-old pro-democracy activist and media baron was ruled guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign countries by a Hong Kong court on Monday. The results might unsettle foreign investors, analysts say.
[PRO] China's food security strategy. The spat between Beijing and Washington over soybean purchases has highlighted the evolution of China's domestic agriculture industry. Goldman Sachs thinks this is the best way to play the sector.
Copper could hit ‘stratospheric new highs' as hoarding of the metal in U.S. continues
Copper prices have hit multiple record highs this year, fueled by supply disruptions and as fears over U.S. tariffs have led to a surge in demand. The rally is set to continue into 2026.
Citi analysts expect prices of the red metal to skyrocket on the back of stronger demand led by the energy transition and artificial intelligence sectors. Electrification, grid expansion and data-center build-outs require large amounts of the metal for wiring, power transmission and cooling infrastructure.
— Lee Ying Shan
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To justify a case for martial law, former President Yoon Suk Yeol tried to provoke neighboring North Korea into taking military action, South Korean prosecutors alleged Monday, according to domestic media.
Speaking to reporters, special counsel Cho Eun-suk said that Yoon and his military commanders tried to lure North Korea into mounting an armed aggression against the South, but this failed as Pyongyang did not resort to military force.
Cho and his team have indicted 24 people, including Yoon and five cabinet members, on insurrection charges following a six-month investigation.
Earlier this month, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung had said on the 1-year anniversary of Yoon's short-lived martial law declaration that North Korea sending of trash balloons over to South Korea might have been provoked by Seoul's actions, although he did not elaborate at that time.
Lee had also vowed "strict accountability" for the perpetrators behind the failed martial law attempt, with investigations and trials still underway.
In July, Reuters reported that the special counsel had sought to detain the head of a military drone unit, over accusations that Yoon had ordered a covert drone operation into North Korea to raise tensions between the two countries.
Cho also said that Yoon had masterminded a plan in October 2023 to suspend the powers of South Korea's parliament and replace it with an emergency legislative body.
South Korean media outlet Yonhap also reported that Yoon also sought to portray the April 2024 general election results, lost by his ruling party, as electoral fraud led by anti-state forces.
The 2024 election saw the then-opposition Democratic Party, led by Lee, hold on to its majority in the National Assembly.
After being removed from office in April, Yoon has been charged with insurrection, which carries the maximum penalty of death.
South Korean prosecutors have also reportedly sought a 15-year prison term for former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo. Other senior officials, including Yoon's defense minister and the former head of the National Intelligence Service, have also been arrested in connection with the attempt to impose military rule.
On Dec. 3 last year, Yoon had abruptly declared martial law in a late night address, before lawmakers — including members of Yoon's own party — rushed to overturn his order. Yoon withdrew his decree six hours after his announcement.
Imposing martial law led to impeachment motions against Yoon, which resulted in him being impeached on Dec. 14 last year and removal from office on April 4.
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AI may be blamed for this year's layoffs, but a new global survey says the technology could fuel a rebound in some entry-level hiring next year.
Public-company CEOs say AI is creating more jobs in 2026, according to an annual outlook survey conducted by advisory firm Teneo released this month. Sixty-seven percent of the CEOs surveyed said they expect AI to increase entry-level hiring in 2026, and 58% said they plan to add senior-leadership roles as well.
The report said that firms are ramping up hiring in engineering and AI-related roles. Many existing jobs are being reconfigured or reassigned as certain tasks become increasingly automated.
The survey, conducted between October 14 and November 10, gathered responses from more than 350 global CEOs leading public companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue, as well as about 400 institutional investors representing $19 trillion in portfolio value.
The findings run counter to the prevailing narrative that AI is automating entire jobs away.
"It's not that AI is wiping out the workforce today — it's reshaping it," said Ryan Cox, Teneo's global head of AI.
The hiring momentum mirrors a broader surge in corporate AI investment. Sixty-eight percent of CEOs said they plan to increase AI spending next year, up from 66% in 2025. Nearly nine in 10 CEOs said AI is already helping their organizations navigate disruption.
All that spending has raised expectations. More than half of investors said they expect AI initiatives to show results in under six months. CEOs aren't so sure: Only 16% of leaders at large-cap companies — with annual revenue of $10 billion or more — said such fast returns are realistic.
Fears that AI will eliminate human jobs have intensified as more companies announce layoffs tied to automation.
HP said in a November earnings report that it plans to eliminate between 4,000 and 6,000 roles by the end of 2028 — a move expected to save about $1 billion. IBM announced in November that it would reduce its workforce by a "single-digit percentage" in the fourth quarter of 2025.
But the shift isn't as simple as workers being replaced by machines. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNN in October that the company is simultaneously shifting head count toward AI and quantum computing, and plans to ramp up hiring of college graduates in the next year. AI adoption has also driven demand for programmers and sales employees, he told The Wall Street Journal in May.
AI has created new job categories as it reshapes old ones. Titles such as decision designer and AI experience officer are emerging in the workforce, workplace experts said in a Business Insider report earlier this month. These roles focus on guiding AI systems and enhancing human-AI collaboration.
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Actor-director and political activist Rob Reiner and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, and police are investigating the circumstances as an apparent homicide, authorities said.
While police declined to publicly identify the two people found deceased, Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom each released statements confirming that Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele, 68, had died.
"This is a devastating loss for our city and our country. Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice," the mayor wrote.
The Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement on social media calling the case an "apparent homicide." Police had not detained anyone for questioning nor identified a suspect as of Sunday night, Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told a press conference.
LAPD patrol officers dispatched to the home late Sunday afternoon discovered two bodies inside the residence. Emergency personnel had first responded to a call for medical aid, a city fire department official said earlier.
Detectives of the LAPD's robbery-homicide unit were waiting for a search warrant before entering the home to conduct a thorough search and full-fledged investigation of the premises, Hamilton said, adding that a cause of death will be made public by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office.
As an actor, Reiner was best remembered for his role on the 1970s CBS television comedy hit "All in the Family" as Mike "Meathead" Stivic, the son-in-law and liberal foil of the lead character, working-class bigot Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O'Connor.
The role garnered Reiner two Emmy awards for outstanding supporting actor.
Reiner went on to have a prolific Hollywood career as a director, starting with "This is Spinal Tap," a 1984 mockumentary following the trials and tribulations of a fictional hard rock band on tour. The satiric film became a cult classic, known for its mostly improvised script, with Reiner playing the faux documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi.
The movie worked, Reiner later said, because of the cast's love for rock 'n' roll.
"That was the trick - to make fun of it and at the same time, honor it," Reiner told CBS News show "60 Minutes" in an interview marking the launch of this year's sequel, "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues," which he also directed and appeared in.
Reiner directed nearly two dozen films in all, including classics such as "Stand by Me," a 1986 coming-of-age drama about four boys who set out to find the body of a missing youth, as well as 1989's "When Harry Met Sally ...," starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
That film, often cited as one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, featured the famed line, "I'll have what she's having," delivered by the director's real-life mother, Estelle Reiner, playing a bit part as a diner reacting to Ryan's character faking an orgasm in a restaurant.
Versatile across a range of genres, Reiner directorial credits also included the 1987 fairy tale adventure "The Princess Bride," the 1990 psychological thriller "Misery," an adaptation of a Stephen King novel starring Kathy Bates and James Caan, and the 1992 military courtroom drama "A Few Good Men," starring Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore.
Reiner's wife, Michele, was at one time a photographer who captured the image of Donald Trump that appears on the cover of his book "Trump: The Art of the Deal."
Rob Reiner, a native of New York City and the son of the late comedy writer and actor Carl Reiner, was also well known as a Democratic Party activist and advocate of various liberal social causes.
In the 2004 presidential election, he backed Democratic candidate John Kerry and featured in advertisements taking aim at incumbent President George W. Bush. Reiner also supported Democratic presidential hopefuls Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
He campaigned against California Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure that amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. Prop 8 was later overturned by the courts and formally repealed by another voter initiative.
He led a separate campaign to pass Proposition 10, a state ballot initiative that created an early childhood development services program.
Reiner was first married to Penny Marshall, who played Laverne in the TV sitcom "Laverne & Shirley," and was also a producer and director. He was an adoptive father to Marshall's daughter and had three children with Michele Singer.
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A new law barring children under 16 from opening or maintaining social media accounts took effect last week in Australia, forcing platforms to deactivate accounts for swaths of young users.
In the words of Taylor Swift, however, Reddit would very much like to be excluded from this narrative because, it says, it's not a social media platform.
Reddit made the argument in a lawsuit it filed against the Commonwealth of Australia and its Minister of Communications on Friday. The Australian law is meant to protect young people from what it says are the harmful and addictive effects of social media use.
Reddit is seeking to overturn the country's new law, which it says "infringes the implied freedom of political communication."
As part of the legal filing, Reddit also pushed back at being labeled an "age-restricted social media platform" within the meaning of Australia's law.
Instead, Reddit said it "operates as a collection of public fora arranged by subject."
"That is because it is not the case that the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of Reddit is to enable 'online social interaction' between two or more end-users," the company said in its 12-page legal filing.
The company added that, in most cases, users don't know each other's real identities.
"Reddit does not import contact lists or address books. The 'upvote/downvote' functionality enables users to indicate how helpful they found the information that was posted by an end-user," the company said in the lawsuit. "It is not intended to be used as a way for users to express any view about the poster themselves. In this way, Reddit is significantly different from other sites that allow for users to become 'friends' with one another, or to post photos about themselves, or to organise events."
Reddit, founded in 2005, allows users to post and reply to those posts on "subreddits" dedicated to almost any topic imaginable. Users have the option to upvote or downvote posts and can send each other direct messages. While Reddit users can use their real names, most of them operate anonymously.
The company went public in 2024 with a valuation of $6.4 billion.
Reddit elaborated on its argument in a statement addressed to its users, which was shared on the platform last week.
"This law is applied to Reddit inaccurately, since we're a forum primarily for adults and we don't have the traditional social media features the government has taken issue with," the company said in the statement.
Australia's new law, which would place the onus on social media platforms to verify users' ages, has drawn criticism from other companies it targets as well, such as TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
Reddit, which says it is complying with the law, told its users that doing so could have unintended consequences.
"This law has the unfortunate effect of forcing intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors, isolating teens from the ability to engage in age-appropriate community experiences (including political discussions), and creating an illogical patchwork of which platforms are included and which aren't," the company said.
Australia isn't the only country considering restricting social media use among young people.
Malaysia plans to ban children under 16 from having social media accounts in 2026. In Norway and Denmark, lawmakers have proposed laws that would ban social media accounts for children under 15.
A handful of US senators earlier this year introduced the Kids Off Social Media Act, which would bar social media platforms from allowing children under 13 years old to create or maintain accounts. The act would also bar platforms from using algorithms to target children under 17.
"Australia is stepping up to protect kids from the addictive and harmful content being constantly fed to them on social media. It's now time for Congress to do the same and pass the Kids Off Social Media Act," Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a Democrat, said in a statement to Business Insider.
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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) continued to lean aggressively into Bitcoin (BTC-USD), stepping up purchases for a second consecutive week as prices pulled back. Between Dec. 8 and Dec. 14, the company acquired $980.3 million worth of Bitcoin, its largest weekly purchase since July and the second straight week of adding more than 10,000 coins to its balance sheet, something it had not done since January. The move reinforces Strategy's positioning as a dedicated digital asset treasury company at a moment when volatility has returned to the crypto market.
Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Signs with MSTR.
Is MSTR fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator.
The bulk of the latest buying was funded through at-the-market sales of Class A common stock, alongside sales from three of its four classes of perpetual preferred shares. That funding approach has revived concerns among critics who argue repeated equity issuance could be dilutive and may be pressuring the premium the shares trade at versus the firm's roughly $59 billion Bitcoin holdings. Shares fell about 6.7% to $164.60 in New York trading, while Bitcoin declined around 1.8% to $86,885, leaving the cryptocurrency roughly 30% below its early October peak of just over $126,000.
Attention has also shifted to index dynamics. After speculation about a potential removal, the Nasdaq 100 decided late Friday to keep Strategy in the index following its annual reconstitution, easing fears of near-term forced selling. Separately, the company has urged MSCI to abandon a proposal that could remove digital asset treasury firms whose crypto holdings exceed half of total assets from global equity benchmarks, warning of potentially harmful consequences if adopted. MSCI is expected to announce its decision by Jan. 15, a date that could be closely watched as Strategy's shares continue to trade at a premium of about 1.1 times enterprise value.
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A so-called Santa rally is looking less and less likely, with prices for top assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP falling sharply on Monday, hitting their lowest prices in at least a week as liquidations piled up across the board.
Bitcoin was recently down more than 3% over the last 24 hours, falling from a mark of nearly $90,000 early Monday to a recent price of $85,833. That's the lowest price registered for the leading crypto asset since December 1, per data from CoinGecko.
Ethereum, meanwhile, was down about more than 4% to a price of $2,955, with XRP falling 4.5% to $1.90—its lowest mark so far in December. Over the last week, every coin in the top 10 assets by market cap is down, aside from dollar-pegged stablecoins.
Monday's rough start to the new week has led to a smattering of crypto liquidations, tallying $573 million over the last day, per data from CoinGlass. Long positions, or bets that an asset's price will rise, make up the majority of the mess with $486 million worth.
Bitcoin is currently leading the pack for liquidations with $205 million in total, with Ethereum not too far behind at $156 million.
Overall, the crypto market has shed more than 3% of its value over the last 24 hours. Stock market indices aren't showing nearly as bad of a hit on Monday, however, with the S&P 500 dipping 0.1% and the Nasdaq down by about 0.3%.
Strategy Adds Nearly a Billion Dollars in Bitcoin for Second Straight Week
Crypto stocks, on the other hand, are showing more substantial losses, with Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) down 15% on the day, crypto exchange Gemini (GEMI) falling 12%, and top Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies dropping 8% so far on the day. Coinbase has fallen by more than 5%, with Robinhood showing a less than 2% dip so far Monday.
Users on Myriad—a prediction market platform owned by Decrypt's parent company, Dastan—are growing increasingly bearish on the prospects of a Santa rally next week, currently giving that a less than 8% likelihood of happening. That's down from nearly 20% odds a week ago.
THIS NEWS RELEASE IS INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA ONLY AND IS NOT AUTHORIZED FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
WHITE ROCK, BRITISH COLUMBIA / ACCESS Newswire / December 15, 2025 / Athena Gold Corporation (CSE:ATHA)(OTCQB:AHNRF) ("Athena Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its news releases of November 17, November 24 and December 9, 2025, the Company has closed the second tranche of its private placement financing (the "Offering") and has received proceeds of CDN $270,499.98 through the issuance of 150,000 flow-through units (the "FT Units") at CDN $0.07 per FT Unit and 4,333,333 non-flow-through units (the "NFT Units") at CDN $0.06 per NFT Unit. An aggregate of CDN $2,727,526.03 was raised in the first tranche of the Offering.
Due to increased demand, the Company sought and received approval from the Canadian Securities Exchange to an increase in the Offering, to include an increase in the number of FT Units forming part of the Offering, from the original CDN $1,500,000 (21,428,571 FT Units) up to CDN $2,200,000, for an additional 10,000,000 FT Units. The total Offering now consists of up to CDN $4,200,000 consisting of (i) CDN $2,200,000 through the issuance of up to 31,428,571 flow-through units (the "FT Units") at a price of CDN $0.07 per FT Unit, (ii) CDN $1,100,000 through the issuance of up to 15,714,296 flow-through common shares (the "CMETC FT Shares") at a price of CDN $0.07 per CMETC FT Share, and (iii) CDN $900,000 through the issuance of up to 15,000,000 non-flow-through units ("NFT Units") at a price of $CDN $0.06 per NFT Unit. All other terms and conditions remain constant.
Closing of the third tranche is expected to occur by the end of this week.
Each FT Unit is comprised of one flow-through common share (a "FT Share") and one-half of a non-flow-through share purchase warrant (a "FT Warrant"), with each whole FT Warrant exercisable for one non-flow-through common share at an exercise price of CDN $0.09 for a term of 24 months after closing subject to an acceleration clause. If, at any time after the date that is 4 months and one day after the date of issuance of the FT Warrants, the average volume weighted trading price of Athena's common shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange is at or above CDN $0.14 per share for a period of 10 consecutive trading days (the "Triggering Event"), Athena may at any time, after the Triggering Event, accelerate the expiry date of the FT Warrants by giving ten calendar days' notice to the holders of the FT Warrants, by way of news release, and in such case the FT Warrants will expire on the first day that is 30 calendar days after the date on which such notice is given by Athena announcing the Triggering Event.
Each NFT Unit is comprised of one non-flow-through common share and one non-flow-through share purchase warrant (a "NFT Warrant"), with each NFT Warrant exercisable for one non-flow-through common share at an exercise price of CDN $0.09 for a term of 24 months after closing subject to an acceleration clause. If, at any time after the date that is 4 months and one day after the date of issuance of the NFT Warrants, the average volume weighted trading price of Athena's common shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange is at or above CDN $0.14 per share for a period of 10 consecutive trading days (the "Triggering Event"), Athena may at any time, after the Triggering Event, accelerate the expiry date of the NFT Warrants by giving ten calendar days' notice to the holders of the NFT Warrants, by way of news release, and in such case the NFT Warrants will expire on the first day that is 30 calendar days after the date on which such notice is given by Athena announcing the Triggering Event.
Each of the FT and CMETC FT Shares will qualify as "flow-through shares" of the Company as defined in section 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada). The CMETC FT Shares will also qualify for the Canadian government's Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit. Proceeds will be spent on the Company's Laird Lake and Oneman Lake Projects located in Ontario, that will qualify as "Canadian Exploration Expenses" and "flow-through critical mineral mining expenditures" as those terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada), which will be renounced to the purchasers with an effective date no later than December 31, 2025.
The proceeds from the sale of the NFT Units will be used for additional exploration work on the Company's properties and for general and administrative expenses and working capital purposes.
No finder's fees were paid in connection with the closing of the second tranche, nor did any insiders participate in the second tranche.
All securities issued in connection with the Offering are subject to a four-month and one-day hold period.
None of the foregoing securities have been or will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act") or any applicable state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) or persons in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor will there be any sale of the foregoing securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.
About Athena Gold Corporation
Athena Gold is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets. Its objective is to locate and develop economic precious and base metal properties of merit and to conduct additional exploration drilling and studies on its projects across North America. Athena Gold's Laird Lake project is situated in the Red Lake Gold District of Ontario, covering over 4,000 hectares along more than 10 km of the Balmer-Confederation Assemblage contact, where recent surface sampling results returned up to 373 g/t Au. This underexplored area is road-accessible, located about 10 km west of West Red Lake Gold's Madsen mine and 34 km northwest of Kinross Gold's Great Bear project. Meanwhile, its Excelsior Springs Au-Ag project is located in the prolific Walker Lane Trend in Nevada, where it us currently under option by Firetail Resources Limited. Excelsior Springs spans over 1,500 hectares and covers at least three historic mines.
For further information about Athena Gold Corporation and our Excelsior Springs Gold project, please visit www.athenagoldcorp.com.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
Koby KushnerPresident and Chief Executive Officer, Athena Gold Corporation
For further information, please contact:
Athena Gold CorporationKoby Kushner, President and Chief Executive Officer Phone: 416-846-6164 Email: kobykushner@athenagoldcorp.com
CHF Capital MarketsCathy Hume, CEO Phone: 416-868-1079 x 251 Email: cathy@chfir.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US. securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding future exploration plans, future results from exploration, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "will", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", ''plans", "may", "should", ''potential", "scheduled", or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. In making the forward-looking statements in this press release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that there will be investor interest in future financings, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future exploration and development of the Company's projects in a timely manner.
The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this press release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise stated.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE: Athena Gold Corp
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© Copyright 2025 The Globe and Mail Inc. All rights reserved.
Andrew Saunders, President and CEO
Denver, CO, USA, December 15th, 2025, FinanceWire
AureaVault Trading Services Inc., a United States-based financial technology firm, today confirmed the expansion of its secure digital asset trading infrastructure to serve international markets, with a strategic focus on Mexico and Latin America. This move provides traders in high-growth emerging economies direct access to a platform operating under strict U.S. federal compliance standards.
As cryptocurrency adoption accelerates across Mexico—driven by high-volume remittance corridors and demand for inflation-resistant assets—investors increasingly seek alternatives to unregulated local entities. AureaVault addresses this market gap by offering a trading environment secured by FinCEN Money Services Business (MSB) authorization (Registration #31000309349610). This federal oversight ensures that AureaVault adheres to rigorous Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols, providing a “safe harbor” for international capital.
Security First: Protecting User Assets
Trust remains the primary barrier for Latin American investors entering the crypto market. AureaVault eliminates this concern through an institutional-grade security architecture.
The platform secures 98% of user funds in air-gapped cold storage facilities. This physical isolation protects assets from online threats. Additionally, the system employs multi-signature technology and Hardware Security Modules (HSM) to prevent unauthorized access. Unlike exchanges that rely on “hot wallets” for liquidity, AureaVault prioritizes asset safety above aggressive expansion.
Engineered for High-Frequency Performance
Beyond security, AureaVault delivers the technical performance required by professional traders. The platform's proprietary matching engine handles millions of transactions per second with ultra-low latency.
This infrastructure supports:
Deep Liquidity: Ensuring competitive spreads on major trading pairs.
Robust API Access: Providing REST and WebSocket connections for algorithmic traders and institutional clients.
24/7 Stability: A microservices architecture ensures high availability, even during periods of extreme market volatility common in the crypto sector.
Frequently Asked Questions about AureaVault
Is AureaVault regulated in the United States? Yes. AureaVault Trading Services Inc. is registered as a Money Services Business (MSB) with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). This registration authorizes the company to operate as a money transmitter and dealer in foreign exchange across all U.S. states and territories.
How does AureaVault protect my funds? We employ a defense-in-depth strategy. The vast majority of assets (98%) reside in offline cold storage. User accounts require Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and real-time threat detection systems monitor for suspicious activity 24/7.
Can international traders use the platform? Yes. AureaVault accepts users from compliant international jurisdictions, including Mexico. Our platform is designed to bridge the gap between emerging markets and U.S. financial standards, offering a secure venue for cross-border digital asset participation.
About AureaVault
AureaVault Trading Services Inc. is a premier digital asset exchange dedicated to transparency, security, and regulatory compliance. Headquartered in the United States, the company provides a seamless interface for retail and institutional clients to trade cryptocurrencies. AureaVault combines advanced technology with a user-centric approach to redefine trust in the digital economy.
Risk Warning: Digital asset trading involves significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices are volatile. Please trade responsibly.
For more information, users can visit: https://www.ajslkz.com/
Media Contact
Company Name: AureaVault Trading Services Inc.
Contact Person: Marcus Bellwether, Chief Operating Officer
Email: marcus.bellwether@ajslkz.com
Address: 1312 17TH STREET SUITE 680, DENVER, CO 80202,USA
Website: https://www.ajslkz.com/
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BitMine Immersion Technology (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, continued its splurge, buying 102,259 in ether ETH$3,125.57 through last week, worth roughly $320 million at recent prices.
The latest acquisition, reported on Monday, brought the firm's stash to nearly 4 million tokens, aiming to corner 5% of ether's supply. The company kept its cash holdings steady at $1 billion, while its total holdings — including a minor bitcoin BTC$85,780.72 stack and stake in Worldcoin-focused digital asset treasury Eightco (ORBS) — stood at $13.2 billion.
Most digital asset treasuries have slowed or reversed accumulation as token prices and equity valuations came under pressure in in the past months. There's only a few exceptions such as BitMine and bitcoin-centric Strategy (MSTR) that kept adding to their holdings through the correction. However, BitMine is estimated to sitting on around $3 billion in unrealized losses on its ETH holdings, as the second-largest cryptocurrency is trading 36% lower than its August record-high.
"2025 saw many positive developments in digital assets," said chairman Thomas Lee, who's also the founder of analytics firm Fundstrat, "including positive legislation passed by the US Congress and favorable regulations, and by strengthening support from Wall Street."
"These strengthen our conviction that the best days for crypto are ahead and why we continue to accumulate ETH towards our 'alchemy of 5%' target," he added.
Read more: Most Influential: Tom Lee
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Protocol Research: GoPlus Security
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Anchorage Digital Buys Securitize's RIA Platform to Expand Wealth Management Business
The bank has bought the Securitize For Advisors unit, bringing the RIA-focused crypto wealth management platform in-house.
What to know:
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
BitMine Immersion Technology (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, continued its splurge, buying 102,259 in ether ETH$3 125,57 through last week, worth roughly $320 million at recent prices.
The latest acquisition, reported on Monday, brought the firm's stash to nearly 4 million tokens, aiming to corner 5% of ether's supply. The company kept its cash holdings steady at $1 billion, while its total holdings — including a minor bitcoin BTC$89 629,86 stack and stake in Worldcoin-focused digital asset treasury Eightco (ORBS) — stood at $13.2 billion.
Most digital asset treasuries have slowed or reversed accumulation as token prices and equity valuations came under pressure in in the past months. There's only a few exceptions such as BitMine and bitcoin-centric Strategy (MSTR) that kept adding to their holdings through the correction. However, BitMine is estimated to sitting on around $3 billion in unrealized losses on its ETH holdings, as the second-largest cryptocurrency is trading 36% lower than its August record-high.
"2025 saw many positive developments in digital assets," said chairman Thomas Lee, who's also the founder of analytics firm Fundstrat, "including positive legislation passed by the US Congress and favorable regulations, and by strengthening support from Wall Street."
"These strengthen our conviction that the best days for crypto are ahead and why we continue to accumulate ETH towards our 'alchemy of 5%' target," he added.
Read more: Most Influential: Tom Lee
Plus pour vous
Protocol Research: GoPlus Security
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BlackRock expands crypto bet with 7 senior hires across U.S. and Asia
The $10 trillion asset manager is staffing up to scale digital asset ETFs, pursue tokenization and identify "first-mover big bets" in Asia.
Ce qu'il:
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
BitMine Immersion Technology (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, continued its splurge, buying 102,259 in ether ETH$3,125.57 through last week, worth roughly $320 million at recent prices.
The latest acquisition, reported on Monday, brought the firm's stash to nearly 4 million tokens, aiming to corner 5% of ether's supply. The company kept its cash holdings steady at $1 billion, while its total holdings — including a minor bitcoin BTC$89,629.86 stack and stake in Worldcoin-focused digital asset treasury Eightco (ORBS) — stood at $13.2 billion.
Most digital asset treasuries have slowed or reversed accumulation as token prices and equity valuations came under pressure in in the past months. There's only a few exceptions such as BitMine and bitcoin-centric Strategy (MSTR) that kept adding to their holdings through the correction. However, BitMine is estimated to sitting on around $3 billion in unrealized losses on its ETH holdings, as the second-largest cryptocurrency is trading 36% lower than its August record-high.
"2025 saw many positive developments in digital assets," said chairman Thomas Lee, who's also the founder of analytics firm Fundstrat, "including positive legislation passed by the US Congress and favorable regulations, and by strengthening support from Wall Street."
"These strengthen our conviction that the best days for crypto are ahead and why we continue to accumulate ETH towards our 'alchemy of 5%' target," he added.
Read more: Most Influential: Tom Lee
More For You
Protocol Research: GoPlus Security
What to know:
More For You
BlackRock expands crypto bet with 7 senior hires across U.S. and Asia
The $10 trillion asset manager is staffing up to scale digital asset ETFs, pursue tokenization and identify "first-mover big bets" in Asia.
What to know:
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
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JPMorgan is set to offer clients access to a tokenized money market fund as part of Wall Street's latest crypto push.
The bank announced that its asset management arm will launch a tokenized money-market fund that will run on the ethereum blockchain. My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY) will be supported by Kinexys Digital Assets, the bank's tokenization platform.
MONY will hold short-term debt and issue daily interest payouts in the same way traditional money market funds do. The key difference lies in the fact that its shares will exist on the ethereum blockchain network, and investors can redeem them using either cash or the USDC stablecoin.
The new fund, which The Wall Street Journal reported will be offered to wealthy clients and institutions, will have a minimum investment of $1 million. Its launch is the latest crypto move from the bank, which also recently tokenized some private equity investments in October.
It's also the latest crypto push from Wall Street broadly. Asset management titans, including Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and BlackRock, have also been offering crypto investments and blockchain solutions for clients.
JPMorgan will commit $100 million of its own capital to the fund before officially opening it up to investors on December 16.
Despite some skepticism from CEO Jamie Dimon over the years, the bank has made inroads into crypto and has been recently bullish on the price of bitcoin. JPMorgan analysts said recently that bitcoin could buck its latest downtrend and reach $170,000 in 2026.
Asset tokenization has been in focus in 2025, with platforms like Robinhood framing it as a means of trading more efficiently or potentially gaining exposure to private investments.
The passing of the GENIUS Act, meanwhile, has offered support for stablecoins, a key component for tokenized funds like MONY.
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By Sam Cooling
Last Updated: December 15, 2025
Fact checked
By 99Bitcoins Editorial Team
The Bitcoin ecosystem is heading for its biggest ever upgrade as HYPER – a new Bitcoin layer2 blasts towards $30M raised in ongoing ICO.
Bitcoin Hyper (HYPER) has now secured $29.5 million in presale funding, and it's doing it by challenging one of Bitcoin's longest-standing limitations without touching Bitcoin itself.
As BTC slips back under $90,000, Bitcoin's price has always relied on belief, not usage, and that ceiling is starting to show. Bitcoin Hyper is built to break that ceiling by giving BTC a place to move, transact, and circulate at scale.
Instead of trying to “upgrade” Bitcoin, Hyper builds around it. Bitcoin stays exactly what it is – the final settlement layer – while everything that Bitcoin was never designed to do happens elsewhere. Execution lives in a high-speed environment, and applications finally get room to breathe.
That's why investors are stacking HYPER, the token designed to sit at the center of Bitcoin's transition from a static asset to a living economic network.
And for now, that entry still exists. HYPER is priced at $0.013425, but only for the next five hours before the next funding round begins.
As 2025 winds down, it will be remembered as the year Bitcoin first broke decisively into six-figure territory. Yet, the latest dip has revived a harder question. Is Bitcoin's store-of-value narrative still enough on its own to keep prices moving higher?
That question is also starting to surface in traditional markets. Strategy has come under pressure as index providers consider whether its heavy Bitcoin exposure justifies its inclusion in major benchmarks, such as the MSCI indices.
JPMorgan analysts have warned that exclusion could trigger billions of dollars in passive fund outflows. At the same time, Strategy's shares have fallen far more sharply than Bitcoin itself, now trading closer to the value of the BTC it holds rather than at the premium investors once assigned to its treasury strategy.
https://twitter.com/_Adrian/status/1993333888974991842
Indeed, scarcity on its own may no longer be enough to drive Bitcoin higher. To reclaim and sustain six-figure prices and ultimately surpass prior highs, the network requires a fresh source of demand.
The base layer was intentionally designed to be minimal, conservative, and difficult to alter, i.e., a neutral settlement network that prioritizes security and verifiability above all else. That design choice is precisely why Bitcoin has survived for more than a decade without compromise.
But it also creates a constraint. That is, if Bitcoin must remain simple, then complex execution has to live elsewhere. There is no other path forward.
This is the gap Bitcoin Hyper is built to fill. Execution moves into a separate environment, while Bitcoin remains the final judge of truth.
Bitcoin was created to be an incorruptible form of money that no government, company, or small group could change, debase, or control. To achieve that, the system had to be unbreakable by design, even if that meant sacrificing speed or flexibility.
That's why Bitcoin relies on something as brutally simple as SHA-256: a one-way cryptographic function that does nothing fancy, but does one thing impossibly well. You can verify it instantly, but you can't reverse it – and that asymmetry is the foundation of Bitcoin's security.
https://twitter.com/SimplyBitcoin/status/1915522460184957421
Think of Bitcoin as bedrock. You don't carve tunnels into bedrock every time you want to build something new. You build on top of it because the stability beneath is what gives everything above it value.
As mentioned, Bitcoin's base layer was intentionally kept minimal and conservative from the start. Fewer moving parts meant fewer attack surfaces, lower governance risk, and a system anyone could verify without relying on complex logic. That restraint is exactly why Bitcoin has remained the most secure and decentralized network in the cryptocurrency space.
But bedrock isn't where you live, but where you build on. Advanced functionality was never meant to sit on Bitcoin's base layer, and forcing it there would undermine the very qualities that make Bitcoin valuable.
This is precisely the impetus for creating Bitcoin Hyper. It introduces an additional layer above Bitcoin where advanced functionality can live without altering the base chain.
That execution layer runs on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), removing execution from Bitcoin's slow base layer and placing it in an environment designed for speed and scale. It's where transactions are cheap and instant, and complexity is no longer a bottleneck.
What this creates is beyond just “hybrid apps,” but a structural shift. Bitcoin stops sitting still. BTC flows through DeFi, gaming, and real economic activity at Solana-level speed, while final settlement still snaps back to Bitcoin. Fast on the surface and immutable underneath.
This Bitcoin Hyper system is designed to do one thing that Bitcoin has never been able to do at scale: make BTC usable in everyday economic activity. Inside Bitcoin Hyper, applications are built to accept Bitcoin itself as the medium of exchange. To interact with them, users need BTC.
And that's where the shift happens. When applications require BTC to function, demand no longer depends solely on speculation or macro narratives but ultimately becomes structural. Bitcoin begins to behave less like dormant collateral and more like money circulating through an ecosystem.
But Bitcoin Hyper isn't just creating a new use case for BTC. It's also creating a second half of the economy that early Bitcoin believers once had access to. The execution layer needs fuel, and that role belongs to HYPER.
https://twitter.com/BTC_Hyper2/status/1998620068742312386
HYPER is the gas token that powers transactions across the network, the staking asset that helps secure it, and the governance token that shapes its evolution. It's the asset that captures the growth of activity happening on top of Bitcoin.
That's why more than $29.5 million has already flowed into the presale, as investors are placing early bets on the infrastructure they think Bitcoin will ultimately need to move higher.
At its current presale price of $0.013425, many believe HYPER reflects the development-stage risk, rather than the value of a live ecosystem.
To acquire HYPER, visit the Bitcoin Hyper website and purchase HYPER using SOL, ETH, USDT, USDC, BNB, or a credit card.
Bitcoin Hyper recommends Best Wallet – one of the best crypto and Bitcoin wallets in the market. HYPER already appears in Best Wallet's Upcoming Tokens section, which makes it easy to buy, track, and claim once the token goes live.
Be part of the Bitcoin Hyper discussion by joining its community on Telegram and X.
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Tom Lee's BitMine Keeps Buying Ethereum, Adding $320 Million to ETH Treasury
$86,356.00
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$1.73
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$0.223038
$3,075.27
$0.998602
$0.287518
$0.997585
$2,934.73
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$0.959295
$1.11
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$3,220.47
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$3,269.08
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$18.41
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$22.05
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$86,048.00
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$15.28
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$0.02888484
$2,941.42
$0.00000115
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$0.00249065
$63.52
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$1.16
Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) added another 102,259 ETH valued around $320 million in the last week, the firm announced on Monday.
The firm now holds 3,967,210 ETH, valued at more than $12.4 billion in ETH. It also holds 193 BTC worth around $17 million, and has $1 billion in cash.
“BitMine continues to add steadily to its ETH holdings, adding 102,259 ETH in the past week. Crypto prices have stabilized in the past week, further evidence that crypto prices have begun to recover after the price shock of October 10th,” said BitMine Chairman Tom Lee, in a statement.
"2025 saw many positive developments in digital assets including positive legislation passed by the U.S. Congress and favorable regulations, and by strengthening support from Wall Street,” he continued. “These strengthen our conviction that the best days for crypto are ahead and why we continue to accumulate ETH towards our 'alchemy of 5%' target."
BitMine's latest acquisition continues an aggressive string of purchases in which the firm has added to its position as the leading ETH treasury firm, amid wobbling ETH prices.
In the firm's previous purchase, disclosed last week, it bought around $429 million of ETH—its largest acquisition since October.
According to Lee, the firm is putting “its money where its mouth is,” adding that BitMine believes that ETH has already bottomed for the year. In other words, Lee and his firm think that Ethereum has already hit its lowest price point this year.
Beyond buying ETH, the firm is also making progress on a bespoke staking solution called The Made in America Validator Network (MAVAN), which will allow it to earn yield on its holdings.
In a recent video interview with Farokh Sarmad—president of Dastan, Decrypt's parent company—Lee noted that the firm could make as much as $400 million in staking revenue annually from its holdings.
Shares of BMNR are down nearly 7% since the opening bell on Monday, recently changing hands at $32.48. Since hitting a yearly peak of $161 on June 30, BMNR shares have now dropped nearly 80%.
ETH is down more than 2% in the last 24 hours, recently trading hands at $3,010.
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Crypto pundit Crypto Wimar has explained why the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP prices crashed, highlighting the continuous selling pressure. The crypto market is also at risk of further downward pressure due to macro factors such as the impending Japan rate hike.
Why The Bitcoin, Ethereum, And XRP Prices Crashed
In an X post, Crypto Wimar revealed that Wintermute has dumped 40% of its holdings over the last three weeks, which has contributed to the crash in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP prices. The crypto pundit further noted that the market maker is still dumping millions in BTC and ETH on Binance, which puts these coins at risk of further declines.
The Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP prices are also crashing as crypto market investors brace for a Japan interest rate hike by the BOJ at their December 19 meeting. Polymarket data shows that there is currently a 97.4% chance that the BOJ will increase rates by 25 basis points. A Japan rate hike impacts the crypto market as it puts the yen carry trade in focus, with investors moving to sell their assets before the yen strengthens and their debt becomes more expensive.
Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP prices have crashed after every Fed rate cut this year. This similar price action is playing out as the Fed lowered rates by 25 bps last week. These crypto assets had seen a notable rebound prior to the Fed rate decision last week, indicating that the cut was already priced in.
Demand for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP also appears to be dwindling, even among institutional investors. Crypto analytics platform CryptoQuant stated that Bitcoin treasury growth is losing momentum, noting that the accumulation pace is slowing despite the fact that 117 new companies added BTC to their treasuries this year. Ethereum treasury company BitMine is also the only company that has continued to accumulate ETH at an impressive pace amid this market downturn.
BTC At Risk Of Drop Below $50,000
Crypto analyst Titan of Crypto has indicated that the Bitcoin price could still drop below $50,000, which also puts Ethereum and XRP at risk of crashing. In an X post, the analyst raised the possibility that a BTC bear pennant is forming.
He noted that this is not a structure that market investors will typically want to see in a bull market. Titan of Crypto added that the structure is still developing, but it is one that is worth monitoring closely.
Meanwhile, the analyst's accompanying chart showed that the Bitcoin price could drop below $50,000 as soon as February next year. It is worth mentioning that veteran trader Peter Brandt had also earlier predicted that BTC could drop below $50,000 based on his belief that the flagship crypto is already in a bear market.
Select market data provided by ICE Data Services. Select reference data provided by FactSet. Copyright © 2025 FactSet Research Systems Inc.Copyright © 2025, American Bankers Association. CUSIP Database provided by FactSet Research Systems Inc. All rights reserved. SEC fillings and other documents provided by Quartr.© 2025 TradingView, Inc.
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Early on Monday, the supply of new cryptocurrency tied to Bittensor—a decentralized network of AI projects—dropped by half. The halving was the first the currency has experienced and came about by design, reflecting how Bittensor shares the same anti-inflationary architecture as Bitcoin. The event also serves a milestone for one of the most novel and ambitious cryptocurrencies to launch in years.
Currently, Bittensor has a market capitalization of $2.7 billion, according to the crypto analytics site CoinGecko. That pales in comparison to Bitcoin but is number 50 on the list of most popular cryptocurrencies. It also enjoys the backing of influential crypto billionaire Barry Silbert. At a time when AI is dominating the economy and the political discourse, Bittensor offers the promise of a decentralized alternative to Big Tech—provided it can keep picking up traction in the crypto world and beyond, and if its price holds up following the new drop in supply.
Here's an overview of exactly what Bittensor is, who's betting on its success, and what some crypto prognosticators say will come next after its halving:
Founded by Jacob Steeves, a former Google engineer, in 2019, Bittensor is designed to repurpose the mechanics of Bitcoin for AI. In the world of Bitcoin, owners of fleets of computer servers leverage their processing power to process and secure cryptocurrency transactions. This is called Bitcoin mining.
Similarly, Steeves devised a system where fleets of computers compete to process AI computations. In exchange for their processing power, these “miners” receive Bittensor's cryptocurrency, TAO. In aggregate, Bittensor is like a decentralized server farm for AI. “How did we create a supercomputer that is bigger than any government or corporation can create with a centralized entity?” Steeves said to Fortune in 2024.
Bittensor isn't the most easily understood tech, but the protocol has had some serious backers. In 2024, the crypto venture capitalist Polychain held around $200 million of the cryptocurrency, another crypto VC Dao5 held $50 million, and the crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group had around $100 million
Barry Silbert, the billionaire founder of Digital Currency Group, is such a believer in Bittensor that he's founded his own startup called Yuma that's dedicated to the cryptocurrency. “It is the thing that I've gotten most excited about since Bitcoin,” he said.
On Monday at 8:30 a.m. New York time, Bittensor reduced the amount of daily tokens it issues from 7,200 to 3,600. Like Bitcoin, the supply of Bittensor's cryptocurrency is capped at 21 million.
In a research note, analysts at Grayscale, a crypto ETF issuer and a subsidiary of Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group, said that the halving could be a “positive catalyst for price.” Just a week before, the ETF issuer announced that trading in the U.S. had begun for a vehicle that gives investors exposure to Bittensor.
Sami Kassab, managing partner at Unsupervised Capital, a hedge fund dedicated to Bittensor, was similarly optimistic. “Halvings aren't complicated. Historically, halvings have been bullish because there's simply less inventory hitting the market, “ he said. “The same logic applies to TAO.”
Still, over the past 24 hours, the price of Bittensor's cryptocurrency has dropped about 5.5% to $272. That doesn't mean the halving was a bust since the market often prices in such events ahead of time and, in the case Bitcoin, has often spurred subsequent booms. When Bitcoin last halved in April 2024, its price hovered around $65,000 shortly afterwards. But, by the end of the year, the world's largest cryptocurrency had rocketed to above $100,000.
This is Bittensor's first halving. Its next will follow in late 2029, according to current projections.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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OCC approves digital asset firms for national trust bank| Credit: Kevin Carter via Getty Images.
Key Takeaways
The U.S. banking system has quietly opened its doors to some of the crypto industry's biggest players.
Recently, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) conditionally approved five crypto firms, including Ripple and Circle, to operate as national trust banks.
The decision marks one of the clearest signals yet that federal regulators are prepared to bring parts of the crypto sector inside the traditional financial framework.
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Under the OCC's announcement, five companies received conditional approval to either establish or convert into national trust banks.
Once the regulator's requirements are fully met, they will join roughly 60 other national trust banks already overseen by the OCC.
The approved firms are:
National trust banks differ from traditional retail banks.
While the decision doesn't turn these crypto companies into full-service banks, it does grant them a regulated foothold inside the U.S. banking system.
They are not allowed to take deposits or issue loans, but they can custody assets, process payments, and provide fiduciary services under federal supervision.
All five firms must still satisfy capital, governance, compliance, and risk-management conditions before becoming fully operational.
The approval builds on a precedent set in 2021 , when Anchorage Digital became the first crypto-focused firm to receive a national trust charter.
Crypto companies largely welcomed the OCC's move as a long-awaited step toward regulatory clarity.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse celebrated the approval as a “massive step forward,” particularly for Ripple's dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, which now sits under both federal oversight from the OCC and state supervision from the New York Department of Financial Services.
Traditional banking groups were less enthusiastic.
In a statement released Friday, the Bank Policy Institute warned that the decision raised unresolved questions about regulatory consistency and oversight.
“Today's decision by the OCC to grant conditionally five national trust charters leaves substantial unanswered questions,” the group wrote. “Chiefly, whether the requirements the OCC has outlined for the applicants are appropriately tailored to the activities and risks in which the trust will engage.”
The criticism reflects a broader concern among established banks that crypto firms could gain access to banking privileges without being subject to the same rules applied to traditional institutions.
Despite Ripple's prominence in the announcement, the approval does not directly authorize or regulate XRP itself.
The OCC's decision applies to Ripple's trust bank entity, which will focus on custody, payments infrastructure, and supporting stablecoin operations such as RLUSD.
XRP remains a separate asset, and its regulatory status is unchanged by the charter.
That said, the move could still have a lasting impact on XRP.
Ripple's deeper integration into the federal banking system may encourage more financial institutions to use its payments infrastructure, where XRP can function as a bridge asset for cross-border transfers.
Any such shift would likely play out gradually, as part of broader institutional adoption rather than a short-term market catalyst.
That distinction was reflected in the market's response.
XRP showed little immediate reaction to the news and was trading around $1.99, below the closely watched $2 level, amid a wider crypto market pullback in mid-December.
Taken together, the approvals underscore a broader shift in U.S. crypto policy—from enforcement-heavy oversight toward conditional inclusion.
By allowing firms like Ripple, Circle, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, and Paxos to operate as national trust banks, the OCC is signaling that crypto companies can be part of the financial system, provided they meet the same supervisory standards as other federally regulated institutions.
For crypto advocates, it is a long-sought validation.
For critics, it is a test case that could redefine the boundaries of banking regulation.
Either way, the decision marks a meaningful turning point in how Washington approaches the future of digital finance.
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The post office has once again come under scrutiny after avoiding a fine for a data breach. In the data breach, more than 500 former post office workers who were wrongfully convicted during the Horizon IT scandal had their names and personal information leaked. Despite the seriousness of the breach, the post office received what equated to a light scolding from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). This course of action has sparked strong criticism from privacy groups and advocates for the victims.
Data breaches occurring in top governmental agencies like the post office once again bring into question the strength and readiness of public agencies' cybersecurity protocols. Amidst increasing occurrences of data and data breaches, cybersecurity experts are calling for government and federal agencies to adopt more stringent IT security measures.
Overview of the Data Breach
The breach involved the accidental publication of an uncensored legal settlement document that revealed the identities and addresses of more than 500 former post office employees.
As the news of the breach spread, commentators pointed out how data breaches create serious risks for victims. They highlight how the leaking of sensitive information can cause years of damage, like falling victim to online fraud or exploitation.
Examples of this have been seen in the online entertainment industry, where users' email addresses and passwords have been leaked, causing mass account takeovers. Video streaming platforms and social media have become popular online forms of entertainment.
These platforms have inherent security flaws though, as passwords can easily be hacked. For this reason, many online users are turning to platforms that run on more secure blockchain networks, such online games that include top crypto casinos. Firstly, these platforms offer much more entertainment value, providing users with access to thousands of online casino games. The major appeal comes from the safety and transparency offered by blockchain technology. Thanks to blockchain networks, these platforms offer provably fair games, faster and more secure transactions, and strong data protection.
How the Data Leak was Completely Preventable
The data breach happened when a member of the Post Office's press team uploaded an uncensored version of the 2019 litigation settlement to the agency's public website by mistake. Two months passed by before the file was finally removed. The presence of the file online was eventually brought to attention by an external law firm rather than internal safeguards. Further highlighting the agency's internal failings. ICO officials made it clear that the leak was preventable should proper publishing controls and data-handling procedures had been followed. A few major issues were pointed out by the ICO, mainly the lack of quality-assurance processes for online publication. In addition, the regulator pointed to minimal staff training and a lack of technical systems to detect or prevent the upload of sensitive data.
For the victims still dealing with the fallout of their wrongful convictions, the leak was just another institutional betrayal. Many of the workers whose information was leaked spent years trying to clear their names. They faced bankruptcy, damaged reputations, and in some cases, imprisonment.
Why the ICO Issued Only a Reprimand
The regulatory body sees the data breach as not serious enough to meet the requirements for a fine. Under its regulatory framework for the public sector, the ICO can impose financial penalties of up to £1.09 million for serious breaches. In the case of this leak, the ICO felt that a public admonishment would suffice instead of issuing a fine. This decision received strong criticism and backlash, especially from privacy advocates. Privacy advocates and cybersecurity groups argue that a public reprimand does nothing to remedy the situation. Instead, they argue, it gives public agencies the impression that they can continue to get away with data breaches unscathed.
The Open Rights Group called the decision “ludicrous”, warning that it risked sending the signal to other public organisations that a lack of proper data-protection standards carries few consequences. These concerns were mirrored by the victims of the breach and their legal representatives. They pointed out that data relating to exonerated individuals carries unique risks. In their criticism, they highlighted that a lack of fines or any tangible consequences minimises the harm caused and reduces the pressure on the Post Office to improve its internal processes and systems.
The Horizon Scandal's Lasting Impact
The Post Office's data breach cannot be separated from the history of the Horizon IT scandal. More than 500 post office employees, many of whom were sub-postmasters, were wrongfully accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting. These accusations were made after the Horizon software, which had software bugs, generated financial shortfalls in branch accounts. This software error caused many people to lose their livelihoods, their homes, and affected their mental health. In the worst cases, some were even imprisoned or died before their names could be cleared.
Compensation and Mitigation Measures Taken by the Post Office
After the data breach, the Post Office offered the victims financial compensation. While the compensation was a welcome relief, it was limited. Depending on the case, victims could receive up to £5000, with payouts based on whether the leaked addresses of the victims were current or outdated. Although some victims accepted the payout, critics of how the Post Office handled the situation say that the compensation was too little when compared to the seriousness of the breach.
Beyond financial settlements, the Post Office also offered two years of identity-protection services for the victims. These services included fraud monitoring, credit alerts, and dark-web surveillance. Again, these interim measures are aimed at helping the immediate victims of the data breach, but legal experts are still calling for more robust security systems and risk mitigation protocols to be put in place so that future breaches can be avoided.
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Colle AI (COLLE), the multichain AI-powered NFT creation platform, announced an expansion of its AI-driven design automation capabilities, further streamlining how creators build, scale, and deploy digital assets across blockchain ecosystems. This enhancement strengthens Colle AI's intelligent infrastructure by reducing manual intervention throughout the NFT lifecycle, enabling artists, studios, and brands to move from concept to multichain-ready assets with greater speed and consistency.
The expanded automation framework enhances how Colle AI interprets creative intent and converts it into fully structured NFT outputs. By automating design decisions such as layout assembly, visual alignment, metadata preparation, and chain-specific formatting, the platform minimizes repetitive tasks while preserving artistic control. Creators can rapidly generate and iterate on assets without configuring complex workflows, allowing production to scale efficiently across both single works and large NFT collections.
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Integrated directly into Colle AI's multichain pipelines, the upgraded automation layer ensures compatibility with leading blockchain networks including Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, BNB Chain, and the XRP Ledger. As assets are generated or refined, the system dynamically adapts designs to meet each network's technical standards, maintaining visual fidelity and deployment readiness across chains. “Automation should amplify creativity, not replace it,” said J. King Kasr, Chief Scientist at KaJ Labs. “By expanding AI-driven design automation, Colle AI enables creators to focus on vision and storytelling while the platform handles scale, structure, and multichain execution.”
This expansion reinforces Colle AI's mission to deliver fast, adaptive, and accessible creative tools for the evolving Web3 ecosystem. As demand grows for scalable NFT production and seamless cross-chain workflows, Colle AI continues to evolve its intelligent systems to support next-generation digital creation without complexity or friction.
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Rachel Reeves wants to protect consumers by bringing digital money and assets into the ‘regulatory perimeter'
Cryptocurrencies will be regulated in a similar way to other financial products under legislation coming into force in 2027.
The Treasury is drawing up rules that will require crypto companies to meet a set of standards overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Ministers have sought to overhaul the crypto market, which has ballooned in popularity as a way of investing money and making payments.
Cryptocurrencies have not been subject to the same regulation as traditional financial products such as stocks and shares, which means that in many cases consumers do not enjoy the same level of protection.
The government said the new rules would make the crypto industry more transparent, boost consumer confidence and make it easier to detect suspicious activity, impose sanctions and hold companies accountable.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said: “Bringing crypto into the regulatory perimeter is a crucial step in securing the UK's position as a world-leading financial centre in the digital age.
“By giving firms clear rules of the road, we are providing the certainty they need to invest, innovate and create high-skilled jobs here in the UK, while giving millions strong consumer protections, and locking dodgy actors out of the UK market.”
Crypto companies, which can include crypto exchanges and digital wallets, must register with the FCA if they provide services that fall within the scope of the UK's money-laundering regulations.
The changes mooted by the Treasury will bring companies that provide crypto services into the remit of the FCA and mean the services are regulated in the same way as other financial products, including by being subject to transparency standards.
Lucy Rigby, the minister for the City of London, said: “We want the UK to be at the top of the list for crypto assets firms looking to grow and these new rules will give firms the clarity and consistency they need to plan for the long term.”
The cryptocurrency market has suffered from turbulence amid growing investor fears about a potential artificial intelligence bubble.
Banking industry data in October showed that the amount of money lost to investment scams by UK consumers had surged by 55% in a year, with fake cryptocurrency thought to top the list.
A Chinese woman living in the UK was convicted in September over a multibillion-pound bitcoin fraud.
Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, orchestrated a fraud in China between 2014 and 2017 that left 128,000 people out of pocket. The 45-year-old stored the proceeds in bitcoin but UK authorities made a breakthrough in the case when they raided a Hampstead mansion in 2018 and seized devices from Qian holding 61,000 bitcoins, worth more than £5bn at current prices.
The Metropolitan police believe it is the largest single cryptocurrency seizure in the world. Qian pleaded guilty at Southwark crown court on Monday to acquiring and possessing cryptocurrency that was criminal property.
Ministers are also drawing up plans to ban political donations made with cryptocurrency, amid concerns that it is difficult to determine their origin and ownership.
Nigel Farage's Reform UK, which became the country's first party to accept contributions in digital currency this year, is believed to have received its first registrable donations in cryptocurrency this autumn. It has set up a crypto portal to receive contributions, saying it is subject to “enhanced” checks.
Reform this month received £9m from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency investor and businessman based in Thailand – the largest donation made by a living person to a British political party.
Rachel Reeves wants to protect consumers by bringing digital money and assets into the ‘regulatory perimeter'
Cryptocurrencies will be regulated in a similar way to other financial products under legislation coming into force in 2027.
The Treasury is drawing up rules that will require crypto companies to meet a set of standards overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Ministers have sought to overhaul the crypto market, which has ballooned in popularity as a way of investing money and making payments.
Cryptocurrencies have not been subject to the same regulation as traditional financial products such as stocks and shares, which means that in many cases consumers do not enjoy the same level of protection.
The government said the new rules would make the crypto industry more transparent, boost consumer confidence and make it easier to detect suspicious activity, impose sanctions and hold companies accountable.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said: “Bringing crypto into the regulatory perimeter is a crucial step in securing the UK's position as a world-leading financial centre in the digital age.
“By giving firms clear rules of the road, we are providing the certainty they need to invest, innovate and create high-skilled jobs here in the UK, while giving millions strong consumer protections, and locking dodgy actors out of the UK market.”
Crypto companies, which can include crypto exchanges and digital wallets, must register with the FCA if they provide services that fall within the scope of the UK's money-laundering regulations.
The changes mooted by the Treasury will bring companies that provide crypto services into the remit of the FCA and mean the services are regulated in the same way as other financial products, including by being subject to transparency standards.
Lucy Rigby, the minister for the City of London, said: “We want the UK to be at the top of the list for crypto assets firms looking to grow and these new rules will give firms the clarity and consistency they need to plan for the long term.”
The cryptocurrency market has suffered from turbulence amid growing investor fears about a potential artificial intelligence bubble.
Banking industry data in October showed that the amount of money lost to investment scams by UK consumers had surged by 55% in a year, with fake cryptocurrency thought to top the list.
A Chinese woman living in the UK was convicted in September over a multibillion-pound bitcoin fraud.
Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, orchestrated a fraud in China between 2014 and 2017 that left 128,000 people out of pocket. The 45-year-old stored the proceeds in bitcoin but UK authorities made a breakthrough in the case when they raided a Hampstead mansion in 2018 and seized devices from Qian holding 61,000 bitcoins, worth more than £5bn at current prices.
The Metropolitan police believe it is the largest single cryptocurrency seizure in the world. Qian pleaded guilty at Southwark crown court on Monday to acquiring and possessing cryptocurrency that was criminal property.
Ministers are also drawing up plans to ban political donations made with cryptocurrency, amid concerns that it is difficult to determine their origin and ownership.
Nigel Farage's Reform UK, which became the country's first party to accept contributions in digital currency this year, is believed to have received its first registrable donations in cryptocurrency this autumn. It has set up a crypto portal to receive contributions, saying it is subject to “enhanced” checks.
Reform this month received £9m from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency investor and businessman based in Thailand – the largest donation made by a living person to a British political party.
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Scientists have pushed back LUCA's origin by hundreds of millions of years.
Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us?
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
Life on Earth had to begin somewhere, and scientists think that “somewhere” is LUCA—or the Last Universal Common Ancestor. True to its name, this prokaryote-like organism represents the ancestor of every living thing, from the tiniest of bacteria to the grandest of blue whales.
While the Cambrian Explosion kickstarted complex life in a major way some 530 million years, the true timeline of life on Earth is much longer. For years, scientists have estimated that LUCA likely arrived on the scene some 4 billion years, which is only 600 million years after the planet's formation.
But a study from an international team of scientists pushes that timeline back even further to some 4.2 billion years ago, while also discovering some fascinating details about what life for LUCA might've been like. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The paper reads:
To zero in on exactly when LUCA appeared on Earth, scientists had to work backward. First, the team compared genes in living species and counted the mutations that have occurred since sharing a common ancestor with LUCA. Using a genetic equation based on the time of separation between species, the team worked out that LUCA must've been mucking around on Earth as early as 400 million years after its creation, which puts this organism smack in the middle of the hellish geologic nightmare known as the Hadean Eon.
“The evolutionary history of genes is complicated by their exchange between lineages,” University of Bristol's Edmund Moody, the lead author of the study, said in a press statement. “We have to use complex evolutionary models to reconcile the evolutionary history of genes with the genealogy of species.”
Not satisfied with just learning its age, the team took things a step further and retraced the physiological characteristics of living species to understand what LUCA must've been like 4.2 billion years ago—and the results gave some surprising answers. The scientists estimate that while LUCA was a simple prokaryote, it likely had an immune system, meaning it was already fighting off primordial viruses.
“It's clear that LUCA was exploiting and changing its environment, but it is unlikely to have lived alone,” University of Exeter's Tim Lenton, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement. “Its waste would have been food for other microbes, like methanogens, that would have helped to create a recycling ecosystem.”
While LUCA is the oldest common ancestor we know of, scientists still don't understand how life evolved from its very origins to the early communities of which LUCA is a part. Further studies will need to dive deeper into this primordial history and uncover exactly how you, me, and every other living thing, came to be.
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Because they rely on hosts for a majority of functions, viruses aren't considered alive. But entities like this one complicate matters.
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
At first glance, creating a definition for “life” seems somewhat straightforward. Sentient animals all the way down to single-celled organisms capable of reproduction are welcome on the tree of life, but there are other organisms that challenge this understanding, like viruses. Because virus don't grow, reproduce on their own, or make their own energy, they're typically excluded from definitions of life.
But once a virus infects a potential host, it's immensely active, and can be responsible for world-altering events (see: Spanish flu, ebola, COVID-19, and so on).
However, life is complicated, and this controversial categorization of “life” and “not life” can have gray areas in which organisms appear to defy the expectations of both camps. Recently, scientists found a new creature perched right on the edge of the “life” category.
In a paper published on the bioRxiv server, researchers in Canada and Japan outlined how they identified a new cellular entity that appeared to challenge aspects of the typical definitions of cellular life.
Currently named ‘Sukunaarchaeum mirabile' (after a deity in Japanese mythology known for its small stature), this entity—which the research team has concluded is a form of life—contains the necessary genes to create its own ribosomes and messenger RNA, something your typical virus lacks. But like a virus, it offloads certain biological functions onto its potential host and it appears singularly obsessed with replicating itself.
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“Its genome is profoundly stripped-down, lacking virtually all recognizable metabolic pathways, and primarily encoding the machinery for its replicative core: DNA replication, transcription, and translation,” the authors wrote. “This suggests an unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses.”
Led by Ryo Harada, a molecular biologist from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the team chanced upon this strange creature while studying the bacterial genome of the marine plankton Citharistes regius. Within the genomic data, Harada and his team found a loop of DNA that didn't match with any known species. They eventually determined that the organism belonged to the domain Archaea—a group associated with prokaryotic cells, but from which eukaryotic cells (i.e. you and me) ultimately descended a couple billion years ago.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Sukunaarchaeum is its extreme genome reduction, with only 238,000 base pairs of DNA. Viruses, as Live Science points out, can contain many hundreds of thousands more base pairs, and can even reach up into the millions. As for fellow archaea, the smallest known complete genome within this group stretches to 490,000 base pairs, meaning that Sukunaarchaeum contains less than half the number of base pairs posessed by even the smallest archaeal genome.
“The discovery of Sukunaarchaeum pushes the conventional boundaries of cellular life and highlights the vast unexplored biological novelty within microbial interactions,” the authors wrote. “Further exploration of symbiotic systems may reveal even more extraordinary life forms, reshaping our understanding of cellular evolution.”
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Jackpot.
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
A ceramic pot turned into a jackpot for a woman on a walk in the Kutnohorsk Region of the Czech Republic. While out on a stroll, the woman happened upon a roughly 900-year-old stash of more than 2,150 medieval silver coins known as denarii.
While the ceramic pot holding the coins was mostly demolished, the coins themselves remain a rich collection. According to a translated statement, they are now being processed by experts from the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, and the Czech Silver Museum in Kutná Hora.
Dubbed one of the greatest finds of the last decade, institute archaeologist Filip Velímský believes the discovery is like winning a prize in the lottery—even if someone else was the loser. “It was probably placed in its place during the first quarter of the 12th century, at a time of internal political instability,” he said. “At that time, there were disputes in the country between the members of the Přemysl dynasty about the princely throne of Prague.”
Stashing coins in a ceramic container was meant to be a way of keeping them safe. And the container certainly did it's job, even if the owner was never able to return for them—the coins weren't recovered for another 900 years.
According to the experts, that owner couldn't have been just anyone.“Unfortunately, for the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, we lack data on the purchasing power of the contemporary coin,” Velímský said. “But it was a huge amount, unimaginable for an ordinary person and at the same time unaffordable. It can be compared to winning a million in the jackpot.”
The Kutnohorsk Region was known for frequent battles for the Prague princely throne, with the armies of individual rival princes repeatedly marching through the area, according to the institute. The experts claim that a large collection of coins found in such a place could mean that they were originally meant to pay wages for soldiers, or were some sort of “war booty.”
Early analysis of the haul shows both that the coins were minted in several places throughout the Kutnohorsk Region, and that they were likely created under the rule of three different Přemysl leaders (likely between 1085 and 1107): King Vratislav II and princes Břetislav II and Bořivoje II.
“The coins were most likely minted in the Prague mint from silver that was imported to Bohemia at the time,” Lenka Mazačová, director of the Czech Silver Museum in Kutná Hora, said in a statement. The coins are made from an silver alloy that included copper, lead, and trace amounts of other metals. The experts hope to figure out the exact composition of the coins to help determine the origin of the silver.
While we may never know the true intentions—or provenance—of the coin collection, experts still plan to puzzle out as much as possible. Mazačová said that museum staff will now register all the pieces of the collection, clean and restore the coins, and subject them to X-ray imaging and spectral analysis to determine their specific material composition. The goal is to publicly display the collection in 2025, highlighting the 12th century history of the Czech Republic.
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Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
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Divers Couldn't Believe a Lost Shipwreck's Age
Animals Keep Evolving Into Crabs, Which Is Weird
Rare Architectural Find Near ‘Indiana Jones' Site
Wild Element Discovered In Renaissance Medicines
This Mummified Croc Stomach Holds Egyptian Secrets
Scientists Confirm Existence of Time Reflections
Tiny Humans Are Hiding in Indonesia, Scientist Claims
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A digital architectural reconstruction has researchers believing a “lost Pompeii” existed with towers atop villas.
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
A monumental staircase at Pompeii's House of Thiasus villa seemingly led nowhere. That nowhere turned into something special when researchers looked up. They've since determined that a “lost Pompeii” could once be found in now-destroyed towers rising above the ancient city's most elite villas.
“Lost Pompeii” consists of the upper floors of buildings which are essential to understanding life in the ancient city,” Gabriel Zuchtriegal, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said in a statement. A research team employed digital archaeology to create models of villas of the super-rich, showing that Pompeii's largest villas likely once had towers, true symbols of power and wealth.
The researchers from Berlin's Humboldt University and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii were most fascinated by the House of Thiasus, known for its banquet hall lined with frescoes. The villa, though, also features a monstrous staircase that seemingly leads nowhere. What if, instead of focusing on the ground floor, the researchers looked up?
In a new article on the reconstructions of the tower of the House of Thiasus published in the E-journal Scavi di Pompei, researchers resurrected a lost Pompeii using digital archaeology to approximate what could have been present before the devastating Mount Vesuvius volcano of 79 C.E. destroyed the city.
The team believes the onslaught of ash buried and preserved the buildings' lowest levels but brought destruction to the upper floors.
By scanning existing structures, the team designed digital replicas. Using clues, such as unconnected staircases and cut-off support beams, the team digitally designed architectural elements they believe previously existed. The team posits that the staircase led to a tower so that the wealthy could view the city and the Bay of Naples, along with the night sky.
The researchers believe the House of Thiasus could have featured a 40-foot-tall tower consisting of multiple stories. “The interior of the lower part was simple in its furnishing,” the researchers wrote, according to translation. “This contrasted by the monumental external staircase that leads to the upper floor, suggesting a living space of a more elegant and representative character.”
The journal features the digital architecture, which utilizes 3D modeling to reconstruct what could have been in place. “In particular, ‘lost Pompeii' consists of the upper floors of buildings which are essential to understanding life in the ancient city,” the researchers wrote. “By putting together the data in the form of a 3D digital model, we can develop hypothetical reconstructions that help us to understand the experience, the spaces, and the society of the time.”
In an ancient city famous for what survived the horrific volcanic eruption, this digital approach demonstrates one way archaeologists can focus instead on what does not remain in the aftermath. “Archaeological research at Pompeii is extremely complex,” Zuchtriegal said. “As well as research carried out in the field with excavations that reveal well-preserved contexts providing insights into life in antiquity and new stories about the tragic eruption, another approach involves non-invasive research, based on studies and hypothetical reconstructions of what has not been preserved, but which adds to our knowledge of the site.”
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Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
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December 15, 2025
2 min read
These Hummingbirds Joust Like Medieval Knights—Even to the Death
The sharp, elongated bills of green hermit hummingbirds aren't just fine-tuned for feeding; they also allow males to joust like knights over mates
By Sara Novak edited by Andrea Thompson
A green hermit hummingbird in Costa Rica.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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The iridescent green hermit hummingbird is known for its elongated bill, which is fine-tuned for feasting on a particular tropical flower in the rainforests of Central and South America.
But once mating season begins, its distinctive needle-pointed bill also becomes a weapon of war. According to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, male green hermit hummingbirds use their bill—which is straighter and sharper than females'—to joust in a sparring match that can sometimes end in death.
“We used to think that males and females had different bill curvature because they feed on different flowers, but now we see that the evolutionary purpose that shapes their beaks is also about fighting,” says lead study author Alejandro Rico-Guevara, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington.
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Using three-dimensional modeling of the bills of museum specimens, the researchers showed that the males bill is 3 percent straighter and 69 percent more pointed than the females', and the former has a dagger-tipped end that can strike at competition with surprising ferocity, Rico-Guevara says.
Hummingbirds from a species related to green hermit hummingbirds fighting in a similar way.
During breeding season in early May, the male birds gather in a group called a lek, where they begin singing a yippy chirp that tells breeding females to come hither. They fight for a position in the lek because males who are not part of the chorus are less likely to be heard by females. And if another hummingbird tries to perch on a branch that's already occupied, the fight can escalate. “The birds fly bill-first at the other bird and poke them with their entire force,” Rico-Guevara says.
Marcelo Araya-Salas, a biologist studying hermit hummingbirds at the University of Costa Rica, who was not involved in the study, says that this research does an elegant job of showing the difference in the bills using 3D modeling but that the conduct of the birds isn't at all surprising.
“They're crazy aggressive,” he says, so much so that the term Huitzilopochtli which is the Aztec sun and war god, “is a hummingbird.”
Sara Novak is a science writer based on Sullivan's Island, S.C. Her work has appeared in Discover, Sierra Magazine, Popular Science, New Scientist, and more. Follow Novak on X (formerly Twitter) @sarafnovak
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Nature Communications
volume 16, Article number: 11005 (2025)
Cite this article
Drug combinations are essential to modern medicine, but their discovery remains slow and inefficient as experimental complexity expands rapidly with each additional drug tested. Although modern liquid handling systems enable complex and highly customizable experimental designs, a lack of strategies integrating these technologies with combination-specific analytical methods has limited throughput. Here we introduce Combocat, an open-source and streamlined framework that combines acoustic liquid handling protocols with machine learning-based inference to achieve ultrahigh-throughput drug combination screening. Using Combocat, we generate a reference dataset of over 800 unique combinations in a dense 10 × 10 matrix format across multiple cell types, and use this to train a predictive model that accurately infers drug combination effects from sparse data, drastically reducing the number of experimental measurements required. As proof of concept, we screened 9,045 combinations in a neuroblastoma cell line—the largest number of combinations tested in a single cell line to date—achieved using minimal resources. By integrating advanced drug dispensing technologies with predictive computational modeling, Combocat provides a scalable solution to accelerate the discovery of novel drug combinations.
The development of effective drug combinations is fundamental to modern therapeutic strategies1,2,3,4, particularly for cancers5,6 and infectious diseases2,7,8,9 where single-agent therapies often fail to achieve sustained efficacy. Combining drugs can have a synergistic effect on drug efficacy, overcoming resistance mechanisms and reducing the toxicity of treatment by requiring lower individual doses of each drug10,11. Synergy, in this context, is defined as a combination effect that exceeds expectations based on individual drug activities under established models like Bliss independence12 (Fig. 1a).
a Practical representation of drug synergy, where the combined effect of two drugs exceeds the expected effect (“E”) based on models like additivity or Bliss independence. b Examples of traditional high-throughput screens employing small (e.g., 3 × 3), sparse, or asymmetric (e.g., 2 × 7) matrix formats, which limit dose density. c Combocat's streamlined approach for dense and reproducible drug combination screening. The 384-well plate format contains Drugs 1 and 2 (represented by upper and lower triangles, respectively), with concentrations shown ranging from low (blue) to high (red). Three replicate 10 × 10 combination matrices are generated for each drug pair, along with three replicates of each single-agent dose-response. Twelve replicates each of cell death (orange) and vehicle (yellow) controls are included for normalization. d Overview of the Combocat analytical pipeline. Raw data are mapped to corresponding combination matrices and subsequently normalized to percentage cell death using controls. Synergy is then quantified using the Bliss independence model. Results are summarized across the screen to identify top synergistic interactions.
Combination therapy is a promising frontier—but also a vast one whose comprehensive exploration has been limited by the sheer number of possible drug combinations10. With each additional agent tested, the number of total possible 2-drug combinations increases quadratically, making exhaustive experimental testing impractical. While large-scale single-agent screens have evaluated tens of thousands of compounds13,14,15, drug combination screens have remained constrained by technical and resource limitations, preventing them from achieving comparable scale. These constraints often force researchers to choose between the number of combinations tested and the number of concentrations measured per drug, or dose density. This tradeoff can prove problematic, as dense measurements across a broad range of concentrations are crucial for capturing the nuanced dose-response landscapes needed to reliably detect synergy patterns16. Consequently, some of the largest reported combination studies have adopted smaller17, sparser18, or asymmetric19,20 matrix formats (Fig. 1b). Advancements in robotic liquid handling technologies, such as acoustic dispensing, have revolutionized compound transfer, enabling more flexible and precise experimental designs. Acoustic liquid handlers can dispense nanoliter volumes from any well of a source plate to any well of a destination plate without physical contact, enhancing throughput and minimizing resource consumption. Despite the promise of these technological advances, their impact on drug combination screening has so far been limited by a lack of integrated experimental and analytical platforms that fully leverage their capabilities.
Here, we introduce Combocat, an open-source, end-to-end platform that integrates experimental and analytical workflows, underpinned by detailed protocols and documentation to enable reproducible, interpretable, and user-friendly drug combination screens. Combocat operates in two complementary modes, each facilitating fast and efficient combination screening. The “dense mode” measures all pairwise dose combinations in a dense 10 × 10 matrix format, tested in triplicate to ensure high fidelity and data quality. Using dense mode, we generated a comprehensive reference dataset of over 290,000 unique combination measurements (spanning 806 unique drug combinations) across diverse drugs and cell types. While this approach is ideal for high-quality data-rich screens, scaling dense mode to thousands of combinations is resource-intensive. To address this, we developed a machine learning-assisted “sparse mode”. Sparse mode reduces the number of direct experimental measurements by testing only the diagonal (10 dose pairs) of the 10 × 10 matrix and single-agent responses, then uses predictive modeling to obtain the remaining 90 values. Trained on the dense mode reference dataset, the predictive models in sparse mode enable ultrahigh-throughput screening with minimal resources. Notably, several other machine learning frameworks have been developed to predict synergy in different ways: TranSynergy21 leverages drug-target and gene-dependency features, SynToxProfiler22 computes integrated efficacy-toxicity-synergy surfaces, and comboFM23 uses tensor factorization to impute missing dose-response values. In contrast, Combocat's sparse mode measures only the 10 diagonal dose pairs and recovers the complete 10 × 10 response landscape via an ensemble of 90 per-pair regression models. As proof of concept, we used sparse mode to screen 9045 drug combinations in the neuroblastoma cell line CHP-134, representing the largest number of unique combinations tested in a single cell line to date. By integrating advanced liquid handling technologies with machine learning into an open-source and user-friendly platform, Combocat offers a scalable, efficient solution for accelerating the discovery of drug combinations.
To address longstanding challenges in drug combination screens—such as limited dose density, poor interpretability, and operational complexity–we developed Combocat to integrate experimental and analytical workflows into a user-friendly framework. The “dense mode” workflow facilitates comprehensive, dense measurements by systematically evaluating all pairwise dose combinations in a 10 × 10 matrix format (Fig. 1c). A customized acoustic liquid handling protocol prepares each 384-well plate with two drugs at ten concentrations each, including three replicate 10 × 10 combination matrices, single-agent dose-response curves, and internal controls (for example, twelve replicates each of cell death and vehicle controls). This design ensures robust normalization and reproducibility while reducing the time and effort typically associated with high-throughput combination screens.
Building on this experimental foundation, the analytical pipeline (Fig. 1d) maps raw data to their corresponding matrix positions, normalizes values to percentage cell death, and quantifies synergy using the Bliss independence model. Results are then filtered and ranked, enabling researchers to rapidly identify top-performing combinations and visualize complete synergy landscapes without extensive post-processing. By uniting dense measurements with a streamlined analytical workflow, Combocat's dense mode provides a high-fidelity framework for characterizing drug interactions in a reproducible and operationally straightforward manner.
Applying dense mode, we generated a reference dataset of 806 drug combinations comprising over 290,000 individual measurements in the 10 × 10 matrix format (Supplementary Data 1). This dataset was designed to evaluate a diverse range of drugs and cell types, ensuring generalizability across multiple experimental contexts. Assay quality was high, as indicated by Z′ values (mean = 0.747; Supplementary Fig. 1) and low standard deviations in both single-agent and combination measurements across the screen (Fig. 2a, b).
a Distribution of single-agent standard deviations. The standard deviation is measured across each dose of all single-agent drugs across their respective three replicates. b Distribution of combination standard deviations. For each drug combination, the standard deviation is measured across all 100 dose pairs and their respective three replicates. c Mean adjusted Bliss synergy (Blissadj.) for all tested drug combinations. Each point represents the mean Blissadj. value across the 100 dose pairs per combination. SMX_TMP is highlighted as the top-ranking combination. d Dose-response curves for SMX (top) and TMP (bottom). Four-parameter log-logistic curves were fit to the mean cell death values from the 10 doses. Individual replicate values are represented by smaller gray dots. Horizontal dashed lines correspond to 50% cell death. Vertical dashed lines correspond to IC50 concentrations. e Cell death combination matrix, represented as the mean of the three replicates. f Bliss synergy matrix calculated from (e). g Cell death for each single agent and their combination at doses corresponding to the maximum synergy. The red dashed line indicates the expected response value under the Bliss model. h–k Like (d–g), for the combination of AZD1390 and CX-5461.
During analysis, we identified occasional spurious single-agent measurements, a common challenge in high-throughput screens24. These anomalies, often resulting from incomplete drug transfer or other technical issues, can distort synergy calculations by introducing outliers into the dataset (Supplementary Fig. 2a–d). To address this, we implemented a rigorous quality control (QC) pipeline that flags and adjusts anomalous data points using predefined thresholds for variability, dose-response residuals, and monotonicity (Supplementary Fig. 2e–g; see “Methods” section for details). Flagged values can be excluded from subsequent synergy calculations, yielding an “adjusted Bliss synergy” (Blissadj.) that omits these measurements. This QC approach ensures accurate synergy quantification by minimizing the impact of outliers.
To evaluate the platform's capacity to identify and replicate known synergistic interactions, we first examined the top-ranked combination in our dataset: sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and trimethoprim (TMP) in E. coli cells (Fig. 2c). This pair is a well-established example of synergistic drug behavior9, widely used to treat various bacterial infections25. Both SMX and TMP displayed sigmoidal dose-dependent relationships (Fig. 2d), and when combined, exhibited strong synergy (Fig. 2e–g), aligning with established expectations. We further evaluated an additional known example of synergy included in our screen—the combination of AZD1390 and CX-5461—which has been reported as synergistic in Neuroblastoma cells26. The single-agent responses and strong synergy patterns (Fig. 2h–k) closely aligned to reported findings26. Collectively, these examples highlight Combocat's ability to faithfully reproduce known synergistic interactions and provide a framework for understanding complex combination landscapes.
While dense mode offers high-quality, data-rich combination measurements, scaling it to thousands of combinations can become resource-intensive. To address this, we developed a “sparse mode” workflow, which minimizes direct experimental measurements while still capturing synergy information between drug pairs. The sparse mode assay is miniaturized into a 1536-well format and separates the single agents and combinations into their own plates (Supplementary Fig. 3a, b). Single-agent plates measure each drug across 10 doses, while combination plates only measure drug pairs at a relative 1:1 ratio—corresponding to the diagonal of a 10 × 10 matrix. Single-agent response values are mapped onto dose-response curves and integrated with combination data to assemble the sparse matrix (Supplementary Fig. 3c, d), which effectively cuts the required number of measurements by 90%.
By dramatically decreasing the experimental resource consumption per combination, sparse mode increases throughput and efficiency. For example, the workflow supports up to 135 single agents, which yields 9045 combinations and would require just 73 plates when using six replicates of single-agent plates (Supplementary Fig. 3e, f). Consequently, sparse mode's miniaturized design and efficient plate usage make ultra-large-scale combination screens available with minimal resources.
To enhance the utility of our sparse screening workflow, we developed an ensemble machine learning model capable of predicting the non-measured response values within a sparse matrix, effectively filling in the gaps to reconstruct the completed matrix. We leveraged the dense mode combination data to train the model, which provided fully-measured 10 × 10 matrices alongside their corresponding single-agent responses. From this, we curated a training set comprising 552 matrices (198,720 measurements) and a test set of 184 matrices (66,240 measurements) (Fig. 3a). Each non-measured index within the sparse matrix is predicted by a dedicated regression model within the ensemble, allowing all 90 models to be finely tuned for their respective targets (Fig. 3b, see “Methods” section).
a Composition of training and test sets used to develop the ensemble model. The training set includes 552 fully-measured 10 × 10 combination matrices (light orange, 75% of total data), while the test set has 184 matrices (dark orange, 25% of total data). b Overview of the ensemble machine learning model architecture. Ninety individual models are each designed to predict the response of a single non-measured index of a sparse matrix. Fully-measured 10 × 10 matrices from the training set are downsampled to reflect the 30 measured values collected in sparse mode (treated as features) and the index a given model aims to predict (treated as the outcome variable). Each model undergoes hyperparameter tuning and is fit with the XGBoost regression model (see “Methods” section). c Model performance measured by R2 across the 10 respective folds for each of the 90 models. Box plot center line represents the median (0.947), bounds are 25th and 75th percentiles (0.934 and 0.959), and whiskers extend to the most extreme data points within 1.5× the interquartile range from the box edges. The minimum is 0.860, the maximum is 0.983. d Variable importance (VI) contributed by the 30 measured values toward the model predicting index [1,2] (represented by a yellow circle) across the test set. e Comparison of observed versus predicted cell death response values for the model predicting index [1,2] across the test set. f–i Like (d, e) showing the VI and predictive performance for models [5,6] and [9,10], respectively. j Violin plot summarizing the Euclidean distances between the target index of a model and its corresponding feature index with the maximum importance value, across all 90 models. The dashed line represents the median Euclidean distance (d = 2) across all samples, with model [4,6] highlighted as an example (red dot). k Example of the model predicting index [4,6], illustrating the Euclidean distance (d = 2) from its target index to the feature index with the maximum importance value. l Overall predictive performance of the model across all samples in the test set (n = 184). m Overview of the sparse mode workflow, integrating the experimental generation of sparse matrices with the machine learning-based imputation of non-measured response values.
Our model demonstrated a high predictive accuracy, with a median R2 of 0.945 across 10-fold cross-validation (Fig. 3c). Analyzing variable importance (VI) revealed that predictions were most strongly influenced by measured values closest to the target index. For instance, the model predicting the response at row 1, column 2 (Model[1,2]), primarily relied on data from its two nearest measured indices (Fig. 3d). Despite relying heavily on only two of the 30 measured values, this model achieved strong predictive performance (r = 0.98) between the observed and predicted values in the test set (Fig. 3e). Similar patterns were observed throughout the ensemble, with strong performance across models predicting values near the diagonal (Fig. 3f, g) and those in the lower-right quadrant of the matrix (Fig. 3h, i). A broader analysis of all models confirmed a proximity-based dependency, with most predictions relying on measured indices within a Euclidean distance of 1 or 2 from the target index (Fig. 3j, k). These findings underscore the importance of leveraging local features for predicting sparse matrix values and highlight the advantage of training dedicated models for each of the 90 non-measured indices, enabling highly targeted predictions (Supplementary Data 2).
To evaluate the ensemble's overall performance, we compared observed and predicted cell death responses across all non-measured indices in the test set. This yielded a strong correlation (r = 0.98, Supplementary Data 3) (Fig. 3l), demonstrating the ensemble's reliability in capturing key combination response effects. By predicting non-measured values, the ensemble model enriches the sparse screening workflow, providing detailed insights that enhance the interpretability of synergy results while preserving resource efficiency (Fig. 3m).
To demonstrate the scalability and practical utility of Combocat, we applied the sparse mode workflow to screen 9045 drug combinations in the neuroblastoma cell line CHP-134 (Supplementary Data 4), representing the largest dense combination screen reported in a single cell line. We used 135 small molecules, encompassing approved chemotherapeutics, investigational compounds, and neuroblastoma-selective agents nominated from our earlier CRISPR screens27. (Supplementary Data 5). Synergy was quantified for each pair by their mean Blissadj. (observed) score—the adjusted Bliss synergy averaged across the matrix diagonal (10 measured dose pairs) (Fig. 4a). Most combinations centered near zero (Fig. 4b), indicating a predominance of additive or non-synergistic interactions and aligning with prior findings that strong synergy is a rare phenomenon20,28,29.
a Heatmap of the mean adjusted Bliss synergy scores (Blissadj.) across experimentally observed 10 dose pairs for each of the 9045 tested combinations. b–e Histograms of the mean Blissadj. (observed), Moran's I, QC flag count (observed), and mean % cell death, respectively, across the combination data. c–e highlight filters applied to exclude (gray) or include (green) combinations in the final hit list. f Filtered combinations (n = 594), ranked by their mean Blissadj. (observed) scores. The top 15 hits are labeled above. g–n Comparison of the top 2 hits from sparse mode (upper matrices) re-screened using dense mode (lower matrices). The cell death (g, h, k, l) and synergy (i, j, m, n) matrices are compared between the two modes.
To prioritize drug combinations for further exploration, we used three filtering criteria that captured spatially coherent synergy patterns (Moran's I), data reliability (QC flag counts), and biological relevance (mean cell death response, Fig. 4c–e, see “Methods” section). After filtering, 594 top-scoring pairs remained, ranked by mean Blissadj. (observed) (Fig. 4f). To validate these sparse mode predictions, we re-screened a subset of 40 combinations in dense mode: the top 30 from sparse mode (expected to display the highest synergy) plus 10 randomly selected combinations that had been excluded. Measuring these combinations in a fully sampled 10 × 10 format enabled a direct comparison to sparse mode results.
Most top-ranked drug pairs retained strong synergy patterns, confirming that sparse mode can effectively prioritize synergistic combinations (Supplementary Fig. 4a). In contrast, the 10 random pairs exhibited weaker synergy in dense mode, matching their lower sparse mode scores. We additionally compared single-agent dose-response curves for the 47 unique drugs in the validation set and observed close alignment (rho = 0.858) of IC50 values and fitted dose-response curves (Supplementary Fig. 4b, c), reinforcing the consistency of single-agent measurements obtained in sparse mode.
Among the validated hits, the ATM inhibitor AZD1390 in combination with the PARP inhibitors Olaparib or Rucaparib stood out for their pronounced synergy (Fig. 4g, i, k, m). This aligns mechanistically with targeting complementary DNA damage repair pathways: PARP inhibition leads to accumulation of single-strand breaks, while ATM inhibition impairs the double-strand break repair response30. Re-testing these combinations in dense mode confirmed high agreement (Fig. 4h, j, l, n), meaning strong, reliable synergies could be identified from the starting set of over 9000 screened combinations. Collectively, these data establish Combocat's sparse mode as an efficient and scalable means of uncovering synergy even in ultra-large-scale screens.
Combocat presents a step toward more comprehensive, flexible, and scalable drug combination screening. By uniting acoustic liquid handling and machine learning-assisted inference, we have demonstrated the feasibility of screening thousands of combinations while retaining the resolution and interpretability crucial to discovering strong synergistic interactions. The principles underpinning Combocat are broadly applicable, with a design that supports compatibility with various assay readouts that align with specified volumes and plate formats—such as luminescence, absorbance (Supplementary Fig. 6), fluorescence, mass spectrometry, or high-content imaging. Furthermore, the open-source acoustic liquid handler protocols ensure adaptability to other drug dispensing platforms with comparable capabilities, establishing Combocat as a scalable foundation for diverse experimental applications.
The functionality and workflow of Combocat are designed to be straightforward, including its minimal and intuitive analytical pipeline (Supplementary Fig. 5a). This streamlined architecture, along with open-source and detailed documentation, ensures that researchers can easily implement and customize Combocat experiments according to their needs. Our goal is to pursue continual refinement and expansion of the platform. One of the most compelling aspects of Combocat lies in its potential for community-driven advancement. As more research groups generate dense combination data, these datasets can be anonymized and contributed back to the community for re-training and improving the ensemble machine learning model (Supplementary Fig. 5b). This communal effort could result in a dynamic resource capable of delivering progressively more accurate synergy estimates with minimal experimental overhead.
While Combocat enables high-throughput combination screening in various contexts, some limitations are important to acknowledge. First, the accuracy of sparse mode inference is inherently dependent on the quality and diversity of the training data. We tested three progressively stringent stratifications of our dense mode dataset (Supplementary Fig. 7a–c) and found essentially identical predictive performance (r≈0.97, Supplementary Fig. 7d–f), demonstrating no simple data leakage in predicting responses in Neuroblastoma. However, as new data are collaboratively added, preventing leakage through continuous hold-out testing will be essential to maintain the model's robustness and generalizability. Second, although dense and sparse modes' experimental measurements largely agree, they will differ in some circumstances. Sparse mode uses miniaturized volumes and a different plate format, which can occasionally introduce shifts in drug potency or dynamic range. This can be related to technical factors like compound dispersion in smaller volumes, plate layout effects, or variations in cell confluence in smaller wells. Finally, while Combocat supports Bliss and Loewe synergy metrics, each carries assumptions and limitations. For example, Bliss can misestimate synergy for drugs targeting similar pathways, and Loewe cannot calculate synergy in the absence of dose-equivalence (Supplementary Fig. 8a, b)—making it undefined in 61.5% of sparse mode dose combinations tested (Supplementary Fig. 8c). We compared the mean synergy scores in our combinations passing QC and filtering steps (n = 800) and observed a modest agreement between the Bliss and Loewe models (Spearman rho = −0.672, p < 2.2e-16, Supplementary Fig. 8d). Importantly, additional reference models exist such as Highest Single Agent (HSA)31, Zero Interaction Potency (ZIP)32(which models changes in potency of the dose-response curves), and others, which can be evaluated in future extensions of the platform.
We envision leveraging Combocat's scalability to investigate more of the vast unexplored drug combination space, mapping out the synergy landscapes of thousands of drug combinations across many cell lines (Supplementary Fig. 5c). By integrating sparse mode workflows with continuously evolving machine learning models, rich synergy datasets can be generated, capable of capturing complex biological responses. Such comprehensive synergy maps will empower researchers to identify conserved interactions, reveal lineage-specific vulnerabilities, and guide the rational selection of combination therapies.
This study complied with all relevant ethical regulations.
The CHP-134 cell line was purchased from Sigma (catalog #6122002) and maintained in RPMI 1640 medium (Corning, catalog #10-041-CM) supplemented with 10% FBS (Corning, catalog #35-015-CV) at 37 °C with 5% CO2. Mycoplasma was routinely tested using the MycoAlert mycoplasma detection kit (Lonza, catalog # LT07-118), and the cells were verified negative for contamination.
For experiments with bacterial cultures, the Escherichia coli BW25113 strain (Horizon Discovery Ltd.) was cultured at 37 °C in Mueller-Hinton (MH) agar or broth (BBL). Cultures in exponential phase (OD600 0.4–0.6) were diluted to OD600 of 0.0005 for plating in 384-well format.
Compounds were sourced from commercial vendors (see Supplementary Data 5). Stocks were solubilized in DMSO and stored at −80 °C until 24 h before use, at which point they were thawed at room temperature and centrifuged at 1100 RPM for 5 min. Across all assays, compounds were screened at 10 concentrations using 3-fold serial dilutions, typically with an upper limit of 25 µM. Most compounds were screened below and above their physiologically-relevant doses, and in a way positioning their suspected IC50s as the midpoint to attempt achieving a complete dose-response effect.
The choice of 135 compounds used in sparse mode comes from drugs targeting the top neuroblastoma-selective sensitizers from earlier CRISPR-anchor screens27. Specifically, drugs were chosen using the following approach:
Our previous CRISPR knockout-anchor screens investigated 18 cell lines using 7 neuroblastoma standard-of-care drugs and 1 investigational compound (Doxorubicin, Etoposide, Retinoic Acid, Topotecan, Vincristine, Cisplatin, Phosphoramide Mustard, and JQAD1). The CRISPR knockout library was designed to target 655 known druggable genes. These screens were designed to identify druggable gene knockouts that sensitize cancer cells to standard-of-care neuroblastoma drugs.
To identify these high-potential drug-sensitizing gene knockouts from the resulting dataset, we applied a custom Bayesian hierarchical model (described in the “Methods” section of Lee and Wright et al.) to nominate genes with differential sensitization effects in the Neuroblastoma group, relative to the outgroup cell.
We then compiled the list of drugs that targeted the resulting neuroblastoma-selective sensitizing gene knockouts. For genes targetable by >1 drug, the list was reduced manually, considering factors such as clinical approval, redundancy with other drugs, number of analogs, and compound availability.
Finally, we manually added high-priority investigational compounds to the list after consultation with multiple pediatric oncologists at St. Jude, yielding the final number of 135 unique drugs. The list of drugs is available in Supplementary Data 5.
To enable comprehensive and reproducible measurement of pairwise dose combinations in a 10 × 10 matrix format, we designed a 384-well plate template that accommodates three replicate 10 × 10 combination matrices in a 384-well plate format, along with three replicates of the dose-response curves for each single-agent and twelve replicates of each positive and negative control (Fig. 1c). In each well, 200 nL of total compound was transferred via an Echo 655 acoustic liquid handler (Beckman Coulter): 100 nL of compound + 100 nL of DMSO for single-agent wells, or 100 nL of each compound for combination wells. This was followed by 40 μL of cells, added using a Multidrop combi (Thermo Fisher). Maintaining a 40 μL volume of cells minimized edge effects arising from evaporation. Each dense mode plate tested exactly one drug combination, making the total plate count for a dense mode experiment scale linearly with the number of drug pairs.
Sparse mode was designed to increase throughput and reduce resource usage by miniaturizing the assay into a 1536-well plate format (Supplementary Fig. 3a, b). Three key features enable ultra-large combination screens in sparse mode:
Miniaturized volumes: Only 20 nL of compound is transferred (10 nL of each drug for combinations or 10 nL of drug + 10 nL of DMSO for single-agent wells), followed by 4 μL of cells. Edge wells are filled with culture medium to mitigate evaporation. Doses are interleaved to minimize well-to-well signal contamination.
Measurement of the diagonal only: Each 10 × 10 matrix is represented by 10 dose pairs that combine each drug at a relative 1:1 ratio. For example, the 6th-highest tested dose of Drug 1 with the 6th-highest tested dose of Drug 2. This reduces the total measured dose pairs by 90%, compared to a fully-measured 10 × 10 matrix (Supplementary Fig. 3d).
Separate single-agent and combination plates: Single-agent and combination plates are tested separately, with single-agents testing each drug's 10-dose series, and combinations testing only the diagonal dose pairs. This allows single agents to be mapped onto combination matrices without being re-measured. For example, to screen the combinations A_B and A_C, dense mode would measure A twice, whereas sparse mode would measure A once. Within-plate controls facilitate normalization before integration into assembled matrices.
The total number of plates required for a sparse mode screen can be calculated as:
where c is the total number of cell lines, r is the total number of single-agent plate replicates, and n is the number of unique drugs. The 135 value comes directly from the number of unique drugs able to fit within the usable (non-edge) wells of the 1536-well plates.
For both dense and sparse modes, compounds were transferred into empty 384- or 1536-well plates (Corning) using the Echo 655 acoustic liquid handler with Combocat protocol files (available at combocat.stjude.org). After compound transfer, cells were dispensed at seeding densities of 1000 cells/well in 384-well plates or 200 cells/well in 1536-well plates. For E. coli cells (which were only screened in 384-well plates), an OD600 of 0.0005 was used. In 1536-well plates, cells were strained through a 70 µM cell strainer before being dispensed. The final DMSO concentration after cell addition was 0.5% in all wells.
Plates were incubated at 37 °C for 72 h. Cell viability was assessed after the 3-day treatment using CellTiter-Glo (or BacTiter-Glo for bacterial cells) by adding either 25 µL (to 384-well plates) or 2 µL (to 1536-well plates) of prepared reagent and reading luminescence on an EnVision plate reader (PerkinElmer). For the absorbance-based readout of cell viability, 8 µL of MTS reagent (Abcam) at 0.5× concentration was added to the cells at the endpoint time. The MTS reagent was incubated with cells for 3 h, and plates were read at 490 nanometers on a Cytation 5 plate reader (BioTek).
The quality of all screened assay plates was assessed using the Z′ metric33, which measures quality as a function of signal window and data variation, given by:
where σNeg/Pos and μNeg/Pos represent the standard deviation and means of the controls, respectively. A Z′ value of ≥0.5 is generally regarded as an excellent separation of controls.
The Combocat ensemble machine learning model was developed as a collection of 90 individual models, each built to predict one of the 90 non-measured indices of a sparse matrix. To construct these models, an input dataset was first assembled containing all fully-measured data collected via dense mode, totaling over 800 combination matrices and their single-agent response values (Supplementary Data 1). The input dataset was first filtered to remove any matrices with a mean cell death value < 10%. Next, this dataset was split into 75% for training and 25% for the test set, respectively. This resulted in a training set of 552 matrices (198,720 measurements) and a test set of 184 matrices (66,240 measurements). Note that while the combination matrix itself has dimensions of 10 × 10, including the single-agent data effectively extends this into an 11 × 11 grid, where the 1st column and 11th row represent the single-agent responses (Supplementary Fig. 9a). This format was used for associating a model with its respective index. Each model was trained on 30 features: response values from 10 single-agent indices each from Drug 1 and Drug 2, and 10 indices corresponding to the matrix diagonal, which represent each drug's concentration combined at a relative 1:1 ratio (Supplementary Fig. 9b). These 30 features correspond to the 30 indices measured experimentally in the sparse mode workflow (Supplementary Fig. 3d) and were used across the input data to generate the models predicting the 90 total indices of a sparse matrix (Supplementary Fig. 9c).
The training of each model involved fitting the tree-based regression model XGBoost34. Hyperparameter tuning was enabled to optimize model performance, which was accomplished using a space-filling grid design to efficiently test 40 combinations of the hyperparameters (detailed in Supplementary Data 6). A 10-fold cross-validation was used to select the optimal set of hyperparameters based on the lowest R2 value. Once identified, each model was trained using its respective optimal hyperparameters on the entire training set. The performance of each model was evaluated across all folds, gauged by R2 and RMSE. For each model, the variable importance was measured across each of the 30 features (30 measured response values from sparse matrices) to evaluate their predictive impact (Supplementary Data 7). Next, the trained models were validated on their test sets to ensure their predictive capability by comparing the observed vs. predicted cell death response values. The comparison of observed vs. predicted response values across the 90 models collectively was used to summarize the predictive performance of the ensemble model. Finally, the ensemble model was serialized in a format that allows for rapid deployment for future sparse matrix predictions. All model generation was performed using the tidymodels framework (tidymodels.org).
To ensure data integrity and mitigate the impact of spurious measurements, we implemented a rigorous quality control (QC) procedure focusing on three key metrics: single-agent standard deviation, residuals from single-agent dose-response curves, and monotonicity of the cell death response.
For each single-agent drug, we first calculated the standard deviation of the percentage cell death (% cell death) values across all replicates at each dose level, resulting in ten standard deviation values per agent corresponding to the ten doses tested. Any dose with a percentage cell death standard deviation exceeding a predefined threshold (Tdefault) of 29 was flagged for disqualification. All combination data points involving that particular dose were also flagged for disqualification (Supplementary Fig. 2e). Next, we fitted a four-parameter log-logistic model to the dose-response data for each single-agent drug. For each dose, we calculated the residual – the difference between the observed percentage cell death and the value predicted by the fitted curve. Doses with residuals whose absolute value exceeded the Tdefault threshold of 15% were disqualified (Supplementary Fig. 2f). Finally, we assessed the monotonicity of the cell death response, under the assumption that percentage cell death should increase monotonically with increasing drug concentration. We evaluated the differences in cell death between the consecutive doses. If the cell death response decreased from one dose to the next by more than the Tdefault threshold of 16% (i.e., a decrease greater than 16%), the corresponding dose was disqualified (Supplementary Fig. 2g). For sparse mode data, we additionally evaluated the monotonicity of the observed combination responses along the diagonal of the 10 × 10 matrix – the ten observed combination values corresponding to increasing dose pairs combined at relative 1:1 ratios. If any of these combination responses decreased by more than 16% compared to the previous dose pair, that specific combination value was disqualified (Supplementary Fig. 2h). After assessing a combination matrix using all three QC metrics, the flagged values were tracked and could be excluded from summary statistics if desired. For example, a combination matrix could be summarized by its mean Bliss synergy score (which averages over all 100 Bliss synergy values of the 10 × 10 matrix), or by its “adjusted” Bliss synergy score (which only averages over the non-disqualified Bliss synergy values).
A pairwise combination screen of 135 drugs was performed in the CHP-134 cells. Each single-agent plate was replicated six times. Drug combinations were prioritized for further exploration by first applying a series of filtering criteria:
Moran's I, a measure of spatial autocorrelation35, was used to assess the distribution of synergy across each 10 × 10 combination matrix. Moran's I quantifies the degree to which similar scores cluster together in space and was applied to all synergy matrices (Supplementary fig. 10). A high Moran's I indicates that similar synergy scores are similarly clustered, forming cohesive patterns, whereas low values suggest a random distribution with no discernible pattern. We reasoned that synergy matrices exhibited such localized motifs likely reflect coherent biological effects, while sporadic patterns are more likely to signify noise or spurious results. All matrices with a Moran's I value of <0.6 were filtered out to retain only those with strong patterns of spatial autocorrelation.
All combination matrices were subjected to a filter based on the quality of the measured values. The ten measured values, corresponding to the diagonal of the 10 × 10 matrix, were subjected to our QC pipeline. If more than six of these ten measured values were flagged by the QC pipeline as unreliable, the matrices were excluded.
The mean percentage cell death was also used as a filter for the screening data. For all 100 dose pairs per combination, the mean was calculated, and only matrices with ≥20% cell death were retained for further analysis. This ensured that the high-ranking synergy was also meaningful in terms of inducing cell death.
Once the screening data were filtered, combinations were ranked by their mean Blissadj. (observed) values. This metric is simply the mean of the 10 measured values per combination after they were subjected to QC (Fig. 4a).
Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.
All data generated and analyzed in this study, including the dense mode reference dataset, model performance metrics, and sparse screening results, are available in the Supplementary Data. The deployable machine learning model file, protocols for the Echo acoustic liquid handler, along with comprehensive documentation for how to run Combocat screens, are freely available at https://www.combocat.stjude.org.
The source code for all computational workflows, including the machine learning ensemble model and the Combocat R package, is open-source and freely available on GitHub at github.com/wcwr/combocat. The code is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license.
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P.G. is supported by an NIGMS R35 award [R35GM138293], an R01 grant from NCI [R01CA260060]; K99/R00 [R00HG009679] from NHGRI; P.G. also receives support from ALSAC. The St. Jude Center for Advanced Genome Engineering receives support from NCI [P30CA021765]. We thank the high-throughput biosciences (HTB) core facility within the Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for providing support with high-throughput screening.
Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
William C. Wright, Min Pan, Ankita Sanjali, Jihye Hwang, Richard H. Chapple, Xueying Liu, Declan Bennett, Yinwen Zhang & Paul Geeleher
Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
Gregory A. Phelps, Jonathan Low, Duane Currier, Marlon Trotter, Richard E. Lee & Taosheng Chen
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W.C.W. and P.G. conceived the study. W.C.W., M.P., G.A.P., J.L., and D.C. designed the experiments. W.C.W., M.P., G.A.P., J.L., D.C., A.S., and M.T. performed the experiments. W.C.W. performed the analysis. W.C.W. and P.G. wrote the manuscript. M.P., G.A.P., J.L., D.C., A.S., M.T., J.H., R.H.C., X.L., D.B., Y.Z., R.E.L., and T.C. provided additional insights, reviewed and edited the manuscript, and supervised various parts of the study.
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William C. Wright or Paul Geeleher.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Communications thanks Francesco Raimondi, who co-reviewed with Martina Varisco; Sven Nelander, and the other anonymous reviewer for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
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Geoscientist Mengran Du and her team reported the deepest ecosystem known to host animals this year.Credit: Billy H.C. Kwok for Nature
A year of chaos. That is how many researchers in the United States, at least, will remember 2025. Cuts to federal funding and the federal workforce, political threats to US universities, an immigration crackdown and the country's withdrawal from global organizations have stymied research in many fields and reshaped, probably for decades to come, the landscape of the world's leading sponsor of science. Throughout the world, financial pressures, political interference and rising nationalist sentiment have put increased strain on a scientific enterprise that thrives on independence, openness and diversity, as Nature's special series on the future of universities has reported over the past few months.
Yet there remains much to celebrate — which is made plain in the stories of the scientists and innovators profiled in this year's Nature's 10, a selection of ten people who shaped the research landscape in 2025.
Nature's 10: Ten people who shaped science in 2025
Nature's 10: Ten people who shaped science in 2025
Some stood up for scientific values, such as Susan Monarez, who was fired after a brief tenure as head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during which time she was asked to pre-approve vaccine recommendations without considering the relevant data.
Others kept the flame of multilateralism and evidence-based policymaking burning. In a year of rising tensions and unresolved conflicts, the agreement of the world's first pandemic treaty in April was a bright spot. Some details still need to be hammered out, but representatives of the 190-odd nations that are members of the World Health Organization — with the exception of the United States, which withdrew from the treaty negotiations in January — managed to forge an agreement on how humanity should prevent and prepare for future pandemics. Negotiations leader Precious Matsoso, a former director-general of South Africa's health department, describes the gruelling process, and how persistence, humour and a constructive approach paid off.
Grant cuts, arrests, lay-offs: Trump made 2025 a tumultuous year for science
Grant cuts, arrests, lay-offs: Trump made 2025 a tumultuous year for science
And several feed humanity's insatiable thirst for knowledge. In 2025, geoscientist and diver Mengran Du at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering in Sanya and her colleagues reported the deepest ecosystem known to host animals, in an underwater trench northeast of Japan1. This chemosynthetic ecosystem derives its energy from methane and other compounds that seep up from the ocean floor — in contrast to most life, which depends on sunlight and the process of photosynthesis. There is still much about our planet that we don't understand, but a thriving global enterprise of science can uncover its mysteries.
Reflecting that, seven of this year's profiles are of individuals outside the United States. Among them is entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng in Hangzhou, China, whose company created the country's home-grown artificial-intelligence model DeepSeek-R1. The breakneck speed of developments in AI — with all its benefits and risks — was another key story of this year. DeepSeek stunned the world with a model that had capabilities on a par with the best tools designed by more established technology firms, yet made for a fraction of the cost and with unusual openness. In September, the model became the first major AI tool to be scrutinized by peer review, with the results published in this journal2.
Transformative science can transform lives. Entomologist Luciano Moreira established a company in Curitiba, Brazil, that infects Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with a bacterium called Wolbachia, curbing the insects' ability to transmit human pathogens. Moreira helped to persuade the government to use the approach to combat the mosquito-borne disease dengue, which killed some 6,300 people in Brazilian cities last year.
The future of universities
The future of universities
And, in Israel, systems biologist Yifat Merbl at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and her team reported that a piece of cellular machinery — the proteasome, which chops up proteins into smaller peptide fragments — has a role in immunity3. They found that many of these peptides have antimicrobial properties and that cells use them as a first line of defence against bacteria.
Besides being at the cutting edge of their fields, Moreira and Merbl share something else: they both studied in the United States before returning home. Their stories are a reminder of the unique part the country has played in recent decades in supporting science around the world, as it has nurtured its own research — a win–win for the nation and the world. That network now seems at risk as an immigration crackdown makes it more difficult, more expensive and less attractive for researchers globally to study and work not just in the United States, but in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, too.
The individuals who feature in Nature's 10, and their breakthroughs, showcase the ongoing strength of science globally: its ability to transcend national borders and nurture collaboration, and its power to save and improve lives, satisfy curiosity and spark innovation. They also serve as a reminder of what is lost when governments cease to follow the evidence, stop funding excellent science and fail to nurture the international collaborative spirit that creates the breakthroughs that make the world a better place for all.
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Tracing pollution in the lives of Arctic seabirds
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Grant cuts, arrests, lay-offs: Trump made 2025 a tumultuous year for science
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China leads research in 90% of crucial technologies — a dramatic shift this century
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Back pain affects many people, yet a surprising number of misunderstandings continue to circulate. Meghan Murphy, M.D., a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato, reviews eight common beliefs and explains what research and clinical experience actually show.
Myth: Lifting heavy objects is the main cause of back pain.
Fact: Lifting heavy objects with poor form can contribute to back pain, but the major culprits are a sedentary lifestyle, poor posture, obesity and genetic factors.
Myth: Bed rest will make my back pain better.
Fact: Probably not, but it depends on the cause of your pain. If it's muscle strain, taking it easy for a few days may help. However, bed rest can also make back pain last longer or even worsen. If your pain is from nerve compression, a disc issue or joint degeneration, inactivity can cause muscles to tighten, pain to worsen, loss of physical condition and more debility. In these cases, you should modify your activities, switch to low-impact exercises like walking and swimming, and avoid movements like bending, twisting or lifting. Maintaining some degree of physical activity can help you heal faster.
Myth: Back pain is caused by sitting on a fat wallet.
Fact: Sitting with a large wallet in your back pocket can cause leg or hip pain and numbness, but typically not back pain. A large wallet can tilt your pelvis and compress your sciatic nerve. This nerve is the largest in your body, branching from the lower back through your hips, buttocks and down each leg. Compressing it causes pain or numbness while sitting or driving. After sitting for a long time, you may find walking difficult or feel pins and needles in your legs.
First, try removing the wallet and taking over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications. If the leg pain persists, check with a healthcare professional.
Myth: Back pain is always due to a serious underlying condition.
Fact: Back pain is usually caused by muscle strains or sprains, not by a serious condition like a disc or vertebrae issue. Most back pain resolves on its own.
Myth: Avoid exercise when experiencing back pain.
Fact: Exercise and physical activity are usually recommended for managing and preventing back pain. Strengthening the core muscles, including your back muscles, improving flexibility, and maintaining a healthy weight can contribute to a healthier back. Depending on your pain, you may need to modify your activity. You know your body best, so listen to it. If something isn't getting better or grows progressively worse, contact a healthcare professional for an evaluation.
Myth: Surgery is the only solution for chronic back pain.
Fact: Back pain is often caused by issues that aren't relieved with surgery. Non-surgical treatments like physical therapy, medications, injections and lifestyle modifications are often effective in managing and reducing chronic back pain. Surgery may be necessary if your pain:
Seek an immediate medical evaluation if you experience any of these symptoms.
Myth: A firm mattress is the best for alleviating back pain.
Fact: The ideal mattress firmness varies from person to person. Some people may find relief with a firm mattress, while others may prefer a medium or soft one. When shopping for a new mattress, look for one that provides support and comfort based on your preferences and needs.
Myth: Poor posture doesn't contribute to back pain.
Fact: Many people spend hours slouching while staring at a computer or focusing on cellphones that draw the eyes down and curve the neck. These habits can strain muscles and joints, causing body pain over time. Practice good posture habits and take advantage of ergonomic office equipment to help prevent and alleviate back pain.
Some back problems are unavoidable because they are linked to injuries, arthritis or genetics. However, several strategies can support long-term back health:
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For many people living with long COVID, ongoing issues such as breathlessness, fatigue and brain fog remain difficult to explain. A team of prominent microbiologists now believes they may have uncovered an important clue.
Their view is that, for some individuals, long COVID symptoms could stem from additional infections that occur alongside SARS-CoV-2.
A review published in eLife by 17 experts, including researchers at Rutgers Health, suggests that co-infections acquired before or during a bout of COVID may help drive long-lasting symptoms.
"This is an aspect of long COVID that is not talked about a lot," said Maria Laura Gennaro, a microbiologist at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School who chaired the Microbiology Task Force for the National Institutes of Health's Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery initiative, a large-scale study of long COVID.
Growing Evidence That Other Pathogens May Play a Role
Long COVID has affected up to 400 million people worldwide and can cause problems ranging from mild disruption to severe disability. It can involve the brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. Despite its widespread impact, no proven treatments exist because the underlying cause remains unclear.
The new review brings together existing scientific findings and expert opinion to highlight an idea that has received relatively little attention: infections other than the coronavirus itself may be important contributors.
EBV Reactivation as a Leading Suspect
One of the strongest lines of evidence centers on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the virus that causes mononucleosis. Roughly 95 percent of adults carry EBV in a latent form that usually remains silent until an immune challenge such as COVID triggers its reactivation.
In one early study, researchers reported that two-thirds of people with long COVID showed markers of recent EBV activity, and those with more symptoms had higher antibody levels. Subsequent studies also linked EBV reactivation with well known features of long COVID, including fatigue and cognitive difficulties.
TB and Immune Disruption
Another pathogen receiving attention is tuberculosis (TB). About one-quarter of the global population carries latent TB. Evidence indicates that COVID may reduce the immune cells that normally contain TB, raising the risk that it could reactivate. The connection may also work in the opposite direction, since TB appears capable of worsening COVID outcomes.
The researchers emphasize that timing is important. Infections that occur before COVID may weaken the immune system. Infections during the initial illness may intensify tissue damage. Infections that arise after recovery could take advantage of lingering immune dysfunction caused by COVID.
Rising Rates of Other Diseases and the Idea of Immunity Theft
According to the authors, 44 countries have seen tenfold increases in at least 13 infectious diseases compared with levels observed before the pandemic. One idea they discuss, known as "immunity theft," proposes that an episode of acute COVID may leave people more susceptible to other infections.
If co-infections truly contribute to long COVID, treatments already available could potentially help. Existing antibiotics and antivirals might be repurposed to target specific underlying infections, and clinical trials could examine whether treating these infections improves long COVID symptoms.
A Hypothesis That Still Requires Proof
The researchers caution that their argument remains preliminary. Although the connections they outline are biologically reasonable, they are still unproven. No causal relationship has been confirmed between any co-infection and long COVID.
"Everyone has heard it a million times, but it bears repeating: Correlation doesn't equal causation," Gennaro said.
She added that verifying the hypothesis would require large epidemiological studies and animal research, yet this work is made more difficult by the lack of reliable animal models for long COVID.
Expanding the Search for Answers
The authors hope their findings will encourage more investigation into how co-infections might shape long COVID. While the review does not provide immediate solutions for those currently dealing with long-term symptoms, the researchers suggest that effective treatment may involve looking beyond the coronavirus alone.
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What happens here matters everywhere
by Todd Bishop on Dec 15, 2025 at 10:35 amDecember 15, 2025 at 10:36 am
Amazon filed a new notice with Washington state Monday morning signaling that it's cutting 84 jobs, but the individual separations are part of the regular course of business, unrelated to the 14,000 corporate layoffs it announced globally in October.
The company said each of its businesses regularly reviews its organizational structure and may make adjustments as a result. It's a routine process, the company said, not tied to broader workforce actions.
The notice stems from a new state law that requires employers to disclose all terminations occurring within 90 days of a prior notice under the state's new “mini” version of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act.
“We've informed a relatively small number of employees that their roles will be eliminated as the result of individual business decisions,” said Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser. “We don't make decisions like this lightly,” he added, noting that the company is providing affected employees with 90 days of full pay and benefits, transitional health coverage, and job placement services.
According to the filing, the separations are scheduled to occur between Feb. 2 and Feb. 23, 2026, across more than 30 Seattle and Bellevue office locations, plus six remote workers based in Washington. They include software development engineers, program managers, recruiters, HR specialists, and UX designers, ranging from entry-level to directors and principals.
Amazon noted in the filing that employees were notified starting in early November and received at least 89 days' advance notice, exceeding the 60-day minimum required under the law. Those who find internal transfers before their separation date won't be laid off.
Separately, the company said in October that it was cutting 14,000 corporate jobs globally as part of CEO Andy Jassy's push to reduce bureaucracy and operate more efficiently. That earlier round included more than 2,300 layoffs in Washington state, according to a filing at the time.
Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti signaled additional cuts could continue into 2026. Reuters has reported the total could ultimately reach 30,000 — which would surpass the 27,000 positions eliminated in 2023 and mark the largest overall layoff in company history.
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Filing: Amazon cuts more than 2,300 jobs in Washington state as part of broader layoffs
Amazon layoffs hit software engineers hardest in Washington
Microsoft cuts 42 more jobs in Redmond, continuing layoffs amid AI spending boom
Microsoft will cut nearly 2,000 jobs in Washington state as part of broader layoffs
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What happens here matters everywhere
by Lisa Stiffler on Dec 15, 2025 at 10:34 amDecember 15, 2025 at 10:54 am
Washington state is part of a newly filed lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the legality of a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas that allow highly-skilled individuals to work temporarily in the U.S.
Attorneys general from 20 states claim the U.S. Department of Homeland Security set the fee at an arbitrary amount that does not reflect the agency's costs, and that the fee was enacted without going through a required notice-and-comment process.
The visa is meant to recruit employees from abroad who have specialized expertise not found in sufficient numbers in the U.S. workforce.
Seattle-based Amazon has roughly 19,100 employees working under H-1B visas nationwide. Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., nationally employs more than 6,200 H-1B visa holders. Washington's public universities and agencies have nearly 500 H-1B visa holders on their payrolls, according to federal data and state analysis.
Employers are responsible for paying H-1B fees, which used to run between $960 and $7,595, said Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown's office. Raising the fees, the state warned, will result in empty university labs and science discoveries “will be made somewhere else.”
“These institutions will lose their competitive edge, particularly in the areas of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and medical fields,” said a press release from Brown's office.
In announcing the increased fee in September, the Trump administration said the visa was being abused by employers to supplant Americans with “lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
“The large-scale replacement of American workers through systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security,” said a White House memo addressing restrictions of nonimmigrant workers.
Priyanka Kulkarni, CEO of the immigration tech startup Casium, said the H1-B workers are not low paid, noting that the median salary for the visa holders was about $120,000 last year.
“Engineers, scientists, healthcare specialists, and educators recruited from abroad often fill critical gaps that enable companies and institutions to grow, invest, and create jobs locally,” she added via email.
The Trump administration has specifically called out high-tech companies' use of the program, saying they “have prominently manipulated the H-1B system, significantly harming American workers in computer-related fields.”
Xiao Wang, CEO of the startup Boundless Immigration, noted that while tech giants are targeted for criticism, the visa also allows for doctors, nurses and researchers to work in the U.S. — echoing some of the concerns raised by Washington's attorney general.
“Adding a $100K fee for all foreign talent trying to enter Washington to work in these fields would all but eliminate this pathway for anyone outside of the most valuable companies in the world and would leave the state with a significant shortage of important roles,” Wang said by email.
He added that putting a nurse and an AI engineer in the same visa category highlights an overdue need for immigration reform.
Wang called on Americans to demand that Congress “pass new immigration regulations to stay competitive as a country.”
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Crypto ATM startup Coinme hit with cease-and-desist order in Washington state
Seattle-area startup Govstream.ai raises $3.6M to improve city permitting processes using AI
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Startup leaders warn new $100K H-1B visa fee will hurt U.S. entrepreneurship and innovation
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While I'm a mattress and sleep product expert, thanks to years of hands-on experience, I'm also aware that my opinion is not the end-all, be-all for everyone. However, when a megastar is also a fan of a product you've reviewed, it's a good confirmation that you're on the right track.
Taylor Swift, as it would turn out, is also a fan of Coop Sleep Goods—which we can confirm based on this December 10 Late Show With Stephen Colbert appearance.
Coop's got some of our favorite pillows, particularly the Original Adjustable pillow. It comes in three shapes: the Crescent, the Cut Out, and the Classic, which is a traditional rectangular shape. I love (and regularly sleep on) the Crescent, which has a gentle curve on the bottom to allow for movement while maintaining head and neck support.
WIRED reviewer Nena Farrell likes the Cut Out, which features a notchlike shape in the center. This is another standout option for side sleepers, as your shoulder is meant to go into this opening while the pillow boosts the head and neck, maintaining cervical alignment.
The standard cover that comes on all three iterations is impressively soft. Each pillow comes with extra fill, which you can add by unzipping the cover and inner shell. Adding more fill makes the pillow feel firmer, but you can also remove some to make it softer.
Coop's flash deal won't last long—you only have until December 17 to get 22 percent off all Coop pillows with the code TAYLOR22. So, whether you consider yourself a true Swiftie or not, these really are awesome pillows (not to mention a terrific deal).
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As observed by hardware enthusiast Uniko's Hardware, Asus and Gigabyte have launched new versions of their GeForce RTX 5060 Ti models, which are among the best graphics cards currently available. In the case of Asus, the new Evo-branded SKU is more compact but also involves several noticeable downgrades. Conversely, in Gigabyte's case, the update appears to be solely an aesthetic modification.
The primary, and arguably most significant, modification in Asus and Gigabyte's updated models pertains to the PCIe connector. Asus has transitioned to a PCIe x8 connector on the Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Evo 16GB GDDR7, replacing the PCIe x16 connector present in the original Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7. Conversely, Gigabyte has implemented the opposite adjustment by adopting a PCIe x16 connector on the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce Max 16G in place of the PCIe x8 connector used in the previous GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce 16G.
The GeForce RTX 5060 and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti operate efficiently with a PCIe x8 connector, as Nvidia has engineered these graphics cards to function optimally on this interface. Although a PCIe x16 connector can be installed on either of these mid-range, Blackwell-powered models, they are electrically configured to operate at x8. Therefore, the performance is unaffected whether the graphics card uses a PCIe x16 or x8 connector.
Brand
Model
Dimensions (Inches)
Boost Clock (MHz)
CUDA Cores
Memory
Part Number
Asus
Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Evo 16GB GDDR7
8.85 x 4.72 x 1.65
2,602
4,608
16GB GDDR7
DUAL-RTX5060TI-16G-EVO
Asus
Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7
9.01 x 4.72 x 1.97
2,602
4,608
16GB GDDR7
DUAL-RTX5060TI-16G
Gigabyte
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce Max 16G
8.19 x 4.72 x 1.57
2,572
4,608
16GB GDDR7
GV-N506TWF2MAX-16GD
Gigabyte
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce 16G
8.19 x 4.72 x 1.57
2,572
4,608
16GB GDDR7
GV-N506TWF2-16GD
The primary rationale for downgrading from a PCIe x16 to a PCIe x8 connector is cost reduction, as the former is more expensive due to its larger size and additional data lanes. While this may apply to Asus, it is also possible that Gigabyte recycles surplus PCBs for this purpose.
The PCIe x8 connector isn't the only change to the Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Evo 16GB GDDR7. The new model is also more compact, as Asus has reduced the design from 2.5 slots to 2.1 slots and shortened the graphics card by around 2%. The goal was to make the Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Evo 16GB GDDR7 more friendly to SFF (small-form-factor) systems. Sadly, this modification reduced some features compared to the original model.
The Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Evo 16GB GDDR7 no longer supports dual-BIOS functionality. The original version included a switch that enabled users to toggle between P Mode and Q Mode, allowing them to choose between enhanced performance and reduced noise levels. This feature is absent in the Evo edition. Furthermore, it does not utilize Asus GPU Guard, which involves applying adhesive to the four corners of the GB206 silicon to prevent potential cracking. Another minor modification is relocating the 8-pin PCIe connector to the left side of the Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Evo 16GB GDDR7.
Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce Max 16G is physically indistinguishable from the previous GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce 16G, except for the positioning of the 8-pin PCIe power connector. In the Max variant, it is situated on the right side, resembling the placement on the Asus non-Evo model.
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Asus and Gigabyte discreetly introduced the Evo and Max models, respectively. Although the updated SKUs are listed on their respective websites, pricing and availability currently remain undisclosed.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom's Hardware. Although he loves everything that's hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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A lot of the UK seems to be struggling with their loss of Empire even 80 years later.They ran out of money, 2 world wars bankrupted them.
They ran out of money, 2 world wars bankrupted them.
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Most of Europe has lower GDP per capita than the poorest states of the US, yet the lifestyle of European citizens in those countries is much better than the lifestyle of the poorest Americans. American growth is built on the backs of piss-poor healthcare, shoddy education and an overinflated perception of the tech sector which holds the rest of the world hostage (but not for long).
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With the second war destroying a lot of the country and calling to rebuild at home. This is a fundamental difference with the US. I don't blame the UK for focusing at home for a while to rebuild.
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WW2 did not 'destroy' the UK. It wasn't subjected to any of the horrors of ground warfare, and the Blitz failed to inflict any meaningful damage on it.What WW2 did destroy was the UK government's ability and will to finance the sort of repression that was necessary to maintain a globe-spanning empire. Churchill in his pigheaded hubris could scream from the rooftops about India forever remaining British, but Clement wasn't going to kill people over it.(In contrast, France lost the ability, but not the will, which is why it fought a few wars in Vietnam and Algiers, instead of letting their colonial subjects have self-rule and independence sans bloodshed.)
What WW2 did destroy was the UK government's ability and will to finance the sort of repression that was necessary to maintain a globe-spanning empire. Churchill in his pigheaded hubris could scream from the rooftops about India forever remaining British, but Clement wasn't going to kill people over it.(In contrast, France lost the ability, but not the will, which is why it fought a few wars in Vietnam and Algiers, instead of letting their colonial subjects have self-rule and independence sans bloodshed.)
(In contrast, France lost the ability, but not the will, which is why it fought a few wars in Vietnam and Algiers, instead of letting their colonial subjects have self-rule and independence sans bloodshed.)
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https://jobs.army.mod.uk/army-reserve/
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But. It's clearly a massive security issue.> If you're that keen, go join the reserves?There is not currently a war, and if there was, there wouldn't be a choice but to join.
> If you're that keen, go join the reserves?There is not currently a war, and if there was, there wouldn't be a choice but to join.
There is not currently a war, and if there was, there wouldn't be a choice but to join.
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And the USA is at best neutral in terms of how many dictators it has taken down VS installed and propped up (especially if we count attempts and consequences as well). For every Saddam, you have an MBS.
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It seems like Americans forget how young their country is, it's barely a blimp in history so far, although recent written history makes it seem a lot older than it is.
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Out of curiosity, who are you thinking of?There aren't that many countries that made it through colonization, industrialization, WWII and then decolonization and the Cold War intact. Very, very few virtually continuously. Fewer still as democracies.
There aren't that many countries that made it through colonization, industrialization, WWII and then decolonization and the Cold War intact. Very, very few virtually continuously. Fewer still as democracies.
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Shouldn't be hard to name just one, then, rather a bunch of handwaving.
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America was a major force behind post-War decolonization. It was one of our terms of the European peace.
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Based on military ranking:#5 SK, #6 UK, #7 France, #8 Japan, #9 Turkey, #10 Italy, #11 Brazil, #12 Pakistan, #14 Germany, #15 Israel, #17 Spain, #18 Australia, and if it were allowed to, #20 Ukraine.Based on economic power: I won't even bother, only China, India, Russia aren't US allies in the top 30 or so, by GDP.The US was a world police but it wasn't alone. Yes, it was far bigger than all its allies taken separately, but those allies could more than double its power.What the US is doing now is a tragedy that will unfold over many decades.[1] Based on https://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-202... (if you have a better ranking, please link it).
#5 SK, #6 UK, #7 France, #8 Japan, #9 Turkey, #10 Italy, #11 Brazil, #12 Pakistan, #14 Germany, #15 Israel, #17 Spain, #18 Australia, and if it were allowed to, #20 Ukraine.Based on economic power: I won't even bother, only China, India, Russia aren't US allies in the top 30 or so, by GDP.The US was a world police but it wasn't alone. Yes, it was far bigger than all its allies taken separately, but those allies could more than double its power.What the US is doing now is a tragedy that will unfold over many decades.[1] Based on https://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-202... (if you have a better ranking, please link it).
Based on economic power: I won't even bother, only China, India, Russia aren't US allies in the top 30 or so, by GDP.The US was a world police but it wasn't alone. Yes, it was far bigger than all its allies taken separately, but those allies could more than double its power.What the US is doing now is a tragedy that will unfold over many decades.[1] Based on https://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-202... (if you have a better ranking, please link it).
The US was a world police but it wasn't alone. Yes, it was far bigger than all its allies taken separately, but those allies could more than double its power.What the US is doing now is a tragedy that will unfold over many decades.[1] Based on https://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-202... (if you have a better ranking, please link it).
What the US is doing now is a tragedy that will unfold over many decades.[1] Based on https://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-202... (if you have a better ranking, please link it).
[1] Based on https://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-202... (if you have a better ranking, please link it).
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This breaks down as soon as you stop looking at abstract rankings and dive into the specific logistic realities of force projection. France and to a lesser extent the UK are reasonably capable, but there's no math that adds up to anything approaching America's capabilities.
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So, $(US) + $(ALLIES) > $(US)
However, $(ALLIES) - $(US) < $(ALLIES)
This has been true from the beginning, and I don't think was a nefarious plot, or even mistake, for most of the alliance's history. The further we get from the Cold War alignments within which NATO was created, however, the more difficult it has become to sustain.
$(US) + $(ALLIES) > $(US)
However, $(ALLIES) - $(US) < $(ALLIES)
This has been true from the beginning, and I don't think was a nefarious plot, or even mistake, for most of the alliance's history. The further we get from the Cold War alignments within which NATO was created, however, the more difficult it has become to sustain.
$(ALLIES) - $(US) < $(ALLIES)
This has been true from the beginning, and I don't think was a nefarious plot, or even mistake, for most of the alliance's history. The further we get from the Cold War alignments within which NATO was created, however, the more difficult it has become to sustain.
In the short-term it might be painful, but long-term things will definitively get better, as long as no one feels like they need to pick up the mantle, which is the biggest risk right now. A bit like a painful breakup, some short-term pain is needed for long-term happiness.
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Multipolarity means spheres of influence. That sort of works if a region has an undisputed hegemon. It means war if that title is contests.
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This got me thinking, how can Evil call out evil abroad? After so many invasions, killing so many innocent people across the world, how can one claim good-faith and call out evil abroad?
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its less evil when country economically destroyed (with sanctions), but its another thing when some of your relatives killed because some people wanted to play with their gun and shoot real people, for sport.
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Before downvoting, think about what if person on the other side experienced how people they knew and loved know got killed by that "moral" superpower for sport, for oil, for land and to enrich couple of their billionaires even more.US have no right to call out any kind of evil, anywhere, after destroying so many families. You just don't feel it, just try to imagine if half of your family got killed for fun, how do you feel?
US have no right to call out any kind of evil, anywhere, after destroying so many families. You just don't feel it, just try to imagine if half of your family got killed for fun, how do you feel?
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The current administration is overtly doing what was previously done covertly. Dictators are acceptable as long as it is politically convenient. One of the most recent cases is Pakistan, where the army has taken over, and EU and Commonwealth election monitors did not issue even election monitor report even after two years. Instead, they have facilitated the murder and killing of Pakistani civilians. But maybe Pakistanis are brown-skinned, so for them, democracy is not allowed.Pakistan should be under sanctions, but it is not, as it is providing ammunition for Ukraine. That is the biggest problem of the West: their hypocrisy. They are calling for democracy in Hong Kong, as that serves their own agendas, but will say nothing about an apartheid state like Israel."Imran Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed without trial for the last two-plus years and has been kept in solitary confinement for months out of those. How many newspapers mention it in the West or make it a news topic? But this Hong Kong (HK) Jimmy Lai conviction will be the headlines in most of the Western media a clear example of propaganda to rile up the population against China and socialism.This is why I laugh when people here on Hacker News mention China's control of media and its propaganda, when the Western media is no better than them. At least many Chinese citizens know they are being propagandized against and can filter it out."
Pakistan should be under sanctions, but it is not, as it is providing ammunition for Ukraine. That is the biggest problem of the West: their hypocrisy. They are calling for democracy in Hong Kong, as that serves their own agendas, but will say nothing about an apartheid state like Israel."Imran Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed without trial for the last two-plus years and has been kept in solitary confinement for months out of those. How many newspapers mention it in the West or make it a news topic? But this Hong Kong (HK) Jimmy Lai conviction will be the headlines in most of the Western media a clear example of propaganda to rile up the population against China and socialism.This is why I laugh when people here on Hacker News mention China's control of media and its propaganda, when the Western media is no better than them. At least many Chinese citizens know they are being propagandized against and can filter it out."
"Imran Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed without trial for the last two-plus years and has been kept in solitary confinement for months out of those. How many newspapers mention it in the West or make it a news topic? But this Hong Kong (HK) Jimmy Lai conviction will be the headlines in most of the Western media a clear example of propaganda to rile up the population against China and socialism.This is why I laugh when people here on Hacker News mention China's control of media and its propaganda, when the Western media is no better than them. At least many Chinese citizens know they are being propagandized against and can filter it out."
This is why I laugh when people here on Hacker News mention China's control of media and its propaganda, when the Western media is no better than them. At least many Chinese citizens know they are being propagandized against and can filter it out."
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It's the entrenchment of a particular kind of parasitic elite.The logic that made them into "elites" has turned in on itself and is now self-cannibalizing.The saving grace is only the capacity for the American people to see through this, but with the derangement of information pathways we're increasingly at the behest of these people and their narratives that only serve their aggrandizement.All the talk about "saving the west" or "individualism" or the some other talk of spirit that these preachers sermon about, is only to serve themselves and not one else."Calling out evil" is another one of those victims to their self-serving motivations. Along with "climate change", "environmentalism", "democracy", "freedom", or a whole host of otherwise genuinely noble causes.
The logic that made them into "elites" has turned in on itself and is now self-cannibalizing.The saving grace is only the capacity for the American people to see through this, but with the derangement of information pathways we're increasingly at the behest of these people and their narratives that only serve their aggrandizement.All the talk about "saving the west" or "individualism" or the some other talk of spirit that these preachers sermon about, is only to serve themselves and not one else."Calling out evil" is another one of those victims to their self-serving motivations. Along with "climate change", "environmentalism", "democracy", "freedom", or a whole host of otherwise genuinely noble causes.
The saving grace is only the capacity for the American people to see through this, but with the derangement of information pathways we're increasingly at the behest of these people and their narratives that only serve their aggrandizement.All the talk about "saving the west" or "individualism" or the some other talk of spirit that these preachers sermon about, is only to serve themselves and not one else."Calling out evil" is another one of those victims to their self-serving motivations. Along with "climate change", "environmentalism", "democracy", "freedom", or a whole host of otherwise genuinely noble causes.
All the talk about "saving the west" or "individualism" or the some other talk of spirit that these preachers sermon about, is only to serve themselves and not one else."Calling out evil" is another one of those victims to their self-serving motivations. Along with "climate change", "environmentalism", "democracy", "freedom", or a whole host of otherwise genuinely noble causes.
"Calling out evil" is another one of those victims to their self-serving motivations. Along with "climate change", "environmentalism", "democracy", "freedom", or a whole host of otherwise genuinely noble causes.
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"The colonial government used the Control of Publications Consolidation Ordinance (1951) to regulate publications and suppress freedom of the press. One notable case resulted in the suppression of the newspaper Ta Kung Pao for six months (later reduced to 12 days) for its criticism of the colonial government's deportation of the Federation of Trade Unions-backed fire relief organisation officials and use of live fire against protestors. Deportation was also used as a method to control politics in education. Lo Tong, a principal at a pro-Beijing, patriotic middle school, had been deported in 1950 for raising the People's Republic of China (PRC) flag and singing the national anthem at his school." [1]Now of course we'd all prefer Western-style freedoms but the narrative on HK is highly skewed and hypocritical, with HK used as a pawn in the broader anti-China narrative.Even Singapore isn't exactly rosy but it is a friend of the West so it's fine.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Hong_Kong
Now of course we'd all prefer Western-style freedoms but the narrative on HK is highly skewed and hypocritical, with HK used as a pawn in the broader anti-China narrative.Even Singapore isn't exactly rosy but it is a friend of the West so it's fine.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Hong_Kong
Even Singapore isn't exactly rosy but it is a friend of the West so it's fine.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Hong_Kong
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Hong_Kong
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it was always BSnow everybody can seethats the only difference
now everybody can seethats the only difference
thats the only difference
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On the books maybe. But for instance, America defines treason so narrowly that nobody has been convicted of it since WW2. Americans are free to sing praise of China, Russia, North Korea, whoever they like no matter how unjustified. Unless Congress has declared a war, which hasn't happened since WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regimes as much as you like.
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Bread and circuses. Everyone is comfortable and entertained to the point of drooling. They won't be leaving their cozy warm houses with TV and video games to do anything. Brain isn't built that way. If it were, there wouldn't be an obesity epidemic. It'll always be short-term rewards over long-term most of the time for most people.On the other hand, none of this is sustainable in the long-run, so it'll all come crashing down and things will work out. We'll probably be dead long before then though. Gotta go through some rough shit first.
On the other hand, none of this is sustainable in the long-run, so it'll all come crashing down and things will work out. We'll probably be dead long before then though. Gotta go through some rough shit first.
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What if it was a fake all along and was just a facade and social media exposed it?
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mass de-regulation, tax avoidance, effective end of anti-trust killed itsocial media was just the tool-of-the-day to break democracy
social media was just the tool-of-the-day to break democracy
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The UK throwing a very big rock at a thin glass house.I don't agree with any such laws in any country, but I think it's important to point out the hypocrisy here
I don't agree with any such laws in any country, but I think it's important to point out the hypocrisy here
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Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.If you find this line of argumentation compelling there's no discussing anything with you.
If you find this line of argumentation compelling there's no discussing anything with you.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
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Sinking half a dozen ships in international waters is a crime.Sanity would ask for intercepting those boats in your waters, and that's it, controlling what's in them, who are these people and send them in front of a court if they breached your law, on your soil (or waters).Yet we are at the point nobody raises the voice where sinking civilian ships on the basis it's drug smugglers (without providing a proof, let alone the fact that even if it was true it's still insane) has any leftover of decency or justice.Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
Sanity would ask for intercepting those boats in your waters, and that's it, controlling what's in them, who are these people and send them in front of a court if they breached your law, on your soil (or waters).Yet we are at the point nobody raises the voice where sinking civilian ships on the basis it's drug smugglers (without providing a proof, let alone the fact that even if it was true it's still insane) has any leftover of decency or justice.Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
Yet we are at the point nobody raises the voice where sinking civilian ships on the basis it's drug smugglers (without providing a proof, let alone the fact that even if it was true it's still insane) has any leftover of decency or justice.Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
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There is nothing logically wrong with hypocrisy. I tell my toddlers not to do stuff I do all the time.The problem with hypocrisy comes when one party is assumed to have more rights than the other. In this case, why would Britain (or the US's) government be allowed to be more corrupt than China's?I assume Britain is brought up due to the British government's historic role in Hong Kong and China.
The problem with hypocrisy comes when one party is assumed to have more rights than the other. In this case, why would Britain (or the US's) government be allowed to be more corrupt than China's?I assume Britain is brought up due to the British government's historic role in Hong Kong and China.
I assume Britain is brought up due to the British government's historic role in Hong Kong and China.
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And all that. We're all evil at one point or another, from someone's perspective.
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Especially when it comes to China and Russia, people seem to think they're about as bad as the West when nothing could be further from the truth.Maybe thats due to more people from the hard right haunting this place, or the general shift of the tech crowd to the right. I'm not sure what it is exactly.
Maybe thats due to more people from the hard right haunting this place, or the general shift of the tech crowd to the right. I'm not sure what it is exactly.
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That quote gets bent very far out of context. You could use it to justify any inaction under that interpretation, on the theory that you are not qualified to take it simply due to being imperfect.
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Not sure where you get this from?For me it means even "evil" people/countries can raise valid points, nothing more, nothing less.
For me it means even "evil" people/countries can raise valid points, nothing more, nothing less.
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Christ, we need more woodworking classes for kids on the tech path.
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Christ, we really need reading comprehension classes and ideally poetry classes or something similar, since people are unable to read more than the actual characters today it seems... Seems extra problematic in software/programming circles, maybe we need to add arts classes to science programs too?
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Can we not simply condemn that?
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Now you're just condemning what you've already done. Why should anyone respect it? At some point you loose respect and eventually you just look confused.
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One can also ask how HK ended up with English language and common law in the first place… though that wasn't so recent.
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It's not whataboutism to point up the current messed up situation is not unrelated to the behavior of the UK, and their fingerprints are all over it. Of course things aren't static and new actors have changed the conversation, but this doesn't absolve them and they shouldn't be pointing fingers.
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If you're saying historically as an imperial power we've done terrible stuff we can all agree with that!
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Since it fell from power, the UK does everything the US wants.However, historically it set up a lot of bad things that happened in the Middle East, China, Africa, etc. The UK cannot untangle itself from it, "it's all in the past", because history is terribly influenced by things in the past, by definition.
However, historically it set up a lot of bad things that happened in the Middle East, China, Africa, etc. The UK cannot untangle itself from it, "it's all in the past", because history is terribly influenced by things in the past, by definition.
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-@dril, 2014
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previously, these well funded democracy - regime agents would win in many places, but now the tables have turned - america now has a demagogue as president.
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In summary, since 1997 it has for all intents and purposes been abandoned.
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Not saying I like what they did (I don't).
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Then why would anyone agree to anything?
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Pretty much. They are only as effective as the body trying to enforce it. The entire point of being a sovereign nation is nobody can force you to do anything. It is in a nation's self interest to not violate agreements and get along nicely, but sometimes that calculus changes.
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It would have been better for Hong Kongers if they'd kept it, but alas here we are.
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The only thing you can do about it is shaming them, sanctioning them, going to war if you really care, ...
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And a plain reading of the Basic Law (Hong Kong's constitution) permits everything that's happened, and expecting the contrary seems like a coping mechanism. There are massive exemptions for Hong Kong's autonomy and deferrence to Beijing at Beijing's discretion, or by the Head of Hong Kong who is appointed by BeijingI wasn't around for the handover so I'm largely exempt from the emotional marriage to an ideal Hong Kong residents and people affirming Hong Kong resident's feelings seem to haveThe legislature wouldn't have to be consulted for the National Security Law to have been enacted, the article and seemingly all of the west seems to think that is a controversy when it isn't necessaryAnd then there is another layer where the structure of the legislature doesn't even match western ideals and wouldn't have made a difference. The legislature is 50% popular vote and 50% corporations. So even if 100% of the population voted for the same thing, they would only have 50% of the vote, and the corporations are all pro-Beijing by nature of being able to economically exist in that environment.(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregios way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)People are like a different founding document governs Hong Kong, when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
I wasn't around for the handover so I'm largely exempt from the emotional marriage to an ideal Hong Kong residents and people affirming Hong Kong resident's feelings seem to haveThe legislature wouldn't have to be consulted for the National Security Law to have been enacted, the article and seemingly all of the west seems to think that is a controversy when it isn't necessaryAnd then there is another layer where the structure of the legislature doesn't even match western ideals and wouldn't have made a difference. The legislature is 50% popular vote and 50% corporations. So even if 100% of the population voted for the same thing, they would only have 50% of the vote, and the corporations are all pro-Beijing by nature of being able to economically exist in that environment.(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregios way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)People are like a different founding document governs Hong Kong, when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
The legislature wouldn't have to be consulted for the National Security Law to have been enacted, the article and seemingly all of the west seems to think that is a controversy when it isn't necessaryAnd then there is another layer where the structure of the legislature doesn't even match western ideals and wouldn't have made a difference. The legislature is 50% popular vote and 50% corporations. So even if 100% of the population voted for the same thing, they would only have 50% of the vote, and the corporations are all pro-Beijing by nature of being able to economically exist in that environment.(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregios way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)People are like a different founding document governs Hong Kong, when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
And then there is another layer where the structure of the legislature doesn't even match western ideals and wouldn't have made a difference. The legislature is 50% popular vote and 50% corporations. So even if 100% of the population voted for the same thing, they would only have 50% of the vote, and the corporations are all pro-Beijing by nature of being able to economically exist in that environment.(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregios way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)People are like a different founding document governs Hong Kong, when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregios way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)People are like a different founding document governs Hong Kong, when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
People are like a different founding document governs Hong Kong, when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to.
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He's facing life in prison right now, so this conviction puts everything on the line.Glad to see this hitting the front page. I posted an article earlier with not much movement which was really worrying for the HK free thought movement; happy that this turned out to not be the case.
Glad to see this hitting the front page. I posted an article earlier with not much movement which was really worrying for the HK free thought movement; happy that this turned out to not be the case.
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Do you think, were you to talk to Alexei now, you could convince him that his life fighting dictatorship wasn't worth it?
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CBS just got taken over by the same cabal.Amidst ICE grabbing people out of Home Depot parking lots in the US, China is just doing the same thing over there.
Amidst ICE grabbing people out of Home Depot parking lots in the US, China is just doing the same thing over there.
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Yeah, sure, there's still a city there with that name. But the Hong Kong we knew is dead. What made Hong Kong what it was is dead.
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The mainland government want to keep it prosperous so will likely work to protect it from sanctions or international regulations.If you're a Russian oligarch it's probably safer to keep your money in HK than Cayman or Switzerland these days. Even if you're a petrostate sovereign wealth fund or non NATO central bank there's some value in holding assets that can't be frozen at will by the US treasury secretary.You could argue that Signapaore and the UAE compete here but they have much more dependency on the west for security and diplomacy.
If you're a Russian oligarch it's probably safer to keep your money in HK than Cayman or Switzerland these days. Even if you're a petrostate sovereign wealth fund or non NATO central bank there's some value in holding assets that can't be frozen at will by the US treasury secretary.You could argue that Signapaore and the UAE compete here but they have much more dependency on the west for security and diplomacy.
You could argue that Signapaore and the UAE compete here but they have much more dependency on the west for security and diplomacy.
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The EU is still debating after 3 years of war in Ukraine and weekly nuclear threats what to do with the Russian funds, let's be real, with the same situation in HK, the funds would have been seized within a week.
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The article is literally about what happens when you go around flagging too hard that you're opposing China's crackdown.
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People are generally not super closed nor open about it, although some individuals were more closed about it. Most seemed honest when asked about it, but again, YMMV.
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The Chinese were obviously always opposed to British imperalism and it was a major victory to finally get HK back, including in HK, and even acknowledged in Taiwan. There is a large body of quite nationalistic and anti-European/British films in HK cinema from British times.However, this does not mean that there is no domestic politics with pro and anti communist party, but daily life hasn't changed in HK except from the larger influx of "mainlanders".The narrative on HK in the West is simplistic and, frankly a little racist. European imperialism and colonialism has long been rejected except somehow for the so great thing it did in HK, conveniently forgetting that the British never had any democracy in HK and acquired HK by pretty nasty means.
However, this does not mean that there is no domestic politics with pro and anti communist party, but daily life hasn't changed in HK except from the larger influx of "mainlanders".The narrative on HK in the West is simplistic and, frankly a little racist. European imperialism and colonialism has long been rejected except somehow for the so great thing it did in HK, conveniently forgetting that the British never had any democracy in HK and acquired HK by pretty nasty means.
The narrative on HK in the West is simplistic and, frankly a little racist. European imperialism and colonialism has long been rejected except somehow for the so great thing it did in HK, conveniently forgetting that the British never had any democracy in HK and acquired HK by pretty nasty means.
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Of course this guy isn't sone factory worker but a CEO. He met with Mike Pence, Pompey and Bolton, i.e. the West so he's "pro democracy".ICE is in my city pulling people out of their cars, then releasing them with no charges days later. Wish there was some democracy in this country.
ICE is in my city pulling people out of their cars, then releasing them with no charges days later. Wish there was some democracy in this country.
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Now white, professional westerners who lost control of China weep and gnash about their supposed moral superiority over China.
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Is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state? Well... what defines fair and just? In accordance with the will of the Chinese people? Or are we talking about Western standards?
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In which country is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state, especially in today's climate?
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Regardless, it's presumably all relative. At least there's certainly an ordering of states I'd rather have against me, as a person living in them. Maybe Sweden?
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Or if you don't like the child murder analogy: suppose an FBI employee decided to betray the US to the Soviets out of money, not ideology (cue Robert Hanssen). The US is at this point in time still executing traitors to the state. They grab this Hanssen-type, send him to the electric chair (on faulty evidence or simply "vibes" of guilt), but later it turns out this person was really guilty. Was this process fair?Maybe Sweden if relatively fairer, like you said. I suspect not. But even if it was relatively fair, what's with obsessing over Hong Kong and China if most of the world isn't fair?
Maybe Sweden if relatively fairer, like you said. I suspect not. But even if it was relatively fair, what's with obsessing over Hong Kong and China if most of the world isn't fair?
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There have been a few cases of Somalis for example even killing government police/military and them being found not guilty in xeer court and even the government respected the decision.
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What makes you ask a such question? Here are some bad ideas which comes to my mind:* you think China is inferior?* or maybe Chinese are inferior?* maybe you think they always lie?* or maybe they don't have laws?* maybe plain old racism?Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
* you think China is inferior?* or maybe Chinese are inferior?* maybe you think they always lie?* or maybe they don't have laws?* maybe plain old racism?Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
* or maybe Chinese are inferior?* maybe you think they always lie?* or maybe they don't have laws?* maybe plain old racism?Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
* maybe you think they always lie?* or maybe they don't have laws?* maybe plain old racism?Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
* or maybe they don't have laws?* maybe plain old racism?Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
* maybe plain old racism?Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
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GOLDSTEIN: China has not allowed more freedom of speech. Publications can still be shut down for criticizing the government. And yet, China has gotten richer. It started to develop its own financial center in Shanghai. Foreign money can now flow into China without going through Hong Kong, so the Chinese Communist Party doesn't need Hong Kong as much as it used to.This has led to more and more tension between people in Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government. In 2014, there was a fight over how to choose the government official who runs Hong Kong, and a million people in Hong Kong took to the streets to protest. Just last month, the government official who runs Hong Kong wanted to pass a new law that would allow people in Hong Kong to be extradited to China to stand trial. The people in Hong Kong said, we don't trust your mainland courts. Two million people protested in the streets, including, by the way, Jimmy Lai, who is now in his 70s.What was it like? What was it like walking that day?LAI: I was very excited - when you see so many people, you know, is fighting for a moral issue. We don't have guns. We don't have tanks. We don't have anything. The only thing we have the Chinese government don't is the moral authority we have, the moral courage we have.GOLDSTEIN: The moral authority and courage, yeah.LAI: Yes.GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
This has led to more and more tension between people in Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government. In 2014, there was a fight over how to choose the government official who runs Hong Kong, and a million people in Hong Kong took to the streets to protest. Just last month, the government official who runs Hong Kong wanted to pass a new law that would allow people in Hong Kong to be extradited to China to stand trial. The people in Hong Kong said, we don't trust your mainland courts. Two million people protested in the streets, including, by the way, Jimmy Lai, who is now in his 70s.What was it like? What was it like walking that day?LAI: I was very excited - when you see so many people, you know, is fighting for a moral issue. We don't have guns. We don't have tanks. We don't have anything. The only thing we have the Chinese government don't is the moral authority we have, the moral courage we have.GOLDSTEIN: The moral authority and courage, yeah.LAI: Yes.GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
What was it like? What was it like walking that day?LAI: I was very excited - when you see so many people, you know, is fighting for a moral issue. We don't have guns. We don't have tanks. We don't have anything. The only thing we have the Chinese government don't is the moral authority we have, the moral courage we have.GOLDSTEIN: The moral authority and courage, yeah.LAI: Yes.GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: I was very excited - when you see so many people, you know, is fighting for a moral issue. We don't have guns. We don't have tanks. We don't have anything. The only thing we have the Chinese government don't is the moral authority we have, the moral courage we have.GOLDSTEIN: The moral authority and courage, yeah.LAI: Yes.GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
GOLDSTEIN: The moral authority and courage, yeah.LAI: Yes.GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: Yes.GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?
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It makes me sick that the UK sends billions to Ukraine to interfere in a war we have no fundamental right to involve ourselves in, meanwhile, Hong Kong was allowed to fall with only light media coverage. It is outrageous. The politicians that oversaw it should be ashamed.Not to mention that Carrie Lam, former leader of Hong Kong, sold her people up the river by allowing the national security law in [3]. She was even hiding out in the UK with her husband from her own countrymen.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#Imple...[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#2020_...[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam
Not to mention that Carrie Lam, former leader of Hong Kong, sold her people up the river by allowing the national security law in [3]. She was even hiding out in the UK with her husband from her own countrymen.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#Imple...[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#2020_...[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#Imple...[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#2020_...[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#2020_...[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam
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> Article 23 is an article of the Hong Kong Basic Law. It states that Hong Kong "shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies."
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Reading time 2 minutes
Buildings can leak a lot of heat. Scientists think the remedy might come in the form of fireproof, transparent “Bubble Wrap.”
Physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a new material called the Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator, or MOCHI for short. Unlike the name, MOCHI is no dessert—it's a nearly transparent, long-lasting silicon gel that insulates so well, you could hold a flame on your palm without getting burned. Sounds unlikely? Here's the video evidence, courtesy of the team:
Scaled up, MOCHI could be a thin sheet applied to windows to make buildings more energy efficient, according to a recent Science paper on the material. Further down the line, MOCHI could also appear in “applications ranging from extraterrestrial habitats to lightweight apparel,” Ivan Smalyukh, study senior author and a physicist at CU Boulder, told Gizmodo in an email.
MOCHI appears flat and transparent on the surface, but zoomed in, the material is actually a collection of tiny pores thinner than the width of a human hair, according to the paper. The secret to MOCHI's insulating abilities lies within these small air bubbles, which trap incoming or outgoing heat within their networks.
This mechanism is similar to aerogels, which NASA uses to insulate its Mars rovers. However, the air-trapping bubbles in aerogels are typically scattered throughout the material and reflect light, giving the final material a cloudy appearance.
By contrast, MOCHI reflects around 0.2% of incoming light. About 90% of the material is air, making the material almost completely transparent, Smalyukh explained. For one of their experiments, Smalyukh and colleagues applied MOCHI to a cold window and found that doing so stopped roughly 95% of heat transfer, somewhat like high-performance building roofs and walls—but transparent, he added.
According to Smalyukh, a major motivation for this project was the not-so-ideal energy efficiency of buildings worldwide. Specifically, buildings consume around 40% of energy worldwide, but poor insulation often leads to heat leaks that increase how much energy residents use to keep themselves comfortable, he said.
By contrast, most existing insulation materials are opaque and look unattractive when used on windows or building exteriors. MOCHI was devised to address both issues.
“Suitable building materials and technologies could allow for comfortable indoor environments at no or minimal energy consumption,” he said. “Thus, windows may finally even acquire new functions, well beyond what they are known for throughout the millennia of uses.”
That said, MOCHI is still under development, as fabrication still takes quite a long time, the researchers admitted in a statement. But the team is hopeful. MOCHI ingredients are on the cheaper side, which “bodes well” for bringing the product to markets, Smalyukh said in the statement.
The team also sees much potential for MOCHI as a solution for energy sustainability. For instance, MOCHI could be repurposed as solar panels for buildings, especially in climate zones with limited access to sunlight, Smalyukh explained.
As of now, the researchers continue to test and refine their product. It's also led to some interesting moments, like using MOCHI as a miniature grill to cook some sausages.
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by Taylor Soper on Dec 15, 2025 at 7:41 amDecember 15, 2025 at 7:44 am
[Editor's Note: Agents of Transformation is an independent GeekWire series and 2026 event, underwritten by Accenture, exploring the people, companies, and ideas behind the rise of AI agents.]
Imagine telling your AI assistant that you need a new winter jacket. It already knows your style preferences and budget from previous purchases. The AI searches across dozens of retailers, analyzes reviews, checks for sales, and comes back with a list of ranked options.
You pick one you like. The AI asks if you want to wait until the price drops. A week later, there's a sale. The AI completes the purchase, applies loyalty points, selects the fastest free shipping option, and sends you a confirmation. Your jacket shows up within days.
This is the promise of “agentic commerce” — AI systems that research, compare, and even buy on your behalf. Tech giants, startups, and retailers are all racing to build it. McKinsey projects the market could reach $1 trillion in the U.S. alone by 2030.
For the latest installment in our Agents of Transformation series, we interviewed startup founders, consumer brand marketing leaders, industry analysts, and others to better understand how agentic commerce could change the way we shop — now, in the future, or maybe not much at all.
Some key takeaways from our reporting:
Major players are making moves.
Adobe reported that AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites jumped 670% year-over-year on Cyber Monday.
But it's still early days. For ChatGPT, referrals to e-commerce apps represented only 0.82% of all sessions over Thanksgiving weekend. In a recent OpenAI study of about 1.1 million ChatGPT conversations, 2.1% of activity was classified as “Purchasable Products.”
There's still a big gap between the pitch and what these tools can actually do today. Practical use cases remain limited.
“I am shocked at the promises versus reality,” said Emily Pfeiffer, a principal analyst and digital business expert with Forrester.
Still, the builders we spoke with see the current moment as the beginning of a fundamental shift.
“I think this is much bigger than even the invention of the online store,” said Jonathan Arena, co-founder of e-commerce AI startup New Generation.
McKinsey outlines three main ways agentic commerce could work:
Today's reality is closer to a fancy search than full autonomy. AI chatbots can suggest products, but completing a purchase still typically requires clicking through to a retailer's site. A handful of retailers have experimented with checkout-in-chat, but Pfeiffer said some polished demos don't actually work in the real world.
“The experiences that are out there today, in my opinion, are extremely premature,” she said.
There's also a broader debate about whether AI shopping assistants are solving a problem that doesn't exist for specific purchase categories. For fashion, gifts, home decor — things where discovery is part of the value — many consumers may not want an agent to shortcut that process.
Agentic commerce could work best for low-consideration, commodity purchases — like household staples and replenishment items.
The concept becomes more complex outside of a brand's own site or app, in AI search tools where an agent might eventually handle the entire shopping process without a user ever opening a retailer's website. Pfeiffer believes this is where truly autonomous commerce is most likely to show up, though probably in specific situations rather than as a full replacement for browsing.
But she said any substantial shifts will take time. “If we get there, it's not soon,” Pfeiffer said.
Agentic commerce isn't possible without the right infrastructure. E-commerce websites were designed for humans typing keywords into a browser — not AI agents that need to read pages and place orders on their own.
New tools are starting to fill that gap.
For retailers, this patchwork can be confusing and expensive, especially as there's no guarantee which protocol will become dominant.
“Each protocol is a burden for the merchant,” said Kumar Senthil, founder of Firmly, a Seattle-area startup building software that hides some of this complexity. His company, which recently partnered with Perplexity, lets merchants connect to multiple protocols through a single interface.
Firmly is trying to solve a basic problem: merchants can't afford to integrate with every AI platform, but they also don't want to miss out on any of them.
Senthil, who previously built Samsung's e-commerce platform, said online retailers need to have “microstores” everywhere. Their traditional websites, he predicts, will go dark.
“The stores are going to be distributed across the internet,” he said.
But AI assistants need to draw on data from somewhere — which means a brand's homepage could still serve an important purpose, even if the act of purchasing gets dispersed.
Brands like Brooks Running are refocusing their sites to make them easy for AI systems to read and understand. “We're continuing to emphasize crawling, indexing, and ranking technical SEO opportunities through the lens of AI,” said Ryan Ngo, vice president of North America marketing and e-commerce at the Seattle-based company.
Beyond making a website “AI-ready,” Arena said brands should let shoppers ask questions about their products in plain language, using built-in AI chat on their own sites. “People are going to be frustrated that your website can't answer them,” he said.
In Pfeiffer's view, the bigger strategic risk lies in places brands don't control — AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT or Gemini that could become powerful new gateways for finding and buying products. In that world, brands face the same decisions they once confronted with Amazon: what to share in each place people might shop, what to keep exclusive, and how to protect pricing and sensitive data.
Amazon helped shape modern online shopping when the Seattle-based giant started selling books on the internet more than three decades ago. The company is now a giant in online retail, and it's staring at another potential shift with the rise of agentic commerce.
Amazon is in a tricky spot. The company captures roughly 40% of U.S. e-commerce spending and has a fast-growing advertising business that brings in around $70 billion a year — revenue that depends on humans browsing and clicking.
In November, Amazon sued Perplexity to stop the startup from using its AI browser agent to make purchases on its marketplace, citing computer fraud laws and security risks, along with a “significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience it provides.” Amazon has maintained what Bloomberg described as “a walled garden” that doesn't allow autonomous shopping on its site.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas called the lawsuit “a bully tactic” and argued consumers should be free to use whatever AI assistant they prefer.
“Amazon should love this. Easier shopping means more transactions and happier customers,” Srinivas wrote. “But Amazon doesn't care. They're more interested in serving you ads, sponsored results, and influencing your purchasing decisions with upsells and confusing offers.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged on a recent earnings call that agentic commerce “has a chance to be really good for e-commerce” and said that he expects the company to partner with third-party agents over time. But he also said agents “aren't very good” at personalization and often display incorrect pricing and delivery estimates.
“So we've got to find a way to make the customer experience better and have the right exchange value,” Jassy said.
Amazon's AI shopping assistant, Rufus, now has more than 250 million active customers. Amazon says that customers using the assistant during a shopping trip are 60% more likely to complete a purchase.
The company has also been testing a “Buy For Me” feature that lets customers purchase products from other brands' sites, from inside Amazon's mobile shopping app.
Senthil, the Firmly CEO, sees Amazon as potentially vulnerable. He questioned whether Amazon's delivery speed advantage — long considered a competitive moat — will matter as much in a world where consumers place less emphasis on faster shipping times.
The rise of third-party AI agents, such as Perplexity's Comet browser, could also weaken Amazon's grip on customers. E-commerce journalist Jason Del Rey noted that if agents own the relationship and steer shoppers across sites, Amazon risks looking more like fulfillment infrastructure. That raises a long-term question, he said — if agents sit between shoppers and stores, who ends up capturing most of the value?
But others don't expect AI tools to displace Amazon for now.
“It is highly unlikely that ChatGPT will be a dominant shopping cart mainly because e-commerce isn't a problem that needs fixed,” said Sucharita Kodali, a retail industry analyst with Forrester. “It's perfectly easy to buy on Amazon as hundreds of millions of people around the world already do every year.”
Kodali added: “It's unclear what value ChatGPT is bringing to retailers, other than dis-intermediating Google.”
Last month Google unveiled a suite of AI shopping features powered by Gemini, including “agentic checkout,” which lets users set rules such as maximum spend or product specifications. It's also building the infrastructure layer with AP2.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is positioning itself to help retailers and brands adapt to agentic commerce, whether building assistants into their websites or surfacing their offerings in third-party chatbots.
“We prioritize robust frameworks, open standards, and trust infrastructure so intelligent agents can operate reliably and securely throughout the commerce ecosystem,” said Kathleen Mitford, corporate vice president of global industry at Microsoft, responding to questions via email.
Finding the perfect winter coat based on your personal preferences may be just the start when it comes to AI assistants knowing what to purchase for you.
“Imagine an agent recognizing that the bathing suit you're buying isn't just another item, but part of preparing for an upcoming vacation and tailoring recommendations accordingly,” Mitford said.
That example would require consumers to offer up more personal data such as calendars and budget information. But it could enable a better experience, according to Arena.
“We're talking about a brand being able to personalize experiences to all of their customers across the internet — not only on a first-party website that they own,” he said.
John Larson, who helped launch business messaging company Zipwhip (acquired by Twilio), said conversational commerce is evolving toward two-way interactions, enabling retailers to have more effective interactions with customers.
“We do believe that real conversational commerce leveraging agentic AI is absolutely the future,” said Larson, now an investor in Seattle startup Ambassador. “You're getting your needs met, and you're having a conversation.”
Lorrin Pascoe, CMO at Vancouver, B.C.-based footwear retailer Vessi, said he believes AI agents will become an important way to reach customers. “For us, it's really realizing that this isn't a gimmick,” he said. “It is something that is foundational in changing behaviors.”
Vessi began in 2018 as an online-only footwear company. This month, it's opening its first U.S. store in Bellevue, Wash. — reversing the course that brick-and-mortar retailers took when e-commerce pushed them online. It's a reminder that retail rarely follows a predictable path, and in the same way, there's no telling where agentic commerce will ultimately land.
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The video also links you to a wiki with some nice counter-arguments to the standard pro-Flock arguments: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Common_Questions,_Arguments,_%...I went ahead and signed up; I live in a pretty dense part of the US, we'll see how many alerts I get in the next year.
I went ahead and signed up; I live in a pretty dense part of the US, we'll see how many alerts I get in the next year.
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I think it's good to engage this way, but I have a lot of thoughts on things to do that are more effective than giving public comment, and a caution that if you have strong opinions about ALPRs and you choose to pay attention to this issue you're going to be confronted with a lot of opinions that may surprise/discomfit you.
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[1]: https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ?&t=1428
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You will be tracked and you will be happy about it.
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Another quiet little village in rural New York just signed on for 11 cameras, and it sounds like the county itself (2800 square miles(!)) is also playing around with them. The locals won't raise the hard hitting questions - they'll just roll over with the bullshit answers from Flock reps.https://northcountrynow.com/stories/village-of-massena-enter...
https://northcountrynow.com/stories/village-of-massena-enter...
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But we don't have to agree on that; people everywhere care about crime, and the promises ALPR vendors make, while arguable, are not ludicrous.
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What is funding all those Flock reps jetting around BFE to dazzle and kickback the boomer city managers and county commissioners of deep red littleville America? Is it the 2 cameras in Big Rapids MI or the 2425[1] cameras in Detroit metro?The "roll over" that mattered has already been secured.[1] https://deflock.me
The "roll over" that mattered has already been secured.[1] https://deflock.me
[1] https://deflock.me
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As somebody who's looked in to this a bit, the deeper I dug the more I ultimately moved toward the conclusion (reluctantly) that indeed big corporations are the baddies. I have an instinct to steel-math both sides, but not every issue has two compelling sides to it...One example of them clearly being the baddies is them paying people to social media astroturf to defend the roundup pesticide online [2].1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley2. https://galiherlaw.com/media-manipulation-comes-out-during-m...
One example of them clearly being the baddies is them paying people to social media astroturf to defend the roundup pesticide online [2].1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley2. https://galiherlaw.com/media-manipulation-comes-out-during-m...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley2. https://galiherlaw.com/media-manipulation-comes-out-during-m...
2. https://galiherlaw.com/media-manipulation-comes-out-during-m...
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This is the reason we have people mistakenly repeating the conclusion that AI consumes huge amounts of water comparable to that of entire cities.If you make any other assumption than "I don't know what's happening here and need to learn more" you'll constantly be making these kind of errors. You don't have to have an opinion on every topic.Edit: By the way, I also don't think we should trust big companies indiscriminately. Like, we could have a system for pesticide approval that errs on the side of caution: We only permit pesticides for which there is undisputed evidence that the chemicals do not cause problems for humans/animals/other plants etc.
If you make any other assumption than "I don't know what's happening here and need to learn more" you'll constantly be making these kind of errors. You don't have to have an opinion on every topic.Edit: By the way, I also don't think we should trust big companies indiscriminately. Like, we could have a system for pesticide approval that errs on the side of caution: We only permit pesticides for which there is undisputed evidence that the chemicals do not cause problems for humans/animals/other plants etc.
Edit: By the way, I also don't think we should trust big companies indiscriminately. Like, we could have a system for pesticide approval that errs on the side of caution: We only permit pesticides for which there is undisputed evidence that the chemicals do not cause problems for humans/animals/other plants etc.
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I can do this and still start off by assuming the corporation is in the wrong. The tendency to optimize for profits at the expense of everything else, to ignore all negative externalities is inherent to all American corporations.
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If you are super into "ACAB" (all cops are bastards) you can easily "research" this all day for weeks and find so many insane cases of police being absolute bastards. You would be so solidified in your belief that police as an institution are fundamentally a force of evil.But you would probably never come across the boring stat that less than 1 in 500,000 police encounters ever register on the "ACAB" radar.This is almost always where people run aground. Stats are almost always obfuscated for things that people develop a moral conviction around. Imagine trying to acknowledge the stat there are effectively zero transgender people perving on others in public bathrooms.
But you would probably never come across the boring stat that less than 1 in 500,000 police encounters ever register on the "ACAB" radar.This is almost always where people run aground. Stats are almost always obfuscated for things that people develop a moral conviction around. Imagine trying to acknowledge the stat there are effectively zero transgender people perving on others in public bathrooms.
This is almost always where people run aground. Stats are almost always obfuscated for things that people develop a moral conviction around. Imagine trying to acknowledge the stat there are effectively zero transgender people perving on others in public bathrooms.
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If you have a system where 1 actor is bad, and the other 500,000 actors are good but also protect the 1, then you have a system with 500,001 bad actors.
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This line of thinking will either be totally unable to ever build a large organization, or else will pathologically explain-away wrong-doing due to black and white thinking.
Are they bad actors?
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People take it too far in both directions, but it's safe to say that there's more than one bad actors and the system demonstrably tolerates and defends them right up to the point where they are forced not to.
As you say, stats very often obfuscate.
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Since police are part of the law, when they don't hold their own accountable, there's no recourse. And that's a real problem. This is before one even starts unpacking the knapsack of how much law is designed to protect the police from consequences of performing their duties (leading to the unfortunate example "They can blow the side off your house if they have reason to believe it will help them catch a suspect and the recompense is that your insurance might cover that damage.")
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Which is seen in every group of authorities around the country. They literally give out get out of jail free cards for cops' friends and family in many parts of the country, that is systemic, and has nothing to do with frequency of cops committing crimes.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/04/nypd-lawsuit...> Bianchi claims his superiors retaliated against him for his stance against the “corrupt” cards after he was warned by an official with the Police Benevolent Association, New York City's largest police union, that he would not be protected by his union if he wrote tickets for people with cards. And if he continued, he'd be reassigned... The lawsuit cites several instances where his NYPD colleagues complained about his ticket-writing, including on Facebook...> Bianchi's service as a traffic cop ended last summer when he wrote a ticket to a friend of the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed officer, Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, the lawsuit states.
> Bianchi claims his superiors retaliated against him for his stance against the “corrupt” cards after he was warned by an official with the Police Benevolent Association, New York City's largest police union, that he would not be protected by his union if he wrote tickets for people with cards. And if he continued, he'd be reassigned... The lawsuit cites several instances where his NYPD colleagues complained about his ticket-writing, including on Facebook...> Bianchi's service as a traffic cop ended last summer when he wrote a ticket to a friend of the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed officer, Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, the lawsuit states.
> Bianchi's service as a traffic cop ended last summer when he wrote a ticket to a friend of the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed officer, Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, the lawsuit states.
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one, more nuanced, sentiment is something more like "all cops are bastards as long as bad cops are protected."another sentiment is "modern police institutions are directly descended from slavecatchers and strikebreakers; thus, all of policing is rooted in bastard behavior, therefore: all cops are bastards".there are plenty of other ways to interpret the phrase. "acab" is shorthand for a lot of legitimate grievances.
another sentiment is "modern police institutions are directly descended from slavecatchers and strikebreakers; thus, all of policing is rooted in bastard behavior, therefore: all cops are bastards".there are plenty of other ways to interpret the phrase. "acab" is shorthand for a lot of legitimate grievances.
there are plenty of other ways to interpret the phrase. "acab" is shorthand for a lot of legitimate grievances.
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You really can't. You can start off with a prior that it's more likely the corporation is wrong than not. But if you're assuming your conclusion, you're going to find evidence for what you're looking for. (You see the same thing happen with folks who start off by assuming the government is in the wrong.)
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If you have long term savings do you want it to earn interest?The desire to optimize for profit exists at all levels among all participants in the economy. Everyone does it. We are the system and the system is us.Regulations are usually the only way to fix these things because there are game theoretic effects in play. If your company spends more to clean up and others don't, you lose… because people buy cheaper products and invest in firms with higher profit margins. The only way out we've found is to simultaneously compel everyone. But that doesn't remove the incentive.
The desire to optimize for profit exists at all levels among all participants in the economy. Everyone does it. We are the system and the system is us.Regulations are usually the only way to fix these things because there are game theoretic effects in play. If your company spends more to clean up and others don't, you lose… because people buy cheaper products and invest in firms with higher profit margins. The only way out we've found is to simultaneously compel everyone. But that doesn't remove the incentive.
Regulations are usually the only way to fix these things because there are game theoretic effects in play. If your company spends more to clean up and others don't, you lose… because people buy cheaper products and invest in firms with higher profit margins. The only way out we've found is to simultaneously compel everyone. But that doesn't remove the incentive.
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Does it not?"We estimate that 1 MWh of energy consumption by a data center requires 7.1 m3 of water." If Microsoft, Amazon and Google are assumed to have ~8000 MW of data centers in the US, that is 1.4M m3 per day. The city of Philadelphia supplies 850K m3 per day.https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1/...
"We estimate that 1 MWh of energy consumption by a data center requires 7.1 m3 of water." If Microsoft, Amazon and Google are assumed to have ~8000 MW of data centers in the US, that is 1.4M m3 per day. The city of Philadelphia supplies 850K m3 per day.https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1/...
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1/...
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1) As other commenters have noted: raw numbers. In general, people are taking the resource consumption of new datacenters and attributing 100% of that to "because AI," when the reality is generally that while AI is increasing spend on new infrastructure, data companies are always spending on new infrastructure because of everything they do.2) Comparative cost. In general, image synthesis takes between 80 and 300 times fewer resources (mostly electricity) per image than human creation does. It turns out a modern digital artist letting their CPU idle and screen on while they muse is soaking significant resources that an AI is using to just synthesize. Granted, this is also not an apples-to-apples comparison because the average AI flow generates dozens of draft images to find the one that is used, but the net resource effect might be less energy spent in total per produced image (on a skew of "more spent by computers" and "less by people").
2) Comparative cost. In general, image synthesis takes between 80 and 300 times fewer resources (mostly electricity) per image than human creation does. It turns out a modern digital artist letting their CPU idle and screen on while they muse is soaking significant resources that an AI is using to just synthesize. Granted, this is also not an apples-to-apples comparison because the average AI flow generates dozens of draft images to find the one that is used, but the net resource effect might be less energy spent in total per produced image (on a skew of "more spent by computers" and "less by people").
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234 m3 per tonne, of clean water.25M tonnes per year.=> 16M m3 of clean water per dayEdit: convert to comparable units
25M tonnes per year.=> 16M m3 of clean water per dayEdit: convert to comparable units
=> 16M m3 of clean water per dayEdit: convert to comparable units
Edit: convert to comparable units
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This is unworkable in practice; nothing will ever be completely safe. Instead, we need a public regulatory body that makes reasonable risk/reward tradeoffs when approving necessary chemicals. However, this system breaks down completely when you allow for lobbying and a revolving door between the public and private sectors.
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Impossible standard. You cannot prove a negative.But, I think it's fair to assume that any chemical that is toxic to plant or insect life is probably something you want to be careful with.
But, I think it's fair to assume that any chemical that is toxic to plant or insect life is probably something you want to be careful with.
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It's also a deep incumbency advantage. Of course the guys selling the existing stuff are going to dispute the safety of a competitor.
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How about Fermat's last theorem?
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There are shades of gray here. But you are absolutely not required to extend benefit of the doubt to entities that have not earned it. That's a recipe for disaster.Personally, I find myself to be incredibly biased against corporations over people. I've met a lot of people in my life, they seem mostly nice if a bit stupid. Well intentioned. Selfish.Are corporations mostly well intentioned? Well, consider that some people tried to put "good intentions" into corporations bylaws and has been viciously resisted.Corporations will happily take everything you have if you accidentally give it to them. Actual human beings aren't like that.
Personally, I find myself to be incredibly biased against corporations over people. I've met a lot of people in my life, they seem mostly nice if a bit stupid. Well intentioned. Selfish.Are corporations mostly well intentioned? Well, consider that some people tried to put "good intentions" into corporations bylaws and has been viciously resisted.Corporations will happily take everything you have if you accidentally give it to them. Actual human beings aren't like that.
Are corporations mostly well intentioned? Well, consider that some people tried to put "good intentions" into corporations bylaws and has been viciously resisted.Corporations will happily take everything you have if you accidentally give it to them. Actual human beings aren't like that.
Corporations will happily take everything you have if you accidentally give it to them. Actual human beings aren't like that.
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It's a rational default position to say, "I'll default to distrusting large corporate scientific literature that tells me neurotoxins on my food aren't a problem."As with any rule of thumb, that one will sometimes land you on the wrong side of history, but my guess is that it will more often than not guide you well if you don't have the time to dive deeper into a subject.I'm not saying all corporations are evil. I'm not saying all corporate science is bad or bunk. But, corporations have a poor track record with this sort of thing, and it's the kind of thing that could obviously have large, negative societal consequences if we get it wrong. This is the category of problem for which the science needs to be clear and overwhelming in favor of a thing before we should allow it.
As with any rule of thumb, that one will sometimes land you on the wrong side of history, but my guess is that it will more often than not guide you well if you don't have the time to dive deeper into a subject.I'm not saying all corporations are evil. I'm not saying all corporate science is bad or bunk. But, corporations have a poor track record with this sort of thing, and it's the kind of thing that could obviously have large, negative societal consequences if we get it wrong. This is the category of problem for which the science needs to be clear and overwhelming in favor of a thing before we should allow it.
I'm not saying all corporations are evil. I'm not saying all corporate science is bad or bunk. But, corporations have a poor track record with this sort of thing, and it's the kind of thing that could obviously have large, negative societal consequences if we get it wrong. This is the category of problem for which the science needs to be clear and overwhelming in favor of a thing before we should allow it.
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That AI consumes somewhat less water than cities of millions is not a defense.
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I'm curious what evidence you think you've seen to the contrary. from my side, I used to build data centers and my friends are still in the industry. As of a month ago I've had discussions with Google engineers who build data centers regarding their carful navigation of water rights, testing of waste water etc.
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If these data centers are so water efficient, please explain the Dalles data center use > 25% of their water supply?https://web.archive.org/web/20230130142801/https://centralor...https://web.archive.org/web/20251014013855/https://www.orego...
https://web.archive.org/web/20230130142801/https://centralor...https://web.archive.org/web/20251014013855/https://www.orego...
https://web.archive.org/web/20251014013855/https://www.orego...
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I've been unclear on this. What datacenter out there is using an open loop cooling system that does not return the water after cooling for other uses?It seems extremely inefficient to have to filter river water over and over then to dump it into the ground so deep it doesn't go back to getting into an aquifer.
It seems extremely inefficient to have to filter river water over and over then to dump it into the ground so deep it doesn't go back to getting into an aquifer.
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At least you have to continually monitor them as such.
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The bear still has unified agency. Corporations do not. (No group of people do.) More than the wind, less than a bear. And I think their flaws are probably shared by all large human organisations.
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1: https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s
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1. immoral people (such as psychopaths) will be disproportionately at the helm of large corporations2. regular people will make immoral decisions, because to do otherwise would be against their own interests or because the consequences / moral impact are hidden from their awarenessThere is no way to act in life that isn't in some sense moral or political, because it also impacts others and you are always responsible for your what you do (or don't do). And corporations are just a bunch of people doing stuff together. To maintain otherwise is in itself a (im)moral act, intentionally or not, see point 2 above.
2. regular people will make immoral decisions, because to do otherwise would be against their own interests or because the consequences / moral impact are hidden from their awarenessThere is no way to act in life that isn't in some sense moral or political, because it also impacts others and you are always responsible for your what you do (or don't do). And corporations are just a bunch of people doing stuff together. To maintain otherwise is in itself a (im)moral act, intentionally or not, see point 2 above.
There is no way to act in life that isn't in some sense moral or political, because it also impacts others and you are always responsible for your what you do (or don't do). And corporations are just a bunch of people doing stuff together. To maintain otherwise is in itself a (im)moral act, intentionally or not, see point 2 above.
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An unnecessarily cynical take. What this is implying is that, in the absence of any morals, evil provides a selective advantage.And yet, pro-social behavior has evolved many times independently through natural selection.
And yet, pro-social behavior has evolved many times independently through natural selection.
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Google group selection if you'd like to go down a deep rabbit whole but the upshot is, if pro-social behavior did not confer and individual advantage, the individuals who lose the trait would outcompete their conspecifics and the pro-social trait would not be fixed in the population.This is why you usually see additional stabilizing mechanism(s) to suppress free-loading, in addition to the pro-social traits themselves, even in very simple examples of pro-social traits such as bacteria collaboratively creating biofilms.The genes coding for the biofilms are usually coded on transmissible plasmids, making it possible for one individual to re-infect another that has lost it.You might consider the justice system, police etc. as analogous to that.So yes, in the case where you're part of a functioning society and free-loading on the pro-social behavior of others, that is temporarily beneficial to you - until the stabilizing mechanisms kick in.I'm not saying in practice you can never get away with anything, of course you can. But on average you can't, we wouldn't be a social species otherwise.
This is why you usually see additional stabilizing mechanism(s) to suppress free-loading, in addition to the pro-social traits themselves, even in very simple examples of pro-social traits such as bacteria collaboratively creating biofilms.The genes coding for the biofilms are usually coded on transmissible plasmids, making it possible for one individual to re-infect another that has lost it.You might consider the justice system, police etc. as analogous to that.So yes, in the case where you're part of a functioning society and free-loading on the pro-social behavior of others, that is temporarily beneficial to you - until the stabilizing mechanisms kick in.I'm not saying in practice you can never get away with anything, of course you can. But on average you can't, we wouldn't be a social species otherwise.
The genes coding for the biofilms are usually coded on transmissible plasmids, making it possible for one individual to re-infect another that has lost it.You might consider the justice system, police etc. as analogous to that.So yes, in the case where you're part of a functioning society and free-loading on the pro-social behavior of others, that is temporarily beneficial to you - until the stabilizing mechanisms kick in.I'm not saying in practice you can never get away with anything, of course you can. But on average you can't, we wouldn't be a social species otherwise.
You might consider the justice system, police etc. as analogous to that.So yes, in the case where you're part of a functioning society and free-loading on the pro-social behavior of others, that is temporarily beneficial to you - until the stabilizing mechanisms kick in.I'm not saying in practice you can never get away with anything, of course you can. But on average you can't, we wouldn't be a social species otherwise.
So yes, in the case where you're part of a functioning society and free-loading on the pro-social behavior of others, that is temporarily beneficial to you - until the stabilizing mechanisms kick in.I'm not saying in practice you can never get away with anything, of course you can. But on average you can't, we wouldn't be a social species otherwise.
I'm not saying in practice you can never get away with anything, of course you can. But on average you can't, we wouldn't be a social species otherwise.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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There are refineries within a stone's throw from my house. One of them sits on the highest point in our water table and the vacuum it creates has been destroying our famously soft water by creating underground fault lines which pollute the aquifer with leeched hard minerals.But hey, oil.
But hey, oil.
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But the massive disinformation campaigns and targeted harassment of researchers, as well as the outright corruption of science is where they lost me. Surely you wouldn't do things like that if you had clear consciousness.
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It certainly looks bad but I'm not sure the logic really follows.It's just modern PR. Companies used to just do that by having good relationships with journalist but now social media has taken a lot of that role away. It's a fairly natural transition for companies to make and I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a lot of major corporations that don't do something similar.And, also, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are either willingly lying or that their products are unsafe.
It's just modern PR. Companies used to just do that by having good relationships with journalist but now social media has taken a lot of that role away. It's a fairly natural transition for companies to make and I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a lot of major corporations that don't do something similar.And, also, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are either willingly lying or that their products are unsafe.
And, also, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are either willingly lying or that their products are unsafe.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton
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What lead it to being "banned in dozens of countries all over the world, including the United Kingdom and China"?
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And the reason that is is because there's no affordable, moral way to give 100,000 farmers [nor consumers] a small dose of a product for 20 years before declaring it safe. So the system guesses, and it guesses wrong, often erring against the side of caution in the US (it's actually quite shocking how many pesticides later get revoked after approval).Europe takes a more "precautionary principle" approach. In those cases of ambiguity (which is most things approved and not), they err to the side of caution.Notice how this claim here is again shifting the burden to the victims (their research doesn't meet standard X, allegedly). Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
Europe takes a more "precautionary principle" approach. In those cases of ambiguity (which is most things approved and not), they err to the side of caution.Notice how this claim here is again shifting the burden to the victims (their research doesn't meet standard X, allegedly). Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
Notice how this claim here is again shifting the burden to the victims (their research doesn't meet standard X, allegedly). Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
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1) Evidence for the null hypothesis (there are enough studies with sufficient statistical power to determine that product likely does not cause harm at a >95% CI).2) There is no evidence that it is unsafe. (nor that it is safe).The problem is #2 sounds a lot stronger and often better than #1 when put into English. There must be some easy to understand way to do it, IE an 'insufficient testing' vs. 'tested' label/website or something.
2) There is no evidence that it is unsafe. (nor that it is safe).The problem is #2 sounds a lot stronger and often better than #1 when put into English. There must be some easy to understand way to do it, IE an 'insufficient testing' vs. 'tested' label/website or something.
The problem is #2 sounds a lot stronger and often better than #1 when put into English. There must be some easy to understand way to do it, IE an 'insufficient testing' vs. 'tested' label/website or something.
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These are still data. I'm curious for the contexts that lead other countries to actively ban the substance.If it simply hasn't been approved in other countries, one can't use that information to infer about its safety.
If it simply hasn't been approved in other countries, one can't use that information to infer about its safety.
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So it's clearly poisonous to humans in high doses, I guess the argument is that perhaps the smaller doses exposed to farmers may not lead to sufficient ingestion to cause harm. The parkinsons seems like pretty clear evidence against that.> If it simply hasn't been approved in other countries, one can't use that information to infer about its safety.I don't know why you're trying to defend this with counterfactuals/hypotheticals instead of just googling. Feels like you're bending over backward here.[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3657034/
> If it simply hasn't been approved in other countries, one can't use that information to infer about its safety.I don't know why you're trying to defend this with counterfactuals/hypotheticals instead of just googling. Feels like you're bending over backward here.[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3657034/
I don't know why you're trying to defend this with counterfactuals/hypotheticals instead of just googling. Feels like you're bending over backward here.[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3657034/
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3657034/
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Genuinely appreciate the source. I wasn't finding it on my own, at least not with the nexus to the EU's decision.
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And due to widespread regulatory capture, this is hardly some social benefit. The original case Chevron Doctrine was based on [1] essentially came down to the EPA interpreting anti-pollution laws in a way enabling companies to expand pollution-causing constructions with no oversight. The EPA was then sued, and defeated, by an environmental activist group, but then that decision was overturned by the Supreme Court and Chevron Deference was born.Other examples are the FCC deeming broadband internet as a "information service" instead of a "telecommunications service" (which would have meant common-carrier obligations would have applied), and so on. Another one [3] - Congress passed legislation deeming that power plants must use the "best technology available" to "minimize the adverse environmental impact" of their water intakes/processing. The EPA interpretation instead allowed companies to use a cost-benefit analysis and pick cheaper techs. And I could go on. Chevron Deference was an abomination.[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_&_Telecommunica...[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entergy_Corp._v._Riverkeeper_I....
Other examples are the FCC deeming broadband internet as a "information service" instead of a "telecommunications service" (which would have meant common-carrier obligations would have applied), and so on. Another one [3] - Congress passed legislation deeming that power plants must use the "best technology available" to "minimize the adverse environmental impact" of their water intakes/processing. The EPA interpretation instead allowed companies to use a cost-benefit analysis and pick cheaper techs. And I could go on. Chevron Deference was an abomination.[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_&_Telecommunica...[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entergy_Corp._v._Riverkeeper_I....
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_&_Telecommunica...[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entergy_Corp._v._Riverkeeper_I....
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_&_Telecommunica...[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entergy_Corp._v._Riverkeeper_I....
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entergy_Corp._v._Riverkeeper_I....
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That is the way it _should_ be. Judges are not subject matter experts in all of human endeavors, but they are expected to make rulings over that domain. Relying on experts and career civil servants advice is generally good, unless they're being unreasonable.
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the Chevron Doctrine is new to me; it appears that the parent comment was not answering "why was it banned internationally" but rather emphasizing weakness in US procedures
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It was weaponized by both parties to create defacto laws without proper legal procedure. It should've been unconstitutional from the beginning as only Congress can make laws. Regulatory agencies are far easier to control, generally contain administration-friendly plants, and are not expected to provide any justification for their decisions. The result is laws that change as the wind blows, confusions, and rights restrictions done by people who should have no business doing so. The “reasonable interpretation” rule allowed Congress to completely defer to them and force citizens to spend tremendous capital getting a case to the Supreme Court.Chevron's overturn was objectively a huge win and hardly a “rogue” decision. That editorialization is not a fair representation of the problems it has caused when regulatory agencies begin attempting to regulate constitutional rights. It was overly vague and gave far too much power to people who cannot be trusted with it.We shouldn't need Chevron Deference to make laws that protect people from harm done by corporations. Period. If we do, it's a failure of Congress to do their jobs and a mechanism should be in place to have a “reset button” (like many other countries when they form a government).
Chevron's overturn was objectively a huge win and hardly a “rogue” decision. That editorialization is not a fair representation of the problems it has caused when regulatory agencies begin attempting to regulate constitutional rights. It was overly vague and gave far too much power to people who cannot be trusted with it.We shouldn't need Chevron Deference to make laws that protect people from harm done by corporations. Period. If we do, it's a failure of Congress to do their jobs and a mechanism should be in place to have a “reset button” (like many other countries when they form a government).
We shouldn't need Chevron Deference to make laws that protect people from harm done by corporations. Period. If we do, it's a failure of Congress to do their jobs and a mechanism should be in place to have a “reset button” (like many other countries when they form a government).
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That is very nearly the lion's share of the work these agency do, is to justify the regulations and the decisions
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While it is not a popular topic here, gun laws, and I am taking a risk with my karma even talking about it, have been subject to some of the most vague and dangerous interpretations by the ATF. In this case we provided congress a way to bypass constitutional scrutiny (pre-bruen) by deferring to the ATF. Two examples are bump stocks, and FRTs, both of which the ATF interpreted as "machine guns", defying their own regulatory definition, and creating felons out of innocent people quite literally overnight. Honest people had their doors literally kicked in. This is a terrifying level of power. It is not the first time the ATF has done this. I would recommend spending time reading the writings of GOA and FPC if you'd like to see how confusing it is for a law abiding gun owner to stay within the lines of the law when Chevron Deference existed. At any point something you lawfully buy, fill out the correct forms, and lawfully own, could be suddenly interpreted with no notification as criminal and thus you INSTANTLY become a felon. There are violations of ex-post-facto, denial of constitutional rights, etc.Justification is highly subjective and in many cases these regulatory agencies are handed the pen to write and sign their laws.There is no difference between a regulatory agency writing and passing law, and congress completely deferring all responsibility to them. This is the problem. "Justification" is not held to any standard.My personal opinion is opinion from a regulatory agency should be held to a higher standard than even the most prestigious academic journal given the consequences. Chevron Deference being used to regulate companies is one thing. Chevron Deference being used to regulate constitutional rights is a consequence, and thus, it is a good thing it is eliminated. Perhaps congress can actually do it's job and demand a higher level of scrutiny, care, and precision from our regulatory agencies.
Justification is highly subjective and in many cases these regulatory agencies are handed the pen to write and sign their laws.There is no difference between a regulatory agency writing and passing law, and congress completely deferring all responsibility to them. This is the problem. "Justification" is not held to any standard.My personal opinion is opinion from a regulatory agency should be held to a higher standard than even the most prestigious academic journal given the consequences. Chevron Deference being used to regulate companies is one thing. Chevron Deference being used to regulate constitutional rights is a consequence, and thus, it is a good thing it is eliminated. Perhaps congress can actually do it's job and demand a higher level of scrutiny, care, and precision from our regulatory agencies.
There is no difference between a regulatory agency writing and passing law, and congress completely deferring all responsibility to them. This is the problem. "Justification" is not held to any standard.My personal opinion is opinion from a regulatory agency should be held to a higher standard than even the most prestigious academic journal given the consequences. Chevron Deference being used to regulate companies is one thing. Chevron Deference being used to regulate constitutional rights is a consequence, and thus, it is a good thing it is eliminated. Perhaps congress can actually do it's job and demand a higher level of scrutiny, care, and precision from our regulatory agencies.
My personal opinion is opinion from a regulatory agency should be held to a higher standard than even the most prestigious academic journal given the consequences. Chevron Deference being used to regulate companies is one thing. Chevron Deference being used to regulate constitutional rights is a consequence, and thus, it is a good thing it is eliminated. Perhaps congress can actually do it's job and demand a higher level of scrutiny, care, and precision from our regulatory agencies.
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Congress is expected to make laws. End of story. Chevron Deference allows them to reduce their own liability and burden by rubberstamping opinion into law. That is a tremendous problem. Congress' core directive is to protect our rights. Not restrict them. Industry plants have a much easier time infesting regulatory bodies through revolving door policies, regulatory bodies change with every administration, and regulatory bodies are not held to a standard of rigor that approaches 1/10th of the worst quality scientific journal. That is a major problem. The first thing any true tactical politician will do is move his or her favorite industry plants into regulatory bodies. Then, they can give "opinion" that aligns with the view of that person, which is then rubberstamped into law.If we cannot expect congress to do their job our government has failed it's absolute simplest purpose. There are then much greater problems than whether turtles are choking on can holders.
If we cannot expect congress to do their job our government has failed it's absolute simplest purpose. There are then much greater problems than whether turtles are choking on can holders.
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P̵a̵r̵a̵q̵u̵a̵t̵ DDT is also linked to the polio pandemic. It was sprayed everywhere gypsy moths were found. Great success at killing moths. Also weakened human children to to where a common disease could get into spines and cause paralysis.Researching this kind of stuff is not for the faint of heart. Its horrible all the way down. Not recommended for the faint of heart.
Researching this kind of stuff is not for the faint of heart. Its horrible all the way down. Not recommended for the faint of heart.
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"Moth and the Iron Lung" by Forrest MareadyForrest was interviewed by Bret Weinstein if you are interested (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7wYUnQUESU)
Forrest was interviewed by Bret Weinstein if you are interested (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7wYUnQUESU)
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Polio can cause paralysis just fine on its own, it doesn't need DDT or paraquat to help it.And you are also right that widespread spraying of DDT lead to all kind of problems (killed all the birds, for one, leading to "Silent Spring"), which one reason it was banned.another reason is the mosquitos developed resistance.
And you are also right that widespread spraying of DDT lead to all kind of problems (killed all the birds, for one, leading to "Silent Spring"), which one reason it was banned.another reason is the mosquitos developed resistance.
another reason is the mosquitos developed resistance.
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political pressure. Same reason lots of stuff is banned in the EU even when it's safer than other things that aren't banned.
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You avoid the question instead of answering it (What caused that "political pressure"? Does such a thing just occur randomly in nature?), following it by an assertion that you don't bother to provide any evidence for.
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It does, but that isn't relevant here. There were poisoning cases in France that lead to the ban [1].[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3657034/
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3657034/
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>The chloride salt of MPP+ found use in the 1970s as an herbicide under the common name cyperquat.[4][3] Though no longer in use as an herbicide, cyperquat's closely related structural analog paraquat still finds widespread usage, raising some safety concerns.EDIT: the neurotoxicity of MPTP was discovered after a number of heroin addicts developed a sudden, irreversible Parkinsonism after injecting bad batches: https://archive.org/details/TheCaseoftheFrozenAddictThe doctor featured in that NOVA episdoe summarizes the history of MPTP and its relevance to Parkinson's research and epidemiology here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5345642/> Over the last two centuries the pendulum of opinion has swung widely as to whether the cause of PD was due to genetics or environment causes [69]. While MPTP has not yet been found in the native environment, beginning in the 1980s the pendulum swung dramatically in the direction of the environmental hypothesis, spurred not only by the observation that a simple pyridine (MPTP) could induce so many of the features of PD, but also the striking similarity between its toxic metabolite, MPP+ and paraquat (differing only by one methyl group) [70], an herbicide that is used worldwide. Since that time, a large number of studies have shown pesticide exposure is a risk factor for PD [71]. Interesting, this risk is enhanced by the presence of certain genetic variants [72], consistent to the adage that “genetics load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger”.
EDIT: the neurotoxicity of MPTP was discovered after a number of heroin addicts developed a sudden, irreversible Parkinsonism after injecting bad batches: https://archive.org/details/TheCaseoftheFrozenAddictThe doctor featured in that NOVA episdoe summarizes the history of MPTP and its relevance to Parkinson's research and epidemiology here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5345642/> Over the last two centuries the pendulum of opinion has swung widely as to whether the cause of PD was due to genetics or environment causes [69]. While MPTP has not yet been found in the native environment, beginning in the 1980s the pendulum swung dramatically in the direction of the environmental hypothesis, spurred not only by the observation that a simple pyridine (MPTP) could induce so many of the features of PD, but also the striking similarity between its toxic metabolite, MPP+ and paraquat (differing only by one methyl group) [70], an herbicide that is used worldwide. Since that time, a large number of studies have shown pesticide exposure is a risk factor for PD [71]. Interesting, this risk is enhanced by the presence of certain genetic variants [72], consistent to the adage that “genetics load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger”.
The doctor featured in that NOVA episdoe summarizes the history of MPTP and its relevance to Parkinson's research and epidemiology here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5345642/> Over the last two centuries the pendulum of opinion has swung widely as to whether the cause of PD was due to genetics or environment causes [69]. While MPTP has not yet been found in the native environment, beginning in the 1980s the pendulum swung dramatically in the direction of the environmental hypothesis, spurred not only by the observation that a simple pyridine (MPTP) could induce so many of the features of PD, but also the striking similarity between its toxic metabolite, MPP+ and paraquat (differing only by one methyl group) [70], an herbicide that is used worldwide. Since that time, a large number of studies have shown pesticide exposure is a risk factor for PD [71]. Interesting, this risk is enhanced by the presence of certain genetic variants [72], consistent to the adage that “genetics load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger”.
> Over the last two centuries the pendulum of opinion has swung widely as to whether the cause of PD was due to genetics or environment causes [69]. While MPTP has not yet been found in the native environment, beginning in the 1980s the pendulum swung dramatically in the direction of the environmental hypothesis, spurred not only by the observation that a simple pyridine (MPTP) could induce so many of the features of PD, but also the striking similarity between its toxic metabolite, MPP+ and paraquat (differing only by one methyl group) [70], an herbicide that is used worldwide. Since that time, a large number of studies have shown pesticide exposure is a risk factor for PD [71]. Interesting, this risk is enhanced by the presence of certain genetic variants [72], consistent to the adage that “genetics load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger”.
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... then you have the USA
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Is that the case here? Paraquat wasn't banned for any reason, it just hasn't been approved yet?That doesn't comport with how the word “banned” is usually used.
That doesn't comport with how the word “banned” is usually used.
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and then the approval was overturned as the evidence was crapso, back to the original state: banned until proven safe
so, back to the original state: banned until proven safe
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Source? I'm curious for this context.
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Do you have a link to this decision? I'm having trouble finding it on my own.
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> “In these two ways, China economically benefits from the application of paraquat in the U.S., where it outsources many of its associated health hazards,” the report said.There would arguably be a poetic justice to the US taking a turn at bearing health and environmental costs to benefit other nations, but it's not right for that to happen to any country.
There would arguably be a poetic justice to the US taking a turn at bearing health and environmental costs to benefit other nations, but it's not right for that to happen to any country.
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Now they get to find out.
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As a city dweller, I used to use Roundup along my fence line. Then I read an article in a newspaper about spraying chemicals when there is a breeze. So I read the label on the Roundup bottle and it said absolutely do not spray in any windy conditions. Next I polled my coworkers about this and they all said they just stay upwind!The bottle label also said Roundup is active for up to 30 days, then I thought about my dogs. I no longer use any chemical for lawn care.As to the plight of the farmers: I wonder if most of them bothered to used proper personal protection gear when spraying? Even if they had enclosed cabs, the chemical would still coat the tractor and tank surfaces which can be rubbed against at any time.
The bottle label also said Roundup is active for up to 30 days, then I thought about my dogs. I no longer use any chemical for lawn care.As to the plight of the farmers: I wonder if most of them bothered to used proper personal protection gear when spraying? Even if they had enclosed cabs, the chemical would still coat the tractor and tank surfaces which can be rubbed against at any time.
As to the plight of the farmers: I wonder if most of them bothered to used proper personal protection gear when spraying? Even if they had enclosed cabs, the chemical would still coat the tractor and tank surfaces which can be rubbed against at any time.
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The scientist in me wants to see definitive proof from validated studies.
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“Even secondary exposure can be dangerous. One case published in the Rhode Island Medical Journal described an instance where a 50-year-old man accidentally ingested paraquat, and the nurse treating him was burned by his urine that splashed onto her forearms. Within a day, her skin blistered and sloughed off.
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- [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33769492/- [1] http://www.rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2023/06/2023-06-40-ima... (via https://rimedicalsociety.org/rhode-island-medical-journal/)- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat
- [1] http://www.rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2023/06/2023-06-40-ima... (via https://rimedicalsociety.org/rhode-island-medical-journal/)- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat
- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat
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Should we ban anhydrous ammonia, chlorine, or gasoline? They are nasty and dangerous too. The article is purely scare-mongering to make it seem true while obviously pushing an agenda. This is not science. See my reply at the same level after I did a review.
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Seventy countries kind of suggested to me that something is up with this chemical.
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I only care about evidence that proves that it causes Parkinson's, with basic scientific rigor. I'll eat my hat if any of the cited studies did basic attempt at falsification.
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I'm not saying pesticides are health tonics, but this piece feels like pure litigation PR rather than an actual investigation. It prioritizes storytelling over science and engages in what I can only describe as lying by omission. Here are the main issues I found:The nurse whose skin peeled off just from touching a patient's urine? The article frames this to make you think, "Wow, this stuff is so toxic that if a farmer uses it, his body becomes a weapon." I looked into the medical case this is likely based on. That patient didn't just "farm" with Paraquat; he ingested a lethal, concentrated dose (usually a suicide attempt). By leaving out that the patient drank a cup of poison, the author conflates Acute Poisoning (death in days, acid urine) with Chronic Exposure (trace amounts over years). If the farmer in the main story had enough Paraquat in his system to burn a nurse's skin, he wouldn't be alive to give an interview about Parkinson's. He'd be dead from multi-organ failure. Omitting this context is manipulative fear-mongering.Then there is the math: Parkinson's affects about 1% of the elderly population. There are 2 million farms in the US. Even if Paraquat was essentially harmless water, you would still have tens of thousands of farmers with Parkinson's purely by chance. The article ignores this base rate to imply that every diagnosis is a result of the chemical. It treats a probabilistic risk as a deterministic cause.It also ignores confounders (like the "Rural Cluster" Problem). Farming is a "chemical soup" lifestyle. You have well water (a known PD risk), head trauma risks, and exposure to dozens of other chemicals like Rotenone or Maneb. The article presents a direct line: Paraquat -> PD. But scientifically, isolating one chemical from 30 years of rural living is a nightmare. The article doesn't even attempt to falsify the hypothesis or look at other factors; it just assumes the lawsuit's narrative is the scientific truth.The article also fails basic science standards. It is storytelling, not science. A real scientific inquiry follows Popperian standards—you make a conjecture and then try to disprove it. This article does the opposite: it acts like a defense attorney. It stacks up emotional anecdotes and selective correlations to confirm its bias and ignores the replication crisis in epidemiology where results often don't stick.This isn't journalism and it's not science; it's advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you've ever wondered why science doesn't make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.
The nurse whose skin peeled off just from touching a patient's urine? The article frames this to make you think, "Wow, this stuff is so toxic that if a farmer uses it, his body becomes a weapon." I looked into the medical case this is likely based on. That patient didn't just "farm" with Paraquat; he ingested a lethal, concentrated dose (usually a suicide attempt). By leaving out that the patient drank a cup of poison, the author conflates Acute Poisoning (death in days, acid urine) with Chronic Exposure (trace amounts over years). If the farmer in the main story had enough Paraquat in his system to burn a nurse's skin, he wouldn't be alive to give an interview about Parkinson's. He'd be dead from multi-organ failure. Omitting this context is manipulative fear-mongering.Then there is the math: Parkinson's affects about 1% of the elderly population. There are 2 million farms in the US. Even if Paraquat was essentially harmless water, you would still have tens of thousands of farmers with Parkinson's purely by chance. The article ignores this base rate to imply that every diagnosis is a result of the chemical. It treats a probabilistic risk as a deterministic cause.It also ignores confounders (like the "Rural Cluster" Problem). Farming is a "chemical soup" lifestyle. You have well water (a known PD risk), head trauma risks, and exposure to dozens of other chemicals like Rotenone or Maneb. The article presents a direct line: Paraquat -> PD. But scientifically, isolating one chemical from 30 years of rural living is a nightmare. The article doesn't even attempt to falsify the hypothesis or look at other factors; it just assumes the lawsuit's narrative is the scientific truth.The article also fails basic science standards. It is storytelling, not science. A real scientific inquiry follows Popperian standards—you make a conjecture and then try to disprove it. This article does the opposite: it acts like a defense attorney. It stacks up emotional anecdotes and selective correlations to confirm its bias and ignores the replication crisis in epidemiology where results often don't stick.This isn't journalism and it's not science; it's advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you've ever wondered why science doesn't make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.
Then there is the math: Parkinson's affects about 1% of the elderly population. There are 2 million farms in the US. Even if Paraquat was essentially harmless water, you would still have tens of thousands of farmers with Parkinson's purely by chance. The article ignores this base rate to imply that every diagnosis is a result of the chemical. It treats a probabilistic risk as a deterministic cause.It also ignores confounders (like the "Rural Cluster" Problem). Farming is a "chemical soup" lifestyle. You have well water (a known PD risk), head trauma risks, and exposure to dozens of other chemicals like Rotenone or Maneb. The article presents a direct line: Paraquat -> PD. But scientifically, isolating one chemical from 30 years of rural living is a nightmare. The article doesn't even attempt to falsify the hypothesis or look at other factors; it just assumes the lawsuit's narrative is the scientific truth.The article also fails basic science standards. It is storytelling, not science. A real scientific inquiry follows Popperian standards—you make a conjecture and then try to disprove it. This article does the opposite: it acts like a defense attorney. It stacks up emotional anecdotes and selective correlations to confirm its bias and ignores the replication crisis in epidemiology where results often don't stick.This isn't journalism and it's not science; it's advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you've ever wondered why science doesn't make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.
It also ignores confounders (like the "Rural Cluster" Problem). Farming is a "chemical soup" lifestyle. You have well water (a known PD risk), head trauma risks, and exposure to dozens of other chemicals like Rotenone or Maneb. The article presents a direct line: Paraquat -> PD. But scientifically, isolating one chemical from 30 years of rural living is a nightmare. The article doesn't even attempt to falsify the hypothesis or look at other factors; it just assumes the lawsuit's narrative is the scientific truth.The article also fails basic science standards. It is storytelling, not science. A real scientific inquiry follows Popperian standards—you make a conjecture and then try to disprove it. This article does the opposite: it acts like a defense attorney. It stacks up emotional anecdotes and selective correlations to confirm its bias and ignores the replication crisis in epidemiology where results often don't stick.This isn't journalism and it's not science; it's advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you've ever wondered why science doesn't make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.
The article also fails basic science standards. It is storytelling, not science. A real scientific inquiry follows Popperian standards—you make a conjecture and then try to disprove it. This article does the opposite: it acts like a defense attorney. It stacks up emotional anecdotes and selective correlations to confirm its bias and ignores the replication crisis in epidemiology where results often don't stick.This isn't journalism and it's not science; it's advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you've ever wondered why science doesn't make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.
This isn't journalism and it's not science; it's advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you've ever wondered why science doesn't make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.
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ChubbyEmu video for "A Farmer Mistakenly Drank His Own Herbicide. This Is What Happened To His Brain."
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I think Chevron may have a point, no one knew back then and they stopped selling it ~40 years ago. But ---To me, if the US had a real Health Care System, people would not have to file lawsuits to get the care they need.But in the US, this is how things work. The care these people need is unaffordable by everyone in the US except for the very rich. So they will be waiting probably 10 to 20 years for relief as the lawsuit works it way through the courts and appeals.
To me, if the US had a real Health Care System, people would not have to file lawsuits to get the care they need.But in the US, this is how things work. The care these people need is unaffordable by everyone in the US except for the very rich. So they will be waiting probably 10 to 20 years for relief as the lawsuit works it way through the courts and appeals.
But in the US, this is how things work. The care these people need is unaffordable by everyone in the US except for the very rich. So they will be waiting probably 10 to 20 years for relief as the lawsuit works it way through the courts and appeals.
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If the very people who spend most of their waking lives on the grounds and among those fertilizers and pesticides do not have any great instance, maybe just maybe its something else. Like the gallons of unregulated chemicals that are in those tract houses that were all built around the same time...one example is the drywall was used extensively in the 90's. Its makeup banned in the country of origin, China but its product was used all throughout the US for decades.
one example is the drywall was used extensively in the 90's. Its makeup banned in the country of origin, China but its product was used all throughout the US for decades.
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Highlighting the role of environmental pollution in causing Parkinson's.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46216422https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...https://archive.is/ZvjZH
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46216422https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...https://archive.is/ZvjZH
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...https://archive.is/ZvjZH
https://archive.is/ZvjZH
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Spoiler: it looks like the farmers are righthttps://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...Amazing thing is TCE was banned by the Biden EPA in 2024 and Trump's EPA stopped its ban.
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...Amazing thing is TCE was banned by the Biden EPA in 2024 and Trump's EPA stopped its ban.
Amazing thing is TCE was banned by the Biden EPA in 2024 and Trump's EPA stopped its ban.
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP9KXdmO0
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"Rotenone, Paraquat, and Parkinson's Disease" - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3114824/"In 110 PD cases and 358 controls, PD was associated with use of a group of pesticides that inhibit mitochondrial complex I [odds ratio (OR) = 1.7; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.0–2.8] including rotenone (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.3–4.7) and with use of a group of pesticides that cause oxidative stress (OR = 2.0; 95% CI, 1.2–3.6), including paraquat (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4–4.7)."Agricultural paraquat dichloride use and Parkinson's disease in California's Central Valley" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38309714/#full-view-affiliat..."Ambient paraquat exposure assessed at both residence and workplace was associated with PD, based on several different exposure measures. The PD patients both lived and worked near agricultural facilities applying greater amounts of the herbicide than community controls. For workplace proximity to commercial applications since 1974, working near paraquat applications every year in the window [odds ratio (OR) = 2.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.46, 3.19] and a higher average intensity of exposure [per 10 pounds (4.54 kilograms), OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.31, 3.38] were both associated with an increased odds of PD. Similar associations were observed for residential proximity (duration: OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.30, 2.83; average intensity: OR = 1.72, 95% CI = 0.99, 3.04). Risk estimates were comparable for men and women, and the strongest odds were observed for those diagnosed at ≤60 years of age."Department of Pesticide Regulation Releases Preliminary Findings from Review of Environmental and Human Health Studies Related to the Use of the Pesticide Paraquat" - https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/2024/12/30/department-of-pesticide-r..."DPR's preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
"In 110 PD cases and 358 controls, PD was associated with use of a group of pesticides that inhibit mitochondrial complex I [odds ratio (OR) = 1.7; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.0–2.8] including rotenone (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.3–4.7) and with use of a group of pesticides that cause oxidative stress (OR = 2.0; 95% CI, 1.2–3.6), including paraquat (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4–4.7)."Agricultural paraquat dichloride use and Parkinson's disease in California's Central Valley" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38309714/#full-view-affiliat..."Ambient paraquat exposure assessed at both residence and workplace was associated with PD, based on several different exposure measures. The PD patients both lived and worked near agricultural facilities applying greater amounts of the herbicide than community controls. For workplace proximity to commercial applications since 1974, working near paraquat applications every year in the window [odds ratio (OR) = 2.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.46, 3.19] and a higher average intensity of exposure [per 10 pounds (4.54 kilograms), OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.31, 3.38] were both associated with an increased odds of PD. Similar associations were observed for residential proximity (duration: OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.30, 2.83; average intensity: OR = 1.72, 95% CI = 0.99, 3.04). Risk estimates were comparable for men and women, and the strongest odds were observed for those diagnosed at ≤60 years of age."Department of Pesticide Regulation Releases Preliminary Findings from Review of Environmental and Human Health Studies Related to the Use of the Pesticide Paraquat" - https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/2024/12/30/department-of-pesticide-r..."DPR's preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
"Agricultural paraquat dichloride use and Parkinson's disease in California's Central Valley" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38309714/#full-view-affiliat..."Ambient paraquat exposure assessed at both residence and workplace was associated with PD, based on several different exposure measures. The PD patients both lived and worked near agricultural facilities applying greater amounts of the herbicide than community controls. For workplace proximity to commercial applications since 1974, working near paraquat applications every year in the window [odds ratio (OR) = 2.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.46, 3.19] and a higher average intensity of exposure [per 10 pounds (4.54 kilograms), OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.31, 3.38] were both associated with an increased odds of PD. Similar associations were observed for residential proximity (duration: OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.30, 2.83; average intensity: OR = 1.72, 95% CI = 0.99, 3.04). Risk estimates were comparable for men and women, and the strongest odds were observed for those diagnosed at ≤60 years of age."Department of Pesticide Regulation Releases Preliminary Findings from Review of Environmental and Human Health Studies Related to the Use of the Pesticide Paraquat" - https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/2024/12/30/department-of-pesticide-r..."DPR's preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
"Ambient paraquat exposure assessed at both residence and workplace was associated with PD, based on several different exposure measures. The PD patients both lived and worked near agricultural facilities applying greater amounts of the herbicide than community controls. For workplace proximity to commercial applications since 1974, working near paraquat applications every year in the window [odds ratio (OR) = 2.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.46, 3.19] and a higher average intensity of exposure [per 10 pounds (4.54 kilograms), OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.31, 3.38] were both associated with an increased odds of PD. Similar associations were observed for residential proximity (duration: OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.30, 2.83; average intensity: OR = 1.72, 95% CI = 0.99, 3.04). Risk estimates were comparable for men and women, and the strongest odds were observed for those diagnosed at ≤60 years of age."Department of Pesticide Regulation Releases Preliminary Findings from Review of Environmental and Human Health Studies Related to the Use of the Pesticide Paraquat" - https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/2024/12/30/department-of-pesticide-r..."DPR's preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
"Department of Pesticide Regulation Releases Preliminary Findings from Review of Environmental and Human Health Studies Related to the Use of the Pesticide Paraquat" - https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/2024/12/30/department-of-pesticide-r..."DPR's preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
"DPR's preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR's review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease."
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but if we aren't going to change a damn thing with daily mass shooting we sure aren't going to fix poisoning the environment, fracking is 100x worse than this and "sacrifice zones" are a real thingfollow the money, sue before current administration makes it illegal to suehttps://www.propublica.org/series/sacrifice-zones
follow the money, sue before current administration makes it illegal to suehttps://www.propublica.org/series/sacrifice-zones
https://www.propublica.org/series/sacrifice-zones
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Of course humans who inhale this thing in small quantities won't die, but you can be sure they will kill some tissues that they go into. Now comes another problem of regular exposure, and these chemicals having an entry, but no exit path. That just means there are tissues, that are likely dying out every time there is a exposure.Again none of this might kill you at the first exposure, but if there are enough dead tissues, there sure is likely to be things like Parkinson's or may be even diabetes.Im guessing combined with this, if you already some bad genetics it could cause issues like these.
Again none of this might kill you at the first exposure, but if there are enough dead tissues, there sure is likely to be things like Parkinson's or may be even diabetes.Im guessing combined with this, if you already some bad genetics it could cause issues like these.
Im guessing combined with this, if you already some bad genetics it could cause issues like these.
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Pesticides are, generally, safe to humans. Herbicides are, generally, not at all safe to humans. Roundup is probably the most safe outside of per-emergents like corn husks or whatever, but it's not a free ride either.
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> Pesticides are substances that are used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others (see table). The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all pesticide use globally.[0][0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PesticideYou're trying to be pedantic, but you're actually wrong. If you think about it, from the perspective of anyone trying to raise crops, weeds are pests. (They are pests to lots of non-farmers, too.)Similarly...> A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes.> Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PesticideYou're trying to be pedantic, but you're actually wrong. If you think about it, from the perspective of anyone trying to raise crops, weeds are pests. (They are pests to lots of non-farmers, too.)Similarly...> A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes.> Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.
You're trying to be pedantic, but you're actually wrong. If you think about it, from the perspective of anyone trying to raise crops, weeds are pests. (They are pests to lots of non-farmers, too.)Similarly...> A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes.> Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.
Similarly...> A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes.> Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.
> A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes.> Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.
> Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.
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> "Pesticides are, generally, safe to humans."
There are many common pesticides which have extreme toxicity to humans, including HCN (Hydrogen Cyanide), (ab)used under the brand-name Zyklon B in WW2, and still sold today as a (controlled-use) pesticide under generic brand names.It's a chasm-leap to say that pesticides are generally safe to humans.
It's a chasm-leap to say that pesticides are generally safe to humans.
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Out of curiosity, why?
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A baseline rate or Parkinsons would be a good addition to the article. I have seen figures of 1 out of 331 for total or apparently about 1.1M total. Farmers make up about 2% of the population. Doing rough back of envelope math shows that you would expect 22K farmers to have Parkinsons assuming even distribution by population.
The numbers aren't precise but if the article's thousands was taken literally it would ironically suggest paraquat has a protective effect against Parkinsons which is obviously absurd thing to assume from a known neurotoxin.Not every farmer with Parkinsons is suing though. If we assume 1% of farmers are involved in lawsuits then thousands is alarming because it would imply 10x rates. 10% suing though and it is expected. 100% suing would be 1/10th the general rate which would fit with the absurd counterfactual hypothesis that non-lethal paraquat exposure prevents Parkinsons.
Not every farmer with Parkinsons is suing though. If we assume 1% of farmers are involved in lawsuits then thousands is alarming because it would imply 10x rates. 10% suing though and it is expected. 100% suing would be 1/10th the general rate which would fit with the absurd counterfactual hypothesis that non-lethal paraquat exposure prevents Parkinsons.
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Poisons are poison!And they sprayed this shit all over themselves and people nearby.
And they sprayed this shit all over themselves and people nearby.
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This is the legitimate end of the spectrum. The science that drove tallow out of kitchens and homes was incomplete, particularly when it was replaced with trans fats.Where it goes off the rails is when nutters conclude that because tallow was wronged in one context, it is wronged in all of them, which leads to folks rubbing tallow on their faces [1]. (It's probably harmless. I've used it as a foot cream because I got samples at my farmers' market.)[1] https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/a63833046/beef-t...
Where it goes off the rails is when nutters conclude that because tallow was wronged in one context, it is wronged in all of them, which leads to folks rubbing tallow on their faces [1]. (It's probably harmless. I've used it as a foot cream because I got samples at my farmers' market.)[1] https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/a63833046/beef-t...
[1] https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/a63833046/beef-t...
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This would also set a level field between beef tallow and other oils. I would expect that a lot have changed in the fast food industry supply chain since the "good old days". Frying oil is only one of the factors that may have affected the taste of fries. Not to mention that everything tastes better when one is young.
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The amount of sugar added to prepared food took a big jump around this time, as it replaced fat to make the food taste good. Around this time is when obesity started to become a bigger problem.
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[1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-01/documents/pe...
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What if the US number of 1 in 400 figure is that high precisely because it includes people exposed to pesticide? In other words, maybe the number would be 1 in 500 if it weren't for Paraquat? You'd have to look at concentration maps or at the very least check what's the diagnosis rates in other countries before you can truly dismiss the claim, imho.
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> More than 6,400 lawsuits against Syngenta and Chevron that allege a link between paraquat and Parkinson's are pending in the U.S. District Court of Southern Illinois. Another 1,300 cases have been brought in Pennsylvania, 450 in California and more are scattered throughout state courts.> “I do think it's important to be clear that number is probably not even close to representative of how many people have been impacted by this,” said Christian Simmons, a legal expert for Drugwatch.
> “I do think it's important to be clear that number is probably not even close to representative of how many people have been impacted by this,” said Christian Simmons, a legal expert for Drugwatch.
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Don't be so quick to dismiss it, there could be a link.
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Nothing in this article indicated any causal relationship nor that they have a higher or lower incidence rate of Parkinson's.
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Additionally, the article cites a leading neuroscientist in Parkinson's research who says that pesticides are one of the "biggest threats" linked to Parkinson'sLastly, I personally discount your sort of arguments because it is the same kind we've witnessed the tobacco industry, the sugar industry, and the gasoline industry use regarding the science showing harmful effects of their products.
Lastly, I personally discount your sort of arguments because it is the same kind we've witnessed the tobacco industry, the sugar industry, and the gasoline industry use regarding the science showing harmful effects of their products.
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After successfully lobbying the Trump administration to approve the sale of its H200 chips to China, Nvidia is now thinking of ramping up production of the chips as Chinese companies rush to place orders, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources.
The most powerful of Nvidia's previous Hopper generation of graphics processing units (GPUs) made for training large language models, the H200 chips previously could not be sold in China, as the previous Biden administration had proposed rules limiting sales of advanced AI chips in the country. But the Department of Commerce last week gave Nvidia the nod to sell H200 GPUs in China, in exchange for a 25% cut of sales of those chips.
Nvidia is now seeing such strong demand from Chinese companies that it is considering adding more capacity, Reuters reported. However, Chinese officials are still deciding whether to allow the import of the H200 chips, which are said to be significantly more powerful than the H20 GPUs Nvidia had customized to sell in China.
For the chipmaker, expanding production of the H200 GPUs would let it tap latent demand in a country that is racing to develop its own homegrown AI chips. Competition and national security concerns in the West have hampered the availability of the latest and most powerful hardware for training AI models in China, where companies have resorted to focusing on efficiency over sheer scale.
Chinese companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, which are developing their own AI models, have already been in touch with Nvidia to figure out large orders for the H200 chips, which are being produced in limited quantities, the report added.
“We are managing our supply chain to ensure that licensed sales of the H200 to authorized customers in China will have no impact on our ability to supply customers in the United States,” an Nvidia spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
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With just 10 days to go until we inch ever closer to the end of Stranger Things, Netflix has released a new trailer for the show's penultimate batch of episodes. Which means it's high time for the show, its audience, and its characters alike to start wondering: just what the hell is the Upside Down, anyway?
We've known it's been coming since the Duffer brothers started teasing it in the run-up to the first part of Stranger Things‘ fifth and final season, but our first proper look at volume 2 definitely wants you to know that definitive answers as to just what the mysterious other plane of existence that is the Upside Down is are coming. Oh, and maybe the end of life as our heroes know it, but what's that next to some good old-fashioned mystery teasing?
Appropriately set to a remix of Diana Ross' “Upside Down” (what else, at this point?), the new trailer sees the scattered kids begin to enact their plans to stop and kill Vecna, from Eleven recruiting some help from Eight (the returning Linnea Berthelsen), to Will recovering from the shocking events of part one that saw him learn how to tap into Vecna's powers. Meanwhile, the main man of the hour himself is messing around with poor Holly Wheeler and waxing lyrical about the new world he wants to build out of the ashes of the old one.
Stopping that, of course, might need a few dramatic sacrifices to be made, so it's probably not going to help fans' concerns over which of their faves might not make it to the end that we even get a nice big death flag tease for Dustin and Steve here, as they promise that if they're going out, they're going out together.
Hopefully that won't be the case, but we've only got 10 more days before we find out: the second volume of Stranger Things season 5 will hit Netflix as a bonus present under your tree on December 25, before the show goes out with a bang in theaters and on the streamer on New Year's Eve.
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by Alan Boyle on Dec 15, 2025 at 6:00 amDecember 15, 2025 at 7:15 am
Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space and California-based Impulse Space say they've successfully demonstrated an in-space satellite rendezvous during a mission that handed over control of an Impulse Mira spacecraft to Starfish's guidance and navigation system.
The demonstration was code-named Remora, in honor of a fish that attaches itself to other marine animals. Operation Remora was added to Mira's agenda for Impulse Space's LEO Express 2 mission, which was launched in January. Impulse and Starfish waited until the Mira spacecraft completed its primary satellite deployment tasks for LEO Express 2. Then they spent several weeks monitoring the maneuvers for Remora.
“About a month ago, we concluded the major steps here,” Starfish co-founder Trevor Bennett told GeekWire. “Since then, we've been getting data down and understanding the full story. And the full story is incredible.”
Remora was kept under wraps until today, primarily because both companies wanted to make sure that the demonstration actually worked as planned. “There was never a guarantee that there would be an outcome here,” Bennett explained. “And so what we wanted to do is talk about it when there was something to talk about.”
Bennett said the demonstration showed that Starfish's software suite for guidance, navigation and control could be used on a different company's satellite to make an autonomous approach to another spacecraft in orbit.
“Remora became definitely a first for us, in terms of being able to allow a whole new vehicle platform to autonomously do this full mission, all the way in and through,” he said. “Basically, we had no operator commands necessary for the vehicle to fly itself all the way down to 1,200 meters, take a bunch of pictures and then autonomously egress back out to further distances.”
Before launch, the LEO Express 2 Mira was equipped with a peripheral flight computer that was loaded with Starfish's Cetacean and Cephalopod software. During the Remora mission, that Mira spacecraft used Starfish's guidance system and a single lightweight camera system supplied by TRL11 to close in on a different Mira that had been used for Impulse Space's LEO Express 1 mission.
As the distance decreased from about 100 kilometers (62 miles) to roughly 1,200 meters (three-quarters of a mile), Starfish's software processed the camera imagery to generate estimates of relative position. Then it computed optimal orbital trajectories and commanded Mira's thrusters to fire accordingly.
Starfish is working on an in-house spacecraft called Otter that will be capable of approaching and docking with other objects in orbit to conduct inspections, perform orbital servicing or get rid of space debris. Bennett said the success of the Remora mission could open up new market opportunities that don't depend on Otter.
“What we're trying to show is that you don't have to design a vehicle just for RPO [rendezvous and proximity operations] and docking,” Bennett said. “You can design the vehicle for the core mission that it needs to do in addition to that. … What we're trying to do is remove this high barrier to having RPO and docking be a mainstay in our industry.”
Eric Romo, president and chief operating officer of Impulse Space, said Remora was a plus for his company as well.
“Our Mira spacecraft uses high-thrust chemical propulsion, and what that means is, we're typically pretty good at moving really quickly between two points in space,” he told GeekWire. But Romo said some potential customers have wondered whether Mira's high-thrust system had the precision and accuracy that would be required when operating near another spacecraft.
For those customers, the Remora mission showed that there's no trade-off between speed and accuracy, and that Mira “has the commandability and the controllability you need to do this type of proximity operation,” Romo said.
Bennett and Romo both said their companies would look at future opportunities for collaboration. “For us, the path forward is to pull it away from just a pure demonstration mission to a truly day-to-day capability that we rely on and build on,” Bennett said. “We're very fortunate that Impulse was our partner up to this point, and I think there are plenty of opportunities for us to be partners going forward.”
In the meantime, both companies are busy with other projects. Starfish Space is in the midst of an Otter Pup 2 test mission that was launched in June — and the company has its first three full-scale Otter missions lined up for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the SES satellite company (which acquired Intelsat) in the 2026-2027 time frame.
Impulse Space's third Mira spacecraft was launched last month to deploy and host payloads for the LEO Express 3 mission. Looking ahead, Impulse is pursuing a partnership with Anduril to conduct a high-precision rendezvous and proximity operations mission in geosynchronous Earth orbit in 2026. And looking even further ahead, the company has laid out a roadmap for sending medium-sized payloads to the moon.
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Users report Copilot appearing after a recent software update, with no option to uninstall.
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LG smart TV owners are reporting that a recent webOS software update has added Microsoft Copilot to their TVs, with no apparent way to remove it. Reports first surfaced over the weekend on Reddit, where a post showing a Copilot tile pinned to an LG TV home screen climbed to more than 35,000 upvotes on r/mildlyinfuriating, accompanied by hundreds of comments from users describing the same behavior.
According to affected users, Copilot appears automatically after installing the latest webOS update on certain LG TV models. The feature shows up on the home screen alongside streaming apps, but unlike Netflix or YouTube, it cannot be uninstalled.
LG has previously confirmed plans to integrate Microsoft Copilot into webOS as part of its broader “AI TV” strategy. At CES 2025, the company described Copilot as an extension of its AI Search experience, designed to answer questions and provide recommendations using Microsoft's AI services. In practice, the iteration of Copilot currently seen on LG TVs appears to function as a shortcut to a web-based Copilot interface rather than a fully native application like the one described by LG.
The issue, for many, isn't necessarily what Copilot does, but that it has been forced onto consumers with no option to remove it. LG's own support documentation notes that certain preinstalled or system apps cannot be deleted, only hidden. Users who encounter Copilot after the update report that this limitation applies, leaving them with no way to fully remove the feature once it has been added. It's a similar story on rival models, for instance some Samsung TV's include Gemini.
The overwhelmingly negative reaction from users indicates a growing frustration with AI features being imposed on consumers in every way possible. Smart TVs have naturally become platforms for advertising, data collection, and now AI services, with updates adding new functionality that owners did not explicitly request and, in most cases, do not want. While LG allows users to disable some AI-related options, such as voice recognition and personalization features, those settings do not remove the Copilot app itself.
Ultimately, those wanting to minimize Copilot's presence on their TVs are limited to keeping it disconnected from the Internet. That's about the most that can be done at the moment, unless LG backtracks and either allows users to disable or completely uninstall the app in response to backlash, which seems unlikely.
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If vacuums and other floor cleaning machines aren't at the top of your holiday shopping list, consider this: All the company walking across your floors, all the wrapping paper and tape and little bits of packing material, all the crumbs from the snacks and big holiday meals …. In short, your carpets and hard-surfaced floors are in for a serious barrage of debris.
Eureka, of course, is way ahead of the game here. Their vacuums have been picking up holiday messes for over 100 years, all the way back to 1922, and they've got your back this year. Six of Eureka's top cleaning machines are marked down for their Christmas sale, ranging from the super-smart E20 Evo Plus robot cleaning machine to the amazingly lightweight and versatile ReactiSense 451 stick vacuum that cleans much more than just your floors. Eureka's Christmas sale is your best chance to save hundreds of dollars while saving your floors from all that holiday fallout.
The E20 Evo Plus is your go-to deal if you want to save $100 while delegating your floor cleaning duties entirely to a super-smart robot that uses LiDAR to dodge obstacles, larger wheels to scale thresholds of up to 20mm, advanced anti-hair tangling technology, and more.
The E20 Evo Plus brings a super-powerful 10,000Pa of suction to your floors to remove both large, heavy debris and tiny particles from carpets and hard floors. The self-emptying charging base is bagless, and has a 45-day capacity so you're likely emptying it fewer than 10 times per year. The anti hair-tangling brush and DragonClaw Side Brush combine for a 98% hair removal rate, ideal for homes with pets. And the E20 Evo Plus's mop head automatically lifts when the robot moves from a hard surface to carpet in order to keep the wetness and dirt away.
Easy to use, easy to maintain, and now at an even better price — the Eureka E20 Evo Plus is one of the best holiday home deals of the year.
See Eureka E20 Evo Plus at Amazon
The E20 Plus is Eureka's upgraded successor to the ultra-popular E10s, with boosted cleaning performance anti-tangle capability, and obstacle avoidance. It comes with a bagless self-emptying charging dock similar to the E20 Evo Plus, with multi-cyclonic technology to help separate 98% of the dust and dirt before they reach the unit's filter, thus greatly extending the filter's lifespan and preventing clogs.
The 8,000Pa of suction power is a 100% improvement over the E10s, and the DuoDetect AI 3D Obstacle Avoidance uses a dual-line laser that acts as the robot's eyes and helps it intelligently cut a clear path around obstacles that trap lesser robot vacs. An anti hair-tangling brush means there's even less need for human intervention or maintenance than ever before.
See Eureka E20 Plus at Amazon
It's may not be hard to find vacuums that can reach into tight places, and it may not be hard to find vacuums with excellent suction. But finding one that checks both of those boxes is rare, and finding one like the Eureka FlexReach that's only $136 during this Christmas sale event is nearly impossible.
The FlexReach extends its powerful 192AW of suction with an ingenious design that includes a Quick Lift detachable pod that allows you to bring its cleaning power to above-floor areas — stairs, upholstery and furniture, those cobwebby corners, and more. With the pod attached, the main body can turn 80 degrees in either direction, or lay flat to reach beneath furniture and other hard-to-reach areas. The LED headlights show you the dust bunnies that have eluded lesser vacuums, right before the FlexReach makes quick work of them.
The Eureka FlexReach is a rare combination of flexible reach, pro-level power, and a $136 sale price that's unbeatable.
See Eureka FlexReach Upright at Amazon
The RapidClean Pro is everything you could ask for in a stick vacuum — lightweight, powerful, versatile, loaded with a long-lasting rechargeable battery, and priced for everyone at just $110 during Eureka's Christmas sale event.
The 90W of suction power combined with multi-surface versatility makes the RapidClean Pro an enticing buy for apartment residents and other small-home denizens, although its 40 minute cleaning time on a single charge means it can also tackle larger spaces. The XL Dust Cup has a 5-stage filtration system so all of the dust and dirt stays sealed inside until it's time to use the one-click emptying feature. The RapidClean Pro comes with a 2-in-1 furniture brush and crevice tool so you can take advantage of its lightweight and ergonomic design to use it above the floor.
See Eureka RapidClean Pro Stick at Amazon
A longer 50-minute runtime on a single charge and a tangle-resistant brush, combined with a formidable 20.3Kpa of suction, should move the ReactiClean 410 rechargeable stick vacuum to the head of the list for pet owners.
An upgraded 200W brushless motor provides the dirt-busting power, and it's lightweight and easily handled, so you can remove the brushroll and use the ReactiClean 410 way above floor level, or attach the upholstery brush to give your furniture a thorough cleaning. But that Tangle-Resistant Brush will be your best friend when you're using the ReactiClean 410 on carpeted and hard floors to remove as much fur as your pets decide to shed.
See Eureka ReactiClean 410 Stick at Amazon
Nobody really wants to vacuum all day long, but it's nice to know that if you really need to do a hardcore cleaning binge, the Eureka ReactiSense 451 rechargeable stick vacuum has your back. The 60-minute runtime on a single charge is among the best on the market, and it's a full hour of 350W suction power that will leave your living space spotless.
It's also a full hour of smart cleaning, because the ReactiSense has intelligent Smart Sense+React sensors that detect the amount of dirt or debris and automatically adjusts the suction and brush speed to compensate, and once captured, the dirt stays sealed in the cup behind an H13 HEPA filter that captures 99.95% of microparticles. The anti-tangle nozzle and brushroll keeps pet hair from bringing the vacuum to a halt.
See Eureka ReactiSense 451 at Amazon
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AI lets anyone create videos, but many AI video creation tools lack support for audio. Mirelo is building AI that adds soundtracks to match the video's action.
Earlier this year, the Berlin-based startup released Mirelo SFX v1.5, an AI model that interprets videos to add synced sound effects (SFX).
This attracted attention from VCs gearing up for a generative AI revolution in games. The two-year-old German startup has raised a $41 million seed round led by Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, TechCrunch learned exclusively.
This new capital will help Mirelo compete more effectively in its emerging category. While it was still in stealth mode and resource-constrained, large companies such as Sony and Tencent released video-to-SFX models. So did Kuaishou-owned Kling AI, out of China, and ElevenLabs, which is also backed by a16z.
While Mirelo already differs from them by its narrower focus, beating these models in the long run requires the startup to make additional hires. Altogether, the startup expects its team of 10 people to “double if not triple” in headcount by the end of next year, Mirelo CEO and co-founder CJ Simon-Gabriel told TechCrunch.
These new hires will support Mirelo's R&D, as well as its product and go-to-market strategy. The startup published its models on Fal.ai and Replicate, and expects API usage to drive most of its revenue in the short term, Simon-Gabriel said. But it is also investing in building out its workspace for creators, Mirelo Studio, which could eventually support full professional use.
As Mirelo prepares to scale, the startup and its investors are also anticipating concerns around training data that have dogged other generative AI companies. According to Georgia Stevenson, who led Index's investments, Mirelo based its models on public and purchased sound libraries, and is signing revenue-sharing partnerships that respect artists' rights.
It's a tension inherent to generative AI tools, but Mirelo isn't displacing musicians and sound designers — at least not yet. With a freemium model including a recommended plan for creators priced at €20/month (approximately $23.50), the startup is mostly targeting amateurs and prosumers hoping to unmute AI-generated videos.
According to Simon-Gabriel, creators can't fully benefit from this new potential without audio.
“George Lucas said that sound is 50% of the movie-going experience. It's not an overstatement,” he said. “If anything, it's an understatement. You can take exactly the same images, and the sound will shape a completely different ambience, depending on the sound and the music that you put in there.”
He and his co-founder, Florian Wenzel, are both AI researchers and musicians themselves, and the startup has AI music generation on its roadmap. But Mirelo is seeing more pull for sound effects, in part because there is less research happening than in other AI fields, Simon-Gabriel said.
“It's easier to build a real moat here, and then to capitalize on it,” he noted.
This could pay off for Mirelo. Simon-Gabriel declined to disclose its new valuation, but said it had increased “very significantly” compared to its previously undisclosed pre-seed round. That earlier round was led by Berlin-based firm Atlantic, which also participated in the new funding, bringing Mirelo's total raised to $44 million and helping close its resource gap.
The startup is also backed by angels who lend credibility to its technology and could open new doors, including Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch, Hugging Face chief science officer Thomas Wolf, Fal.ai co-founder Burkay Gur, and others.
Still, the team is aware that AI-generated videos may not be mute for long.
For instance, Gemini's video generator now incorporates soundtracks powered by DeepMind's Veo 3.1 video-to-audio model. But if anything, Simon-Gabriel sounds vindicated. “Now, suddenly, people realize, ‘Oh, maybe we should add sound.' But, of course, you should add some. It's a bit like silent movies versus talkies, right? It does make quite a difference!”
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Freelance Reporter
Anna Heim is a writer and editorial consultant.
You can contact or verify outreach from Anna by emailing annatechcrunch [at] gmail.com.
As a freelance reporter at TechCrunch since 2021, she has covered a large range of startup-related topics including AI, fintech & insurtech, SaaS & pricing, and global venture capital trends.
As of May 2025, her reporting for TechCrunch focuses on Europe's most interesting startup stories.
Anna has moderated panels and conducted onstage interviews at industry events of all sizes, including major tech conferences such as TechCrunch Disrupt, 4YFN, South Summit, TNW Conference, VivaTech, and many more.
A former LATAM & Media Editor at The Next Web, startup founder and Sciences Po Paris alum, she's fluent in multiple languages, including French, English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.
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Fusion power has the potential to rewrite trillion-dollar energy markets, but first, startups have to prove their designs will work and won't be too costly. Neither is easy, especially when considering the massive magnets and lasers used in many designs must be installed with millimeter precision or better.
Fusion startup Thea Energy says its pixel-inspired reactor and specialized control software should be able to generate power without requiring the same level of perfection.
“It doesn't have to be as good to begin with,” Brian Berzin, co-founder and CEO of Thea Energy, told TechCrunch. “We have a way to tune out imperfections on the back end.” That margin of error could give Thea a leg up on the competition.
Fusion power plants promise to deliver gigawatts of clean power to the grid, but material and construction costs threaten to make them uncompetitive with cheap solar and wind. By building a power plant first and ironing out the kinks in software, Thea could help bring the cost of fusion power down dramatically.
But first the company has to build a working prototype. Today, Thea is publishing the details of its design, including the details of the physics that underpin it. The startup shared the paper exclusively with TechCrunch.
Thea is building a unique take on the stellarator, a specific type of reactor that uses magnets to whip the plasma fuel into shape. Magnets are one of the two main ways that fusion scientists keep plasma heat and confine plasma until fusion reactions occur. The other, known as inertial confinement, uses lasers or some other force to squeeze small fuel pellets.
Most stellarators are built with magnets that look at home in a Salvador Dali painting. But Thea's design uses a dozen larger magnets and hundreds of smaller ones to create what you might call a “virtual” stellarator.
In a typical stellarator, the magnets are built to follow the contours of a shape that's intended to work with the quirks of plasma, helping to confine it for longer using less power than tokamaks, which use a series of identically sized and shaped magnets. Yet stellarators have one major disadvantage: the irregular shape makes mass manufacturing magnets challenging.
So instead, Thea designed its reactor around small, identical superconducting magnets that are arranged in arrays. The startup will use software to control each magnet individually to generate magnetic fields that can replicate a stellarator's wobbly shape.
The approach has several upsides. For one, it has allowed Thea to rapidly iterate on its magnet design. In the last two years, the company has tweaked the design more than 60 times, Berzin said. “Most fusion companies, you're dealing with magnets that are the size of a car or a laser the size of a car or a widget the size of car. That unfortunately means one is $20 million and takes two years [to make],” he said.
It has also meant the company can use software controls to overcome any irregularities in the way the magnets were made or installed. To test its original control system, Thea built a three-by-three array of its magnets laced with sensors. The controls, which were derived from the physics of electromagnetism, worked well. But the company also wanted to see how AI might handle the task, so it also trained a new one using reinforced learning.
The team came away surprised at how well it all worked.
“We purposefully threw curveballs at the array,” Berzin said. “We purposefully dismounted a magnet by literally over a centimeter. You could see it was super out of line. It was really hard for us to actually manufacture it so poorly.” The team also tested superconducting material from five different manufacturers along with intentionally defective material. “Every single time we did that, the control system, without us turning knobs and intervening, was able to tune out those defects,” he said.
Thea's reactor design, Helios, will use two types of magnets. On the outside, 12 large magnets of four different shapes will do the heavy lifting to keep the plasma confined. They're similar to those found on a tokamak, the type of doughnut-shaped reactor that competitor Commonwealth Fusion Systems is building. Inside the large coils, 324 smaller circular magnets will fine-tune the shape of the plasma.
The startup predicts Helios will generate 1.1 gigawatts of heat, which a steam turbine will turn into 390 megawatts of electricity at a cost below $150 per megawatt-hour. The reactor will have to shut down for an 84-day maintenance period once every two years. If all goes well, that means its capacity factor — a measure of how much power it generates over a given period of time — will be 88%. That's far better than today's gas-fired power plants and almost as good as today's nuclear power plants.
Helios is still in the conceptual phase. Thea first has to build Eos, its initial fusion device that's intended to prove the science behind the concept. Berzin said the company will announce a site for Eos in 2026 with plans to turn it on “around 2030.”
As it builds Eos, Thea plans to start work in parallel on Helios. It's a similar approach to how Commonwealth Fusion Systems is moving forward with work on Arc, its first commercial power plant, while building Sparc, its demonstration plant.
For now, Berzin is looking forward to hearing what the fusion community thinks. “This is the release of the overview paper. This will be followed up by quite a substantial amount of work that will come out via peer review and publication,” he said. “Now is the moment for us to go and set up the partnerships, collaborations, get the end users engaged to go build the first one.”
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Senior Reporter, Climate
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing tim.dechant@techcrunch.com.
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Dell (RTX 5070)
Amazon
Asus
Amazon (RTX 5070)
A desktop PC? To some, it might sound like a quaint piece of retro tech, like a fax machine or landline. While advancements in laptops have replaced a lot of what made desktops necessary, they're far from out of the picture. Not only is the DIY PC-building scene as vibrant as ever, but prebuilt desktops and new designs are making these PCs cheaper and smaller. A laptop may serve most people well, but there are important reasons to consider a desktop instead. If you don't want to build your own PC, I've got you covered with these prebuilt options I've personally tested.
For more recommendations, read our Best Gaming Laptops, Best Apple Desktops, and Best All-In-Ones guides. You may also want to pair your desktop with accessories, so read our Best Ergonomic Mouse, Best Mechanical Keyboards, Best Monitors, Best Computer Speakers, Best USB Mics, and Best Webcam guides.
Why Buy a Prebuilt Desktop PC?
There are two main reasons to buy a traditional tower desktop instead of a laptop. First, you can achieve performance not possible on a laptop. For PC gamers, AI developers, content creators, and anyone else who uses the extra power, desktop PCs are still unbeatable in this regard. Even if you don't have a maxed-out system with an Nvidia RTX 5090, you'll still get more performance for the money you spend. This remains true on prebuilt desktop PCs as much as on DIY systems that you build yourself. However, with RAM prices escalating like crazy, if you don't need anything special in terms of performance, buying a laptop is a cheaper way to go—at least, for now.
Secondly, people buy desktop PCs for their upgradeability. Not only is it fun to tinker with the technology, but it's also a cost-saving measure that lets you replace parts piecemeal. You can choose when to replace a specific part, and there's a thriving aftermarket for old parts. This benefit only partially applies to prebuilt systems, as your ability to upgrade varies from system to system. Standard PC manufacturers use a mix of proprietary and off-the-shelf parts, which affects the long-term lifespan of the PC. Meanwhile, more expensive PCs built by boutique system integrators like Falcon Northwest, Origin, or iBuyPower use mostly off-the-shelf parts.
As a side note, some smaller PC manufacturers and system builders, like Minisforum and CyberPowerPC, have already started raising prices on desktops due to the memory shortage, But many of the options we've listed below are still selling for normal prices, and based on what we're hearing, prices on all PCs in 2026 are going to eventually go up. That makes it a uniquely good time to buy a prebuilt.
What Are the Common Desktop PC Sizes?
These days, a desktop PC can be defined as any kind of computer that doesn't have a battery. It's not meant to be moved, and it can't be used on the go. Outside of that definition, desktop computers can range from tiny to massive, and they could even include PCs with built-in displays, which are called “all-in-one” computers. Here's a breakdown of the options:
Full tower: The biggest desktop PC size, most commonly for high-end gaming machines. There's no standardized measurement, but they are typically over 22 inches tall and deep. Most importantly, they are large enough internally to support E-ATX motherboards and more extensive cooling setups.
Mid tower: These days, this is the most common desktop PC size. Whether for gaming or work, it's the size with the most versatility, with enough room to get some decent performance while still allowing for easily upgradable parts. Most PCs you buy will use a mid-tower case.
Small form factor (SFF): This size has grown in popularity in the DIY space, but it's still uncommon in prebuilt PCs, though you'll find some options out there, such as the Corsair One or some of the options listed below. These cases exclusively use smaller Mini-ITX motherboards, designed to fit into these miniature cases, while still allowing you to get in and upgrade parts.
Mini PC: These are the smallest PCs you can buy. They aren't designed to be upgraded yourself, relying on laptop components to fit into such a small package. They're sometimes used in living rooms or server rooms due to their size.
All-in-one: These are desktop PCs that include the entire package all in one, including the display. Typically, they use laptop components packed into either the display or the base of the computer.
What to Look for in a Desktop Computer
When people typically think of the phrase “desktop computer,” they think of the traditional, large tower that sits on your desk (or on your floor). That's certainly an important segment of what's out there, and if that's what you're shopping for, the basic specs as configured are important. Here are the important specs to consider.
If you're new to the world of desktop PCs, that might sound like a long list of specs to check. In the end, it all comes down to what your needs are. Most desktop PCs are used for gaming these days, which is why so many are oriented toward flashy lights and powerful GPUs. But regardless of what you need your desktop PC for, you'll want a minimum of 16 GB of RAM, though you might want to upgrade to 32 GB or 64 GB for gaming and content creation machines. The latest version of memory is DDR5.
Like all computers, what you're looking for in a prebuilt desktop is a balance of design, performance, and price. If you want to game, you'd better get yourself a decent graphics card to start with and a system with some solid cooling. But another really important aspect about a desktop computer is its upgradability. How comfortable are you with upgrading your PC yourself? It's worth taking some time to watch a few how-to videos and familiarize yourself with the components so you can save money over time.
How We Test Desktop PCs
All the desktop PCs we've tested have been sent to us for review, but we adhere to strict ethics and neutrality. When we get a desktop PC to test, we pay careful attention to the build quality of the case, especially in how it's delivered. These are large electronics with lots of movable parts that can easily be damaged during delivery. Prebuilts often have to use internal brackets to keep key elements like the GPU stable for shipping. Some even ship with the graphics card uninstalled.
Once we get the PC set up, we take off the side panels and begin inspecting the internal setup. We take note of how easy it is to replace, pay attention to how cleanly the cables are routed and organized, ensuring that all the components are connected correctly. From there, we start benchmarking performance in a variety of tests, including 3DMark, Cinebench, Geekbench, and Pugetbench, as well as games like Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Marvel Rivals, and more. Measuring performance is more than just about reporting frame rates, too; observing CPU temperatures, frequency, and fan noise carefully. The whole point is to get a good sense for how the desktop will perform across a variety of tasks.
Lastly, we consider the upgrade path as part of our testing, seeing how easy it is to remove the GPU and other important components. As noted above, most people buy a prebuilt desktop with hopes of upgrading it in the future, and that always has to be part of our consideration when testing a desktop.
Dell
Dell (RTX 5070)
Amazon (RTX 5070)
Best Buy (RTX 5060)
There's a lot to like about the Dell Tower Plus (7/10, WIRED Recommends), starting with its design. It's simple, really, but when it comes to a monolith sitting on (or below) your desk, you don't want anything too distracting. If you like the idea of a mixed-use home office computer, the Dell Tower Plus is your best option.
The primary downside to the Dell Tower Plus is its limited upgradability. The use of some proprietary parts, such as the motherboard and power supply, means they can't be easily replaced on your own. You can, however, upgrade simpler parts like the GPU, memory, and storage. You can add extra fans, swap out the CPU cooler, and more. This is more or less in line with prebuilt PCs from HP and Lenovo, though in the world of non-gaming, Dell offers the most compelling option for mainstream use in home offices.
Apple
Amazon
Best Buy
Apple
There's still nothing quite like the Mac Mini (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It remains the cheapest way to get into the Apple ecosystem, with the latest models starting at prices under $500 when on sale. This gets you 16 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage, and an Apple M4 chip. Compared to many of the Mini PCs you can buy on the Windows side, the Mac Mini is in another league in terms of performance and price. You can even upgrade to the M4 Pro to turn it into a true powerhouse machine, though that costs an extra $800. The appeal of the Mac Mini is strongest as a budget option, though.
While most people will happily spend $250 extra for the versatility of the M4 MacBook Air, you can't deny the incredible performance you get at this price and size. The Mac mini does have a fan, but it remains extremely quiet on your desk.
Asus
Asus
Amazon
Best Buy (RTX 5060)
The Asus TUF T500 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) pairs up a laptop motherboard and CPU with a full-sized desktop GPU, giving you a better upgrade path, while only sacrificing a little bit of power. This svelte and attractive gaming desktop does a surprisingly good job managing its heat and noise, despite limited intake options and only a small fan in the rear. You're stuck with the CPU, motherboard, and power supply that come installed, so there are some limitations as you look at upgrading down the line.
The version I checked out was equipped with an RTX 5060 Ti, 16 GB of RAM, and a 1-TB PCIe SSD. While it's about the lowest I'd spec out for a new system for serious gaming, it's very capable at 1080p, and can even manage 1440p in some games if you tweak the settings a bit. I put together a similar desktop from parts for comparison, and you're really only spending a few hundred dollars for Asus to assemble and test your system. That's a good compromise for space-conscious or tech-averse gamers looking to just sit down and play. —Brad Bourque
Alienware
Amazon (RTX 5070)
Best Buy (RTX 5070)
Dell (RTX 5070 Ti)
The Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop (7/10, WIRED Recommends) shares a lot in common with the Dell Tower Plus. It's a spruced-up version with some Alienware branding and extra performance. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. I really like the loop of light on the front of the case and the custom water block on the liquid cooling, both of which add a new splash of customizable light to the setup.
More importantly, you can configure it with up to an RTX 5080, 64 GB of RAM, and 8 TB of storage. But the point is not necessarily to configure it this powerfully when you buy it, as these are all components you can upgrade yourself in the future, probably for cheaper. The only thing that can't be easily upgraded is the motherboard and power supply. And because this uses an Intel CPU, it probably can't be upgraded either, as it would need a new motherboard. That's not great, but it's also true of options such as the HP Omen 35L and Lenovo Legion Tower.
Apple
Amazon
Best Buy
Apple
It's certainly true that the M4 iMac (9/10, WIRED Recommends) that exists today doesn't occupy the same space of reverence it once did. But that's not because the iMac that Apple sells isn't good on its own terms. It's incredibly fast, high-end, and—dare I say—fun, thanks to its color options. The design is genius: Apple built the computer into the bottom bezel, which allows the display to look super sleek.
The small, 25-inch screen is the main thing holding it back, as 27-inch monitors have become the standard, especially for creatives and office workers, who the iMac is for. The difference in size is even more noticeable if you're coming from something larger, like a 32-inch monitor. But for the right person, the iMac is exactly what you want. No fuss. No cables. No need to choose a monitor. It's as clean a desktop setup as you can get, and that's exactly what some people are looking for.
Framework
Framework
Framework's first entry into the world of desktops is an unabashed success (7/10, WIRED Recommends). I'm not terribly surprised, as the company has earned itself a reputation in the world of sustainability and upgradability. This Mini-ITX, 4.5-liter case feels tiny for what it can do and for how much access to the components it provides.
These small form factor prebuilt PCs are still fairly uncommon as a middle ground between Mini PCs and Mid-Towers. The key is the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, a convoluted name for a very unique chip, which has integrated graphics as powerful as an RTX 4060 in a gaming laptop. That might not knock your socks off in gaming performance, but for its size, I was still impressed. And like Framework Laptops, you can replace the Mainboard with relative ease—so long as AMD brings out a more powerful version in the future. Unfortunately, that means you can't upgrade the RAM separately from the mainboard.
Apple
B&H
Apple
Best Buy
While other desktop Macs have to compete with MacBooks, the Mac Studio is the one Apple desktop with a unique proposition: the M3 Ultra. That massive, overpowered chip is only offered on the Mac Studio. Even the Mac Pro is stuck on the M2 Ultra (and will reportedly not get refreshed in the future). With up to 28 CPU cores and 60 GPU cores, the M3 Ultra is the most powerful chip Apple has ever made, a considerable step up above the M4 Max, especially in terms of GPU performance. It's absolutely insane how much performance Apple has squeezed into this tiny machine. To be fair, that level of performance (and price) makes it a niche computer. But when you need raw power, it's great that Mac users now have an option that competes with even the most powerful Windows desktops.
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Amazon's most powerful CPU to date.
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This month, Amazon Web Services introduced the Graviton5, its fifth-generation custom general-purpose server processor, designed to compete against industry-standard CPUs from AMD and Intel in AWS's data centers. The new processor extends AWS's in-house Arm-based CPU program with a CPU that packs up to 192 cores and 180 MB of L3 cache, and is designed to compete with higher-end AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors, potentially replacing some of them in AWS data centers.
The AWS Graviton5 processor is fabricated using a 3nm-class process, likely by TSMC. The processor integrates 192 Neoverse V3 cores alongside an assumed 180 MB L3 cache. AWS says that the new CPU will deliver 25% higher performance compared to its predecessor, which appears to be conservative, as the Graviton5 offers a twofold increase in the number of cores. The chip uses the Armv9.2 ISA that brings several microarchitecture enhancements and a fivefold increase in L3 cache size.
The new processor is now available in Amazon EC2 M9g instances in preview, while compute-optimized C9g and memory-focused R9g variants are scheduled for launch in 2026. The current EC2 M9g instances are up to 30% faster for databases, up to 35% faster for web applications, and up to 35% faster for machine learning workloads compared to M8g, according to AWS.
Amazon Web Services is intentionally opaque about the exact specifications and internal design of its Graviton5 CPU. Nonetheless, it offers comparisons with the previous-generation Graviton4 chip, which allows us to decode some details and delve into them with a little more depth.
AWS and Arm officially confirm that Graviton5 integrates 192 Neoverse V3 cores per package, fabricated using a 3nm-class process, making it the densest CPU in the Graviton lineup and the densest Armv9.2 processor available to date. The internal layout of the processor has been redesigned to reduce communication overhead, and AWS claims up to 33% lower inter-core latency, which is particularly noteworthy given the twofold increase in core count.
When we discuss Neoverse V3, we cannot help but think about the Arm-developed compute subsystems (CSS). While Arm confirmed that we are dealing with Neoverse V3, neither Amazon nor Arm has confirmed that Graviton5 uses Arm-developed CSS. That means we're likely dealing with a unique design in Graviton 5.
In performance comparisons between the Neoverse V3 core and its predecessor, Arm claims a 9%-16% uplift over Neoverse V2 across general cloud workloads and up to 84% in AI data analytics. This is one of the reasons why AWS is so conservative about performance upticks, both for Graviton5 as well as compute-intensive M9g instances in general. Another reason for AWS's conservative performance estimate is that it does not sell leading-edge performance like AMD or Nvidia, but rather predictable performance per dollar and scalability in the cloud. Nonetheless, with a 192-core processor, AWS puts itself into the highest league among CPU developers.
One interesting thing to note about Graviton5 is that it comes with L3 cache, not system-level cache like Graviton4. While L3 and SLC in data center CPUs have a lot in common, they are not the same thing. Traditionally, L3 cache is a last-level cache located inside each compute tile or core cluster in a data center CPU. L3 primarily serves CPU workloads by reducing DRAM access; it is optimized for low latency and directly participates in the core's coherence protocol. Therefore, L3 is tightly coupled to the cores and is physically close to them.
By contrast, SLC sits outside the core clusters on the SoC fabric and is shared by all CPU cores, various other accelerators, I/O devices, NICs, and DMA engines. It tends to be much larger (often 100–300+ MB) and optimized for throughput rather than latency, as it acts as a global buffer that reduces pressure on DRAM and provides coherent access for heterogeneous compute blocks. SLC can improve scaling for very high core counts and enables unified memory semantics across CPUs, GPUs, and on-die accelerators, a role traditional L3 caches cannot fulfill on their own.
Amazon has not publicly explained the design decision, but based on Graviton4's architecture and what we know about Graviton5, the reason is almost certainly architectural scalability. The move from SLC in Graviton4 to a large 180 MB L3 in Graviton5 is not cosmetic; it reflects fundamental changes in how a 192-core processor moves data, manages latency, and maintains coherence.
Graviton4's architecture — 96 Neoverse V2 cores, a CMN-700 mesh, 12 DDR5-5600 channels — operates efficiently with a centralized or semi-centralized SLC. But doubling the core count to 192 dramatically increases mesh traffic, hop distances, and contention on any unified cache structure. At this scale, a monolithic SLC could almost certainly become a latency bottleneck and would not support AWS's claim of up to 33% lower inter-core communication latency. A distributed L3 sliced across the die allows hot data to remain physically close to compute clusters, reducing average access latency and improving overall coherence behavior.
The fivefold cache expansion AWS advertises reinforces this architectural necessity. Scaling Graviton4's 36 MB SLC by that factor yields 180 MB, and AWS's additional statement —2.6X more cache per core, at double the core count — implies ~187 MB total, which aligns with a large, multi-slice L3 rather than a single SLC block, which would create routing complexity.
Finally, L3-based designs offer stronger multi-tenant performance predictability, which is crucial for AWS. Under cloud workloads, shared caches experience heavy cross-tenant interference and variable latency, so when designing cache subsystems, developers must take into account AWS's use case. To sum things up, the shift to a distributed L3 was a necessary architectural evolution for Graviton5.
Just as AWS didn't disclose many details about other design aspects of Graviton5, it also didn't disclose much about the memory subsystem of the CPU. It goes without saying that Graviton5's memory subsystem is more powerful than that of Graviton4, as it supports higher memory speeds, which likely means that it at least retains a 12-channel memory subsystem of the Graviton4, but with higher data transfer rates (i.e., higher than DDR5-5600).
A 12-channel DDR5 design operating at 6400 MT/s would provide around 614 GB/s of aggregate bandwidth, which translates to approximately 3.2 GB/s per core, which is actually lower than 5.6 GB/s per core in the case of Graviton4. However, the larger L3 cache could compensate for this decrease in memory bandwidth. Then again, we do not know the exact number of memory channels supported by Graviton5.
Input/output throughput is similarly increased, according to AWS: network bandwidth is up by 15% on average across instance sizes, with as much as double the throughput for the largest configurations. Storage bandwidth through Amazon EBS rises by around 20% on average, according to AWS. These gains are designed to improve performance not only for compute-heavy applications, but also for distributed systems that depend on fast storage and networking.
On the security side, Graviton5 is built on the AWS Nitro System, with sixth-generation Nitro Cards that handle virtualization, networking, and storage. AWS has also introduced a new component called the Nitro Isolation Engine, which the company describes as a formally verified isolation layer. Instead of relying solely on conventional security validation, the Isolation Engine uses mathematical proofs to demonstrate that workloads are separated from each other and from AWS operators. The architecture enforces a zero-operator-access model, and AWS plans to allow customers to review the implementation and the formal proofs behind it to ensure maximum security. Such security measures could be a part of the company's effort to attract clients who have traditionally used on-prem servers.
AWS's new Graviton5 processor offers a 192-core, 3nm Arm-based CPU with around 180 MB of L3 cache. This positions the cloud giant as a competitor to the high-end AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon solutions for data centers. The CPU integrates Neoverse V3 cores and delivers an advertised 25% performance uplift, which is conservative given the twofold increase in core count, large microarchitectural improvements in the Armv9.2 ISA, and a fivefold increase in cache capacity. Also, AWS confirms 33% lower inter-core latency due to a redesigned internal layout but has not disclosed whether it uses Arm's CSS, suggesting that Graviton5 may be a unique Annapurna Labs design built around Neoverse V3 cores.
A key architectural shift is replacing Graviton4's SLC with a large distributed L3 to enable better coherence scaling across 192 cores and predictable latency. The processor also gains a faster memory subsystem (likely retaining 12 channels at higher DDR5 speeds), improved network and storage bandwidth, and the new Nitro Isolation Engine, which uses formal verification to guarantee tenant isolation and enforce zero-operator access.
At present, Graviton5 powers new EC2 M9g instances — up to 30% – 35% faster for databases, web services, and machine learning — and compute-optimized C9g and memory-optimized R9g variants will follow in 2026.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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It feels like I've been transported into a scene straight out of a science fiction movie.
I'm walking around on a giant centrifuge in space, which I can see the outlines of at the edge of my vision. Beyond it, I see the planet we're orbiting. The pathways I walk on stretch endlessly above and below me, giving me the feeling I'm in an absolutely massive structure. Huge hologram-like characters, each 10 stories tall, occasionally materialize alongside the path to talk to me and the dozen people also on this journey.
Those fellow travelers aren't computer-generated characters; they're real humans. We're all walking around wearing VR headsets in a shared virtual reality space in Las Vegas that can best be described as an amusement park ride for the visual cortex. Everyone else in the group sees the same scene, each from slightly different perspectives as they shuffle around freely.
Interstellar Arc, Vegas's latest immersive attraction in the city's Area15 entertainment district, is a stark reimagining of virtual reality within larger physical spaces. The narrative adventure utilizes recent advances in VR, resulting in a forward-looking technological undertaking that likely wouldn't have been possible even a few years ago.
And as VR technology gets lighter, faster, and more advanced, experiences like these may help drive the future of an industry that's struggled to find its footing in the mainstream after more than a decade on the commercial market. I went to Las Vegas to step inside Interstellar Arc myself and find out if it might help push virtual reality forward.
The project is the brainchild of Felix & Paul Studios, helmed by cofounders Paul Raphaël, Félix Lajeunesse, and Stéphane Rituit. Raphaël and Lajeunesse spent years as a traditional filmmaking duo, but had already begun to transition to more immersive storytelling formats when they demoed the Oculus Rift headset soon after it hit the market in 2013. They were sold immediately.
“We decided that this was the future of our lives, and that we were going to dedicate ourselves to telling stories in VR,” Raphaël says.
Raphaël says F&P developed the first VR camera that could film in 360 degrees and was involved in a number of early VR experiences. The team worked with the likes of Cirque du Soleil, Steven Spielberg, and even the Obama White House, earning several prime-time Emmy awards along the way. But their work in outer space stood out.
In partnership with NASA, F&P sent three VR cameras to the International Space Station—two inside, plus another attached to an exterior arm to quite literally film from space. From here they developed “Space Explorers: The Infinite,” a touring immersive pop-up meant to bring the space experience to average people in various cities globally. Interstellar Arc is the next evolution of this work.
(I toured the experience at the invitation of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which covered some of my travel expenses.)
The “spaceport” leads you to the city of Cosmopolis.
Sit here to begin your journey.
After you buy a ticket for $54 ($39 for kids 8 to 12), you start the Interstellar Arc experience by stepping into a futuristic lobby dressed up as a “spaceport.” As visitors, we are told we're now in the 25th century and are about to embark on humanity's first interstellar mission to explore the distant exoplanet Arcadia. We're each outfitted with our own wireless Meta Quest 3S headsets—each affixed with some noise-canceling headphones—then take our seats inside the virtual Arc for liftoff.
The initial “voyage” segment leverages F&P's work aboard the ISS to create a wildly realistic view of Earth and our galaxy as we depart. While still in our seats, we enter 262 years of simulated “cryogenic sleep” aboard the Arc, then arrive at what we're told is a man-made orbital centrifuge city above Arcadia, called Cosmopolis.
This is where the ambulatory part of the journey begins. We disembark into Cosmopolis, a sprawling landscape that's designed to feel vast. I can see a winding pathway out in front of me, surrounded by a combination of trees, columns, and futuristic structures. The city seems to extend for miles in both my horizontal and vertical vision; I can see outer space and Arcadia, a planet that's half blue like Earth and half red like Mars, through the city's translucent skeleton.
With our headsets on, we walk around on pathways enclosed by railings; these railings are real, and designed to be visible within the VR experience. You can hold onto them if you need help orienting and balancing yourself, but they also serve to help direct participants to various parts of the indoor space throughout the experience. But there aren't always railings, and when those are absent, we're kept on the virtual path only by being able to see the edges of it, beyond which lies just black nothingness. My eyes tell me I'll plunge into the abyss if I fall off a pathway, even if my conscious brain knows otherwise. This fun psychological trick creates enough tension to keep me on the path despite the underlying knowledge that I probably don't really have to.
The fox helps you navigate Cosmopolis.
A virtual alien fox with silver fur serves as a guide as we wander, often walking ahead of us and prompting us with its snout to explore different areas. We can't really interact with it, which is a bummer given how adorable and pet-able it looks. Basketball-sized hovering orbs appear and serve as achievement checkpoints. My headset tracks how many of these achievements I collect through the experience; I managed 20 of a possible 30. At one point we go “underwater,” a sensation that comes complete with a visual rippling effect as we move around, along with some pretty convincing audio.
Your hands play a role too. A virtual button on my right wrist toggles a camera; one click of the button brings up a viewfinder in the center of my field of view, then a second click snaps a picture I can download later. A button on my left wrist triggers a radio I can use to communicate with the others in my group. If Raphaël, who joined us for our voyage, ever got sick of me using this feature to ping him with incessant questions throughout the hourlong experience, he was kind enough not to mention it.
Hundred-foot-high hologram-like characters periodically appear alongside the paths we walk on (again, everything just feels huge in here), offering us guidance or fun Cosmopolis factoids. One such hologram is a representation of none other than famed astronomer Carl Sagan, who serves as Cosmopolis' “Librarian” and talks to us about his role in preserving Earth's knowledge as humanity expands outward. The Sagan hologram also references the Golden Record, a phonograph record sent on the two Voyager spacecraft in 1977 as a way to present Earth's life and culture to intelligent life beyond the solar system; real-life Carl Sagan was centrally involved in the creation of these discs.
Carl Sagan's likeness was approved by the late astronomer's estate.
“Carl's vision and philosophy has always been a huge inspiration,” Raphaël says. “We wanted to include him in this project.”
In fact, F&P got even more than they hoped for when they contacted the Sagan estate.
“When they saw what this project was, they not only were gracious enough to grant us the rights to his likeness, but they helped us put the words in his mouth,” Raphaël says. “These are the words of the closest people that you could possibly have interpret Carl. And they also assisted with the rest of the project, since this was infused at such a fundamental level by Carl's spirit.”
F&P ran through an extensive casting process to find a look-alike actor for the Sagan character, then used a few different VFX processes in postproduction to achieve the most realistic version they could. They compared the outputs with actual footage and recordings of Sagan to ensure accuracy.
The storyline and experience are impressive, and will surely enchant people across age groups. (Interstellar Arc is for ages 8 and up, and a single adult can supervise up to three children at once.) It's the underlying tech, however, that may position experiences like Interstellar Arc as a signal of VR's future.
At various points on our walk around Cosmopolis, it feels as though we're walking not just side to side, but also uphill and downhill.
In reality, we're still inside the same flat, 20,000-square-foot facility we started in. But as I step along the path, it truly feels like the terrain is sloped and curved; when others in my group get ahead of me, I have to look up or at slight angles to see them. It's a wild sensation, made all the more remarkable by the lack of any accompanying motion sickness (an issue I've dealt with in VR).
This is made possible by what Raphaël refers to as “redirection” of the headset's native visual processing features. The actual technical process is so complex that I still struggle to grasp it even after two extensively simplified breakdowns from Raphaël, but think of it like this: Felix & Paul are subtly rotating the headset's cameras to the side and upward slightly with each movement, creating a “cheat” for the eyes that makes it feel as though fellow participants are above or below one another when they're actually on flat ground. (One can only imagine the processing lift involved in maintaining this effect as dozens of participants move around simultaneously.)
Our brains can only handle so much of this, though. Initial versions of redirection included long segments of the effect at once, but that created issues.
The facility is 20,000 square feet, and the railings help guide you as you walk around inside.
“Let's say for 30 seconds you went in one direction [using the redirection effect],” Raphaël says. “The minute you would turn around to walk in the opposite direction, the cheat that we were doing in one direction is now happening in the other direction, but your brain is used to it being in the first direction. You'd feel very disoriented.”
Through 18 months of trial and error, F&P got around this problem in part by shortening the redirection windows. We only spent a brief amount of time walking on the sloped segments, plus moving on what Raphaël calls a “sinuous path” that includes an equal amount of left and right redirection.
I contacted Andy Etches, founder of VR company Rezzil, a major player in the sports VR space, to get his take on this headset innovation.
“That's the first I've heard of that approach anywhere,” says Etches. “You've seen people use treadmills and omnidirectional things, which feel like falling more than walking. Allowing someone to walk naturally and altering their perception of how they're walking or what they're seeing is a really interesting approach.”
Also notable is F&P's use of the physical space. Twenty thousand square feet isn't small—about the same as a midsize hotel ballroom—but visitors move quite a bit during the experience. Our headsets are equipped with a step counter; I managed over 500 in the hourlong experience, which for me is about a quarter-mile. I got a chance to view the space with my headset off, and it didn't quite feel big enough for that.
And it isn't. Raphaël tells me our group actually went around the room three full times as part of a “circuit,” facilitated by a combination of railings and strategic prompts—the fox, light-up visual cues—that kept us moving along a preset path.
“We now have a way to re-map physical space into dramatically different virtual space, which is great for using less physical space,” Raphaël says. “In the future you can imagine a world where companies or people have ‘holodecks' where they can experience entertainment or work or training or whatever you might want to do in a virtual environment. You will, using this type of technique, simply need less physical space than you normally would.”
This kind of spatial manipulation is part of VR's core value proposition, but the tech has often lacked proper vehicles to bring it to life. One can only make a living room feel so big in VR before the user runs into a wall.
The physical space presents other technical challenges. One is the volume of people: Interstellar Arc can accommodate up to 170 participants at once, Raphaël says, quite a crowd even in a room this large.
That can be an issue for typical VR headsets, which rely on cameras and sensors to triangulate their position within a room. Those devices lock onto fixed surfaces when you're alone, but it's much harder with more than 100 people roaming around. “You might start drifting in space and bouncing around, disappearing and reappearing somewhere else,” Raphaël says.
F&P uses an intriguing workaround that utilizes an additional camera built into the top of the headset that points upward at an infrared light grid spread across the entire room's ceiling. The grid functions almost as a “giant QR code,” as Raphaël puts it, helping each headset maintain its precise location by locking onto the unique pattern.
Etches says he's seen similar anti-latency approaches for large-scale VR programs, but typically using markings on the wall or floor.
The feature seems to work, at least in my limited experience. I never saw any drifting or bouncing around from any fellow group members, though in fairness there were nowhere near 170 people in the room at the time.
With new consumer VR headset models arriving each year and lighter, more nimble options on the horizon, Raphaël knows Interstellar Arc won't be able to rely on the same tech for long. He says F&P have already pushed the Quest 3S “as far as we possibly could,” and that the team will adapt the experience as new models arrive. “You have this technology that's just barely now getting to the point where it's good enough, very recently, and it still can get a lot better,” he says.
Etches believes VR has already been edging toward the mainstream in recent years. But he thinks experiences like Interstellar Arc will only fuel the fire by creating a perfect setting for fantasy, historic, or futuristic viewing experiences. “You can't do it any other way really, can you? Placing someone in a different place in time, without moving them, and doing it with 170 people at once,” he says.
The VR experience of Interstellar Arc isn't one that can be easily recreated at home. The team also hasn't announced plans to install the experience in other locations, so you have to go to Vegas to go through it. To Etches, though, attractions like these will help drive wider VR adoption, even for games played in the living room.
“My experience over the last nearly 10 years of working in VR is that the minute someone tries it, they go, ‘Oh, this is amazing,'” he says. “If they have an exciting experience and they get to do something they couldn't do in real life, they will absolutely go on and experience VR more again.”
“If we can find a factory that's going to put 170 people through an amazing experience every hour of the day, I'm all for it. Because that's just going to introduce more people and build more adoption.”
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The giant confinement building encapsulating the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded nearly 40 years ago is smooth and curved—built with scientific precision. Installed in 2016, the structure was designed to prevent the escape of radiation from the stricken reactor, which is also encased in a smaller concrete sarcophagus. The confinement enshrouds both reactor and sarcophagus and is so massive that if you placed the Statue of Liberty inside it at its center, her torch wouldn't come close to prodding the ceiling. But like a slightly cracked egg, this gargantuan covering has been violated. It is one of many victims in Russia's war with Ukraine.
In February, a drone armed with explosives smashed into the confinement, leaving a 15 m2 hole. While some of the damage has been repaired, the building's radiation-blocking abilities have been compromised, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed earlier this month. Importantly, the IAEA also said that radiation levels in the area have not yet changed. But unless more significant repairs are carried out, the specter of a potential leak remains.
Radiation occurs naturally everywhere. It is produced by food you eat, and even by tissues in your own body. Think of it like a grand carnival of subatomic particles—including neutrons, electrons, and photons—that whizz around, always in motion, always present. An invisible world that shadows the world we can see. But the carnival is always changing and, today, we are better positioned than ever to notice fluctuations in radiation that deviate from normal, background levels.
When disaster struck Chernobyl in 1986, a huge cloud of radioactive material spread across much of Europe. It was how the world found out about the accident—when radiation monitors in eastern Sweden detected unusual activity two days after the explosion. In the wake of Chernobyl, many countries including Austria and the UK, installed radiation detectors that constantly monitor for any uptick in radioactivity. Today, some radiation-monitoring networks are run by governments, and yet more are the work of volunteers and researchers. If another major radiation incident were ever to happen, the world would discover it very, very quickly.
“The pandemic I found very terrifying, because there's not an easy way of detecting the Covid virus,” says Kim Kearfott, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan. “I can grab a detector and immediately detect radiation.” On the roof of her university building, Kearfott has an array of radiation sensors. She also has some in her lab. And in her lab's basement. And in another building nearby. You get the idea.
The project is largely an informal one, sparked by curiosity and an absence of easily accessible public data on environmental radiation levels. “We put [this] into place after the Fukushima nuclear accident,” she says, referring to the 2011 disaster in which a huge tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, which ultimately resulted in the release of significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.
After Fukushima, Kearfott realized that she and her colleagues had no mechanism for monitoring radiation levels. There are monitoring systems all over the US, she says, but it's hard to get access to the measurements they gather. “The nuclear plants,” she says, “they don't like releasing their monitoring data.”
Kearfott's detectors have picked up occasional, minor fluctuations in background levels in recent years. Hospitals with radiation-emitting equipment, such as positron emission tomography scanners, sometimes release radioactive gases into the atmosphere. “We think we were actually detecting those gases,” says Kearfott.
Kearfott was far from the only one left yearning for environmental measurements of radiation in the wake of Fukushima. At the time, there was a run on detector devices. “There was no real-time monitoring. Most of the systems that were in place…were government, so they were behind closed doors,” says Sean Bonner, cofounder of environmental monitoring non-profit Safecast.
He and collaborators initially helped to design DIY radiation detectors that people could make at home, as well as an online platform that would publish data from these devices worldwide. Today, 14 years on, there are more than 5,000 detectors on the network, which supply information to Safecast's digital map of radiation levels.
In the early days, as volunteers trudged around the streets of Tokyo, say, taking readings, the Safecast team soon realized that radiation levels varied noticeably even within the same street. “We would see much higher levels in rains off gutters and things,” says Bonner.
Kearfott's measurements are also affected when the wind blows in certain directions. And rain and snowfall move radiation readings, too. In 2023, ambient gamma radiation levels in Hong Kong rose after heavy rainfall washed radioactive decay products of radon—a radioactive gas that naturally occurs in the Earth's crust—out of the air and brought those decay products down to ground level. Background radiation levels are typically measured in microsieverts per hour. In Hong Kong, they might usually sit around 0.1 microsieverts per hour, for instance. But the weather and other factors can push measurements around within a range of roughly 0.06 to 0.3.
And a paper published last year explained that, in northern Spain in 2009, powerful storms known locally as Galernas—which feature intense winds and sometimes heavy rainfall—had induced a spike in radon-related radiation big enough to trigger false alarms in the Basque Country gamma ray monitoring network.
Bonner says Safecast has also found instances of tides in coastal areas affecting background levels slightly, as waves alter the distribution of radioactive rocks on beaches.
Today, some countries, such as Poland, publish data from their national radiation-monitoring systems in near-real-time on the open web, and such data is also available for many nations via the European Commission. And at the offices of the IAEA in Austria, staff have access to their own monitoring data. “We have a big map of the world and the data appears on that map,” says Marion Damien, response data officer at the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre, explaining that staff at the organization and also authorities within dozens of member countries have access to this map on their computers. Data from member nations appears in near real time, arriving within minutes or after up to an hour or so, says Damien.
I ask what the map looks like on the day we speak, in early December. Everywhere is green, except Fukushima and Chernobyl, she says. Higher levels can be visualized in yellow, orange, or red—the latter indicating 1,000 microsieverts per hour, or more. This was the kind of radiation level measured at the Fukushima power plant during the height of the crisis in 2011.
“The wonderful thing about this map [is] it doesn't discriminate,” says Damien. “We will see [any radiation] that is more than a certain threshold.” She adds that fluctuations in background radiation, for instance those caused by weather events, are not generally significant enough to have an impact on the environment or people. Though it's worth noting that exposure to radon gas, which can enter buildings in some areas depending on local geology, is associated with lung cancer. Your exposure over time may be affected if you live in an area where radon is present and where permafrost is also currently melting due to climate change, for instance, since this can allow more radon gas to escape from the ground.
Most people are not aware of how much radiation monitoring goes on around them all the time, including in public places. Airports have sophisticated radiation detectors, for example. In 2022, devices at Heathrow flagged a package that turned out to contain a small amount of uranium. There was no risk to the public, authorities said at the time.
Mirion is one of several companies that make radiation detectors. Their products are used for defense and security applications, as well as in nuclear power plants, laboratories, and research contexts. “If there's an incident in a nuclear plant like a fuel leak…these systems are connected to the safety system of the nuclear plant, so the nuclear plant will shut down,” explains James Cocks, chief technology officer. Area monitors suck particulate emitted by power plants onto filter paper, which can be analyzed to see whether or not there has been an uncontrolled release of radiation.
The company even makes a radiation detector designed to fit to the underside of a drone. Cocks says that, in the immediate aftermath of Fukushima, such was the need to collect data on radiation that someone drove around on a motorbike with a radiation detector. Drones would, today, offer a safer way of gathering such information, he suggests.
But Mirion also makes handheld detectors that can be carried by personnel keeping an eye on major sports events, for example. And these can distinguish between different types of radiation. You want to be able to tell, for example, whether your higher-than-normal readings are coming from a dirty bomb—or just someone who recently had medical treatment involving a radioisotope. “We can identify whether it's background, naturally occurring radiation…whether it's a medical radioisotope or whether it's…a fission product,” says Cocks.
And so one legacy of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters is that we now have hugely upgraded radiation-monitoring systems dotted around the world. There has been a marked increase in efforts to track radiation in the wake of those accidents, says Kearfott.
Bonner acknowledges that some people experience anxiety regarding radiation—now and again, a volunteer would build a Safecast detector, switch it on and “freak out” when it began detecting activity, he says. However, it is important to show how pervasive, and variable, background radiation really is, he says: “We absolutely believe that it's reassuring to let people know what's going on.”
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Antibiotic resistance is one of the most pressing—and quietly advancing—challenges facing modern medicine. Among the most dangerous bacterial pathogens driving this crisis is Klebsiella pneumoniae, a microorganism capable of causing severe infections while evading both antibiotics and the human immune system.
Now, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Füsun Can at Koç University School of Medicine has developed a novel diagnostic approach that enables the rapid and simultaneous detection of both antibiotic resistance and high virulence in Klebsiella pneumoniae. The research has been recognized with the 2025 Nature MDx Impact Award, highlighting its scientific originality and strong potential for real-world clinical impact.
Klebsiella pneumoniae normally exists harmlessly in the human gut and on the skin. However, in vulnerable patients—particularly those in hospital settings—it can cause life-threatening conditions such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and sepsis. In recent years, especially concerning strains have emerged that combine multidrug resistance with hypervirulence, making infections both harder to treat and more severe.
Prof. Dr. Can's team focused on precisely these strains. Their newly developed diagnostic system identifies, in a single and rapid test, the genetic markers responsible for both pathogenicity and antibiotic resistance. Until now, these features could only be assessed separately, often through time-consuming procedures that delayed effective treatment.
The ability to capture this critical information simultaneously represents a significant advance in molecular diagnostics.
Unlike viral outbreaks, bacterial resistance does not erupt suddenly—but its cumulative impact is profound. Delayed or inappropriate antibiotic treatment increases mortality risk, prolongs hospital stays, and accelerates the spread of resistant strains.
Rapid, accurate diagnosis is therefore central to effective clinical decision-making. By enabling clinicians to identify the most dangerous Klebsiella strains at an early stage, this new approach supports timely, targeted therapy and strengthens infection-control strategies in healthcare settings.
The Nature MDx Impact Award is presented to research that not only advances diagnostic science but also addresses urgent clinical needs. In its evaluation, Nature highlighted the project's originality, translational relevance, and potential for broad implementation.
The study's selection underscores the growing importance of molecular epidemiology and precision diagnostics in confronting the global antibiotic resistance crisis. The project is supported by international industry collaboration, further strengthening its pathway toward clinical application.
Beyond diagnostics, Prof. Dr. Can's research program aims to unravel how Klebsiella pneumoniae evades the immune system—a key step toward developing next-generation treatment strategies. Understanding these mechanisms could enable the design of novel therapeutic molecules, potentially supported by artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery.
As antibiotic resistance continues to challenge healthcare systems worldwide, this work offers a timely and concrete step forward—transforming molecular insight into tools that can save lives.
Koc University
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In the future, scientists could use drugs made from cannabis to fight ovarian cancer. A team of scientists testing the effects of two chemical compounds sourced from cannabis on ovarian cancer cells have found that both show promising anti-cancer effects. While more research will be required to turn these results into drugs which can be delivered to patients, these findings are an important opportunity to develop effective new therapies for a cancer which is hard to diagnose and even harder to treat.
"Ovarian cancer remains one of the deadliest gynecological malignancies, characterized by late diagnosis, high recurrence rates, and limited effective treatment options," said Dr. Siyao Tong of Khon Kaen University, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Pharmacology. "Our goal is to find alternative drugs that can improve efficacy and potentially reduce toxicity, ultimately bringing new hope to patients facing this challenging disease."
Of all the gynecological cancers, ovarian cancer kills most patients. Although there have been advances in treatment strategies, available drugs are not always effective and come with formidable side effects. New options are desperately needed. Since CBD (cannabidiol, which is not psychoactive) and THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is) have shown potential against other cancers, the research team decided to test them against ovarian cancer cells.
They took two different lines of ovarian cancer cells, one of which is sensitive to platinum-derived drugs and one of which is resistant, and challenged the lines with CBD, THC, or both, to see if the cells could survive and reproduce after exposure. The scientists also challenged a line of healthy cells, to see if the compounds damaged them.
They found that cells for both cancer lines which had been treated with CBD or THC formed fewer and smaller colonies of cells. Though both compounds worked to prevent cancer cells reproducing, combining them gave particularly good results. And although neither compound alone killed a large proportion of cancer cells, a combination of the two was very successful. It's possible that THC and CBD act on the cancer cells in different ways, and when used together, their effects are amplified.
Notably, the inhibitory effect was most pronounced when CBD and THC were used in a 1:1 ratio."
Dr. Siyao Tong of Khon Kaen University
Additional assays showed that the compounds prevented cells from migrating, which means they might be able to stop ovarian cancer spreading to other parts of the body. Many patients die of metastases, so a treatment which prevents metastasis could save lives.
Both cell lines were similarly affected, suggesting that the compounds could work equally well for different types of ovarian cancer. The compounds and their combinations also had minimal effects on healthy cells, which suggests that patients might find treatments made from them less toxic and easier to tolerate than current drugs.
To understand the mechanism behind these anti-cancer effects, the scientists looked at cell signaling pathways. The PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway is overactivated in ovarian cancer cells, which contributes to tumor development and treatment resistance. The CBD and THC compounds seemed to restore normal regulation of the pathway, which could explain why the cancer cells couldn't reproduce and began to die off after treatment.
But much more work remains to be done before these results can be translated into practical treatments. The scientists call for further research which can establish if and how these compounds can be used as effective new ovarian cancer therapies.
"Although our study is still preliminary, it lays an important foundation for future research into the potential applications of CBD and THC in ovarian cancer treatment," said Tong. "By confirming their anti-cancer activity and identifying key molecular mechanisms, our findings are expected to drive further preclinical research. If future studies confirm these effects, CBD-THC combination therapy may ultimately contribute to the development of new treatment strategies."
"However, this study has some limitations," Tong added. "All experiments were conducted in vitro, so the results may not fully reflect the complexity of tumor behavior in living organisms. We did not include in vivo models and pharmacokinetic data, which are crucial for determining whether CBD/THC can be safely and effectively used clinically. Finally, regulatory and legal issues surrounding cannabinoid therapy may also affect future translational research. While the results are encouraging, more studies are needed before these findings can be applied to patient treatment."
Frontiers
Tong, S., et al. (2025). Selective anti-cancer effects of cannabidiol and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol via PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibition and PTEN restoration in ovarian cancer cells. Frontiers in Pharmacology. doi:10.3389/fphar.2025.1693129. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2025.1693129/full
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Atelerix, a biotech company revolutionizing cell preservation and biological transport with its pioneering hydrogel encapsulation technology, today announced it has entered a partnership with Cherry Biotech, a French company specializing in organ-on-chip and organoid technologies for biomedical research.
The initial agreement will explore the integration of Atelerix's patented hydrogel technology with Cherry Biotech's advanced 3D organoid models to facilitate global extended-duration shipment. In collaboration, the companies aim to improve the reliability and consistency of transporting these temperature-sensitive materials without the complications of cold-chain logistics, enabling significant growth and expanded customer access to high-quality, human-relevant preclinical data worldwide. Through an initial 12-month trial period, both parties will validate their strategic and technical alignment, establishing the groundwork for a scalable, long-term commercial partnership.
Cherry Biotech's in vitro product range combine AI analysis, high-resolution live imaging and precisely controlled organoid culture to better predict the efficacy and safety of drugs, generating real life-like preclinical data. As part of the partnership, Atelerix's hydrogel technology will also be validated for the stable shipment of Cherry Biotech's recently released organoidPlate - an advanced multiwell plate with ready to use organoids for adipose tissue, breast cancer, liver and lung, which is now available for worldwide shipping.
The MoU builds on a test period whereby Cherry Biotech demonstrated strong performance of Atelerix's biosample preservation technology across multiple organ models, preserving membrane integrity and biological function at ambient or controlled temperatures.
This latest partnership with Cherry Biotech is a key step in expanding our commercial traction, broadening market reach, and increasing visibility for Atelerix's solutions. It is fantastic to work alongside such an innovative CRO, we are delighted that our preservation technology has already proven itself in delivering organoid models reliably and hassle-free to researchers worldwide. This partnership provides key validation, reinforcing the potential of ambient logistics to support the adoption of assay-ready animal model alternatives, advancing drug testing and better predicting human responses."
Alastair Carrington, CEO, Atelerix
Pierre Gaudriault, Chief Business Development Officer, Cherry Biotech, added: "Partnering with Atelerix strengthens our ability to deliver cutting-edge organoid models to researchers in pharma and academia worldwide. The hydrogel preservation technology maintains cell viability for days at room temperature, removing cold-chain constraints and reducing environmental footprint. This innovation brings unprecedented convenience and reliability to our customers. In short, Atelerix is making easy global shipping for our product possible."
Atelerix
Posted in: Cell Biology | Device / Technology News
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New research shows that 1 in 4 children with major traumatic injury do not receive care in a pediatric trauma center, where outcomes are generally better than in adult centers. The authors of the study, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250625, recommend evidence-based strategies to improve care for this vulnerable age group.
"Given the strong evidence of improved clinical outcomes associated with care in pediatric trauma centers, access to these centers in Canada must be improved urgently," writes Dr. Lynne Moore, professor, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Université Laval, Québec, Quebec, with coauthors. "Since most severely injured children first present to nonpediatric hospitals, the most effective strategies lie in strengthening decision support in prehospital environments and nonpediatric hospitals, not in costly new infrastructure."
Researchers found that in a study across 9 Canadian provinces over 5 years (2016 to 2021), 3007 children were admitted to an acute care hospital with major traumatic injuries. Of these, 2335 (77%) were directly transported (879, 29%) or transferred (1456, 48%) to a pediatric trauma center.
Pediatric trauma centers offer specialized health care and support for the specific physical and psychological needs of children and their families.
Variability in access to pediatric trauma centers exists, with higher access in Alberta and Manitoba than in Ontario, and lower access in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and the Atlantic provinces.
The authors suggest that provincial trauma systems integrate evidence-based strategies to improve access to pediatric care. A standardized prehospital triage tool adapted to pediatric patients, pediatric readiness assessments for nonpediatric hospitals, and teleconsultation pathways between referring hospitals and pediatric centers are some strategies.
"Immediate implementation of evidence-based strategies to improve care for children with major trauma, coupled with targeted research and national data coordination, would save lives and provide more equitable trauma care for children in Canada, regardless of where they live," the authors conclude.
Canadian Medical Association Journal
Lapierre, A., et al. (2025). Access to pediatric trauma centres in Canada: a population-based retrospective cohort study. Canadian Medical Association Journal. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.250625. https://www.cmaj.ca/content/197/43/E1472
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Dementia is a group of disorders that gradually impair memory, thinking and daily functioning. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, affects about 7.2 million Americans aged 65 and older in 2025. Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), while rarer, is the second most common cause of early-onset dementia, often striking people in their 40s to 60s.
Although both diseases damage the brain, they do so in distinct ways. AD primarily affects memory and spatial awareness, while FTD targets regions responsible for behavior, personality and language. Because their symptoms can overlap, it often leads to misdiagnosis. Distinguishing between them is not just a scientific challenge but a clinical necessity, as accurate diagnosis can profoundly affect treatment, care and quality of life.
MRI and PET scans are effective for diagnosing AD but are costly, time-consuming and require specialized equipment. Electroencephalography (EEG) offers a portable, non-invasive and affordable alternative by measuring brain activity with sensors across various frequency bands. However, signals are often noisy and vary between individuals, making analysis difficult. Even with machine learning applications to EEG data, results are inconsistent and differentiating AD from FTD remains difficult.
To tackle this issue, researchers from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University have created a deep learning model that detects and evaluates AD and FTD. It boosts EEG accuracy and interpretability by analyzing both frequency- and time-based brain activity patterns linked to each disease.
The results of the study, published in the journal Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, found that slow delta brain waves were an important biomarker for both AD and FTD, mainly in the frontal and central regions of the brain. In AD, brain activity was more widely disrupted, also affecting other regions of the brain and frequency bands like beta, indicating more extensive brain damage. These differences help explain why AD is typically easier to detect than FTD.
The model achieved more than 90% accuracy in distinguishing individuals with dementia (AD or FTD) from cognitively normal participants. It also predicted disease severity with relative errors of less than 35% for AD and 15.5% for FTD.
Because AD and FTD share similar symptoms and brain activity, telling them apart was difficult. Using feature selection, the researchers boosted the model's specificity – how well it identified people without the disease – from 26% to 65%. Their two-stage design – first detecting healthy individuals, then separating AD from FTD – achieved 84% accuracy, ranking among the best EEG-based methods so far.
The model merges convolutional neural networks and attention-based LSTMs to detect both the type and severity of dementia from EEG data. Grad-CAM shows which brain signals influenced the model, helping clinicians understand its decisions. This approach offers a new view of how brain activity evolves and which regions and frequencies drive diagnosis – something traditional tools rarely capture.
What makes our study novel is how we used deep learning to extract both spatial and temporal information from EEG signals. By doing this, we can detect subtle brainwave patterns linked to Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia that would otherwise go unnoticed. Our model doesn't just identify the disease – it also estimates how severe it is, offering a more complete picture of each patient's condition."
Tuan Vo, first author and doctoral student in the FAU Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The findings also revealed that AD tends to be more severe, impacting a wider range of brain areas and leading to lower cognitive scores, while FTD's effects are more localized to the frontal and temporal lobes. These insights align with previous neuroimaging studies but add new depth by showing how these patterns appear in EEG data – an inexpensive and noninvasive diagnostic tool.
"Our findings show that Alzheimer's disease disrupts brain activity more broadly, especially in the frontal, parietal and temporal regions, while frontotemporal dementia mainly affects the frontal and central areas," said Hanqi Zhuang, Ph.D., co-author and associate dean and professor, FAU Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "This difference explains why Alzheimer's is often easier to detect. However, our work also shows that careful feature selection can significantly improve how well we distinguish FTD from Alzheimer's."
Overall, the study shows that deep learning can streamline dementia diagnosis by combining detection and severity assessment in one system, cutting down on lengthy evaluations and giving clinicians real-time tools to track disease progression.
This work demonstrates how merging engineering, AI and neuroscience can transform how we confront major health challenges. With millions affected by Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia, breakthroughs like this open the door to earlier detection, more personalized care, and interventions that can truly improve lives."
Stella Batalama, Ph.D., Dean, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Florida Atlantic University
Study co-authors are Ali K. Ibrahim, Ph.D., an assistant professor of teaching; and Chiron Bang, a doctoral student, both with the FAU Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Florida Atlantic University
Vo, T., et al. (2025). Extraction and interpretation of EEG features for diagnosis and severity prediction of Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal dementia using deep learning. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control. doi: 10.1016/j.bspc.2025.108667. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1746809425011784?via%3Dihub
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Researchers estimate that, in 2022, about 890 million adults around the world — or one in every eight — were living with obesity.
While obesity can increase a person's risk for several health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and kidney disease, studies have also linked it to a heightened risk for a number of cancers.
Obesity-related cancers include thyroid, pancreatic, breast, kidney, colorectal, esophageal, liver, gallbladder, ovarian, gastric, and endometrial cancers, as well as the plasma cell cancer multiple myeloma and meningioma, which is a tumor that grows between the skull and spinal cord.
Now, a new study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine provides evidence suggesting that the currently popular glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist medications for weight loss, such as Wegovy and Zepbound, likely have little to no impact on a person's obesity-related cancer risk.
For this study, researchers analyzed findings from 48 previously-conducted trials examining the safety and efficacy of GLP-1 drugs on people with type 2 diabetes, overweight, or obesity, involving a total of more than 94,000 participants.
“GLP-1 receptor agonists are now being used by millions of people worldwide for diabetes and obesity, yet their long-term cancer safety has remained uncertain,” Cho-Han Chiang, MD, MMSc, clinician investigator in the Department of Medicine in Mount Auburn Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, and corresponding author of this study, told Medical News Today.
“Early observational studies and case reports raised concerns about potential links with certain cancers (e.g. thyroid, pancreatic cancers),” Chiang noted.
“At the same time, other observational studies have suggested a lower risk of certain cancers, particularly obesity-related cancers, with GLP-1RA use,” he added. “This mixture of signals has contributed to uncertainty in the field and the need to investigate further.”
Chiang said they chose to specifically study obesity-related cancers because these cancers are strongly influenced by excess adiposity, chronic inflammation, and metabolic dysregulation.
“Obesity increases the risk of these malignancies — there are 13 types of cancer recognized as associated with obesity — and GLP-1 receptor agonists produce meaningful and sustained weight loss,” he continued.
“This raises the question of whether GLP-1RAs could reduce the risk of obesity-related cancers. Recent observational studies have suggested possible protective associations — patients using GLP-1RAs appeared to have lower rates of certain obesity-related cancers.”
“However, these are data from non-randomized studies with [the] possibility of confounding factors at play,” Chiang noted.
“Our study pulls together cancer events across large randomized clinical trials to provide a more rigorous and comprehensive assessment of cancer risk with GLP-1RAs,“ he told us. “It helps fill a critical gap for clinicians, regulators, and patients who must balance substantial metabolic and cardiovascular benefits against theoretical long-term cancer risks.”
At the study's conclusion, researchers determined that GLP-1 drugs probably had little to no impact on the risk for thyroid, pancreatic, breast, or kidney cancers.
“The significance of this finding is that it directly addresses several long-standing safety concerns,” Chiang said.
“For example, thyroid cancer and pancreatic cancer have been mentioned prior as potential areas of risk for GLP-1 receptor agonists. However, much of that concern came from small signals, preclinical studies, or observational data that were prone to confounding,” he noted.
“At the same time, it is important to emphasize that trial follow-up is still relatively short for cancers that develop over many years,” Chiang continued.
“Our results suggest that current GLP-1RA use does not appear to meaningfully increase short- to intermediate-term risk, but they do not rule out the possibility of effects, harmful or beneficial, over longer durations. Continued long-term surveillance will be essential.”
– Cho-Han Chiang, MD, MMSc
Chiang and his team also concluded that the evidence was of low certainty for colorectal, esophageal, and liver cancers risk, and that the impact of GLP-1 drugs on gastric cancer risk was very uncertain.
“The significance of these findings is that they highlight areas where current evidence is simply too limited to draw firm conclusions, even across large randomized trials,” Chiang explained. “For colorectal, esophageal, liver, and gastric cancer, the number of events in trials was very small, and follow-up durations were relatively short.”
As this study shows that GLP-1 medications probably have little or no effect on obesity-related cancer risk, MNT asked Chiang if it is possible that these drugs may offer a protective effect against these cancers.
“Based on our analysis of randomized trials, GLP-1 medications probably have little or no effect on obesity-related cancer risk within the follow-up periods studied,” he responded. “However, this does not rule out the possibility of a protective effect over longer durations. In fact, there are several reasons why a protective effect has been hypothesized.”
“First, obesity is a major driver of several cancers through chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, and hormonal and metabolic pathways,” Chiang detailed.
“GLP-1 receptor agonists produce substantial weight loss and improve metabolic health, which could theoretically reduce the incidence of obesity-related cancers over time. Second, several recent observational studies have reported lower rates of certain cancers among GLP-1RA users,” he explained.
“Because randomized trials to date have relatively short follow-up and few cancer events, they may not yet capture long-term or delayed protective effects,” Chiang continued.
“From the perspective of current evidence, our study suggests that a clear protective effect has not yet been demonstrated in randomized data, but the possibility remains biologically plausible and supported by some real-world signals,” said the researcher.
MNT had the opportunity to speak with Anton Bilchik, MD, PhD, surgical oncologist, chief of medicine, and director of the Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Program at Providence Saint John's Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, CA, about this study.
His first reaction to the findings is that it needs a longer follow-up to come to the conclusion that GLP-1 drugs do not reduce the chances of getting obesity-related cancers, as the follow-up was only 1 to 2 years.
“The other issue with the study is that cancer was not a primary endpoint of the trials that they looked at […] so that in itself is certainly an issue in how this data is interpreted,” Bilchik continued.
“And finally, which I think is most important and a lot more research has to be done, is we do not know how long the people in these trials have been obese for. Suggesting that obesity-related cancers may start occurring earlier on, and then patients get these GLP-1 drugs that reduce weight, at which point the cancer cells have already started forming,” he told us.
“The GLP-1 drugs are truly the most exciting type of medication that has been approved in the last few years, given the massive epidemic of obesity and the relationship between obesity and cardiovascular disease … and other conditions such as cancer,” he added.
“Given the fact that we have this very effective way of treating what is an epidemic in this country, […] we need to know every possible aspect about these drugs, both the good and the bad,” noted Bilchik.
MNT also spoke with Mir Ali, MD, a board-certified general surgeon, bariatric surgeon, and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, about this research.
“As these [GLP-1] drugs are widely prescribed and there are still limitations on insurance coverage, finding more effects of these medications and long-term benefits may help make these drugs available to more people,” Ali commented.
“I would like to see if the degree of weight loss and the amount of time the weight is kept off affects cancer risk in obesity related cancers,” he told us.
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Mauricio Wajngarten, MD, PhD
DISCLOSURESDISCLOSURESAuthor
Mauricio Wajngarten, MD, PhD
Cardiologist, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Mauricio Wajngarten, MD, PhD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
December 15, 2025
Cardiologist, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Mauricio Wajngarten, MD, PhD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
It is generally accepted that patients who experience a first episode of unprovoked venous thromboembolism (VTE) — meaning without reversible risk factors — should receive prolonged oral anticoagulation (OAC). However, treatment carries a risk for major bleeding and death, with the risk for death after a major bleeding event estimated to be two to three times higher than the risk for death after recurrent VTE.As a result, determining the ideal duration of anticoagulant treatment after a first unprovoked VTE event remains a challenge. A recent study compared the effects of continuing or stopping OAC treatment on clinical outcomes in patients with unprovoked VTE following an initial treatment period of at least 90 days.
The study included adults diagnosed with VTE who started OAC treatment — either warfarin or a direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) — within 30 days of first hospital admission for unprovoked VTE without reversible risk factors. All participants received at least 90 days of treatment.
The cohort was matched 1:1 by propensity score, creating 30,554 matched pairs of patients who continued or stopped OAC treatment (mean age, 74 years; 57% women). After the initial OAC treatment period of at least 90 days, patients who stopped treatment had significantly lower rates of recurrent VTE, higher rates of major bleeding, lower mortality, and a greater net clinical benefit. The greater net clinical benefit was observed across all types of OACs and all treatment durations.
The study concluded that continuing OAC therapy for at least 90 days was associated with a lower risk of recurrent VTE but a higher risk of major bleeding. Notably, the net clinical benefit persisted for patients who continued OAC for at least 3 years after the initial VTE event.
The study offers important insights into the efficacy, safety, and net benefit of long-term OAC treatment for patients with unprovoked VTE. An accompanying editorial points to ongoing uncertainties about how to identify patients with different risk profiles for bleeding and thromboembolic events. Such information would be invaluable for personalizing treatment plans. Based on the study findings, the editorialists suggest several practical recommendations:
This story was translated from Medscape's Portuguese edition.
Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD/Medscape or its affiliates.
Researchers in Sweden are testing whether a brain-healthy MIND diet can be realistically adopted by adults with obesity, laying the groundwork for future trials linking diet, gut health, and mental well-being.
Study: Exploring the interplay between diet, obesity, mental health, and the gut microbiota: the MIND-GUT intervention study, study protocol. Image Credit: Tijana Moraca / Shutterstock
In a recent study protocol published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers described an ongoing investigation into whether a Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet is practical, acceptable, and feasible for adults with obesity.
The results of this study will provide feasibility data and preliminary evidence to inform future trials examining links among diet, the gut microbiome, mental health, and obesity, thereby guiding strategies to promote physical and psychological well-being.
Mental health disorders and obesity frequently occur together and contribute substantially to both personal suffering and public health costs. The pathways linking these conditions remain unclear, but growing evidence suggests diet plays a meaningful role in both weight management and emotional well-being.
In Sweden, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has steadily increased over the past two decades, particularly among young adults. More than half of Swedish adults are now above a healthy weight, with marked differences across sex, country of birth, and education levels. These trends underscore the need for preventive strategies that address both physical and mental health.
Diet-induced weight loss has been associated with improved mood in people with obesity, but psychological benefits may also arise through diet–microbiota interactions. Dietary patterns shape the gut microbiome, which is involved in metabolic regulation and stress- and mood-related pathways.
The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet prioritizes foods rich in antioxidants, fiber, and healthy fats that support cognitive and gut health. Rather than fully combining Mediterranean and DASH diets, the MIND diet selectively emphasizes components thought to benefit brain and metabolic health. If shown to be practical and acceptable, this pattern may support weight loss and mental well-being in Sweden.
The MIND-GUT study is a randomized clinical trial with two arms: a MIND-diet intervention group and a control group receiving standard healthy-eating advice. A total of 126 adults aged 25 to 50 years with obesity will be recruited from primary care clinics and the community in the Västra Götaland Region of Sweden. The sample size allows robust feasibility estimates while accounting for expected dropout.
Participants must have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 30 kg/m², internet access, and willingness to complete all procedures. If recruitment is challenging, the BMI threshold may be lowered to 27 kg/m². Exclusion criteria include conditions or treatments that could interfere with dietary change, gut microbiota composition, or mental health outcomes, such as use of weight-loss medication, diabetes, or polycystic ovary syndrome. Ethical approval was obtained, and informed consent procedures emphasized privacy and autonomy.
At baseline and at 12 weeks, trained staff will collect physical measurements including weight, height, body composition, blood pressure, and waist and hip circumferences. Participants will complete online questionnaires assessing demographics, lifestyle behaviors, psychosocial well-being, eating attitudes, gut symptoms, and dietary intake.
Mental health outcomes are assessed using validated self-report instruments measuring anxiety, depressive symptoms, and perceived stress rather than clinical diagnoses. Adherence is measured using a simplified food checklist targeting key MIND diet components at baseline, week 6, and week 12.
Intervention participants receive a structured MIND-diet meal plan emphasizing leafy greens, berries, olive oil, whole grains, legumes, nuts, poultry, and fish. Daily energy intake is capped at 2,300 kcal for men and 1,900 kcal for women. Control participants receive standard dietary advice aligned with Swedish guidelines without targeted MIND components.
Both groups are encouraged to limit alcohol and avoid soft drinks, and both receive regular reminders, newsletters, and consultations to support retention. After 12 weeks, participants complete qualitative interviews exploring acceptability, barriers, and suggestions for improvement.
Participants provide stool samples at baseline, week 6, and week 12 to capture microbiome dynamics. Samples are stored at home and deferred if there is a recent illness, fever, diarrhea, or antibiotic use that could affect results. Laboratory processing is randomized to reduce batch effects.
Primary outcomes include adherence, retention, and acceptability. Secondary outcomes include changes in gut microbiota, anxiety, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, weight, fat mass, waist-to-hip ratio, and BMI. Analyses are exploratory and intended to inform future efficacy trials.
This protocol evaluates whether a MIND-diet–based intervention can be realistically implemented in adults with obesity, a necessary step before scaling interventions targeting both physical and mental health.
If feasible, this approach could inform personalized dietary strategies and public health policies promoting brain-healthy eating. By integrating diet quality, emotional well-being, and gut microbiota, the study aims to provide foundational evidence for future large-scale trials addressing multiple dimensions of obesity-related health.
Posted in: Men's Health News | Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News | Women's Health News
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Priyanjana Pramanik is a writer based in Kolkata, India, with an academic background in Wildlife Biology and economics. She has experience in teaching, science writing, and mangrove ecology. Priyanjana holds Masters in Wildlife Biology and Conservation (National Centre of Biological Sciences, 2022) and Economics (Tufts University, 2018). In between master's degrees, she was a researcher in the field of public health policy, focusing on improving maternal and child health outcomes in South Asia. She is passionate about science communication and enabling biodiversity to thrive alongside people. The fieldwork for her second master's was in the mangrove forests of Eastern India, where she studied the complex relationships between humans, mangrove fauna, and seedling growth.
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
APA
Pramanik, Priyanjana. (2025, December 14). A new trial investigates whether the MIND diet can be scaled for obesity management. News-Medical. Retrieved on December 15, 2025 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20251214/A-new-trial-investigates-whether-the-MIND-diet-can-be-scaled-for-obesity-management.aspx.
MLA
Pramanik, Priyanjana. "A new trial investigates whether the MIND diet can be scaled for obesity management". News-Medical. 15 December 2025.
A large meta-analysis suggests that vaping is not cardiovascularly neutral, with elevated heart attack risk concentrated among people who previously smoked, raising questions about e-cigarettes as harm-reduction tools.
Study: Are electronic cigarettes associated with the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Image Credit: magnet studio / Shutterstock
In a recent systematic review and meta-analysis published in the journal BMC Public Health, researchers investigated the association between electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use and the risk of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke. The study pooled data from 12 observational studies involving large population samples to examine whether vaping is linked to cardiovascular outcomes while accounting for conventional cigarette smoking.
Analyses showed that e-cigarette users had 53% higher odds of MI compared with non-users. Notably, among former cigarette smokers who currently use e-cigarettes, the odds of a heart attack were more than doubled. These findings raise concerns about the cardiovascular safety of e-cigarettes and indicate that they should not be assumed to be risk-free alternatives.
For decades, cigarette smoking has been recognized as a major risk factor for coronary artery disease, hypertension, and stroke. In response, the tobacco industry introduced electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), commonly referred to as e-cigarettes or “vapes,” and promoted them as harm-reduction tools to aid smoking cessation.
These devices aerosolize nicotine-containing liquids that typically include propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, and flavoring agents. When heated, propylene glycol can generate aldehydes and other reactive compounds that are known contributors to cardiovascular disease.
Despite rapid global uptake, the cardiovascular safety of e-cigarettes remains controversial. Human studies have produced conflicting results, with some suggesting lower risk for exclusive vapers, while others were limited by cross-sectional designs, residual confounding by smoking history, or potential industry-related conflicts of interest.
As a result, a comprehensive analysis that carefully accounts for conventional cigarette smoking is needed to clarify the independent cardiovascular risks associated with vaping.
The present study addressed this gap using a systematic review and meta-analysis (SRMA) conducted in accordance with the 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Conventional cigarette smoking was treated as a key confounder and subgroup variable.
Researchers searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science for studies published between January 2005 and June 2025. Eligible studies included observational designs and randomized trials involving human participants that reported the prevalence or incidence of MI or stroke.
Studies with reported financial ties to the tobacco industry were excluded to minimize bias. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria, comprising 430,875 participants for MI analyses and more than 1.1 million participants for stroke analyses.
Random-effects models were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to quantify associations between e-cigarette use and cardiovascular outcomes.
Overall, e-cigarette use was associated with a 53% higher odds of MI compared with non-use (OR 1.53, 95% CI 1.17–1.89). After adjustment for cigarette smoking, the association remained statistically significant but attenuated (OR 1.24, 95% CI 1.11–1.37).
Former cigarette smokers who currently use e-cigarettes had a 2.52-fold higher odds of MI compared with non-users (OR 2.52, 95% CI 1.88–3.16). The authors note that this may reflect residual confounding or cumulative effects of prior smoking rather than a direct causal effect of vaping alone.
Stroke outcomes were less consistent. Overall, e-cigarette users showed no statistically significant increase in stroke risk (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.91–1.19), and smoking-adjusted analyses were similarly non-significant.
However, among former smokers who currently use e-cigarettes, stroke odds were significantly higher at 73% above non-users (OR 1.73, 95% CI 1.30–2.15).
Among exclusive e-cigarette users who had never smoked combustible cigarettes, no significant association was observed for MI (OR 0.96) or stroke (OR 0.97). These estimates were based on limited data and may be affected by misclassification of smoking status.
This systematic review suggests that e-cigarette use is associated with increased odds of myocardial infarction, particularly among individuals with a history of cigarette smoking. Although exclusive vaping among never-smokers was not associated with statistically significant cardiovascular risk in this analysis, the elevated risk observed among former smokers raises concerns about the use of e-cigarettes as harm-reduction or transition tools.
Most included studies were cross-sectional, limiting causal inference, and substantial heterogeneity, publication bias, and residual confounding remain important limitations. The authors conclude that further high-quality longitudinal studies are required and that e-cigarettes should not be considered harmless from a cardiovascular perspective.
Posted in: Men's Health News | Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News | Women's Health News
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Hugo Francisco de Souza is a scientific writer based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. His academic passions lie in biogeography, evolutionary biology, and herpetology. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. from the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, where he studies the origins, dispersal, and speciation of wetland-associated snakes. Hugo has received, amongst others, the DST-INSPIRE fellowship for his doctoral research and the Gold Medal from Pondicherry University for academic excellence during his Masters. His research has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and Systematic Biology. When not working or writing, Hugo can be found consuming copious amounts of anime and manga, composing and making music with his bass guitar, shredding trails on his MTB, playing video games (he prefers the term ‘gaming'), or tinkering with all things tech.
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Francisco de Souza, Hugo. (2025, December 14). E-cigarette use is linked to higher heart attack risk, especially in former smokers. News-Medical. Retrieved on December 15, 2025 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20251214/E-cigarette-use-is-linked-to-higher-heart-attack-risk-especially-in-former-smokers.aspx.
MLA
Francisco de Souza, Hugo. "E-cigarette use is linked to higher heart attack risk, especially in former smokers". News-Medical. 15 December 2025.
Swapping common snack foods for a modest daily portion of tree nuts curbed cravings for sweets and fast foods and lifted diet quality scores in young adults with early cardiometabolic risk, without weight gain or adverse metabolic effects.
Study: Consuming Tree Nuts Daily as Between-Meal Snacks Reduces Food Cravings and Improves Diet Quality in American Young Adults at High Metabolic Syndrome Risk. Image Credit: volartman / Shutterstock
In a recent study published in the journal Nutrients, a group of researchers tested whether replacing typical high-carbohydrate snacks with tree nuts reduces food cravings and improves diet quality among young adults in the United States at elevated metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk.
One in three American young adults shows a cardiometabolic warning sign, and snacks now add about 200 to 300 extra kilocalories daily. Cookies, chips, and sugary drinks are cheap and everywhere, but small swaps can change habits. Nutrient-dense snacks like nuts, fruit, and yogurt are rich in fiber, unsaturated fats, and minerals. Diet quality, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), is associated with lower risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mortality. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) link nut snacking to higher HEI scores. Further research should test whether structured nut snacking reduces cravings and improves HEI scores in at-risk youth.
Young adults were screened for at least one MetS risk factor and enrolled if weight-stable, with body mass index (BMI) 24.5 to 34.9 kg/m² and age 22 to 36 years. After a two-week run-in on a standardized eucaloric menu, participants were randomized in a parallel, single-blind design to twice-daily tree-nut or high-carbohydrate snacks for sixteen weeks.
Menus were created in the Nutrition Data System for Research (NDSR) to provide three meals and two snacks (25 to 35% fat, 45 to 55% carbohydrate, 15 to 20% protein); snack energy was 15 to 20% of daily energy needs, estimated from resting energy expenditure and activity.
Tree-nut snacks were a 33.5-gram mix of unsalted almonds, walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, and cashews; comparators were unsalted pretzels, animal crackers, graham crackers, and granola-type bars matched for energy, protein, fiber, and sodium.
Food cravings were measured with the Food Craving Inventory (FCI); intake with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 24-hour multi-pass recall; food frequency with the Rapid Eating Assessment for Participants (REAP); and diet quality with the HEI-2015. Fasting blood assessed glucose by enzymatic assay and insulin, ghrelin, glucagon, and adiponectin by radioimmunoassay, with total glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) also measured. Fullness was rated on visual analog scales (VAS). Outcomes were assessed at baseline, after the run-in period, and at the end of the sixteen-week intervention. Within-group change used Wilcoxon tests; between-group change used general linear models.
Eighty-four participants completed the intervention (40 tree-nut; 44 high-carbohydrate), with a mean age of 28.5 years and a mean BMI of 28.4 kg/m². Groups were comparable at baseline with respect to age, sex, BMI, activity, MetS risk score, energy intake, and macronutrient distribution.
After sixteen weeks, the tree-nut group reported broad, specific reductions in cravings. Item-level scores declined for cookies (−0.63 ± 1.03), brownies (−0.45 ± 0.71), donuts (−0.40 ± 0.90), candy (−0.33 ± 0.92), ice cream (−0.55 ± 1.08), chips (−0.33 ± 1.03), and pizza (−0.33 ± 0.57), with significant decreases in the FCI high-sweet and fast-food subscales. In contrast, the high-carbohydrate group showed no significant reductions in any craving subscale.
Preference for sweet taste also fell among tree-nut participants (−12.5% reporting “sweet” preference). Behavior followed desire: the tree-nut group reduced the weekly frequency of frozen desserts (−0.18 ± 0.64) and salty snacks (−0.41 ± 0.88) and increased the frequency of higher-protein servings, including seafood and plant proteins (a modeled increase equivalent to roughly +4.37 daily servings in cup equivalents, rather than an absolute intake level). Only one notable dietary change occurred in the high-carbohydrate group, a decrease in fruit servings.
Diet quality improved meaningfully with tree nuts. HEI total score rose from 52.0 ± 17.1 to 62.0 ± 12.2 (mean change +10.01; about +19%). Gains were driven by higher fatty-acid scores (+4.33 ± 4.09), higher protein scores (+0.70 ± 1.71), better sodium scores (+2.20), and improved refined-grain scores; the dairy component fell modestly. No HEI category improved in the high-carbohydrate group, and total HEI was unchanged.
Regression modeling indicated that about half of the variance in HEI change was explained by increased tree-nut intake, higher intake of mono- and polyunsaturated fats, more high-protein servings, and lower salty-snack frequency and sodium intake, after adjusting for sex, age, and baseline BMI.
Physiology is aligned with eating patterns. In the tree-nut group, total GLP-1 increased (144.2 ± 57.5 to 160.6 ± 55.7 pg/mL) as did total ghrelin; rises in total GLP-1 were associated inversely with cravings for cake (r = −0.35), brownies (r = −0.44), candy (r = −0.36), and ice cream (r = −0.33). Despite a decrease in total food mass consumed, energy intake showed no statistically significant change. Body weight remained stable with tree nuts, and VAS ratings of hunger and fullness did not change. Adiponectin concentrations declined significantly in both groups over the intervention period, a finding of uncertain short-term clinical significance.
By contrast, the high-carbohydrate group increased energy intake by about 349 kilocalories per day and gained approximately 0.78 kilograms, alongside trends toward more hunger and less fullness. Fasting glucose and insulin were unchanged in both groups over 16 weeks, indicating that appetite and quality shifts occurred without short-term changes in glycemia.
Because the trial was single-blind and relied heavily on self-reported cravings and dietary intake, some expectancy or reporting bias cannot be excluded. Altogether, substituting tree nuts for typical snacks curbed cravings for calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods, nudged choices toward protein-rich, nutrient-dense options, and raised HEI scores in young adults at metabolic risk.
In young adults with early cardiometabolic risk, structured tree-nut snacking reduced cravings for sweets and fast foods, shifted choices away from frozen desserts and salty snacks, and raised HEI scores by roughly 19% without changing weight. Rises in GLP-1 were associated with lower cravings, consistent with a potential gut-brain signaling role rather than a demonstrated causal mechanism. Replacing high-carbohydrate staples with a modest portion of mixed nuts is a pragmatic step households can take to improve diet quality, while clinicians can pair this swap with counseling emphasizing seafood and plant proteins. Findings may not generalize to older adults, individuals with established metabolic disease, or populations outside the controlled feeding context. Larger, longer trials should test durability, nut-type specificity, and broader generalizability.
Posted in: Child Health News | Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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Vijay holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and possesses a deep passion for microbiology. His academic journey has allowed him to delve deeper into understanding the intricate world of microorganisms. Through his research and studies, he has gained expertise in various aspects of microbiology, which includes microbial genetics, microbial physiology, and microbial ecology. Vijay has six years of scientific research experience at renowned research institutes such as the Indian Council for Agricultural Research and KIIT University. He has worked on diverse projects in microbiology, biopolymers, and drug delivery. His contributions to these areas have provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter and the ability to tackle complex research challenges.
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APA
Kumar Malesu, Vijay. (2025, December 14). Swapping high-carb snacks for tree nuts cuts food cravings in young adults at metabolic risk. News-Medical. Retrieved on December 15, 2025 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20251214/Swapping-high-carb-snacks-for-tree-nuts-cuts-food-cravings-in-young-adults-at-metabolic-risk.aspx.
MLA
Kumar Malesu, Vijay. "Swapping high-carb snacks for tree nuts cuts food cravings in young adults at metabolic risk". News-Medical. 15 December 2025.
Airbnb hosts in U.S. World Cup cities “could earn $4,000 on average by renting out their homes during the tournament,” according to Sami Sparber of AXIOS. Roughly 2.1 million tourists needing a place to stay will visit the 11 host cities next year, including “an estimated 232,000 Airbnb guests,” per a report. N.Y.-New Jersey, which hosts the July 19 final, “could see nearly $6,000 in average Airbnb earnings.” The company has “partnered with FIFA” to support host cities (AXIOS, 12/13).
Business
By Eric PrisbellStaff Writer
Staff Writer
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science's interactive soccer exhibit has two top-tier sponsors — Verizon and Amazon — and a host of other corporate partners as it gears up for its March opening a few months before FIFA World Cup matches begin in Dallas-Fort Worth.
The “Soccer: More Than a Game” exhibit is a 10,000-square-foot project that will allow visitors to test their kicking skills, work on game strategy and learn about how innovation is reshaping the sport.
Linda Silver, the Perot's chief executive officer, told The Dallas Morning News that roughly 75% of the sponsorship opportunities related to the soccer project are new to the museum.
“There will be sponsor signage as people come into the exhibition, so they'll all be recognized there,” Silver said. “So visitors and families will see that Amazon and Verizon are front and center. They will see some of the other sponsor names as well.”
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Other sponsors of the exhibit include American Airlines, Bank of America, Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District, Kroger, Lonsdale Resources, SELECT Sport, Texas Counter Fitters, Texas Instruments, City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture and Visit Dallas.
Beginning in June, D-FW is hosting nine World Cup matches, the most of any of the 16 North American sites.
Michelle Miller, senior vice president at Verizon, said emphasizing the theme “‘Dallas, we've got you covered' is really something that we've been championing across the board. With the World Cup games coming here to Dallas, it was just a perfect connection. We love the fact that it equips visitors with hands-on experiences, so that science and technology and data analytics really are what inspire the future innovators of our community.”
Within the exhibit, Verizon is the presenting sponsor of The Academy, where visitors can display their soccer skills through a bevy of games. Verizon is also a global sponsor of the World Cup, serving as the official telecommunication services sponsor.
Vickie Yakunin, Amazon's head of community affairs for Texas, said in a statement that because soccer on a global scale embodies “curiosity, creativity and shared purpose,” it aligns well with Amazon's values.
Amazon is the presenting sponsor of the Coaching Lab for Excellence in Athletics, Technology and Science, which will give visitors a deep dive into game strategy and data analytics.
Currently being built in Salt Lake City, the exhibit opens March 7. It will include numerous stations, including one to build a soccer stadium with Lego-like blocks and scan it into a digital model. The exercise pushes designers to consider energy and water efficiency in their stadium builds.
Since 2022, when Dallas was named a World Cup host city, the Perot has collaborated with Mexico City's Museo Interactivo de Economía, which is known for its interactive takes on economics, finance and sustainability. A companion exhibit at the Mexico museum will further explore the cultural and economic impact of soccer across North America.
“We've also approached sponsors together, because sponsors who want one leg in Mexico City and one leg in Dallas, this is the perfect opportunity for them to get exposure in two countries,” Silver said. “There are some that chose just to sponsor in Mexico City, some that just chose to sponsor here, and some that are getting recognition in both places.”
Eric Prisbell is the senior sports business reporter at The Dallas Morning News. He spent more than 17 years as a national reporter at The Washington Post, USA Today and Sports Business Journal. Eric is a seven-time APSE award winner; four of his stories received honorable mention recognition in the Best of American Sports Writing anthologies.
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Football
Scotland boss Steve Clarke urged fans not to put themselves into debt to secure World Cup tickets next summer; tickets cost between £134 to £525 for group stage games; the Association of Tartan Army Clubs (ATAC) branded the costs "disgraceful and disgusting"
Monday 15 December 2025 17:17, UK
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Scotland boss Steve Clarke has warned fans against taking on financial debt to travel and support the team at next summer's World Cup.
The national boss described the country as gripped by "World Cup fever" since qualifying for the finals for the first time in 28 years with an unforgettable 4-2 win over Denmark at Hampden Park in November.
Scotland have been drawn against Brazil, Morocco and Haiti in Group C, with tickets costing between £134 to £524. The Association of Tartan Army Clubs (ATAC) branded the costs "disgraceful and disgusting".
Speaking on the day that supporter club members can apply for tickets against Haiti and Morocco in Boston, as well as the fixture against Brazil in Miami, Clarke pleaded with the fanbase to not exceed their financial capabilities to attend the tournament.
Fans who do not receive any through the Scotland Supporters Club will have to deal with FIFA's dynamic pricing model and resale costs.
"We can't control the prices," Clarke told Sky Sports News. "Listen, it's expensive to go to America anyway.
"If you can afford to go, then great. But if you can't afford to go, then understand it. Don't put yourself and your family into debt.
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"The tickets are set. The ticket prices are set with FIFA. My biggest wish is that people don't put themselves into too much debt trying to get there.
"Even if you're going on holiday to America, you need to save up and you need to save up and you need to save up to get across the Atlantic and have your holiday there. So it's always going to be an expensive World Cup.
"I think that's a big thing for me. I'd like to think that with the smaller allocation that we've got, that a lot of the fans will travel everywhere. I'm talking about going to the far-flung places, but maybe only 1,200 people will turn up.
"I'd like to think that all those fans have got the chance to have a ticket to get to some of the matches.
"I've known some of them, not very well, but I've known them and have seen them around the place. I'm quite sure they'll find some great ways to do that."
Football Supporters Europe (FSE) stated that rather than adopting a standard price across all group matches, pricing appeared to have been calculated "dependent on vague criteria such as the perceived attractiveness of the fixture".
Dynamic pricing will be used in some phases of World Cup ticket sales. However, the governing body has confirmed that it will not apply during the main ballot. The price you see at the start of the window will be the same at the end.
The official 2026 World Cup bid said the cheapest tickets all the way through the tournament would range from $21 (£15) to $128 (£96).
Tickets for the Euro 2024 final between England and Spain in Berlin were available from £83.
FIFA is refusing to comment after releasing the World Cup ticket prices although it did say that there had been five million ticket requests in 24 hours, which "underlines soaring global demand".
FIFA's position on ticket prices has always been that it is a non-profit organisation and any money it makes from ticket sales is reinvested in football.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Football Supporters Association (SFSA) have written to SFA CEO Ian Maxwell, regarding ticket pricing after revealing they have been inundated with correspondence from members.
Whilst recognising the SFA's limited direct influence over FIFA's pricing strategy, the SFSA say the national association should "formally and robustly convey to FIFA the depth of anger and alienation this has caused".
They added that "the current pricing and allocation framework is not merely unpopular; it is fundamentally misjudged".
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Injury-plagued former Arsenal defender Takehiro Tomiyasu is finally set to return to football after finding a new club following his exit from the Emirates Stadium. The Japan international left the Gunners in July this year after the Premier League giants agreed a contract termination with the full-back, who had struggled with injuries in the last few seasons.
Tomiyasu left Arsenal after four years, having played just six minutes of football in the 2024-25 season due to knee surgery. At the time of his release, the defender was not expected to return to full fitness for another five months. The club mutually agreed with the 26-year-old to terminate his contract, which was due to expire in 2026.
The official statement from the Gunners had read: "We have reached a mutual agreement with Takehiro Tomiyasu to end his contract with immediate effect. The 26-year-old defender, who joined us from Bologna in August 2021, made 84 appearances in all competitions during his time with the club. Unfortunately, injuries have limited Tomi's time on the pitch in the past two seasons, with the defender making just one substitute appearance last season. It was therefore mutually agreed to end Tomi's contract in order for him to start a new chapter in his career. Everyone at Arsenal Football Club would like to thank Tomi for his contribution to the club and we wish him and his family all the best for the future."
According to Fabrizio Romano, Tomiyasu has now verbally agreed to join Dutch giants Ajax on a short-term deal, which will be valid until 2026. The ex-Gunners will undergo a medical on Tuesday at the Eedivisie side and if all goes well for the player, he will put pen to paper in the next few days.
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Known as a reliable performer and strong defender, Tomiyasu has not been able to stay consistently fit in the last few years and this had curtailed his time in north London. Tomiyasu, who is used to playing at the right-back position, has featured across the back line for the Gunners.
But with the emergence of the likes of Jurrien Timber, Riccardo Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly as full-backs since last season, in addition to Tomiyasu's former right-back competitor Ben White still amongst the ranks, Mikel Arteta might have felt that his squad had moved on in Tomiyasu's extended absence. Therefore, the Japanese full-back's departure was always on the cards.
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While Arsenal continue to lead the Premier League title race and are two points clear of Manchester City in the table, their performance in recent matches has dipped after starting the 2025-26 season in red-hot form. On Saturday, the Gunners picked up a hard-fought win over rock bottom side Wolves and after the game, Arteta acknowledged the team's shortcomings.
The Spaniard said: "It was a relief, but we have a very clear understanding that the margins should have been bigger. We generated more chances in the second half, but after that we had a period of two or three minutes in deep, totally passive, with horrible defensive habits that are nowhere near the levels required. The first time they had an opportunity to score, they did. We should have stopped the shots before, and that is on us."
When speaking to BBC Match of the Day, Arteta summed up the chaotic evening in blunt terms. "It was a rollercoaster," he said. "The longer the game went on, they had hope and we had to accelerate our game and take more risks. We did find a way and that's a very positive thing, if not we'd be very frustrated and rightly so, but there are things to improve obviously."
Arteta's men will next face Everton in the Premier League on December 20 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
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Inter Miami CF have secured the services of experienced Spanish left back Sergio Reguilón on a long-term contract, the club announced Monday. The 28-year-old defender joins as a free agent after his departure from English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur and will remain with the Herons through December 2027, with a club option that could extend his stay until December 2028.
Reguilón's arrival addresses a significant void in Inter Miami's defensive lineup following the retirement of Spanish legend Jordi Alba, who concluded his illustrious career after helping the club secure the 2025 MLS Cup presented by Audi. The new signing brings considerable European pedigree to South Florida, having competed at the highest levels of club football throughout his career.
"It's a very ambitious project, a winning club that is doing things the right way, and that's what attracted me: coming here to keep winning and competing," Reguilón said as per the club's statement. "My objective is to keep winning, go after the trophies we're missing, and win everything here."
Reguilón brings extensive experience from Europe's most competitive environments, having accumulated more than 260 professional appearances throughout his career. His resume includes 81 matches in the English Premier League and 56 in Spain's La Liga, along with valuable experience in prestigious continental competitions, including the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.
The defender's journey has taken him through several prominent clubs in both Spain and England. At the international level, Reguilón has earned six caps with the Spanish national team, including appearances in UEFA Nations League matches and FIFA World Cup qualifying.
Known for his pace, overlapping runs, and comfort on the ball, Reguilón profiles as a natural fit in Inter Miami's system, where fullbacks are expected to contribute in both phases. His ability to stretch the field and deliver quality service from wide areas mirrors many of the attributes that made Alba such a vital piece during Miami's title-winning run. Defensively, Reguilón has solid positional awareness, traits that should help Miami balance their attacking ambition with stability at the back.
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Coming off their first MLS Cup, Inter Miami's recruitment reflects a club planning beyond a single title window. By securing Reguilón through at least 2027, the club has added a proven, prime-age defender capable of anchoring the left flank as Miami look to defend their crown and remain a force domestically.
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The USMNT Transfer Notebook tracks American player movements, with the latest developments for those in the U.S. national team pool.
With the January transfer window just weeks away, several U.S. men's national team players are approaching pivotal decisions at a critical moment in the World Cup cycle. As 2026 draws closer, club futures - and, in some cases, minutes - could play a decisive role in shaping Mauricio Pochettino's plans.
For players on the fringes, the margin is especially thin. Luca de la Torre is one such case. His loan with San Diego FC has ended after the club declined to exercise its purchase option, leaving the midfielder at a crossroads. With his USMNT status far from secure, de la Torre's next move - whether a return to MLS or another opportunity in Europe - could prove decisive.
Elsewhere, Tyler Adams' stock continues to rise in England, where his performances for Bournemouth have placed him among the Premier League's standout defensive midfielders and attracted interest from bigger clubs. Meanwhile, questions persist in Italy, where Christian Pulisic's contract talks with AC Milan have stalled. A USMNT icon weighs in on what may come next for the American star as the window approaches.
GOAL tracks all of the American player movements in the USMNT Transfer Notebook, a recurring feature covering the latest developments for those in the U.S. national team pool.
Pulisic is under contract with AC Milan through June 2027, a timeline that has fueled questions about why the American has yet to agree to an extension with the Rossoneri. One rumor has suggested Pulisic is waiting to see whether Milan will clinch a Champions League place before committing his long-term future to the club.
Former USMNT goalkeeper Brad Friedel can relate. Friedel, who spent his career across Europe with clubs including Galatasaray, Liverpool and Tottenham, believes there are limited reasons a player would delay an extension at this stage.
“I think it suggests that he is leaving his options open. When I was at clubs, I always wanted to sign my contracts when I was happy at places," Friedel explained in an interview with GOAL. "I can only go on personal experience, I liked having multiple years on the contract - you never know with injuries around the corner. If I was truly happy at a place, I really enjoyed having two or three years on a contract.
“There are only two reasons for not signing. One, you are not happy with the contract. Two, you are keeping your options open. Maybe he has given a verbal commitment. I would assume that he is keeping his options open. If you are happy somewhere and you are happy with the numbers, you sign the contract.”
When healthy, Pulisic has been among Serie A's most productive players this season, recording nine goal contributions in nine appearances. He reportedly earns around $6 million annually at Milan and has been linked with interest from Premier League clubs, as well as ongoing speculation about a potential return stateside with MLS.
The rumor began circulating late last week before gathering real momentum over the weekend. Could Tyler Adams truly be headed to Manchester United?
While the Red Devils are no longer the dominant force they once were, they remain one of the most storied and widely followed clubs in world football — and Adams profiles as a natural fit for a side in need of defensive stability. The Bournemouth midfielder ranks in the 86th percentile among midfielders for defensive actions and the 62nd percentile in aerial duels, according to FotMob. Only Chelsea's Moisés Caicedo has recorded more interceptions in the Premier League this season, underlining why United's interest makes sense.
The Daily Mail is reporting United are preparing a jaw-dropping $53.4 million (£40 million) bid on the Bournemouth star, and the Telegraph also wrote a column suggesting why the American would be a better fit than some of the other alternatives linked with the club. Adams spoke of his appreciation of Old Trafford in a recent interview.
"I played against Manchester United at Old Trafford during COVID with RB Leipzig. That was the first time I walked into Old Trafford, and I was like, my dream is really to play in the Premier League because this is what it's about right here," he said. "Now being able to go back and play there multiple times and have good results, especially makes it a little bit better. So yeah, I always get excited to play against United."
A move to Old Trafford would be headline-grabbing. Adams would become the first USMNT player to represent Manchester United since Tim Howard's departure in 2007. Still, questions remain about whether January is the right moment. Adams is in the midst of the strongest club campaign of his career, and leaving the stability he has found at Bournemouth for a club with intense scrutiny and lofty expectations carries obvious risk in a World Cup year.
At the same time, opportunities of this magnitude are rare - particularly for American players - ensuring the situation is one worth watching as the window approaches.
If Fiorentina fail in their pursuit of Köln midfielder Eric Martel, Tanner Tessmann could emerge as an alternative, according to Calciomercato. La Viola are seeking reinforcements in midfield, with both Martel and Tessmann reported to be among their leading targets.
The move would be an intriguing one for Tessmann. Despite enjoying the strongest European season of his career, the American could become expendable at Lyon amid the club's well-documented financial concerns. Still, questions remain about the logic of a January switch. Lyon are competing for a Champions League place, while Fiorentina have struggled in Serie A this season and remain entangled in a relegation battle.
Financial considerations may play a role, but the risk is clear. Tessmann has already experienced relegation in Italy during his time at Venezia, a scenario he would be keen to avoid repeating. The midfielder is reportedly valued between $11.7 million and $15.2 million, a figure that could rise should interest from additional clubs materialize. It is worth noting that Fiorentina's interest in Tessmann isn't new. They tried to sign him before he decided on Venezia.
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It wouldn't be far-fetched to say De la Torre was San Diego FC's third-best player last season, shining as a midfield engine behind Hirving Lozano and Anders Dreyer. Yet, in a somewhat surprising move, San Diego let their hometown star head back to Celta Vigo - where he was loaned from - while declining a purchase option. While neither the player nor the club has officially ruled out a return, the fact that the club posted a farewell message on social media suggests his future lies elsewhere. De la Torre had five goals and four assists in his first season in MLS.
Now back with Celta, De la Torre can't make an appearance for the La Liga side until January, when the league registration reopens. Yet, he might not return to Spain at all, as MLS clubs are in the mix for the 27-year-old. According to MLS Transfers, the New York Red Bulls are interested in trading American youth international Daniel Edelman, and it could open the door for the club to sign De la Torre from Celta - a player they believe could strengthen their midfield after a disappointing season. With one of the all-time USMNT midfield greats, Michael Bradley, being hired for the position, the New York/New Jersey area could be a strong landing spot for De la Torre.
The Africa Cup of Nations 2025 will take place in Morocco from 21 December 2025 to 18 January 2026. Find out the fixture schedule, key dates and relevant information about the men's football tournament.
Twenty-four men's national football teams from Africa will play in the 2025 CAF Africa Cup of Nations, which is due to be held in Morocco from 21 December 2025 to 18 January 2026.
Originally scheduled for June–July 2025, the tournament was pushed to the end of the year after FIFA introduced its expanded 32-team Club World Cup for that same summer.
This shift means the competition will, for the first time, take place across the Christmas and New Year period. It also marks Morocco's second time hosting the event, having last staged it in 1988.
The 35th edition of the biennial tournament will be held across nine venues in six cities, the most ever for an AFCON, four of which are located in the country's capital, Rabat.
With seven of Africa's nine confirmed 2026 FIFA World Cup teams participating at this year's AFCON, the tournament will also serve as a crucial testing ground ahead of next summer's showpiece in the USA, Canada, and Mexico.
In many ways, it will also serve as a test event for Morocco, which is set to co-host the FIFA World Cup 2030 alongside Portugal and Spain.
Discover what you need to know about AFCON 2025 below.
Love football? ⚽ Relive the best football moments from Paris 2024 🏅
The official mascot for AFCON 2025 in Morocco is Assad, a lively young lion inspired by the historic Atlas lion. His name, which means 'lion' in Arabic, reflects strength, pride and leadership, qualities closely linked to both Moroccan heritage and African football. Designed to be energetic and friendly, Assad represents unity, passion and the youthful spirit of the tournament, serving as a symbol to connect fans across the continent and beyond.
Another distinctive feature of the Africa Cup of Nations is its official song, which often blends sounds from across the continent to create a unifying anthem that resonates with fans both within and beyond Africa. While the official song for AFCON 2025 is expected to be released this week ahead of kick-off, if previous editions are anything to go by, another classic is on the way.
All eyes will be on host nation Morocco, whose squad is widely regarded as a golden generation and will be desperate to secure an AFCON title to cement that legacy.
The North Africans have not won the tournament since 1976.
After making history as the first African team to reach the semi-finals of a FIFA World Cup in 2022, Morocco suffered a shock Round of 16 exit at the last AFCON tournament in Côte d'Ivoire, despite being considered favourites.
They quickly put that disappointment behind them by becoming the first African side to qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
Head coach Walid Regragui will be hoping to have team captain and Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallist Achraf Hakimi, the reigning African Footballer of the Year, fit for the tournament. The Paris St. Germain defender picked up an ankle injury in November and now faces a race against time to be ready for the competition.
Another team carrying significant pressure into the tournament is Nigeria. The three-time champions came agonisingly close in Côte d'Ivoire, falling to the host nation in the final. But a disappointing World Cup qualifying campaign, where they failed to reach back-to-back tournaments, means only lifting the trophy in Morocco will feel like proper compensation.
Captain William Troost-Ekong, the Player of the Tournament at the last AFCON, announced his retirement from international football just weeks before this edition, passing the leadership baton to Galatasaray star Victor Osimhen and Atalanta forward Ademola Lookman, winners of the African Footballer of the Year awards in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
AFCON 2021 (played in 2022) champions Senegal find themselves in Group D, alongside the Democratic Republic of Congo, who are just one intercontinental play-off against New Caledonia away from qualifying for their first FIFA World Cup in 51 years.
Familiar names such as London 2012 Olympian Sadio Mané, Kalidou Koulibaly, Nicolas Jackson and Idrissa Gana Gueye were instrumental in securing Senegal's place at the 2026 World Cup, where they kept eight clean sheets in ten qualifying matches. They will be hoping that the same defensive solidity can carry them all the way in Morocco.
Defending champions Cote d'Ivoire are another team to watch. They took an unlikely route to glory on home soil last January, sacking their head coach after losing their first two group games. A vital win in the final group match, overseen by assistant coach Emerse Faé, secured a third-place finish and a place in the knockouts, where they went on a fairytale run to claim their second continental title.
Faé has since been appointed on a permanent basis and guided the team through a flawless World Cup qualifying campaign. Inspired by Manchester United's Amad Diallo, the Elephants are widely tipped to be contenders once again.
Then there is London 2012 Olympian Mohamed Salah and Egypt. The record seven-time champions have not lifted the trophy since 2010, when they completed an unprecedented hat-trick of consecutive AFCON titles. Salah, then an 18-year-old learning his trade at Al-Mokawloon, has since become one of the greatest players of his generation, yet AFCON success continues to elude him. He has reached two finals (2017 and 2021) but lost both, and with Egypt already qualified for the World Cup, AFCON 2025 is widely seen as a last major opportunity for the 33-year-old Liverpool forward to secure the title that would cement his status as the country's greatest-ever footballer.
He will have able support in the likes of Manchester City's Omar Marmoush and Mostafa Mohamed of FC Nantes, who are expected to provide attacking dynamism and depth.
Five-time champions Cameroon also enter the tournament in the spotlight. A turbulent World Cup qualifying campaign in which they failed to reach the finals was followed by even more upheaval. Federation president Samuel Eto'o Fils, the Barcelona legend and Olympic gold medallist from Sydney 2000, replaced Belgian coach Marc Brys with local trainer David Pagou just three weeks before the tournament. Pagou then omitted star goalkeeper André Onana and influential captain Vincent Aboubakar from the squad for Morocco.
Even so, Cameroon are not short of talent. Manchester United forward Bryan Mbeumo is expected to be the focal point of their push for a sixth continental crown.
South Africa, who surprised many by finishing third in Côte d'Ivoire, will believe they can go even further this time. Hugo Broos' side secured World Cup qualification ahead of Nigeria, with the core of the squad made up of locally based players whose cohesion and understanding has become the envy of many national teams.
AFCON 2019 champions Algeria and perennial contenders Tunisia are also expected to mount strong challenges for the most coveted trophy in African football.
The Africa Cup of Nations 2025 tournament will be broadcast across the globe in over 30 countries and regions. Below is the broadcast list in each country/region.
Country - Broadcaster
Craig Burley and Frank Leboeuf look at Group C, with Brazil, Morocco, Haiti and Burley's Scotland looking to qualify. (1:23)
Steve Clarke has urged the Tartan Army not to push the financial boat out too far to see Scotland at the World Cup next summer.
The national boss described the country as gripped by "World Cup fever" since qualifying for the finals for the first time in 28 years with an unforgettable 4-2 win over Denmark at Hampden Park in November.
Scotland will play Haiti and Morocco in Boston and Brazil in Miami but there has been uproar at some of the ticket prices which range from £134 to £524.
Fans who do not receive any through the Scotland Supporters Club will have to deal with FIFA's dynamic pricing model and resale costs and the Association of Tartan Army Clubs (ATAC) branded the costs "disgraceful and disgusting".
"Tickets are going to be tight," said Clarke, who will not rule out the recruitment of Newcastle attacker Harvey Barnes.
"The Scottish FA have taken the full allocation of eight per cent of capacity. I'm sure it'll be used.
"My biggest wish is that the fans who travel everywhere, who go all the far-flung places, can afford to get the tickets and get the chance to get the tickets so they can be there because those supporters deserve to be there.
"Some of the figures are eye-watering, if you look at them.
"One of my biggest wishes is that people don't put themselves too much into debt trying to buy tickets. Even the cheapest ones look to be pretty pricey.
"But listen, it's a World Cup, FIFA will tell you they've had five million applications for two million tickets, which shows you the will is there, people want to be there.
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"If you go on holiday to America, it's expensive. It's going to be expensive, just make sure people don't put themselves into too much debt. That's one thing I would say."
Barnes, born in Burnley, has been capped once for England when he featured in a friendly against Wales in 2020 but remains eligible to represent Scotland through his maternal grandparents.
After Scotland's historic win over Denmark, the 28-year-old Newcastle player was asked by Sky Sports if the door had closed on potentially playing for Scotland and said: "No, of course it's not. I've obviously played for England, I know the eligibility side is still there."
Clarke said: "Well, if he's kept the door open, then the door's open, so let's see what happens.
"It's just one of those things that it's probably too difficult to talk about because you don't know what's going to happen.
"Maybe Harvey thinks he's going to get picked for England. He's in a really good vein of form at the moment so let's see what happens.
"Obviously, people know I'm quite loyal to the players in the squad, that's what we've built.
"We've tried to build that across the years, but there are always spaces.
"The squad size will be 26, which always gives at least three extra spaces to the normal 23-man squad.
"There's always injuries and loss of form to take into account."
Scotland will confirm in January where they will be based in the USA while a game against Japan could be one of the friendly matches to be arranged for March.
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Pulisic celebrates with Milan, Reyna in action for Borussia Monchengladbach Image Photo Agency/Getty Images and Christian Verheyen/Borussia Monchengladbach via Getty Images
It was more minutes and momentum for Gio Reyna in Germany, a triumphant return for Antonee Robinson and an opportunity missed for Christian Pulisic and Milan at the San Siro.
Here's how Europe's USMNT stars fared at the weekend…
Finally, after months of uncertainty at his new club, this is what Gio Reyna needed.
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The 23-year-old forward and his Borussia Monchengladbach team lost 3-1 against Wolfsburg on Saturday, but the game proved a personal milestone for the American.
It marked Reyna's third consecutive start for the team he joined in the summer — the first time the United States international has been in three successive starting XIs at club level since August 2021.
Injuries, fitness and subsequent fitful form had reduced him to the periphery at his previous side, Borussia Dortmund, endangering the international spot of a player considered a natural and game-changing talent.
A loan to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League did not work either, so the decision to join Gladbach was a chance for a reset in a league he had at least become familiar with.
But until recently, his only start for the club had come in September's 4-0 home defeat against Werder Bremen.
To compound matters, Gladbach's rocky performances led to the sacking of Gerardo Seoane, the head coach who was involved in signing Reyna. Cue more uncertainty for the American in a season when he needed to be getting more game time than the 341 minutes he managed in the Bundesliga last season.
National team coach Mauricio Pochettino is an admirer, but it became harder to select a player who was playing so little.
It seems like something has changed. The club appointed former reserve-team boss Eugen Polanski as interim coach, and made his appointment permanent in November.
It has been a positive development for Reyna, as the 39-year-old clearly values him.
Speaking before Saturday's game, Polanski told the Bundesliga website: “We wanted to gradually integrate him and generate more playing time.
“For that to happen, it was crucial that Gio embraced it the way he did. I have rarely seen a training session from him that I wasn't satisfied with, and I have recently seen values I hadn't seen before.”
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Although Reyna must compete with midfielder Florian Neuhaus for the starting spot, the German's injury problems have led to opportunities, which have been taken.
“We can almost replace Neuhaus like-for-like,” Polanski explained. “Reyna perhaps has a slightly more attacking profile, is a bit better in the space between the lines, and isn't the same clear playmaker as Flo. He's made extremely good runs and improved from game to game. I'm extremely happy.”
Reyna has been involved in some of the team's better periods of play over the last three games.
A direct assist or goal is yet to arrive, but he reminded everyone that he has that threat in his locker against Paraguay and Uruguay last month, when he registered one of each.
Another key USMNT player back in the fold at the weekend was Antonee Robinson.
As reported by The Athletic, the left-back recently made significant progress in his efforts to recover from the knee injury that was starting to make him fear he might miss the World Cup.
Initially, there was hope he would be fit to make his belated return in time for Fulham's Carabao Cup quarter-final against Newcastle United on Wednesday.
But such was the relief of pain and increased strength after working with a specialist in the north west, former Liverpool head physio Andy Renshaw, that he trained well throughout last week.
In the end, head coach Marco Silva decided the 28-year-old was ready to go. He started Saturday's 3-2 win over Burnley at Turf Moor and played the full game.
“Jedi (Robinson) had a good week,” Silva told Fulham's website after the game. “After two or three months without a game, it's never easy, but we knew that from a physical point of view he'd be ready and he showed that.
“I didn't take the decision to change him and let him play the full 96 minutes because he's a great athlete, we know that. All the other things will come with time.”
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In Milan, Christian Pulisic did not quite reach the levels he has been hitting lately.
It was a frustrating afternoon for Milan, who only drew 2-2 with Sassuolo at the San Siro. The result saw them drop to second place behind rivals Inter, who beat Genoa 2-1.
The solitary point meant Milan eventually dropped off the top of the table and into second place, as rivals Inter beat Genoa on Sunday to go top of Serie A.
Extra frustration for Pulisic came from a ruled-out ‘goal' — he was in the right place to convert from close range on 57 minutes but Ruben Loftus-Cheek was adjudged to have fouled a defender.
Afterwards, Massimiliano Allegri explained why he took the American off after 73 minutes, even with his side chasing a win — and in the process, the Milan head coach highlighted how Pulisic scored his double against Torino when he was unwell.
“I would have done it anyway,” Allegri told DAZN. “Christian had joined us in Turin after a fever and then trained.
”He played well for 72 minutes, but at that moment, we needed one more midfielder.”
Other young USMNT players maintained good levels, too.
Teenage centre-back Noahkai Banks played the full 90 minutes of Augsburg's 1-0 defeat against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Banks performed strongly and had a ‘goal' disallowed. It was his ninth consecutive start in the Bundesliga — not bad for a 19-year-old defender in one of Europe's top divisions.
Also in Germany, Malik Tillman impressed for Bayer Leverkusen in their 2-0 win against Koln, and James Sands played the full game for St Pauli as they beat Heidenheim 2-1.
In the Netherlands, Ricardo Pepi made it three goals in his last three Eredivisie matches for defending champions PSV. Compatriot Sergino Dest shone too, setting up the game's winner with a sublime first touch and run that gave Guus Til a goal to make it 4-3 against Heracles Almelo. It was one for the ever-expanding Dest showreel.
In the Premier League, there was a rare setback for Chris Richards and Crystal Palace, who lost 3-0 at Selhurst Park to an Erling Haaland-inspired Manchester City.
Greg O'Keeffe is a senior writer for The Athletic covering US soccer players in the UK & Europe.
Previously he spent a decade at the Liverpool Echo covering news and features before an eight-year stint as the paper's Everton correspondent; giving readers the inside track on Goodison Park, a remit he later reprised at The Athletic.
He has also worked as a news and sport journalist for the BBC and hosts a podcast in his spare time. Follow Greg on Twitter @GregOK
Vice-president of German parliament slams ‘disgusting' ceremony in which Donald Trump received peace prize, and calls ticket prices ‘insane'
A vice-president of Germany's parliament has hit out at Fifa over a “disgusting” World Cup draw ceremony where US President Donald Trump played a big role and “completely insane” ticket prices for the tournament.
Omid Nouripour from the Green Party, one of the vice-presidents of the lower house Bundestag, said on Sunday that “Fifa is not doing itself a favour in the long run. The neutrality is broken in quite a bad way.”
Trump was honoured with a new Fifa peace prize at the December 5 draw in Washington for the 2026 tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Fifa countered criticism on the closeness of its president Gianni Infantino to Trump by saying that such “good relationships” to top politicians of host countries were essential to guarantee a successful event.
Nouripour called the ceremony “disgusting” and also joined the criticism on the ticket prices for fans by saying the costs are “completely insane”.
Listing the prices for fans of its match contingents, the German FA said that the cheapest group stage ticket would cost €155 (US$180) and that a fan interested in attending every Germany match including the final – if the team makes it – would have to splash out at least €5,975.
The 2026 World Cup is now less than six months away for the U.S. men's national team, who will get their tournament underway in Los Angeles, California.
While they know they will face Australia, Paraguay, and one of Slovakia, Kosovo, Türkiye or Romania in the group stage, the roster is still very much in flux, especially as Mauricio Pochettino sees stellar form from some hopeful World Cup talents in Europe.
Unlike past years, the USMNT won't have a January camp to see some players in person, meaning their next games come in the March window, where they will hope to fine-tune what the final roster could look like.
Here, Sports Illustrated ranks the top five performances of the week from around the globe.
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Likely the leading choice to start the USMNT's first World Cup match, Folarin Balogun continued his strong form this season in Ligue 1 and the Champions League.The 24-year-old scored the winning goal in Monaco's 1–0 win over Galatasaray—his seventh goal of the campaign and third in Europe—and then saw an effort ruled out for offside during the weekend defeat to Tim Weah's Marseille.Though that game didn't go the way Balogun wanted it to, he put in a decent shift up front for Monaco, completing four dribbles and taking three shots on goal.
Malik Tillman continues to settle in at Bayer Leverkusen after his blockbuster signing in the summer and helped the club to a 2–0 Rhine Derby win over rivals FC Köln.The dynamic attacking midfielder had two shots and created two chances while playing alongside Jonas Hoffman and also stepped up with five defensive contributions. Playing in a 3-5-1-1 formation for Leverkusen, he has shown his ability to work the ball centrally but also engage in overlapping runs from the wingbacks, a factor which could be valuable to Pochettino after his switch to using a back three.
One more week of the season in the books and it's another week where Ricardo Pepi found himself on the scoresheet. The 22-year-old American scored in UEFA Champions League action against Atlético Madrid midweek, then scored a perfectly placed penalty kick against Heracles Almelo in Eredivisie action on the weekend.Pepi has now scored in four-straight matches across all competitions, becoming the first American to do so for an Eredivisie club since Aron Jóhannsson for AZ in 2013-14.The former FC Dallas starlet has nine goals in all competitions this season and will look to close out 2025 in strong form, setting the stage for the 2026 World Cup year.
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This Weston McKennie goal in slow-mo is a work of art 🔥🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/wXWihmBLiM
Weston McKennie continued to impress with Juventus this season, scoring a goal in a 2–0 midweek Champions League win against Pafos, before playing 90 minutes in the 1–0 Serie A victory over Bologna. Although he has yet to find the back of the net in Serie A action and was unable to make the most of extra space after Bologna's red card on Sunday, he has shown an ability to be clinical in the biggest matches on European soccer's biggest stage.At the same time, his growth as a balanced wide midfielder is commendable, and the 27-year-old looks more comfortable as Juventus continues to grow under midseason managerial appointment, Luciano Spalletti.
Antonee Robinson impressed in his first Premier League start of the season with Fulham on Saturday, returning to the lineup after undergoing knee surgery prior to the 2025–26 campaign.Robinson, 28, played the full 90 minutes in a 3–2 win over Burnley, moving his side up to 13th in the Premier League and boosting his stock with the USMNT as Pochettino seeks options for a three and five-man backline.He was significantly productive in the match as well, completing eight passes into the final third, while posting six recoveries, four tackles and two interceptions.
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Ben Steiner is an American-Canadian journalist who brings in-depth experience, having covered the North American national teams, MLS, CPL, NWSL, NSL and Liga MX for prominent outlets, including MLSsoccer.com, CBC Sports, and OneSoccer.
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I had another article written today but I've ditched that one. Because of the things I've heard in the last 48 hours, from various reliable people including our own Simon, that all changed. And honestly I feel more disheartened about Chelsea's future than I have for some time.
Head Coach Enzo Maresca's comments about the worst 48 hours of his Chelsea career, and the subsequent reports from Simon, Ben Jacobs and others, have made clear there's some major issues at the top of Chelsea FC. There's disagreements and fallouts between Maresca and the heirarchy and they seem to be getting worse.
The response of the club was to dismiss them as an emotional overreaction, reiterate their commitment to their strategy, and also things which I took as a brief against Maresca.
I read a brief saying they'd recommended a rotation policy to Maresca which he supported and enacted. But when it didn't work, suddenly they put all the blame onto him for the rotations….ones THEY recommended.
Maresca feels hung out to dry and scapegoated, and rightly so. The clubs rotation policy, they share the blame, simple as that. Maresca publicly took responsibility for Leeds, rightly so. But he expects those above him to take responsibility for their mistakes and not make him the sole scapegoat for it. We've seen this before with the current Sporting Directors, so its no surprise.
They had also briefed, separately, last Thursday, that Maresca will be pressured to make the most of what he has for the rest of the season. Basically shutting down any requests for January signings (which we need, but who cares, its not like we're trying to be successful, eh?).
Not to mention there was a briefing saying “Maresca is expected to address these comments in his press conference on Monday”. Which to me suggests he's being pressured to toe the club line and say he was being emotional.
By the time you read this, you'll know whether he did or not. But either way, its clear things are very tense at the top.
Now first, lets be clear. I believe in the clubs overall long term strategy. We've signed some excellent players, built a top 4 squad which can win cups and appointed an excellent manager in Enzo Maresca. Fair play to the owners and Sporting Directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley for that, credit where its due. That's good work.
But I'm just done with the at times shoddy man management and abysmal treatment of certain players and staff by the Sporting Directors, and their overall conduct.
It seems they like claiming credit for anything good, and taking no responsibility for their failures. They have now fallen out with and failed to adequately back multiple head coaches, all whilst keeping their jobs and getting longer contracts. Not to mention very publicly trying to force talented, respected players out of the club multiple times, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. Then there's the constant insults to fans' intelligence with their ridiculous briefings which everyone knows are complete bullshit and media spin. They've broken trust with fans, most of who don't trust them anymore and never will.
Finally of course there's their complete and utter inability to build a squad capable of competing for Premier League titles, which is or should be the ultimate goal. Because if they think adding more raw, unproven young talent with no PL experience next summer to a squad which already has tons of raw players, is going create a title challenge next year, they're kidding themselves.
The two people running the football side, have yet to show they have a clue how to do that. Neither have ever worked at a big club before, never been in an elite performance environment in their life. Because of that, we don't have one at Chelsea yet.
They DO deserve credit for getting us back to being a steady top 4 squad who can win knockout competitions. That's where we are right now. They can spot and sign young talent well. Fair enough. I'm always happy to give credit where its due, this isn't an agenda driven post and I won't make personal attacks, this is a professional critique.
I don't believe they have what it takes to help Chelsea take the next step, and quite frankly I don't like the way they conduct their jobs and treat players and staff who are not wanted, as I mentioned above.
They are not the best in class. Best in class prove it before they join Chelsea.
We're not a work experience program for aspiring sporting directors who'd never won a thing before they came here and worked only at smaller clubs. We're Chelsea, we hire the proven best. Simple as.
Even now, when so many can see it, even pundits, they won't accept or acknowledge they've made mistakes or shoulder responsibility.
Enzo Maresca has won two trophies, got top four, beaten several of the top teams and top managers in Europe, and got us 4th in the PL this year, third highest scorers, third best defence, without Levi Colwill, Cole Palmer or a 9 most of the season, and with a litany of injuries leaving us to overplay Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez, combined with fatigue from the Club World Cup and a short pre season. He also wasn't given the CB we clearly needed and he asked for.
Yet they want us to blame HIM for all the problems at the club and with the team? Give me a break. Maresca HAS made mistakes and bad decisions, but I'd be surprised if any coach could do much better this year given the circumstances - some circumstances directly caused by the Sporting Directors.
It's become clear the club heirarchy don't care at all or listen to what fans think, they don't even respect us or our views, or listen to us. The Sporting Directors time at Chelsea is littered with stories of appalling treatment of fans, players and managers, and multiple examples of abysmal man management.
If they did their jobs, and they treated people as human beings, with honesty and dignity, admitted their mistakes and corrected them, they'd have my respect, and I'd happily apologise to them. It takes a better man to admit he was wrong and learn from it, than one who passes the buck to someone, and damages the club in the process
My dream for Chelsea is becoming consistent PL challengers and winners again, and a dominant side in Europe. With the money spent, that's where we should be heading. If we'd signed the right players in the last two summers, we might be closer than we are.
The number of awful signings in the last 18 months beggars belief. We have wasted so much money that probably would have made us contenders now, and we could still have kept within our strategy of signing under 25s too. That's what's so annoying, is the strategy from the club CAN work, but they've handled it awfully.
I've always been patient. I felt 2026/2027 - four years after the takeover, season 3 of Enzo Maresca, was the season we should be making a serious challenge for the title. Not winning it maybe, but in the race till April or so, finishing 2nd ideally, or 3rd, single digit points off the top.
If we're not in a position to challenge next season, the people who've overseen this rebuild and recruited two managers so far to oversee it are the ones solely to blame. A head coach can only work with the tools he's been given. They have little influence over recruitment.
That's why Maresca is so frustrated, because the potential is there in this squad, but there's some gaping holes which remain unaddressed, and which will remain so at least till the summer, and then they'll sign more raw talent which will mean whoever is head coach will have to develop them, rather than go for a title. Signing raw talent is bad, but bringing new raw talent into the squad for more proven players every year will keep you stagnating, not win Premier Leagues. You need a balance - some elite raw talents, and other under 25 players more established and proven who can “plug in and play”, like Joao Pedro, Pedro Neto and others.
In almost any high performance organisation, an employee cannot remain in post if they have had time, money, authority to make big decisions and not delivered. It's as simple as that. And with the target of dominating Europe and the PL, if we don't start delivering soon, then things need to change right at the top.
Even the most patient and understanding fans will eventually lose patience and become frustrated, and turn on the owners and sporting directors. The media are already noticing it, thanks in part to Maresca's statement, as well as their own feelings on our recruitment, so eventually, there'll be nowhere to hide.
Sadly I'm now resigned to the prospect that Enzo Maresca will probably go by the summer, either by his own volition or “mutual consent” (sacked), and if it's the latter, no doubt the PR spin will lump all the blame on him.
I won't buy it, but some will. And it will a complete shambles however it happens.
There's no good, football based reason for Enzo Maresca to leave Chelsea, not backing him, hanging him out to dry and letting him go is absolute madness and unless we hire someone of the calibre of Thomas Tuchel, Xabi Alonso or Oliver Glasner, could set the club back a year or two.
If the SD's stay in post with the next manager, I'd bet good money we'll be here again a couple of years with the same issues, and it will be the same people to blame, undoubtedly. Then they'll try to scapegoat someone that manager, without a doubt. Anything to avoid showing some actual cajones and genuinely taking responsibility for their actions.
The day they are shifted to other roles and Dave Fallows takes their job, I will feel some hope of being a major force again. Because the groundwork is there, the structure is there. It just needs the final step, and that needs to be led by someone who's done it before and knows what it takes. Dave Fallows is that. He's been at Liverpool. He's built a squad which won the Champions League and Premier League. He uses data properly. He's proven he's a winner, and a best in class operator, and that's what Chelsea need in charge now.
THAT'S how serious, elite football clubs operate.
The Score
Well said. Bravo.
Why do we have 2 SD's ? Is it one for Todd, and one for the other guy ?
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U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker's grand plan for a "U.S. Way" sounds at first like talking down from the top. In fact, there's a lot less of it than there used to be.
Sometimes, it feels like there's a distance between the U.S. men's and women's soccer teams, even though they wear the same crest.
Over the years, various people involved with both programs have tried to close that gap, including at U.S. Soccer headquarters. Sporting director Matt Crocker is definitely on that list, and high up on it.
That's especially true when he talks about his vision of “the U.S. Way,” the creation of an on-field guidebook for the whole governing body. Many people will instinctively conclude that Crocker is sending a sermon from the mount, given how often the governing body has tried to do that over the years.
But it isn't that simple, and it's not just Crocker saying so. The last few months of on-field results at the senior levels have offered proof.
In some countries, every national team would be required to play the same way. Think of the Netherlands and Spain, for example, two programs with decades-long histories of putting philosophy over pragmatism.
Crocker is more pragmatic. Once he hired Mauricio Pochettino to coach the senior men and Emma Hayes to coach the senior women, he wanted to get out of their way. He does not stop Pochettino from playing a 3-4-2-1 formation, and Hayes from playing a 4-3-3.
» READ MORE: Mauricio Pochettino reflects on the USMNT's progress during his tenure so far
“They are arguably two of the best coaches in the world,” Crocker told The Inquirer. “Who am I, in my experience, to dictate how they should be playing or not playing? I think the idea of that, for me, is not the way I work.”
His experience gives him power if he wants to exercise it. Before joining U.S. Soccer in 2023, previous stops for the native Welshman included seven years at English soccer's governing body, the Football Association. He planted seeds that have now made the nation elite on both the men's and women's sides.
But no, what Crocker said is what he meant.
“Of course, there's going to be a framework ... of how we want them to work,” he continued. “But ultimately their job is to provide winning teams, and I think they're doing a pretty good job at doing that. And my job is to make sure that they get what they need to be able to do that.”
» READ MORE: The USMNT will play Paraguay, Australia, and a European qualifier at the 2026 World Cup
If you only follow soccer casually, you might not think much of this. If you're deep in the sport, especially the American game, you know it matters to hear that from someone so high-ranking.
“The way I see it is, my job is not to dictate every single detail of how everything needs to look or feel,” Crocker said. “I need to use their experiences, because they've got more than me in those areas of what winning looks like.”
Hayes vouched for this, and not by making light of the size of her trophy mantel. She knew Pochettino before taking the U.S. job because they overlapped at English club Chelsea, and she knew American soccer from many years of working here before returning to her native London in 2012.
“Mauricio's ideas on how to win football matches might be different to mine, for example, but we both have ambition to win football matches,” Hayes said. “And we both have an appreciation that American players have their own unique set of qualities that we can lean into.”
» READ MORE: Alex Morgan looks back at her history in Chester — and forward to the USWNT's bright future
How they execute from there is up to them.
“Yes, the U.S. Way is very clear and overarching — that sits above our WNT and MNT and all our other 27 teams,” Hayes said, using the abbreviations for the senior women's and men's teams. “But within that, some of those differences are in and around the game model.”
That might not sound like much, but it really does matter.
If there's distance between the men's and women's teams, it often feels like there's a canyon between the senior squads on TV and the youth teams your kids play on. That, too, has seemed deliberate at times, with so many factions in the sport wanting to do what they want instead of working together for the game as a whole.
America's youth soccer landscape, which better resembles an industrial complex — and really feels that big, in terms of scale — has a long history of rebelling against being told what to do by U.S. Soccer. Crocker quickly became well-versed in this when he took his job, and has spent a lot of time trying to change the tone.
» READ MORE: There are 72 group stage games in next summer's World Cup. Here are 10 of the best.
“I think we have to recognize that what we do in state X can't just be replicated and put into state Y,” he said. “Everyone's unique and individual, and we have to listen to their individual needs. But we've also got to be clear on the framework of the things that are fundamental, and that we are going to do irrespective.”
He admitted that the scale of this country “scares you to death” for such a project, compared to how he built the England DNA program at the FA in 2013.
“You could bring every county FA to St. George's Park, all of which were within a three-hour drive [from the national training center],” Crocker said. “You could mandate, you could then put people out into those environments to support it, and you could do it where you could really monitor something on a much smaller scale. Doing this is something I've never experienced before.”
That literal geography, not just youth soccer politics, influenced his journey to now.
» READ MORE: The U.S. launches a continent-wide bid for the 2031 women's World Cup, and Philadelphia wants in
“I don't think there's one silver bullet that you need to take, or you go, ‘It's not going to work because of X,'” he said. “I just think we have to recognize the uniqueness of the country, build on that as a positive, but also remember not to make the same mistakes as others that have gone before us.”
Then came words that a lot of people — especially the youth coaches out there — have wanted to hear.
“I say this respectfully [because] I wasn't here, but what I heard was U.S. Soccer was telling: We told, we told, we told,” Crocker said. “And now our job is to listen, to work, to problem solve, but to bring everyone together.”
Anecdotally, it's been working. At various events this year where Crocker has spoken to youth and amateur teams, he has been warmly received. But the hardest part is yet to come, as a recent moment showed.
» READ MORE: Philly fans are ready for the ‘once in a lifetime experience' of hosting a World Cup in their hometown
Earlier this month, Crocker spoke to a crowd of the governing body's sponsors and donors. Some of them wore track jackets of their youth clubs, but most were in business clothes. Crocker shared the stage with deputy sporting director and onetime Union centerback Oguchi Onyewu and U.S. men's legend Landon Donovan.
“For those who are not familiar with the youth soccer landscape in this country, it's a bit of a disaster, right?” Donovan said. “It really is. There's so many competing interests.”
He spoke of a local club near his home in southern California, but knew it could have been countless others.
“People are very content with their little fiefdom and their little salary and their club and their control and their power,” Donovan said. “So what's the incentive now for these clubs to change? … We do have national pride, but they're more worried about their bottom line than they are [about] growing U.S. soccer.”
» READ MORE: Projecting the USMNT's World Cup roster after its last game of the year: Several locals in; surprises on the bubble
The words were as true as they were damning.
“I think the saying is, do what you've always done and you'll get what you've always got,” Crocker said. “There's been a lot of talk about, there's a player that plays in this league over here that has to drive or fly thousands of miles because this league is falling out with this league, and they won't play each other. And that's not putting the child, that's not putting the sport, at the heart of what we're all about.”
It's true for the boys and men, and it's true for the girls and women. It's an enormous task, but Crocker is willing to give from his side, and that is noticed.
“I think it's being respectful to environments that have already been created,” he said. “Us as U.S. Soccer, being the national federation, the people that should be really saying, ‘Hey this is what player development and the game could look like in this country' — it's about time we spoke up and started to share some of that. But it's not through a dictator approach, it's through more of a collaborative way of doing things.”
Crocker's plans are due to be published in January, the same month Philadelphia will host the 2026 United Soccer Coaches convention. It won't be easy for him to get that crowd on his side, for the reasons Donovan made clear. If Crocker can, though, the benefits could last long past the World Cup.
» READ MORE: Brazil and France headline the teams coming to Philadelphia for next year's World Cup
Miami will welcome Brazil, Cabo Verde, Colombia, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Scotland and Uruguay
Following the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™, the full tournament match schedule is now available and published on FIFA.com—marking a major milestone on the road to the biggest FIFA World Cup™ in history.
The FIFA World Cup 2026, to be staged across 16 Host Cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States, will be the first to feature 104 matches and will deliver an unparalleled experience for fans both in-stadium and around the world, qualified national teams and global media.
The tournament's match schedule minimizes travel for both teams and fans, while maximizing the number of rest days for teams between fixtures. In addition, match kick-off times have now been finalized, with start times across the 16 Host Cities selected to seek to optimize conditions for teams and fans, while offering the greatest possible viewership and engagement in the countries of the participating teams, host countries and globally.
With seven FIFA World Cup 2026 matches set to take place at Miami Stadium—four of which will be Group Stage matches—this moment marks the city's official countdown to welcoming the world to South Florida in 2025.
Miami will host the following FIFA World Cup 2026 matches at Miami Stadium:
· Match 13 – Monday, 15 June 2026 at 18:00 ET, KSA vs URU (Group H)
· Match 37 – Sunday, 21 June 2026 at 18:00 ET, URU vs CPV (Group H)
· Match 49 – Wednesday, 24 June 2026 at 18:00 ET, SCO vs BRA (Group C)
· Match 71 – Saturday, 27 June 2026 at 19:30 ET, COL vs POR (Group K)
· Match 86 – Friday, 3 July 2026 at 18:00 ET, Round of 32
· Match 99 – Saturday, 11 July 2026 at 17:00 ET, Quarter-Final
· Match 103 – Saturday, 18 July 2026 at 17:00 ET, Bronze Final
“Miami is ready to welcome the world,” said Alina Hudak, President & CEO of the FIFA World Cup 26 Miami Host Committee. “Our city represents the very essence of global fútbol culture, and hosting these FIFA World Cup 2026 matches will be a celebration of our diversity, passion, and world-class hospitality. This will be a moment our community remembers for generations.”
Ticketing Information
The complete match schedule, containing all 104 matches, can be found at FIFA.com.
With the stage now set, fans can start making their plans to be there and witness history in the making.
Fans will soon have another opportunity to apply for FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets as the next sales period, the Random Selection Draw, will begin on 11 December on FIFA.com/tickets and is open through 13 January, 2026. Timing of a fan's entry into the Random Selection Draw during the entry period will not impact the fan's chances of success. All successful and partially successful ticket applicants will receive communications via email and subsequently will be automatically charged for their tickets in February. This marks the third phase of ticket sales for the 2026 tournament, as nearly two million tickets have been made available and purchased for the tournament thus far.
Fans who would like to immediately purchase access to specific match-ups can consider hospitality packages as well. Hospitality packages, which are inclusive of game tickets, are available now at FIFA.com/hospitality through On Location, the Official Hospitality Provider of the FIFA World Cup 2026.
To stay updated on all local events and announcements, visit www.MiamiFWC26.com and follow the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Miami Host Committee on Instagram (@fwc26miami).
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Isolina de la Vega was hooked on soccer from the first time she saw a match. Where she grew up in Tucumán, a province in northern Argentina, not many girls followed the sport. But de la Vega's great grandfather was the president of a local soccer club, and her father was a big fan, too. So she was curious.
“One day I say (to) my father, ‘Okay, I want to go and see one match, and if I like, you pay the ticket for me for all time,'” de la Vega said.
He agreed – and she loved it. The way that families and friends come together to enjoy the match is special, she says, and the rivalries between teams are unmatched.
De la Vega moved to Kansas City with her husband, Dario, three and a half years ago and opened Los Hornos Argentinian Flavors in the Northland. She doesn't see as many matches these days, but she's still a passionate soccer fan — especially of reigning World Cup champion Argentina.
When Argentinian soccer superstar Lionel Messi visited Kansas City for a match between Inter Miami, his Major League Soccer team, and Sporting KC, she tracked down Inter Miami's chef and delivered empanadas to give to Messi. Messi gifted her a signed jersey and flag in return.
De la Vega attended the FIFA Final Draw watch party at Power and Light when organizers announced Argentina would play a group-stage match in Kansas City.
“We are super excited and waiting for the World Cup,” she said.
Argentina and six other nations will play matches in Kansas City during the World Cup next year. Curaçao, Algeria, Tunisia, Austria, Ecuador and the Netherlands round out the list. Across Kansas City, residents are thrilled to welcome their teams to their adopted city – and excited to see them play.
Orlando Cachiguango already had a World Cup game on his bucket list, and when FIFA announced the United States would co-host with Mexico and Canada, he knew he had to try to go.
That feeling has only compounded since he found out Ecuador will play a match against Curaçao in Kansas City during the first round of the tournament. Cachiguango was born in Ecuador and lived there until he moved to the Midwest in the early 2000s.
“Even if Ecuador played in another city I was planning to see, you know, it's once in a lifetime, ” he said.
The announcement at the FIFA Final Draw Dec. 5 and 6 was a welcome surprise. Cachiguango immediately started hearing from friends in Ecuador who plan to come to town for the match.
“I feel happy. I feel proud,” he said. “It's something that every soccer fan would like to have, you know? The chance to be your city, your team, World Cup.”
Cachiguango hasn't secured his seats to the game yet. But fans can apply for tickets in FIFA's Random Selection Draw, which runs until Jan. 13. Prices currently range from a minimum of $140 for the match between Algeria and Austria to as high as $1,265 for Kansas City's quarterfinal match.
Kansas City expects to welcome at least 650,000 visitors during its month of hosting matches. For those with ties to Kansas City and the countries that will play, it's an opportunity to share their culture with Kansas City, and Kansas City with their home countries.
In Algeria, “they go crazy about soccer,” said Brahim Malem, an Algerian-American who lives in Olathe. “It's kind of like football here in Kansas… how people follow the Chiefs here, I would say it's the same, or a little bit more.”
Algeria will play two matches at Arrowhead Stadium during the group stage, and Malem is confident his home country will pick Kansas City as a base camp. He applied to volunteer with the local World Cup organizing committee, KC2026, in hopes of taking part in the festivities.
Patrick Bakker, a Dutch citizen who has lived in Overland Park since 2002, says he's excited to share game-day traditions with Americans. An “orange legion” of Dutch fans traditionally march to the stadium together, all wearing the iconic color of the national team.
“The whole crowd is following a bus towards a stadium and there's a loudspeaker on the back, and someone is cheering up the crowd. And we go in the thousands. Yeah, it's incredible,” Bakker said. “We know how to organize a party.”
Claudia Luna West, who owns Buenos Aires Restaurant in Shawnee, hopes more Kansas Citians will appreciate Argentine culture with the national team coming to play.
“We have so much to share. It's so rich, the cultural impact from Argentina,” West said. “If someone visits my restaurant they can see it.”
West also wants to capitalize on the opportunity. She plans to sell her empanadas wholesale to bars and restaurants around town for the World Cup, in addition to selling them at her restaurant. And she plans to serve as a tour guide for visiting Argentinians. She's already heard from one group asking for places to go when they visit.
Curaçao, an island nation in the Caribbean, is the smallest participating country in next year's World Cup. It qualified for the first time ever this year, in a 0-0 draw against Jamaica.
Sonya Kieffer, a Curaçao resident who grew up in Kansas City, says the country is full of national pride right now. Thousands lined the streets to welcome the national team home after their qualifying win.
“They're proud to finally be recognized. A lot of people, they don't even know how to pronounce Curaçao,” Kieffer said. “I don't know if you caught when they were drawing the names, and (Wayne Gretzky) said it wrong. He said ‘kur-AH-koh'” (it's actually pronounced CURE-uh-soww).
Kieffer won't make it home to Kansas City for the June 20 match against Ecuador, but she's okay with it.
“If I could choose, I'd rather stay here with all the locals to watch the game together,” she said.
Bakker hopes the matches will make more people around the world aware of Kansas City.
“Growing up in the Netherlands, you say, ‘name me five cities in the United States,' you know, you'll say Miami, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles. And Kansas City would not be on the map,” he said. “I hope that with this event… when they hear that question, that Kansas City might sometimes come up as well.”
Manchester United's Mason Mount has made 13 appearances and scored three goals so far this season
"I have to tell you, I love that kid."
Ruben Amorim's first public observations on Mason Mount after his appointment as Manchester United head coach just over a year ago have stood the test of time.
It has taken longer than hoped for United's fanbase to come to the same conclusion, but Mount's goal and overall performance at Wolves last week had them purring.
Suddenly, the hole left by the impending departure of Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo to the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) doesn't look quite so difficult to fill.
Mount's game intelligence plus his awareness and ability to play in tight spaces are coming to the fore. Now the phrase most used about him is: "His quality was never in doubt."
Almost two and a half years into the five-year contract he signed in July 2023, Mount's own bold declarations about the future have some meaning.
"I am hugely ambitious," he said on his arrival at Old Trafford. "I know how amazing it feels to win major trophies and what it takes to do it.
"I will be giving everything to experience that again at Manchester United."
It is fair to say the statement of intent Mount made after completing his £55m move from Chelsea is yet to be fulfilled.
Match-winner Mount's quality 'never in doubt'
Amorim hails Mount after win at Wolves
A Champions League and Club World Cup winner with Chelsea, Mount was an injury-time substitute for United's 2024 FA Cup final victory over Manchester City. He started the Europa League final defeat by Tottenham in May and was part of the United squad that finished 15th.
Not that the 26-year-old regrets leaving boyhood club Chelsea.
Speak privately to people who know Mount well and you get the impression restoring United's fortunes offered the kind of challenge that enthused him.
Under Erik ten Hag at the time, the club made it clear they wanted him. That matters. It still does. That is why Amorim's first words were perfectly put.
As the former Sporting coach assessed the squad he was inheriting, he knew in Mount he was getting a high-level, flexible player who could fit into a variety of different positions within his system, something Amorim felt he did not have enough of.
Left, right, as an orthodox number 10, as a six, or an eight, Mount has a range of experiences that make him very useful for a coach who regards adaptability as a key weapon.
"He's a very smart player," was Amorim's response when asked about Mount on Friday before Monday's Premier League game with Bournemouth. "He's really technical.
"Sometimes being a technical player is not just having fun with the ball. It's the quality of the pass, the reception, how to receive the ball. Mason can balance our team quite well."
Amorim is not alone at United's Carrington training ground in recognising Mount's qualities. He is certainly not the only one genuinely glad a player who can offer so much is able to put injury issues to one side and deliver performances on a consistent basis.
No-one would argue the past couple of years have been easy. Mount himself has admitted dealing with two extended absences and a couple of smaller frustrating ones was tough.
But staff around Carrington admired the professional attitude Mount adopted throughout his various recoveries.
Training-ground sources have said the player left no stone unturned in pursuit of staying fit and was regularly one of the last to leave after long stints in the ice bath and sauna sessions.
He is regarded as a link within Amorim's squad - someone who knits groups of players together - which has been particularly evident this season when, it is generally acknowledged, United's players have remained tight and focused on delivering better results.
Mount is also well liked by non-football staff because he is helpful, which is not something that can be taken for granted in the playing department at United or any other club. He spends time with a couple of kids who are regulars outside the training ground, has spoken with them and their parents and still wears a bracelet one of them gave him.
These traits are all positives on a human scale.
However, in the pressurised world of the Premier League, they are side issues compared to delivering on the pitch - and just now, he is on a roll.
Outstanding in the win at Crystal Palace on 30 November, Mount followed up with an excellent performance against Wolves, who were admittedly poor at Molineux but proved they can be obdurate and diligent in their unlucky loss at Arsenal.
Goals in both victories have taken his overall tally for United to seven, to match his shirt number, a fact not lost on the club's content creators who put them all on the app and launched a vote for which was the best. His second in the Europa League semi-final against Athletic Bilbao - a two-touch, 50-yard effort to seal a 4-1 win - came out on top.
The idea over the next few weeks and months is to widen that particular area of debate as United push for a European place - their overall aim - and try to secure a top-five berth likely to deliver a return to the Champions League a year before schedule.
Will Mount be reunited with Tuchel at international level?
Mount won the most recent of his 36 England caps in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final defeat by France in Qatar.
Despite three years without an international appearance, Three Lions boss Thomas Tuchel has not forgotten him.
Mount revealed in the summer his former manager at Chelsea had been in touch. The pair were spotted chatting after last month's home defeat by Everton and while competition for World Cup places is fierce and Mount is rated as unlikely to break in at this stage, it cannot entirely be discounted.
The player himself is not setting that as a target. Sources say his focus and drive remains on delivering on those first words following his arrival from Chelsea.
Mount recognises turning the United tanker around has to be a collective effort but there are signs it is heading in the right direction, even if the process is lengthy and not without the odd glitch.
He clearly has a significant role though. Mount has missed one game so far this season though injury. His impact is starting to be felt.
Just as United prepare to lose two significant attacking forces to Afcon, they can look for Mount to deliver in their absence with an increased feeling of confidence.
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2026 FIFA World Cup logo
The last may not have been heard about the Super Eagles qualification for the 2026 World Cup after senior officials expressed confidence that DR Congo will be thrown out of the competition for parading several ineligible players.
“The chances of the petition against DR Congo sailing through is even better than when South Africa were docked three points and three goals for fielding an ineligible player against Lesotho in a qualifier,” a top source told SCORENigeria
“A petition has been fired against DRC in respect of the eligibility of several of their players who featured in the World Cup Playoffs in Morocco.
“There's still hope for the Super Eagles as long as the Intercontinental Playoffs in Mexico has not been played.”
SCORENigeria further learnt that this petition has the full backing of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
In November, DRC qualified for the Intercontinental Playoffs after they beat the Super Eagles on penalties after both teams were tied on 1-1 even after extra time.
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My Untold Story: Melissa Birk – Kick Sauber Junior Infrastructure Designer
My Untold Story: Mark Chircop – Ferrari Software Analytics Manager
Haas driver Esteban Ocon talks about his life and career so far in the very last of our Getting to Know interviews.
Esteban Ocon is the final driver to experience F1.com's quickfire Getting to Know questions. From growing up admiring Michael Schumacher to an amusing series of interviews after his driving test, and his passion for superhero comics to a potential side quest tuning cars, the Haas man shares all in the video player above and transcript below…
Can you describe yourself in three words?
Three words to describe myself… Motivated, a hard worker, and I don't know… Maybe I'll let the people comment on the last one!
Drop it in the comments…
Exactly!
What made you fall in love with F1? Is there a moment watching on TV as a kid that stands out?
Yeah, I think Michael Schumacher was the driver who made me fall in love with F1. I remember watching the Monaco Grand Prix where he was leading and then suddenly after the tunnel… You couldn't see back then, the quality in the tunnel was not so great… I saw him with not all the wheels attached to the car, and he lost that race. For some reason, that broke my heart at the time. I didn't know him so well, I'd heard people talking about him, but those moments shock you as a kid. That is still in there somewhere. It's quite a moment that strikes me.
When and where did you first drive something?
The first time... I remember I had a little Ferrari with pedals. We were living in a very small flat with my parents, my parents put it outside the door for an evening, and I remember the following morning I went to take the car and it wasn't there – I got it stolen. It was a heartbreaking moment, really. That was the first thing I drove when I was young.
It's sad to hear that… But it worked out okay in the long run!
Yes, yes!
There's a lot of pressure on this next question… How many times did it take you to pass your driving test?
It took me one month in total. In France you have to do 20 hours minimum. I passed everything first go. I was very proud because the teacher basically told me, ‘You were the best I've had in a while'. I was like, ‘Pretty good, then!', I was happy. It was quite a stressful time, because there were some journalists who were outside. The [instructor] didn't know what they were here for, because I was already testing F1 before I got my driving licence. I really didn't want him to know, because if he had a bad thought, he would not have given it to me, but he said I was the best in a while, so I was happy.
Already like going to the TV pen after your driving test, then…
(Laughs) Basically that, yeah!
Who's your best friend inside the paddock?
It has to be Lance [Stroll] and Mick [Schumacher]. We really got along super well, also outside the track, so they are my two best friends around the F1 paddock.
Which three F1 personalities past or present would you invite to a dinner party and why?
Probably Ayao [Komatsu, Haas team boss] and Ollie [Bearman, Ocon's team mate]. I think it would be a fun one.
Keep it in the family…
For sure, yeah. If we've got something to celebrate, that's cool!
We know you're a big fan of Marvel Comics… What is your biggest interest or hobby outside F1?
That's a big passion of mine. I'm really into comics, Marvel Comics in particular. We have some exciting movies coming out next year, which are going to be awesome. A new Spider-Man, new Avengers. It's going to be really cool, I can't wait for that. I've got something special coming soon as well, which will be very nice, and I hope all the fans will love it! It's going to come before the end of the year, so stay in touch...
Outside of that, I like doing sports with the people I love, mountain biking, going to the gym together… But I'm a big petrolhead as well, going to work with my dad on cars, on racing buggies, on go-karts, I like to put my hands into it… RC (Remote Control) cars as well. It's something I do probably a lot more than a lot of drivers. Probably Fernando [Alonso] is very similar in that case, but I like these things, for sure.
What's your favourite film of all time?
I think it contradicts what I said before, because I'm a big fan of Marvel, but my favourite movie is The Dark Knight Rises, so it's actually Batman, kind of. It's more The Dark Knight than Batman. That has to be my favourite. It's DC Comics, and I'm not the biggest fan of DC Comics in general otherwise, but that one with Christian Bale is something insane. Then it's Iron Man and Spiderman!
What's the best holiday you've been on?
I think the last holidays that we had with my family were amazing. Going to the sea… I think it doesn't really matter where you are going, in the end it's who you spend it with. Going with my love, my family, and I think that's the best thing. There's nothing more that matters.
And what about the craziest travel experience you've had?
Probably going to Lapland or something. That's insane. You land, everything's frozen, then you get to drive to the hotel or a little house, all the cars have spiked tyres otherwise you don't move forward, it's minus 40 [degrees]… Yeah, that's probably the wildest experience. Seeing people with the dogs that they carry, like Santa!
What's the best advice you've ever received?
It's a good question. I think it has to be from my dad. When I was young, we were sacrificing a lot, I didn't have a normal kid's life when I was 10 or 12. He told me, ‘The most important time of your life is now, it's what's going to define your future. If we succeed, you will not have any regrets'. That was probably the best piece of advice, because you put everything negative on the side and you just go for it. Yes, I didn't have a normal childhood, but here I am living the dream and living the best life possible.
Which other job do you wish you could try for a day? A superhero, maybe?
(Laughs) That would be nice! If I could jump in an Iron Man suit and take off… I would like to spend a bit more time tuning cars, but from the electronics point of view. I've got a lot of people I know very well who spend a lot of time on dynos, trying to get more power out of the engines. I'm very good at understanding the outside hardware of things, but not the software inside – it's quite complicated, once you start to put numbers… That's the bit where I would like to learn a bit more, so doing an internship in some dyno testing would be nice.
Otherwise, I don't know, maybe… It's still related to cars, but swapping seats with some drift championship guys would be nice. Not for too long, but for a day! I did the WRC (World Rally Championship) as well already, which was insane. There are so many things to try, really. I was talking with my girlfriend not too long ago, and obviously I still have a long time to be racing, but I've done that all my life. I've never really thought about doing something else, because that's all I wanted to do. One day it will come, and I will have to think about that, so let's see!
What's your proudest moment in F1 so far? A few spring to mind, but what's top of the list?
Well, it has to be my win in Budapest [in 2021] – that's the most crazy one. Monaco 2023 was also very special, because that was unexpected, but it was on merit – it was very well-deserved. I'm not going to say Brazil last year was not on merit, because it was, but it's more conditions that levels up the cars. I take less credit for the Brazil drive than the one in Monaco, for some reason. Even though it was much harder in Brazil than Monaco… Monaco we were not supposed to be on the podium… Also not Brazil! (Laughs) But Monaco rewards you on the dry and it is special, the quali lap, and nailing all the laps in the race. Both are special, but I will definitely take Monaco.
I think I'll remember that Brazil weekend for the rest of my life…
It was crazy! It was crazy... Especially in a tough time like I had at the end of last year. It reminds me and gives me the confidence that I'm here and I can do it. At the end of the day, I'm here because I've proved that I can do it, and it definitely felt nice.
Finally, where do you want to be in five years' time?
World Champion! That would be nice… It's all the matters.
Next Up
© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
By Nellie Andreeva
Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV
EXCLUSIVE: Zachary Hart (Slow Horses) has been cast as a series regular in Netflix's Assassin's Creed. He joins previously cast leads Toby Wallace and Lola Petticrew in the live-action series based on Ubisoft's best-selling video game franchise.
Assassin's Creed is a high-octane thriller centered on the secret war between two shadowy factions — one set on determining mankind's future through control and manipulation, while the other fights to preserve free will. The series follows its characters across pivotal historical events as they battle to shape humanity's destiny.
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Details about Hart's role are being kept under wraps. The series is expected to start production in 2026 in Italy, which, as Deadline has reported, serves as a setting of the series, with the exact time period unclear.
Watch on Deadline
Roberto Patino and David Wiener serve as showrunners on Assassin's Creed, which stems from a deal Netflix signed with Ubisoft in 2020. They executive produce with Gerard Guillemot, Margaret Boykin, Austin Dill, Genevieve Jones for Ubisoft Film & Television, and Matt O'Toole.
With more than 230 million units sold, the Assassin's Creed franchise is one of the best-selling series in video game history.
Hart is a British actor-musician who most recently starred as Reg in the West End production of the Tony-winning Stereophonic. Earlier this year, he played Medvedenko in The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre.
On TV, Hart has guest starred on such series as Apple TV's Slow Horses and Masters of the Air, Netflix's The Witcher: Blood Origin and Bodies, BBC's Peaky Blinders and ITV's Doc Martin. He is currently filming Season 2 of Netflix's spy action thriller Black Doves and can next be seen in Hugo Blick's California Avenue for the BBC, alongside Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham-Carter, and Channel 4's Big Mood, opposite Nicola Coughlan.
Hart, who recently debuted his short film Chimera at the BFI London Film Festival, is repped by Insight Management & Production.
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By Peter White
Executive Editor, Television
EXCLUSIVE: Surf's up! Point Break, one of the most iconic films of the 1990s, is getting the TV treatment.
AMC is developing a small-screen series based on the 1991 film that starred Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty and Gary Busey.
The series comes from David Kalstein, who recently worked on Amazon's Butterfly; Alcon Television Group; and AMC Studios.
Deadline understands that the network won the project in a highly competitive situation.
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The original movie, which was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by W. Peter Iliff, starred Reeves as rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah, who infiltrates the Ex-Presidents, a gang of Southern California surfers who rob banks. The Ex-Presidents, who wear masks of Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon B. Johnson and Lyndon Johnson, are led by Swayze's Bodhi, and Utah gets swept up in their daredevil lifestyle before a massive action chase and a reunion amid lethal waves.
Watch on Deadline
The series is set 35 years after the events of the original film and is focused on a dangerous heist crew with ties to the Ex-Presidents gang.
Kalstein will write. He exec produces alongside Alcon co-founders and co-CEO's Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson and president of television Ben Roberts.
Kalstein was a co-exec producer on Amazon's Butterfly, which starred Daniel Dae Kim. He also co-exec produced series including CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles, ABC's Quantico and USA Network's Treadstone, co-showrunning the latter. He also developed series including Jade City at Peacock and Quantum Spy at NBC. He's repped at CAA, 42 and Yorn/Levine.
Point Break landed a remake in 2015 from director Ericson Core that starred Edgar Ramirez, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Delroy Lindo and Ray Winstone. It was produced by Alcon's Kosove and Johnson.
AMC has recently had success with another series with a ‘90s film; Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire. The series is set to air its third season next year and Mayfair Witches, which is also based in Rice's Immortal Universe, has also been renewed for a third season.
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Who needs originality when you can just remake and adapt other stuff
I say Chrus Gemsworth should be involved in this series!
Hope to god the ringleader wears a Trump mask. Series would be huuuuuuuuuge.
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The USC Libraries have named the 2026 finalists for their 38th annual Scripter Awards, which honor the year's most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen. The awards, which go to one film and one television series, recognize both the authors of the original works and the screenwriters who adapted them.
Additionally, author Michael Connelly, responsible for the novels that became hit television series like “Bosch” and “The Lincoln Lawyer,” will accept the USC Libraries Literary Achievement Award at the Scripter ceremony for his contributions to the art of mystery storytelling, both on the page and on the screen.
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On the film side, the Scripter Award has been a serious bellwether for the Oscars, having predicted four out of five of the last few Best Adapted Screenplay award winners. Screenwriter Peter Straughan, who won the film award in 2025 for “Conclave” alongside novelist Robert Harris, is nominated again this year for the TV award for his work adapting Hilary Mantel's novel “The Mirror and the Light” into the PBS series “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.”
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One big change with the Scripter Awards this year is that, in their focus on honoring the written word as a source of inspiration for screen storytellers, only works adapted from books or book series, novellas, short stories, graphic novels, plays, or magazine articles are eligible. Video games and characters originating in previously published works are no longer considered eligible source material, so films like “Wake Up Dead Man” and “Bugonia” were not in the running for the film award.
The 2026 Scripter selection committee selected the finalists from a field of 43 film and 64 television adaptations. USC professor Howard Rodman, a former president of the Writers Guild of America, West, chairs the committee, which includes journalists, authors, screenwriters, producers, and Elizabeth Daley, dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
The USC Libraries will announce the winning authors and screenwriters at a black-tie ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in the Town & Gown ballroom at the University of Southern California.
The finalist writers for film adaptation are, in alphabetical order by film title:
Guillermo del Toro for “Frankenstein” based on the novel “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley
Chloe Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell for “Hamnet” based on O'Farrell's novel of the same name
Paul Thomas Anderson for “One Battle After Another” based on the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon
Ira Sachs for “Peter Hujar's Day” based on the book of the same name by Linda Rosenkrantz
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar for “Train Dreams” based on the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson
The finalist writers for episodic series are, in alphabetical order by series title:
Max Hurwitz and Billy Luther for the episode “Ábidoo'niidę́ę́ (What He Had Been Told),” from “Dark Winds,” based on the novels “Dancehall of the Dead” and “The Sinister Pig” by Tony Hillerman
Mike Makowsky for the episode “Destiny of the Republic,” from “Death by Lightning,” based on Candice Millard's nonfiction book “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President”
Chandni Lakhani and Scott Frank for the untitled first episode of “Dept. Q,” based on the novel “The Keeper of Lost Causes” by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Will Smith for the episode “Scars,” from “Slow Horses,” based on the novel “London Rules” by Mick Herron
Peter Straughan for the series “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light,” based on the novel “The Mirror and the Light” by Hilary Mantel
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"These h--s don't be mad at Megan, these h--s mad at Megan's law ..."
By
Hannah Dailey
Nicki Minaj definitely has a problem with California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose recent comments about transgender children incited a storm of diss posts on X about him from the rapper — but he seems to have clapped back by invoking the words of Megan Thee Stallion.
It all started with the politician's Dec. 10 appearance on The Ezra Klein Show, where Newsom said that he wants “to see trans kids,” adding, “There's no governor that signed more pro-trans legislation than I have, and no one's been a stronger advocate for the LGBTQ [community].”
Unimpressed by the prospective 2028 presidential candidate's remarks, Minaj unleashed a storm of posts antagonizing him on Friday (Dec. 12). “Imagine being the guy running on wanting to see trans kids,” she wrote. “Haha. Not even a trans ADULT would run on that. Normal adults wake up & think they want to see HEALTHY, SAFE, HAPPY kids.”
“Gavin is the cute boy who got everything handed to him b/c of how cute & sexy & hot & smoking he was,” Minaj quipped in another post. “He thinks he's Tom Cruise only difference is, his next mission IS impossible. He should get another leading role.”
In other posts over the next couple of days, the hip-hop star wrote that it's the “end of the road” for Newsom and called him a “Career politician … nothing more than a Nicki Minaj ANTI.”
Newsom — who has a trans godson — hasn't directly responded to the callouts, but he did post a video that many onlookers have interpreted as shade against Minaj. Captioned with only a mouth-zipped emoji, the montage compiles clips of Newsom and President Donald Trump — for whom Minaj has been showing more and more support online in recent weeks — set to Megan Thee Stallion's Billboard Hot 100-topper “Hiss.”
The 2024 track is largely considered a diss track against Minaj, who certainly took offense to lyrics such as “These h–s don't be mad at Megan/ These h–s mad at Megan's Law” when Meg first dropped it. Minaj is married to and shares a son with Kenneth Petty, who was ordered to register as a sex offender after his conviction of attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl in 1995; Megan's Law is a federal mandate that requires law enforcement to make information available about registered sex offenders.
That same lyric plays over a photo of Trump standing next to Jeffrey Epstein — who pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, and was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 — in Newsom's video, which also includes newly released pictures of the president from Epstein's estate.
Minaj appeared to respond to Newsom's video by posting shortly afterward, “Oh gavvy Pooh the ppl behind you clearly don't care about you” and “Pooh this won't get the results you guys are hoping for … I can go 8 stages deeper.”
“Let's wait…I think Gavvy's still transitioning,” she added before sharing a fake, edited photo of herself putting Newsom in a headlock with her legs in a wrestling ring.
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The K-pop powerhouse teams with Brandon Hixon and Colin Gayle to build a global pipeline for African artists and expand its footprint.
By
Marc Schneider
Industry News Editor
HYBE is making a bold move into Africa's booming music market through a global management partnership with industry veterans Brandon Hixon and Colin Gayle, the Korean company announced Monday.
The collaboration aims to amplify African artists, foster cross-cultural storytelling and create long-term creative pathways across the U.S., Asia and beyond. Under the initiative, HYBE will build a pipeline for emerging and established talent, sign new artists and provide comprehensive international support. Tyla, the Grammy-winning South African star behind hits including “Water” and “PUSH 2 START,” will be the first artist supported under the initiative. She'll remain under the guidance of Hixon and Gayle, with HYBE adding global scale and resources to her team.
Hixon and Gayle bring decades of experience championing African music globally, and their alliance with HYBE signals a new era of Black-led creative leadership joining forces with a global entertainment powerhouse. The partnership will deliver expanded resources in touring, marketing, digital strategy, multimedia production and brand partnerships, while enabling cross-artist collaborations within HYBE's roster.
Hixon and Gayle bring decades of experience elevating African music on a global stage, and their partnership with HYBE marks a new chapter of Black-led creative leadership aligned with a major entertainment company. The alliance will provide expanded support across touring, marketing, digital strategy, production and branding deals, while also opening the door to collaborations with artists across HYBE's global roster.
“Our work has always been about connecting great artists with the world in the right way,” said Hixon. “HYBE brings a global perspective that complements how Colin and I build. Together, we can help artists move freely and tell their stories on the biggest stages.”
“We're entering a moment where African artists have unlimited potential,” added Gayle. “With HYBE's collaborative support, we can help them expand their reach while staying true to the roots that make this music extraordinary.”
African music's global surge — fueled by Afrobeats, Amapiano and platforms like TikTok and YouTube — is driving demand for infrastructure that can scale internationally. IFPI's 2025 Global Music Report underscores this momentum: Sub-Saharan Africa posted a 22.6% revenue increase last year, surpassing $100 million, while North Africa contributed to MENA's 22.8% growth.
“We are thrilled to partner with cultural architects like Brandon Hixon and Colin Gayle, whose vision is essential to driving the powerful momentum of African artistry onto the global stage,” said Jason Jaesang Lee, CEO of HYBE. “This partnership represents a pivotal moment in HYBE's global expansion strategy. By combining their expertise with our global network and resources, we will establish a strategic, sustainable bridge designed to amplify authentic African voices and artistry to fans across the world.”
In November, HYBE reported Q3 revenue up 38% year-over-year to 727.2 billion Korean won ($519 million), powered by concert income from BTS' Jin, SEVENTEEN and TXT.
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By Greg Evans
NY & Broadway Editor
Whoopi Goldberg gave an emotional tribute to her late friend and Ghosts of Mississippi director Rob Reiner on today's episode of The View, and followed it with an outraged response to Donald Trump‘s self-serving statement that the slain Hollywood icon died as a result of “his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.”
“Rob became a star in the iconic sitcom All In The Family,” an emotional Goldberg said, “and went on to direct beloved movies like This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, and I was lucky enough to get directed by him in Ghosts of Mississippi. He was also an outspoken activist and quite a guy, quite an amazing man.”
Reiner and wife Michele Reiner were found dead yesterday afternoon in their Brentwood home, their stabbed multiple times. Nick Reiner, the Reiners' 32-year-old son, has been arrested and was book this morning in connection with the death of his parents.
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After also mentioning the shootings at Australia's Bondi Beach and Brown University, Goldberg said, “I don't know how to process this…I don't even have the words, I don't know what to say.”
When co-host Sunny Hostin started to mention Trump's Truth Social tweet, Goldberg gently stopped her and said, “Don't read it, just tell them that it's there.”
Co-host Ana Navarro didn't hold back, growing angry as she said about Reiner. “At a time when so many in the media industry, so many with a platform are afraid to speak, he put his money and his mouth where his heart was and for Trump to have put that out today, I'm gonna say it: You know, damn it, there's an American family grieving. This is a tragedy, not just for the family, but for all who knew and loved him, and for the President of the United States to make this about him as a way to attack Rob Reiner, because he exercised his American right to speak up with what he disagreed with, is shameful. It is disgraceful. And of all the disgusting things that Donald Trump has done, this is right up there.”
After the co-hosts discussed the Reiners' deaths and the two mass shootings, Goldberg said, “If we can wrap our minds around the awfulness of these things, then we can open our hearts to all the people who've had to deal with this. All the women, all the men, all the people of color, all the Jews, all the folks who've had to deal with this struggle. I don't understand the man in that White House, because he talked so much about Charlie Kirk and caring, and suddenly this is what he puts out. Have you no shame? No shame at all? Can you get any lower? I don't think so.”
Goldberg, who said she last saw Reiner at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors celebrating mutual friend Billy Crystal, ended the segment with, “Our hearts are breaking through all of this, through Rob, through what's happened at Bondi Beach, what happened at Brown and you don't find the time to say, as Americans, we hate what's happening. You ain't my president.”
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A disturbing, self-aggrandizing comment from a reprehensible sub-human. He always goes lower – though it is difficult to imagine anything lower than this. Wait for it.
Every day is a new low.
Go lower? Something tells me he can and he will.
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Co-written by the younger Reiner, 'Being Charlie' premiered at TIFF in 2015. It serves as an unexpected map of the Reiners' dynamic.
By
Steven Zeitchik
Senior Editor, Technology and Politics
Nick Reiner has been arrested in connection with the homicide investigation into the deaths of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner.
It is not the first time that tension between the son and his parents has come into the public eye. Ten years ago, Rob and Nick actually made a movie about the challenges the Reiners faced.
The younger Reiner had long struggled with addiction. The family's 2015 film drama, Being Charlie, documented the resultant struggles. Nick co-wrote the script with a friend from rehab, inspired by their experiences, while Rob directed the movie, drawing off what he went through as a father. Sanctioned by the family, the movie offers an unusually candid glimpse into the inner workings of the Reiner household in those years when Nick's challenges grew. Cary Elwes played the Rob stand-in and Nick Robinson the Nick Reiner character.
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On Sunday evening, People magazine first reported that Nick Reiner was responsible for the Brentwood homicide of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, while the New York Post said that the 32-year-old is a person of interest in the killings.
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Premiering at TIFF in September 2015 ahead of a release the next year on Starz, Charlie centers on Charlie Mills, the 18-year-old addict son of David , a movie star who is now running for Congress. Charlie resents the harsh way his father and mother are treating his addiction, which involves mandatory stints in rehab; that tracks closely with how Rob, Michele and Nick Reiner interacted, the family said.
The movie offers few answers. And it ends with at best a détente after an apology from the dad for the sometimes-unsympathetic way he treated his son — an apology Reiner said in an interview at TIFF that he owed and gave to his son in real life.
“When Nick would tell us that it wasn't working for him, we wouldn't listen. We were desperate and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son,” the Princess Bride director told the L.A. Times at a dinner with his family, including Nick, who by then achieved sobriety.
Michele added: “We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he's a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.”
Nick, who didn't say much at the dinner, did note that he decided to get clean because “I got sick of it. I got sick of doing that shit. I come from a nice family. I'm not supposed to be out there on the streets and in homeless shelters doing all these fucked-up things.” (The Hollywood Reporter's review said the pair “clearly used this as a way to work through how 22-year-old Nick Reiner's own drug problems affected their family.”)
In a post-screening Q&A, Rob said that “we didn't set out for it to be cathartic or for it to be therapeutic, but it turned out to be that,” when asked by a festgoer about their relationship. Nick did not respond to that question. A moment later Rob said “there were disagreements” and “at times it was really rough” when the pair were trying to figure out how to depict the reality of their relationship in the movie. Nick said, “Sometimes it would get overwhelming for me.”
The movie is on YouTube, and late Sunday night it had become a go-to space for people to come and debate how parents relate to their drug-addicted kids, with viewers alternately expressing sympathy for the father and the son. A film scene in which Charlie angrily confronts his father at his family home is painful to watch, and if law enforcement concludes Nick is the suspect, it would not be surprising if YouTube decided to remove the film.
Rob Reiner said that, at the time of production, his relationship with Nick had changed for the better. “To be honest, by the time we got to the point of making the movie…our relationship had gotten so much closer.”
Still, Nick did not seem as engaged with the interview as one might have expected; at one point he said, “I really wasn't sure I wanted to do this.” A reporter came away feeling that the elder Reiner's expression of closure was an aspiration that had not been fully achieved.
(THR's review concluded that the film featured “two warring agendas, aligned neatly with the father and son positions expressed therein. The son/addict side wants…to point out that recovery is a long, grinding process that never magically ends. The dad viewpoint, on the other hand, is all about seeking closure, making everything all better and moving on to some elusive next stage where life can resume as normal once a handily cathartic rock-bottom has been endured. But the two angles are not so easily reconciled by final-reel hugs and glib one-liners.”)
The movie includes several scenes that would make uncomfortable any viewer who read the People.com report.
This piece of dialogue comes near the end of the movie:
David: “Charlie, I know you're angry at me and probably don't want to hear this right now but I do love you. I'm sorry. Every expert with a desk and a diploma told me I had to be tough at you but every time we sent you away to another one of those programs I saw you slipping away from us. And all I could tell myself is that I'd rather have you alive and hating me than dead on the streets. So what do you want me to do? Tell me what to do.”
Charlie: “You don't have to do anything.”
David: “You want to come up to Sacramento? Get away from all the—”
Charlie: “—What, the drugs? It was never about the drugs. All I ever wanted was a way to kill the noise. But the more I used the louder it got.”
David: “I was part of the noise, wasn't I?”
Charlie motions a sarcastic “little bit.”
David: “So what are you going to do?”
Charlie: “I don't know. I'll figure it out [Pause.] I don't hate you.”
David: “I know.”
The two hug, as Charlie turns to walk out the door.
David: “You take good care of yourself.”
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Bail has been set at $4 million after Nick Reiner was taken into custody by the Los Angeles Police Department after the Hollywood director and his wife Michele were found dead in their home on Sunday.
By
Etan Vlessing
Canada Bureau Chief
Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood couple Rob and Michele Reiner, has been arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department amid an investigation into the apparent homicide of his parents.
According to Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records made public on Monday, Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested on Sunday night at 9:15 p.m. local time and was booked into custody at 5:04 a.m. on Monday. His charge level is listed as felony, with bail set at $4 million.
Iconic filmmaker Rob Reiner, 78, and wife Michele, 70, were found dead in their L.A. home on Chadbourne Avenue reportedly stabbed to death. The couple suffered “lacerations consistent with a knife,” law enforcement sources told TMZ. There reportedly was no sign of forced entry.
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Said a spokesperson for the family on Sunday night: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
The Reiners' son Nick was early on reported as a suspect. He battled drug addiction and homelessness, had more than a dozen stints in rehab, and co-wrote a film loosely based on his life, Being Charlie (2015), that was directed by his father.
The Los Angeles Fire Department was first called to the Reiners' home at about 3:40 p.m. local time by an unidentified person. LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detectives were quickly on the scene investigating behind a police cordon.
Reiner friends Billy Crystal and Larry David were quickly on the scene, among the many who are pouring out tributes amid stunned reactions to the tragic news.
The Princess Bride (1987), Misery (1990), the Oscar best picture nominee A Few Good Men (1992), The American President (1995) and The Bucket List (2007) also were among Rob Reiner's 20-plus directing credits.
This is a developing story.
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By Dominic Patten, Patrick Hipes
Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner, was arrested late Sunday and booked in the early morning hours of Monday in connection with the death of his parents.
“This is proceeding as a murder investigation. We're putting together a timeline,” a law enforcement source told Deadline this morning.
The Oscar-nominated Rob Reiner and his wife were found dead yesterday afternoon in their Brentwood home; both bodies were discovered with multiple stab wounds, according to law enforcement sources. Police had been investigating the crime throughout the night, but other than confirming they had been interviewing family members had few details to provide in an evening press conference Sunday and didn't even confirm the victims' names.
According to Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records, Nick Reiner was booked at 5:04 a.m. PT this morning. Bail has been set at $4 million. The Los Angeles Police Department had no comment on the arrest, but will be providing an update on the investigation later this morning, we're told.
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Nick Reiner, 32, is one of Rob and Michele Reiner's three children. He has been open about his struggles with addiction. The 2015 film Being Charlie, co-written by Nick and directed by his father Rob, was loosely based on Nick's experience with addiction.
According to sources, Nick had recently moved back into his parents' home.
The Los Angeles Fire Department received an urgent call of an “incident” at the Reiner home, located on the 200 block of South Chadbourne Avenue, at about 3:38 p.m. PT Sunday. Authorities described the situation as a “family incident.”
Well-placed sources told Deadline that authorities were summoned by one of the Reiner children, believed to be daughter Romy Reiner, who lives in the neighborhood, and another individual. it was the actually the other person who made the 911 call.
Last night, the family confirmed the death, saying, “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
Reiner, who rose to fame playing Archie Bunker's son-in-law on All In the Family, became a prolific director and producer, with helming credits including This is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture), The American President and Flipped among others.
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I've read about Nick's troubles, but I hope Rob Reiner's son isn't being railroaded. Everyone wants closure, but we should make sure that doesn't mean jailing an innocent man.
The photo at the top of this article says it all. Look at the distance between these two men. You could see something was amiss. So sad.
It takes a truly sad mind to assume they can interpret what happened in 2025 based on a file photo from 2016. No one needed to read your detective work!
A history of documented trauma in his son and body language seen in photos are indicators – which forensic psychologists would evaluate – as indirect but suggestive evidence of a deeper issue working underneath the surface. Spatial relationships are part of the human experience and shouldn't be ruled out when reconstructing historical relationships and their dynamics contributing to a very unfortunate outcome.
Oh man, what a horrific tragedy
Throw away the key.
Yes. Unfortunately, but yes.
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By
Larisha Paul
Rob Reiner‘s expansive legacy didn't end with his vast contributions to film and television. The acclaimed actor and director, who was found dead alongside his wife, Michele, at their California home Sunday night, was also outspoken in his championing of civil rights. His activism has been celebrated by numerous political figures following news of his death.
“Rob's achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen,” former president Barack Obama shared in a statement on X. “But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people — and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action. Together, he and his wife lived lives defined by purpose. They will be remembered for the values they championed and the countless people they inspired.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi wrote, “Personally, Rob cared deeply about people and demonstrated that in his civic activities — whether by supporting the First 5 initiative or fighting against Prop 8 in California. Civically, he was a champion for the First Amendment and the creative rights of artists. And professionally, he was an iconic figure in film who made us laugh, cry and think with the movies he created.”
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Reiner's political perspective shaped an array of releases throughout his career as he encouraged audiences to dig deeper into the politics and politicians shaping America. In 2017, he released Shock and Awe, a film critical of the George W. Bush administration. It arrived just a year after he chronicled the start of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency as successor to John F. Kennedy in 2016's LBJ. Last year, he produced the documentary God & Country, which tracked the rise of Christian nationalism and its connection to the far right.
Reiner's directorial efforts also include the career-defining releases A Few Good Men and The American President. The political thread that runs throughout his filmography can be traced back to his role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic in All in the Family, as well. “Rob Reiner's work has impacted generations of Americans,” former vice president Kamala Harris wrote on X. “The characters, dialogue, and visuals he brought to life in film and television are woven throughout our culture. Rob loved our country, cared deeply about the future of our nation, and fought for America's democracy.”
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Last year, Reiner looked back at All in the Family in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying, “Archie Bunker was a conservative and a patriot, but also a racist. And what we're seeing now is the weaponization of that racism.… These people [Christian nationalists] are fine with the idea that America should be a white, Christian nation. They're frightened of what's happening in this country with diversity. But we are a pluralistic society.”
Earlier this year, Reiner backed Bruce Springsteen as the musician sparred with Donald Trump and made a point to encourage people to look at the bigger picture, rather than the theatrics of the moment. “Millions of people died so that fascism wouldn't come to our shores, so that we'd preserve our democracy, and 80 years later, we're faced with a possible fascist takeover,” he told Rolling Stone in May. “We're gonna fight hard to make sure that that doesn't happen.… We have to keep Trump's feet to the fire, because for the countries that have become autocracies, for the most part, it takes years to start changing the constitution, to start changing the electorate, to make the disinformation take hold.”
“Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass shared in a statement on X. “An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others.”
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Bass highlighted Reiner's contribution to the creation of First 5 California, an organization founded in 1998 to redirect a portion of funds from tobacco sales to early childhood development resources in local communities. She also noted, “He and Michele fought for early childhood development and marriage equality, working to overturn Proposition 8. They were true champions for LGBTQ+ rights.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom echoed these sentiments in his statement. “Rob was a passionate advocate for children and for civil rights — from taking on Big Tobacco, fighting for marriage equality, to serving as a powerful voice in early education. He made California a better place through his good works,” he said on X. “Rob will be remembered for his remarkable filmography and for his extraordinary contribution to humanity.”
Newsom added, “Rob was the big-hearted genius behind so many of the classic stories we love, with projects as wide-ranging as The Princess Bride to A Few Good Men. His boundless empathy made his stories timeless, teaching generations how to see goodness and righteousness in others — and encouraging us to dream bigger.”
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Bill and Hillary Clinton shared a joint statement on social media, writing, “Hillary and I are heartbroken by the tragic deaths of our friends Rob and Michele Reiner. They inspired and uplifted millions through their work in film and television. And they were good, generous people who made everyone who knew them better through their active citizenship in defense of inclusive democracy, setting an example for us all to follow. Hillary and I will always be grateful for their friendship, unfailing kindness, and support.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren shared a photo with Reiner on X with the caption, “I was devastated to hear about the loss of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer. Rob is a generational talent that used his voice to advocate for a better world. We live in a better country because of them. They will be missed.”
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Australian actress Rachael Carpani, best known for her role on “McLeod's Daughters,” has died at the age of 45. Her family confirmed the news in a statement shared on social media, describing her passing as peaceful following a long illness.
On Monday, December 15, Rachael's sister, Georgia, shared a statement from their parents, Tony and Gael Carpani, on Instagram announcing her death.
“It is with great sadness that Tony and Gael Carpani announce that their beautiful daughter, beloved Australian actress Rachael Carpani, unexpectedly but peacefully passed away after a long battle with chronic illness, in the early hours of Sunday, December 7,” the statement read.
The family also shared funeral details, noting, “The funeral will be a private event, to be held on Friday, December 19, with close family and friends.”
The post concluded with a request for privacy, adding, “The family requests privacy at this very difficult time and will be making no further statements.”
Rachael rose to prominence playing Jodi Fountain on the Australian drama “McLeod's Daughters,” appearing on the series between 2001 and 2009. The role made her a familiar and beloved figure to audiences.
She later expanded her career internationally, appearing in U.S. television series and films. Her credits include “N.C.I.S: Los Angeles,” “The Glades,” “If There Be Thorns,” and “The Rachels.”
She also starred in Lifetime's “Against the Wall” and appeared in the 2009 film “Triangle” alongside Liam Hemsworth, according to IMDb.
In August, Georgia paid a heartfelt tribute to Rachael on her birthday, sharing photos and a loving message that has since taken on deeper meaning.
“Whether she's done up and going out or staying in and working, she's the most beautiful woman I know,” Georgia wrote.
“Happiest of birthdays to my gorgeous sister @rachcarpani. You bring so much light and joy, and we love you so much! ♥️🎂🥳🥂.”
The post included a photo of Rachael smiling while holding a drink, and another of her working at a laptop.
Following the announcement of her death, fans flooded the comments with messages of sympathy and gratitude, many recalling the impact Rachael's work had on their lives.
“I am so incredibly saddened to learn of your darling sister's passing. I am so sorry. I grew up watching & wanting to be her. Sending much love and enveloping hugs to your family. 💛,” one fan wrote.
Another added, “Praying for your beautiful family! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏.”
“I loved your sister in McLeod's Daughters! Sorry for your loss! Xo ❤️,” another comment read.
Rachael Carpani is remembered for her memorable performances and the warmth her family, friends, and fans say she brought into their lives.
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Billboard News, presented by Amazon Prime, breaks down notable highlights from Billboard's Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs, including fan favorites from Katy Perry, Jonas Brothers and Wham!, to name a few. With festive sound cues and seasonal flair, the segment celebrates seasonal favorites and spotlights chart-topping moments, including Mariah Carey's continued reign with “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Tetris Kelly: Yes, it's that time of year, and everybody's playlist is full of holiday bops. Well, if you need suggestions, we're breaking down some of the songs on Billboard‘s Greatest of All Time, Holiday 100 Songs presented by Amazon Prime. Getting cozy down in No. 79 is a holiday favorite by Katy Perry.
Katy Perry: Well, you know, I guess if this was the tester, it went well. I love this song, and I created it especially for Amazon.
Tetris Kelly: And the boy bands are represented with the Jonas Brothers at No. 70, NSYNC* at 64 and Jackson 5 at 42. Getting closer to the top of the ranks, we see contemporary faves like Ariana Grande at 19 and Justin Bieber at No. 17. This year on the Hot 100 Wham! has already peaked at No. 2, but on our all time list “Last Christmas” is at eight. And with multiple entries on the list, it's no surprise Mariah Carey is No. 1 with “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” It's a big year for Mimi as she continues to break chart records.
Interviewer: Did you know you had a hit on your hands?
Mariah Carey: I was just into the fact that I was, I was writing a Christmas song. It was from a different perspective, you know, than my usual songwriting. And I never imagined, like, well, first of all, I couldn't think that far ahead in the future anyway, but I never imagined this moment with it. So it's just really nice to be part of people's holiday traditions.
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"It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner," a spokesperson for the family said.
By
Jessica Lynch
Rob Reiner, the acclaimed director, actor and producer whose work helped define modern American film and television comedy, has died alongside his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, it was confirmed late Sunday (Dec. 14).
A spokesperson for the Reiner family confirmed the deaths Sunday evening. “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
Emergency responders from the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived around 3:30-3:40 p.m. PT to the Chadbourne Avenue property following a medical aid call, discovering a 78-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman deceased with stab wounds.
The LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division is investigating, with no suspect identified or detained as of Sunday evening; no signs of forced entry were reported
“We are not looking for anyone as a suspect or in any other manner right now,” Hamilton said, adding that police will not release further details until the Los Angeles County coroner completes formal identification and investigators gather additional evidence.
Reiner, who turned 78 in March, was one of Hollywood's most influential creative figures. He first rose to prominence in the 1970s as Mike “Meathead” Stivic on All in the Family, earning two Emmy Awards, before becoming a defining filmmaker of the 1980s and '90s.
His directing credits include This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, Misery and A Few Good Men.
In September, Reiner spoke with Billboard about the enduring legacy of This Is Spinal Tap ahead of the release of its long-awaited sequel, Spinal Tap II, reflecting on how closely the original film mirrored real rock culture.
“Life imitating art imitating life,” Reiner said during the September interview, appearing on Zoom wearing a Spinal Tap baseball cap and T-shirt. “In Oasis' case, they're real brothers, but with Spinal Tap, the two guys were best friends since they were little and break apart and come back together.”
Discussing the emotional core of the sequel, Reiner said the film leaned beyond satire. “The emotional ballast of the movie is the relationship between the two guys,” he said. “Now, many years later, they're older. The same issues are happening, but it's deeper because they've known each other longer.”
Originally released in 1984, This Is Spinal Tap was not a box office success but became a cult classic through home video and word of mouth, particularly among musicians. Reiner previously noted that some rock stars initially bristled at how closely the film mirrored reality.
“We took [moments] from the real world of rock and roll,” he said, citing backstage mishaps and infamous tour lore that later became part of music mythology.
The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, who died in 2020, Rob Reiner married photographer Michele Singer Reiner in 1989 after meeting while he was directing When Harry Met Sally…. The couple shared three children. Reiner was previously married to actor and filmmaker Penny Marshall, who died in 2018.
Tributes continued to emerge Sunday night, including from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who described Reiner as “an iconic figure in film who made us laugh, cry and think.”
Police said the investigation remains active and that additional updates will be provided as appropriate.
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The legendary filmmaker's entertainment industry career spanned seven decades.
By
Abid Rahman
International Editor, Digital
Filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were found dead on Sunday at their Brentwood. The news has shocked Hollywood to the core, as not only was Reiner a popular and respected figure with a long career of success, he was also behind some of the greatest American films ever made, particularly in the comedy and rom-com genres.
Though he rose to prominence as an actor in Norman Lear's 1970s situation comedy All in the Family, Reiner transitioned into directing in the 1980s and unarguably achieved greater success. Reiner's opening seven-film run of This Is Spinal Tap (1984), The Sure Thing (1985), Stand By Me (1986), The Princess Bride (1987), When Harry Met Sally (1989), Misery (1990) and A Few Good Men (1992) is regularly cited on social media among film fans and critics as one of the greatest hot streaks enjoyed by any director working in Hollywood.
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His first film was the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, which follows the misadventures of fictional British rock band Spinal Tap — played by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer — on a disastrous tour of the U.S. in support of their new album, Smell the Glove. In the “doc,” Reiner also plays director Marty Di Bergi, who interviews the band as things go from bad to worse. The film is credited with launching the mockumentary genre and is regarded as one of the greatest comedies ever made, and several phrases from the film — such as putting things “up to eleven” — still permeate pop culture.
This Is Spinal Tap spawned a thousand imitators, was referenced to oblivion in other art and also led to a Reiner-directed sequel in 2025, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
Flush from the critical success of This Is Spinal Tap in 1984, Reiner directed the romantic road movie The Sure Thing, starring rising actors John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga, which was released a year later. The film told the story of two college students traveling across country over the Christmas holidays. Sure Thing was a critical and financial success and was praised for applying the traditional rom-com format to a film involving teenagers in an age when films like Porky's were far more pervasive and influential.
Reiner's streak continued in 1986 with Stand by Me, the feature adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Body. The film, which starred rising actors Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell, told the story of four boys in 1959 Maine who decide to look for the dead body of a missing boy. The film, which was a big hit with critics and was a huge success at the box office, earned an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay and secured Reiner his first Golden Globe nomination for best director. Since its release, Stand by Me has endured as a classic and like This Is Spinal Tap has been referenced in other popular films and TV series.
In 1987, Reiner again struck gold with the fantasy comedy The Princess Bride, another film that has seemingly only become more popular over time and that has had a lasting legacy on pop culture. The movie, an adaptation of William Goldman's book The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The “Good Parts” Version, featured an ensemble cast of actors and comedians including Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Peter Falk, a very young Fred Savage and Billy Crystal, as well as the wrestler André the Giant in a hugely memorable role as Fezzik. Once again, Reiner's film was responsible for a number of phrases to enter the lexicon, including Patinkin's Inigo Montoya's line “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die” and Shawn's Vizzini's “Inconceivable!” and Elwes' Westley's “As you wish.”
By now a dominant force in Hollywood, Reiner's purple patch continued in 1989 with When Harry Met Sally, a film that is widely considered one of Hollywood's greatest rom-coms. Written by Nora Ephron and starring Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby, When Harry Met Sally tells the story of Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Ryan) and their friendship, which evolves from platonic to something more over the span of 12 years. A massive success, the film made $92.8 million at the box office and Ephron was nominated for an Oscar for her script. When Harry Met Sally also became a pop culture phenomenon. Most notably, the fake orgasm scene that was shot in New York's Katz Deli made the food spot a popular tourist attraction.
Reiner returned to Stephen King for inspiration for his 1990 movie Misery, adapting the author's 1987 novel of the same name. Misery starred James Caan as a famous writer who is held captive by a crazed fan played by an incredible Kathy Bates, a performance that would win her a well-deserved Academy Award for best actress.
A Few Good Men would bookend what many regard as Reiner's unprecedented opening run as a director. Released in 1992, the film was another adaptation of a popular book, this time John Grisham's military court legal drama. A Few Good Men starred Tom Cruise as a fresh-faced JAG Corps lawyer going up against a terrifying Jack Nicholson playing a USMC colonel responsible for the U.S. Navy's Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Elevating the courtroom scenes, Reiner helped Nicholson to one of his career best performances and the film was nominated for four Oscars, including best picture and best supporting actor for Nicholson.
In the 1990s, 2000s and beyond, Reiner became more involved in politics, so much so he became one of the most prominent Hollywood liberals in the public conscience, and he was parodied as such in South Park. His film work in this period was still prolific but didn't meet with the same critical praise as his early features, still the filmmaker was able to produce a few gems, including the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman-led buddy comedy The Bucket List in 2007. The film followed two terminally ill friends checking off things they've always wanted to do before they died. Though it received a lukewarm reception from critics, The Bucket List made a stellar $175 million at the global box office, and in keeping with Reiner's uncanny ability to penetrate the zeitgeist, the movie popularized the concept of the “bucket list.”
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Detectives with the Robbery Homicide Division were investigating an "apparent homicide" at Reiner's home.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Homicide detectives were investigating Sunday after two people were found dead at director-actor Rob Reiner's Los Angeles home, authorities said.
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The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30 p.m. and found a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman dead inside.
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Detectives with the Robbery Homicide Division were investigating an “apparent homicide” at Reiner's home, said Capt. Mike Bland with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Authorities have not confirmed the identities of the people found dead at the residence in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood on the city's west side that's home to many celebrities.
Reiner is long one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work includes some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and '90s, including “This is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men,” “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride.”
His role as Meathead in the 1970s TV classic “All in the Family” alongside Carol O'Connor's Archie Bunker catapulted him to fame. Reiner turned 78 in March.
Messages to his representatives were not immediately returned Sunday night.
The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner has been married to photographer Michele Singer Reiner since 1989. The two met while he was directing “When Harry Met Sally” and have three children together.
Reiner was previously married to actor-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981. He adopted her daughter, Tracy Reiner. Carl Reiner died in 2020 at age 98 and Marshall died in 2018.
Reporting by Christopher Weber and Mike Balsamo via the Associated Press.
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The only reasonable way I can think to approach “Winter Fire,” the season-one finale of IT: Welcome To Derry—sorry, that's IT: Welcome To Derry: Chapter One, as the show loudly trumpets in its closing minutes—is the same way I'd try to come to terms with any particularly tough and gristly piece of meat. That is, hack away as much of the inedible and unpalatable connective tissue as you can in the hopes of finding something flavorful and nourishing underneath. So let's reach for the cleaver, huh?
Because, make no mistake about it, this finale is one of the more ungainly “I told you that story so I could tell you this story, probably some time in Q4 2027” episodes of TV I've encountered in a good long time. (And that's from both directions, actually, courtesy of a post-ending sequence that jumps forward to 1988 in a bald effort to justify this season's Mrs. Kersh plotline, while also working in a quick Sophia Lillis cameo.) Lillis' appearance dovetails nicely with the flash of Finn Wolfhard we got a bit earlier in the finale, when poor Pennywise The Dancing Clown is forced to lay epic amounts of track for potential prequel/sequel purposes when he reveals that his current opponent Margie Truman will eventually get married and give birth to IT's co-killer, Richie Tozier. IT knows this, it tells us entirely unprompted, because it views time in a non-linear fashion. Margie and Lilly later saying this nice and slow, so everybody in the back can get it, means that this show can now justify launching a pre-prequel for itself by following the creature's attempts to wipe out the bloodlines that lead to its downfall through time. The fact that this makes no goddamn sense in the context of anything that happened in either IT film, the other flashbacks we've gotten of Pennywise before, or the character's basic behavior even in this specific episode doesn't really matter. The important thing is that the show's apparently inevitable next season has now been “narratively justified,” and it only took grinding this one to a halt to get it done.
If there's an elegant way to impart this information, Jason Fuchs' script and Andy Muschietti's camera never find it—but that's not a problem unique to those parts of “Winter Fire” dedicated to the show's wider franchise duties. After all, it's just as inept at adding even a single layer of naturality to the way the plotting here shoves all of our board-game pieces frenetically into place, so the show can have something approaching a meaningful climax on the frozen shores of the Penobscot River. The sudden revelation that our old friend the Magic Dagger starts acting like the One Ring if it gets moved even a couple of miles away from where it landed in Derry—because that's its “home,” duh—at least has a bracing amount of narrative utility, allowing Fuchs to resolve Ronnie and Lilly's lingering conflict, layer in some last-second “power of friendship” material for the group, and pace out the final confrontation to be one of the slowest-moving cliffhangers I've ever seen, all with a single plot point. But I also have a certain soft spot for the more nakedly expositional bit where Kimberly Guerrero busts out charts and maps to provide an exact geographical finish line for the episode's final race, with Charlotte, Hank, and Leroy nodding along in plot-mandated comprehension as she explains that they have to get to the Magic Tree with the Magic Dagger before the monster clown can get across the river or everything will be lost.
Besides forcing Guerrero to deliver some lines that are just absolute video game fetch quest nonsense (“The earth is a conductor,” she intones with a matter-of-fact gravity I've come to think of in these pages as “Remar-esque”), there's a bigger problem that this hefty bit of last-second construction imposes: Making the end of this conflict so concrete highlights how fast and loose the show has played with IT's physical capabilities, which allow it to blanket all of Derry in icy fog at the start of the episode but then slow it to the speed of plot once the creature's making its escape. Bullets inconvenience IT, unless they don't; the Magic Dagger freezes it, unless the script needs that not to happen. To be clear, I'm not arguing that IT should have rules; its chimeric, unknowable nature is a huge part of what makes it scary. But by giving itself a very deliberate ticking clock for the creature to race against, “Winter Fire” invites these comparisons onto itself, creating situations where it makes what should be the show's single most valuable asset—one of the scariest creations of one of America's scariest brains, a monster designed to tap into our most primal fears, and one that had me, personally, scared shitless to reach my hand out into a darkened basement to feel for a light switch as a teenager for years—look either weak, foolish, or both. Tabletop game designers constantly caution dungeon masters not to stat out monsters and gods they don't want to see killed or humbled by ambitious players; this finale is an able demonstration of why.
Luckily, it's also a demonstration of some notable elements of Welcome To Derry's better nature, even if, as predicted, the show never finds a message more interesting and meaningful to cling to than “Friends and family: good! The military murdering people to impose fear on Americans: bad!” (R.I.P. General Shaw: You certainly died dumb.) When Muschietti isn't giving into his gorier impulses or trying to find more places to jam teeth into Bill Skarsgård's face, he's capable of a subtly horrifying visual here or there. I was especially taken with the bit where Pennywise calls the students of Derry High into an assembly, only to greet them with the puppeteered body of Principal Dunleavy. Seeing a grown man's body hanging limp and used as a ventriloquist dummy is the kind of genuinely spooky imagery this show could have used a lot more of. (It's a pity we have to get to the skull crushing and CGI light show so soon.)
It's in its character work, though—always this show's strongest element—that “Winter Fire” achieves some measure of saving grace. Whether watching Jovan Adepo's Leroy talk Chis Chalk's Hallorann out of suicide, or seeing Clara Stack and Amanda Christine sink their teeth into Lilly and Ronnie's frustrations with both themselves, and each other, this episode gets closest to thriving when it focuses on people, not plot. Even Skarsgård gets a chance to add a few more notes to Pennywise's emotional toolkit, projecting genuine confusion, and even a little fear, when Hallorann sucks the clown into a paralyzing fantasy that he's just a delusional Bob Gray. And fuck, I'm not made of stone: When Rich's ghost emerged from the fog to help slam the Magic Dagger home—tossing a middle finger the clown's way in the process—I got a giddy little thrill.
I can hold on to those highs, almost all emotional in nature, while contemplating this finale—as long as I don't start actually, y'know, thinking. Because that's when my brain starts complaining about how little almost anything IT does in this episode makes sense. Or the way Hallorann asks “How much trouble could a hotel be?” while the show takes a little bow at how goddamn clever it's being with its Shining references. Or thinking about the absolutely insane decision Charlotte and Leroy make at the end of the episode, choosing not to leave Derry so that they can join Rose's secret organization of IT watchers—something there was absolutely no evidence of in the films. (Y'know, the ones where the grandson they've doomed to live in this hell town is getting constantly threatened by a murder clown with absolutely zero oversight?) Or the way the entire climax takes place on a massive sheet of ice, but people only slip or slide when the narrative absolutely demands it? Some of these are big structural defects, and some of them are just nit-picks. But they add up to an episode of TV that works intermittently in the heart but almost never in the head.
And that's Welcome To Derry in a nutshell, really. It's a series you can either appreciate on a strict gut level of spectacle—although I'd argue that it's one of the least actually scary horror shows I've ever seen—or as a showcase of craft and performance. But as a cohesive story, it never came together, failing to grab hold of any major themes or ideas (beyond “murder clown scary,” I guess) or build anything satisfying beyond a handful of core character arcs. I come away from it unconvinced that Muschietti actually knows what was horrifying about Stephen King's book, or even what could have been scary about this era of American history. (Has a series so deliberately set up as a period show ever cared less about its own historical context?) A crew of talented performers, and some genuinely stomach-turning effects shots, have worked overtime to give the series an energy it otherwise might have failed to possess. (I can still get a latent thrill from that opening car ride in the pilot, or Ronnie's nightmare sequence in episode two, sequences that merged the visceral with the real in a way that mined both for genuine fear.) But a lot of that spark, if I'm being honest, seemed to desert the series once it had Skarsgård to fall back on for a more rote, if charismatic, flavor of menace. And if this is all Muschietti and his fellow writers and directors could think to do with this fantastic creation, in this rich an era of American history, then my vote is obvious after eight episodes of disappointed hopes: Down, I say, with the clown.
William Hughes is a staff writer at The A.V. Club.
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Rob Reiner, the legendary director and actor who rose to prominence in All in the Family and went on to direct the classic film comedies This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally…, died in his California home with his wife, Michele Singer, on Sunday. He was 78.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” his family said in a statement. “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
Police are treating the deaths as apparent homicides. According to the L.A. Times, authorities have questioned a member of Reiner's family in connection with the death. As of Sunday night, the LAPD have not officially identified a suspect, but Rolling Stone has confirmed that Reiner's son, Nick, was involved in the homicide. A source confirmed to Rolling Stone that the couple's daughter, Romy, found her parents' bodies.
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The couple were found dead Sunday afternoon. Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division detectives have been assigned to the case, NBC Los Angeles reports. Paramedics had been called to the home at around 3:30 p.m. and officers were dispatched after firefighters discovered a death.
“This is a devastating loss for our city and our country. Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote. “An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others.”
Born March 6, 1947, in New York, Reiner was the son of Carl Reiner, a giant in television and film comedy who created The Dick Van Dyke Show and directed The Jerk. When Rob set out to make his own name, he tried not to ride his father's sizable coattails. “I didn't take any money from him,” he recalled in 2016. “I didn't take any advice. … I knew I was going to get that [nepotism] stuff. … But I knew in my head what I had done.”
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While Reiner played several bit roles in popular television shows in the Sixties, including Batman and The Andy Griffith Show, and partnered with Steve Martin writing for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, his breakout role came in the Seventies playing the liberal Mike “Meathead” Stivic, the son-in-law of the cantankerous conservative Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) in Norman Lear's hit sitcom, All in the Family, which ran from 1971 through 1979. Reiner won two Emmys for the portrayal.
During that time, he also guest starred on The Partridge Family and created the sitcom The Super, with Phil Mishkin and Gerry Isenberg, which aired in 1972.
But his artistic legacy was cemented by the string of wonderful, varied comedies he directed in the 1980s and 1990s. With his 1984 debut This Is Spinal Tap, a mockumentary about a notoriously terrible U.K. metal band, Reiner worked with his stars and co-writers Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer to craft a heavily improvised film that made fun of rock-star egos and artistic pretensions. For Reiner, who was trying to make the leap from sitcom actor to movie director, the movie was a chance to prove himself to a skeptical industry.
“At that time,” he wrote in the 2025 book A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap, “there was a big chasm in Hollywood between those who worked in television and those who worked in movies. The film people were considered royalty. They looked down on the lowly peasants of TV. Today, actors, writers, and directors easily shuttle between movies and television. But it wasn't until such sitcom alums as Ron Howard, Danny DeVito, Penny Marshall, and I, along with the TV writers Barry Levinson and Jim Brooks, were successfully directing movies in the Eighties that these dividing lines were erased.”
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He followed This Is Spinal Tap with the 1985 romantic comedy The Sure Thing, starring relative unknown John Cusack, but his next five films were indelible. Adapting Stephen King's novella The Body into Stand by Me, Reiner demonstrated his ability to elicit wonderfully lived-in performances from his young cast, which included Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell. The film launched their Hollywood careers and remains a beloved coming-of-age tale that Reiner once claimed was the film that meant the most to him.
“[I]t was the first time I did a movie that really reflected my personality,” he later said. “It has some melancholy in it, it has some emotion and it also has humor in it and the music was of my time… I think people relate to it. There's a line at the end of the movie where they say, ‘You never have friends like you do when you are 12.' And that's a true thing. When you bond with your friends when you are 12 years old, it's a very strong emotional bond.”
The next year, he tackled another adaptation, William Goldman's fantasy book The Princess Bride, and showed he was just as capable at crafting a tender, funny fairy tale. As with his previous movies, The Princess Bride wasn't simply popular but proved to be a warehouse for endlessly quotable lines: “Have fun storming the castle!” “Inconceivable!” These early hits catered to all ages, but with his 1989 film, When Harry Met Sally…, he produced one of the period's wisest, most grown-up romantic comedies.
Working from Nora Ephron's flawless script, Reiner told the story of two platonic friends, Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan), who eventually discover that they love each other. When Harry Met Sally… took the urban sophistication of Woody Allen's best New York love stories and married it to contemporary concerns about relationships and, of course, faking orgasms. (The movie's famous scene with Ryan faking it in a restaurant was capped with Reiner's own mother Estelle saying the key line: “I'll have what she's having.”)
Reiner didn't just master comedies: His 1990 adaptation of King's bestselling novel Misery won Kathy Bates an Oscar for terrorizing James Caan's poor novelist Paul Sheldon. Although darkly funny, Misery was also legitimately scary, further illustrating Reiner's ability to produce excellent mainstream Hollywood entertainment across genres.
That roll continued with 1992's A Few Good Men, with Aaron Sorkin adapting his own play for a live-wire courtroom drama highlighted by terrific performances from, among others, Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, whose momentous “You can't handle the truth!” showdown was just one more example of Reiner conjuring up instant-classic moments in his box-office hits.
In the midst of this incredible run, he was unfailingly modest about his talents. “I'm not great at anything, but I'm real good at a lot of things,” he told Film Comment in 1987. “I'm a pretty good actor, a pretty good writer, I have pretty good music abilities, pretty good visual and color and costume sense. I'm not great at any of these things, but as a director I have the opportunity to utilize all these things in one job. Which is why I like doing it. … I pick people who are creative and gentle and are willing to struggle along with me a little bit if I'm not exactly sure. People say it's a real sin for a director to ever admit he doesn't know what he wants. But I'm as confused as the next guy.”
Reiner would knock out one last indisputable gem, the 1995 White House rom-com The American President. But if his career never contained another movie that captured the public's imagination, he continued to make films on myriad topics, focusing chiefly on political issues he cared about. An outspoken liberal who criticized George W. Bush and Donald Trump, he turned that anger at the country's right-ward direction into pictures such as LBJ and Shock and Awe, which were provocations meant to inspire everyday Americans to look more closely at their government.
He would occasionally return to acting, agreeing to a recurring role in New Girl. Reiner appeared in movies like 1987's Throw Momma From the Train and 1993's Sleepless in Seattle, and he was delightful in 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street playing the father of Leonardo DiCaprio's unscrupulous stockbroker Jordan Belfort. And he enjoyed spoofing his own leftie image, playing himself as Rep. Rob Reiner in a memorable episode of 30 Rock.
Most recently, he made his first sequel, directing Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which arrived in theaters in September. He reunited with Shearer, McKean, and Guest, reprising his role as clueless documentarian Marty DiBergi. Reiner and his stars had long resisted the temptation to make a Part Two. “We never even considered it,” he wrote in A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever. “Why fuck with a classic? … But after a few more meetings, we saw that we still made each other laugh.”
Despite the wealth of enduring favorites Reiner directed, he was only nominated for one Oscar (Best Picture for A Few Good Men). But the endless rewatchability of his best movies speaks to what he achieved as a mainstream filmmaker, blending craft, smarts, heart, and humor in a way few directors managed.
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Asked what makes a “Rob Reiner film” by 60 Minutes in 1994, Reiner explained that it was hard to categorize given his range of films, but “the main character in the film is always going through something that I've experienced or am experiencing, and I try to make it as personal as possible,” he said.
“It's the only way I know how to tell a story,” he continued. “I didn't come through the film schools. I'm an actor, and I approach it from, can I inhabit the insides of this character? Can I be this person? And if I can, then I know how to tell the story of what that person is going through. And I also know how to tell the actor who's playing that part how to play the part.”
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The two-time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee and his wife, Michele, were found dead in their Brentwood home. Their son Nick has been arrested.
By
Deborah Wilker
Rob Reiner, who directed such beloved Hollywood classics as This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me and When Harry Met Sally after starring in the trailblazing sitcom All in the Family, died Sunday along with his wife, Michele, in their Brentwood home. He was 78.
Reiner and his wife, 70, were found dead in their home on Chadbourne Avenue, with the couple “suffering lacerations consistent with a knife,” law enforcement sources told TMZ. There reportedly was no sign of forced entry.
Said a spokesperson for the family: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
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Two People Found Dead at Rob Reiner's House in Los Angeles; LAPD Investigating "Apparent Homicide"
The Reiners' son Nick, 32, has been arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He battled drug addiction and homelessness, had more than a dozen stints in rehab and co-wrote a film loosely based on his life, Being Charlie (2015), that was directed by his father.
Near the scene Sunday just before 9 p.m., LAPD chief of detectives Alan Hamilton said “we have not identified a suspect at this time,” there “was no person of interest” and that many family members would be interviewed.
The Los Angeles Fire Department had been called to the Reiners' home at about 3:40 p.m. by an unidentified person, and LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detectives were investigating.
The Princess Bride (1987), Misery (1990), the Oscar best picture nominee A Few Good Men (1992), The American President (1995) and The Bucket List (2007) also were among Rob Reiner's 20-plus directing credits.
Reiner was also a co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, the production company behind such films as City Slickers (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Waiting for Guffman (1996), Miss Congeniality (2000), Best in Show (2000), Michael Clayton (2007) and Seinfeld, one of the most lucrative television properties of all time.
From the outset of his feature directorial career with This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Reiner seemed to reimagine Hollywood standards, creating and starring in the first mainstream mockumentary — a rock 'n' roll satire so dead-on, film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the funniest movies ever made.” From there, he would move seamlessly from comedy to drama, from fantasy to horror, as few directors ever have.
Reiner would establish yet another benchmark — this time for romantic comedies — with When Harry Met Sally (1989), screenwriter Nora Ephron's ode to true love (based loosely on her and Reiner's lives) that starred Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
His biggest box office hit, the gripping courtroom drama A Few Good Men, based on Aaron Sorkin's 1989 play and starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, could not have been more different.
Some of Reiner's movies took a while to capture the world's attention. The Princess Bride, his timeless fairy tale adventure that was based on the William Goldman novel and starred Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin and Peter Falk, was one of several films that grew in popularity over decades on the way to cult status.
On television, Reiner played to some of the biggest audiences in history, first in the role of Michael “Meathead” Stivic, the liberal antagonist of Carroll O'Connor's Archie Bunker, on CBS' All in the Family, and then as a ground-floor executive on NBC's Seinfeld, which he fought to keep on the air.
“We knew we had a great show,” Reiner told Howard Stern in 2016.
But after a rocky launch in the summer of 1989, the network was concerned that Seinfeld — famously a show “about nothing” — was a misfire. After four episodes, it was on the brink of cancellation.
“I went in there and had a screaming crazy thing with [NBC president] Brandon Tartikoff,” Reiner said. “And I promised him — there will be stories!”
In 1993, Reiner and Castle Rock partners Andrew Scheinman, Alan Horn, Glenn Padnick and Martin Shafer sold their company to broadcast mogul Ted Turner for about $160 million. (It became part of Time Warner when it acquired Turner Broadcasting in 1996.)
The principals stayed on, holding to their original ideal: to make independent movies outside the traditional studio system. But after a run of poorly performing films starting in the late '90s, Castle Rock initiated layoffs and eventually was absorbed into Warner Bros.
In 2020, Reiner relaunched the company and revived its film division a year later, with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025) among its offerings.
“There's not one film that I've ever made that could get made today by a studio, not one — even A Few Good Men,” Reiner said. “Every movie that I make, have made and will make is always going to be independently financed.”
Throughout his behind-the-camera career, Reiner continued as a working actor. He played the well-intentioned plastic surgeon Dr. Morris Packman, who affectionately spars with Goldie Hawn, in The First Wives Club (1996); Tom Hanks' pal in Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle (1993); the father of Zooey Deschanel on the 2011-18 Fox sitcom New Girl; and restaurant consultant Albert Schnurr on Hulu's The Bear this year.
He was particularly memorable in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) as stockbroker Max Belfort in scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill that were largely improvised.
Reiner's sense of what worked onscreen was honed early on — first at home as the oldest child of comedy icon Carl Reiner and later around his dad's close friends, among them Sid Caesar, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks and the most influential of all, Norman Lear, the TV auteur whose 1970s activist comedies All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude sparked seismic shifts in popular culture.
“Norman was the first guy who recognized that I had any talent,” Reiner wrote for The Hollywood Reporter in the wake of Lear's 2023 death, noting that he viewed him as “a second father.”
“It wasn't just that he hired me for All in the Family,” Reiner told American Masters in 2005. “It was that I saw, in how he conducted his life, that there was room to be an activist as well. That you could use your celebrity, your good fortune, to help make some change.”
As the Hollywood scion forged his directing career, it was Lear who put up the money for Stand by Me (1986) and Reiner's other early films, including the John Cusack-Nicollette Sheridan romp The Sure Thing (1985), lauded for elevating the teen comedy genre.
Stand by Me — regarded as among the finest of coming-of-age movies — marked Reiner's ascent into Hollywood's highest ranks, no longer just a sitcom actor or the genial ex-husband of a fellow TV comic, Penny Marshall, star of Laverne & Shirley. (Marshall too would go on to become a top Hollywood director.)
Famed author-screenwriter Goldman, who penned the Misery screenplay, said Reiner became a success because his work is “funny, but not simpy.”
“His films have a certain comedy style … a sweetness and toughness,” Goldman told The New York Times in 1987. “Stand by Me is not just about four kids coming of age before junior high school — they're going to see a corpse. If John Hughes had made Stand by Me — and I'm not knocking Hughes — they would have been searching for a convertible.”
Stephen King, author of the 1982 novella The Body (on which Stand by Me was based) and the 1987 novel Misery, became one of Reiner's most-steadfast collaborators.
Among other King books turned into movies by Castle Rock — Reiner named the company for the fictional setting in many of the author's novels — were Shawshank, The Green Mile (1999)and Dolores Claiborne (1995).
After several false starts, King finally agreed to develop Misery for the screen, but only if Reiner put “his name on it” as producer or director.
“It was a very personal book to him,” Reiner told TCM in 2021. “It was all about himself as a writer and feeling trapped … And so he let us option the book for $1. In fact, I think we made seven Stephen King films, and each one of them we got an option for $1.”
The 1990 Kathy Bates-James Caan starrer remains one of Hollywood's finest horror pieces, with Bates winning an Oscar for her role as the obsessive fan Annie Wilkes, who tortures author Paul Sheldon (Caan) while holding him hostage in her remote cabin.
“Rob had a fantastic crew of people — people he had worked with for years, just the creme de la creme,” Bates said of the Misery shoot in a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair. “I learned so much just hanging out [on set] and watching.”
Bates, 42 years old at the time, had predominantly been a stage actress. At the Academy Awards, where she bested Meryl Streep, Joanne Woodward, Anjelica Huston and Julia Roberts, she thanked Reiner “for taking a chance on me.”
Often the most memorable scenes in Reiner's filmography came from his comedies — notably Ryan's climactic moment in When Harry Met Sally in which she feigns an orgasm over lunch with Crystal's character at Katz's Deli.
Yet it was Reiner's mother, Estelle Reiner, who landed the film's renowned punchline: “I'll have what she's having.”
“I said to her, mom, the line you have is the last line in the scene, and if it doesn't pop and top everything that's come before it, I won't use it,” Reiner told the AFI in a joint interview with Ephron in 2009. “We'll shoot it but be prepared, it might have to be cut.
“And she said, ‘I don't care, I just wanna spend the day with you and be with you on the set. I don't care if it's in the movie or not.'”
Robert Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 6, 1947, one of three children of the former Estelle Lebost, an artist and set designer, and Carl Reiner, the comic and writer who got his start as an entertainer in the U.S. Army and then in Broadway musicals.
The family lived just off Grand Concourse, across the street from Marshall and her brother, future writer-producer-director Garry Marshall. But it would be decades before Rob and Penny actually met — at the 1970 audition in Los Angeles for the roles of Mike and Gloria Stivik on All in the Family. (The role of Gloria, of course, would go to Sally Struthers.)
As Carl's career gained steam (he would win 11 Emmys), the family moved to Bonnie Meadow Road in the bucolic New York suburb of New Rochelle. It was the very street where Reiner would set his landmark 1960s CBS sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, about a rising comedy writer, Rob Petrie, and his beautiful wife, Laura.
“Basically he wrote his own life in The Dick Van Dyke Show,” Rob Reiner said of his father. “And my mother was Mary Tyler Moore.”
Rob got his start as an apprentice at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania and with small guest roles on such shows as That Girl, Room 222 and The Beverly Hillbillies.
After UCLA Film School in 1967, he was paired with another young comic, Steve Martin, as a writing team on CBS' The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The two were barely out of their teens.
The All in the Family role, for which Reiner would win two Emmys, followed in 1971. Convinced the show's incendiary subject matter would be rejected by viewers, he initially viewed the gig as a stopgap to tide him over between writing gigs.
When the sitcom became a hit (Reiner stayed for eight of its nine seasons), he continued writing anyway, penning four episodes of the show and co-writing (with Garry Marshall and Phil Mishkin) the first episode of ABC's Happy Days in 1974.
As a filmmaker notably surrounding himself with many of the industry's top writers — Goldman, King, Sorkin, Ephron, Crystal — Reiner showcased their dialogue to everlasting effect.
The Princess Bride's “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die”; Misery's “I'm your No. 1 fan”; A Few Good Men's “You can't handle the truth”; and When Harry Met Sally's “I'll have what she's having” (Crystal actually came up with that line) reigned in pop culture for decades.
But as Penny Marshall would humorously point out, no matter how substantive their accomplishments, “For me, all they say is ‘Laverne,' and for Rob … it's ‘Meathead,'” she told the New Yorker in 2012. “We're stuck with it.”
The couple performed together infrequently but did co-star in the well-received 1978 romantic comedy More Than Friends. The ABC telefilm, written by Reiner and Mishkin and directed by James Burrows, was something of a precursor to When Harry Met Sally, about childhood pals unsure if they should pursue love as adults.
Reiner also made an appearance as “Sheldn” (no “o”), the fiancé of Penny's Myrna Turner, on Garry Marshall's ABC series The Odd Couple.
Their 10-year marriage came to an end in 1981 — amid tension as Laverne & Shirley shot Marshall to superstardom while Reiner was quietly forging his post-sitcom film career.
Upon Marshall's death in 2018, Reiner professed his admiration for her, tweeting “so sad about Penny.” He added, “I loved Penny. I grew up with her. She was born with a great gift. She was born with a funny bone and the instinct of how to use it. I was very lucky to have lived with her and her funny bone. I will miss her.”
The couple were the parents of actress Tracy Reiner, born in 1964 to Marshall during a brief first marriage and adopted by Reiner soon after their 1971 wedding.
In 1989, Reiner married Michele Singer, a photographer whom he met on the set of When Harry Met Sally. He said she was the inspiration for the film's happily-ever-after script change. In 2020, she joined Reiner in running Castle Rock and produced films.
In addition to Nick, the couple had two other children, son Jake and daughter Romy.
A lifelong political activist who with King was among the public figures to urge President Joe Biden to hand the 2024 re-election reins to Kamala Harris, Reiner rarely missed a week on social media, penning calls to action on a range of social justice issues for his millions of followers.
He was among Hollywood's most vigorous and constant voices opposing Donald Trump.
Among his other causes, Reiner was the co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which fought to overturn California's ban on same-sex marriage. In the late-'90s, he and his father were activists for higher taxes on cigarettes — money that was earmarked for prenatal care.
His advocacy was often part of his writing and filmmaking, from his earliest days with the Smothers brothers to LBJ (2016) and Shock and Awe (2017), about journalists investigating the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Reiner was often a Hollywood peacemaker, well known for putting actors and crew at ease. When Bates and Caan clashed early in the production of Misery (she liked rehearsing; he preferred winging it), Reiner brokered a wary peace while using the tension to elicit superb performances.
“I want everyone around me to feel comfortable and happy,” he told The Guardian in 2018. “People only act up out of insecurity, and when they make it difficult, I just say, ‘We're playing make-believe here — enjoy yourself!'”
Mike Barnes, Kimberly Nordyke and Scott Feinberg contributed to this report.
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Actress and former ‘Dancing with the Stars' contestant Mira Sorvino is honoring the late director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in a beautiful statement posted online. The couple tragically passed away in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, December 14.
“I am in absolute shock,” wrote Sorvino in her Instagram post from December 15.
She continued, “Rob Reiner was a legend and a kind, brilliant man, a wonderful actor to work opposite on Hollywood, an iconic director. His wife Michele was a lovely generous person- I wish I had been able to get to know her better.”
“The world has lost two tremendous humans. He was so funny and intelligent – we had a great time shooting what could have been awkward scenes but his wit and warmth made all that go away. Talking with him on and off the set was a joy. This doesn't seem possible. My deepest sorrow and condolences and prayers go out to their family,” Sorvino concluded.
Sorvino and Reiner co-starred in Ryan Murphy's 2020 Netflix limited series “Hollywood,” a reimagining of Tinseltown. She played actress Jeanne Crandall and Reiner played studio head Ace Amberg. In the miniseries, their characters had an affair.
“I wanted to do something where I gave some, if not all of these people a happy ending,” Murphy told TIME. “How do I make a commentary on the power of Hollywood to change hearts and minds? I decided to put together a fictional alternative-universe Hollywood and then populated it with some real people, and other fictional characters loosely based on real people.”
Sorvino won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Woody Allen's “Mighty Aphrodite” (1995). She is also known for her roles in 1997's cult classic “Romy and Michele's High School Reunion,” where she starred opposite Lisa Kudrow. She has also been in genre films like “Mimic,” and television roles like “Norma Jean & Marilyn,” which earned her a Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress and a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.
She also competed on “Dancing with the Stars” Season 32 in 2023 with her pro partner Gleb Savchenko.
While on the show, she gave fans a throwback to “Romy and Michele's High School Reunion” when she performed a contemporary style dance to “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. She brought her daughter Mattea out to make it a three-person dance, just as it is in the film.
They finished in 10th place.
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Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were stabbed to death in their LA home on Sunday and their son is a person of interest, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Officers were called to the home Sunday afternoon, where they discovered a man and woman with stab wounds, cops and sources told the outlet.
The couple's 32-year-old son and screenwriter Nick Reiner is a person of interest in the deadly stabbing, the sources added.
The Los Angeles Fire Department told local outlet NBC Los Angeles that a 78-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman were found dead inside the home, which match the ages of Rob and Michele.
A spokesperson for LAPD told The Post that detectives from LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division were also at the scene. The robbery-homicide division is responsible for handling high-profile investigations across the city.
According to The Post, the street in front of the “Spinal Tap” directors home were blocked off and detectives could be seen going in and out of the residence.
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The LAFD paramedics rushed to the home around 3:40 p.m.
Shortly after, officers with the LAPD responded to the home following reports of an “ambulance death investigation,” which is when officers are called by firefighters to the discovery of a death.
“This is a devastating loss for our city and our country,” LA Mayor Karen Bass said Sunday night. “Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice.”
“Personally, I am heartbroken by the tragic loss of Rob and his wife Michele. I knew Rob and have tremendous respect for him. Among his numerous contributions, Rob helped create First 5 California, a landmark initiative funded by a tobacco tax to support early childhood development programs. He and Michele fought for early childhood development and marriage equality, working to overturn Proposition 8. They were true champions for LGBTQ+ rights,” Bass added.
People magazine reported Sunday that their daughter Romy found them.
The couple, who were last seen together in April, wed in 1989 and share three children: Jake, Nick and Romy. Reiner also shares an adopted daughter with his late ex-wife, Penny Marshall.
Their son Nick has been open about his issues battling drug addiction and homelessness in the past.
“I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun,” he told People in an interview in 2016.
Reiner — the son of comedian Carl Reiner, who passed away in 2020 — was born in in 1947 in the Bronx, NY.
Reiner rose to fame in the 1970s for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Michael “Meathead” Stivic, Archie Bunker's son-in-law, in American classic TV show “All in the Family.”
Reiner met Michele, a photographer, while working on the classic rom-com “When Harry Met Sally.”
Reiner directed beloved and classic films including “The Princess Bride,” “Stand By Me,” “Misery” and “Spinal Tap.”
Singer Trey Songz was arrested for assault after allegedly punching a New York nightclub employee in the face earlier this month.
Songz and his friends were partying at Dramma Night Club in Times Square on Dec. 4 and allegedly “became needlessly irate” when a worker told him the club was closing around 4 a.m., prosecutors said in Manhattan criminal court, according to The Post.
Prosecutors claim the 41-year-old punched the worker in the face, causing “swelling and substantial pain.”
Songz appeared in court Sunday as he was arraigned on an assault charge for the alleged club brawl and an additional charge of mischief in the second degree from an unrelated incident that took place Sunday morning at Mira, a restaurant and hookah lounge in Manhattan.
During the Sunday incident, Songz allegedly broke around $1,500 worth of restaurant property, including hookahs, DJ equipment and sofas, according the complaint against him.
The employee from Dramma was granted an order of protection against Songz, who is a regular at the nightclub, according to prosecutors.
The songwriter, born Tremaine Neverson, left court wearing a hood covering his face and declined to comment.
He was granted supervised release as the judge noted his history of run-ins with the law made him a risk and is due back in court Feb. 18, per The Post.
In a statement from Songz's counsel, Page Six is told that the singer “was charged in connection with an incident that occurred last week. He is cooperating fully and looks forward to the facts coming to light.”
“Separately, last night Trey was confronted by individuals who instigated a confrontation and attempted to surround him. His security intervened to protect him and contain the situation, and an altercation occurred in the ensuing confusion,” the statement continued.
“Public figures are often treated as targets for instigation in pursuit of headlines or financial gain. We are confident the facts will speak for themselves.”
In 2016, the “Na Na” hitmaker was arrested and charged with assault after an onstage meltdown in which he threw microphones and speakers from the stage of his Detroit concert.
Subsequently, the R&B artist took a plea deal on two counts of disturbing the peace and served 18 months of probation.
In 2018, a woman accused Songz of striking her in the face during an NBA All-Star event and obtained a restraining order against him.
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That same month, he was arrested on felony assault charges, though all charges against him were ultimately dropped.
But in January 2021, he was arrested again after a wild caught-on-camera brawl with a cop at a =Kansas City Chiefs game.
After being released from jail, the “Bottoms Up” crooner poked fun at the incident, posting a series of photos on a private jet to social media and quipped, “Chiefs game was lit right?!”
That same year, he was subject to a sexual assault investigation after former Las Vegas basketball player Dylan Gonzalez accused the singer of raping her.
Songz denied all of her claims and was cleared of all allegations by April 2022 due to lack of evidence.
He was accused of more incidents of sexual assault in February 2022 in a $20 million lawsuit, including “brutal” rape. A confidential settlement was reached back in September.
In the latest lawsuit against him, the musician was sued for sexual assault after a woman alleged he groped her breasts during an incident in 2013.
In documents obtained by Page Six, Jane Doe claimed that Songz “came up behind” her, and she was “shocked” to see that he allegedly “ripped back her bathing suit top, grabbed her breasts, and exposed them” to those inside of the tent, per the lawsuit.
That lawsuit is still pending as his team continues to file motions to dismiss Doe's complaint.
Adam Scott has plenty of experience with the horrific and weird, having starred in the likes of Severance, Little Evil, Krampus, Piranha 3D, and Hellraiser: Bloodline. Earlier this year, we learned that he's adding to his genre résumé with the supernatural horror film Hokum, which was filmed on location in Ireland. A few months ago, it was announced that NEON and Waypoint Entertainment's Cweature Features have boarded the project, with NEON planning to give the film a theatrical release in the United States on May 1, 2026. We still have a while to wait for this one, but the marketing has begun with the release of a creepy teaser trailer, which can be viewed in the embed above.
Hokum is coming our way from writer/director Damian McCarthy, whose horror film Oddity is said to have “caused a stir after premiering at SXSW, where it won the audience award in the Midnighter section.” That movie made its way out into the world last summer, telling the story of “a blind medium and curio shopkeeper who is still grieving the death of her twin sister a year prior when a wooden mannequin from her collection becomes crucial to her quest to uncover the truth about her sister's murder.” The story McCarthy has crafted for Hokum will see Scott taking on the role of a horror novelist who visits a remote Irish inn to spread his parents' ashes, unaware the place is rumored to be haunted by a witch. Here's the synopsis: When reclusive novelist Ohm Bauman (Scott) retreats to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents' ashes, the staff's tales of an ancient witch haunting the honeymoon suite take hold of his mind. Soon, disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance draw him into a nightmarish confrontation with the darkest corners of his past. Scott is joined in the cast by Peter Coonan (Bad Sisters) and David Wilmot (Bodkin).
Cweature Features are co-producers on the project, joining Image Nation and Spooky Pictures, as well as Team Thrives, who co-financed.
Hokum is being produced by Spooky Pictures' Roy Lee and Steven Schneider, Image Nation's Derek Dauchy, and Tailored Film's Ruth Treacy, Julianne Forde, and Mairtín de Barra. Ben Ross, Dan Kagan, Rami Yasin, and Andrew Childs serve as executive producers. Cweature Features' Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum are executive producers as well. The project is also supported by co-production funding from Screen Ireland/ Fís Éireann.
Are you interested in Hokum? Take a look at the teaser trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Published
Dec 15, 2025 at 10:28 AM EST
updated
Dec 15, 2025 at 10:30 AM EST
Senior Life and Trends Reporter
Individuals on the political right are more vulnerable to conspiracy theories than those on the left, according to a new study.
This is the conclusion of psychologist Julia Aspernäs of Sweden's Linköping University, who found modest—yet statistically significant—differences in how individuals across the political spectrum respond to various forms of misinformation.
Aspernäs found that while the political left and right are equally prone to certain kinds of flawed reasoning, those on the political right are more susceptible to conspiracy theories.
However, her analysis also revealed that almost everyone, regardless of ideology, tends to accept political claims that align with their own beliefs.
In her study, Aspernäs surveyed nearly 2,500 adults in Sweden and the U.K. In a series of specifically designed tests, they looked at three major categories of misinformation: logical fallacies, conspiracy theories and pseudo-profound nonsense.
In examining logical fallacies, participants were presented with a series of politically charged syllogisms—logical statements requiring deduction. Some of these statements leaned left, others right.
The researchers found that when a syllogism spoke to an individual's ideological concerns, whether left or right-leaning, they always demonstrated a similar impairment in reasoning and made logical errors regardless of their political alignment.
Explaining this response, Aspernäs said in a statement that “we simply become worse at evaluating information in areas that matter to us, where it affects our self-image.”
When it came to looking at conspiracy theories, participants were tasked with looking at a series of statements claiming there were covert plots behind major societal events. Most were politically neutral, but when they were politically loaded, the researchers offered a balance between right and left.
The results highlighted how those identifying themselves as right-leaning are more likely to accept conspiracy theories than left-leaning individuals. Though the correlation was weak, it was deemed statistically significant. The study also found people on the right were also more willing to spread conspiracy theories than people on the left.
Researchers then gauged participants' openness to “pseudo-profound nonsense—abstract, seemingly meaningful statements devoid of real substance." Here no significant ideological difference emerged with both groups being equally susceptible.
Reflecting on the findings, Aspernäs offered up several hypotheses as to why the political right seems more inclined to fall for conspiracy theories.
She believes that right-wing communities may circulate a disproportionate number of conspiracy theories, therefore increasing individual exposure and normalising acceptance.
Aspernäs also noted that conservative thinkers often adopt a precautionary, threat-focused worldview that may make them more receptive to conspiratorial explanations involving malevolent forces.
She added that a tendency toward anti-democratic sentiments—which stretch across the ideological spectrum—might too facilitate openness to conspiracy theories.
Despite her findings, Aspernäs stressed that the overall correlation was weak. “I don't know whether it helps us move forward, for example in public debate, by singling out certain groups,” she said. “The correlations we see, where right-leaning people stand out, are not very strong.”
Ultimately, Aspernäs believes further exploration is required in order to better clarify causation and find out whether the right-wing predisposition is fundamental, or a byproduct of social environment and psychological traits.
In 2022, a study published in the journal Political Behavior rejected the notion that Republicans and Conservatives are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Researchers surveyed beliefs across a broad sample of 52 conspiracy theories in the U.S. and 11 conspiracy theories internationally.
A second test saw the researchers hold constant the content of the conspiracy theories investigated—manipulating only the partisanship of the theorized villains—to decipher whether those on the left or right are more likely to accuse political out-groups of conspiring.
They concluded that the relationship between political ideology and conspiracy belief is not uniform—it depends heavily on the specific content and context of the conspiracy. While conservatives were often reported to have stronger conspiracy beliefs, the strength and direction of this link varied across different theories and national settings.
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about conspiracy theories? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
Aspernäs, J. (2025). Who falls for misinformation? : Epistemic beliefs and political identity as predictors of conspiracy ideation, bullshit receptivity, and fallacies [Linköping University Electronic Press]. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-218108
Enders, A., Farhart, C., Miller, J., Uscinski, J., Saunders, K., & Drochon, H. (2022). Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories? Political Behavior, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09812-3
© 2025 Newsweek Digital LLC
The Age of Disclosure was granted a Capitol Hill screening and has broken digital rental records but does it really offer proof of alien life?
It has been hailed as a game changer in public attitudes towards UFOs, ending a culture of silence around claims once dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists and crackpots.
The Age of Disclosure has been boosted in its effort to shift the conversation about extraterrestrials from the fringe to the mainstream with a Capitol Hill screening and considerable commercial success. It broke the record for highest-grossing documentary on Amazon's Prime Video within 48 hours of its release, Deadline reported this week.
But not everyone is impressed by the film's claims that UFOs – now called UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) – are real and that governments have been hiding evidence for decades. Several sceptics have gone online to push back at The Age of Disclosure, contending that it has been over-hyped and fails to present new or compelling evidence.
In their telling, the documentary has slick production values but rehashes familiar, decades-old grainy infrared videos and anecdotal pilot testimonies insufficient to support extraordinary claims of alien technology.
Michael Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, says by phone from Santa Barbara, California: “All we have are blurry photographs, grainy videos and anecdotes from people that say they know somebody who knows something, or they know somebody who said they saw the spaceship, touched the aliens or worked on back engineering the spaceships and so on.
“But if you say, who was this person you talked to? ‘Well, I can't tell you.' Where was the spaceship? ‘I can't tell you.' Do you have any photographs? ‘No, but here's this grainy video of this blob that was taken from a navy pilot 14 years ago off the coast of San Diego. This is kind of weird. It's hard to say what it is but it could be aliens.'”
Shermer, who for 30 years taught college and university courses in critical thinking and has written books including Why People Believe Weird Things, adds: “From a scientific point of view, none of this is valuable other than well, there might be something interesting here, let's go find out. It's no different from the whole search for Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, that whole thing.”
Directed and produced by Dan Farah, The Age of Disclosure asserts an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and secret recovery and reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology. It features interviews with 34 individuals from US government, military and intelligence backgrounds.
They include secretary of state and national security adviser Marco Rubio, senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota and former director of national intelligence James Clapper. Their presence has been seen as giving the film heft and helping reduce the stigma long felt by alleged UAP witnesses.
In an interview last week on Fox News, Rubio was asked about his claim in the documentary that unknown entities have been operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities. He did not attack the documentary or seek to disown his remarks – but he did seek to add some context.
“First of all, I'm not disavowing that,” Rubio said. “It was an interview that was done almost, like, maybe three or four years ago when I was in the senate. So it wasn't recent. The second point I would make, I was describing the allegations that people have come forward with … I was describing what people had said to me, not things that I had firsthand knowledge of in that regard. A little bit of selective editing, but it's okay because you're trying to sell a show there.”
Sceptics argue that UAP sightings are better explained by a combination of misidentification of mundane objects (balloons, satellites, drones), perceptual errors in low-information environments, secret terrestrial technologies and misunderstood optical and sensor phenomena.
Jason Colavito, author of The Cult of Alien Gods: HP Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, comments: “While I can't possibly give a single explanation for UFOs, or categorically say that no UFO has ever been an alien spaceship, every UFO that has ever been identified has turned out to be a prosaic – either natural or human made – object, and there's no reason to suspect that any of the objects seen in that movie are anything but that.”
Colavito was left cold by The Age of Disclosure. “I found the film to basically be an Ancient Aliens episode with better lighting,” he says. “It was a rehash of material that has been used many times before. I thought that it was old stuff in a slick new package. A lot of the people that you saw interviewed have already appeared on Ancient Aliens, on NewsNation and on other platforms saying the same thing.
“The only surprising thing was that they actually went into some of the more extreme and ridiculous pseudoscientific claims they make about how we can't photograph UFOs clearly because they're in a space time quantum bubble that distorts all the light around them so we can't see them. That's obviously an ex post facto explanation. These are things that people who are very smart have fooled themselves into thinking are true in order to justify a belief that they already came into the process holding.”
Colavito notes that the film has had an extensive and expensive publicity campaign including a Hollywood-style premiere. He sees it as part of a sophisticated media campaign aimed at securing government funding for defence contractors and associated thinktanks.
“One of the things that surprised me is how much of the film seemed to be an advertisement for investing in UFO-themed energy research. That's where you have to look into the question of how many of the talking heads in that documentary have government ties, not just that they formerly worked in the government, but that they are currently profiting from the work that they're doing promoting UFOs.
“Luis Elizondo [an author and UAP disclosure activist who also serves as an executive producer on the film], for example, works for a defence contracting company, or at least did until recently, and many of the others also have current or former ties to defence contractors and other businesses and entities that make money from government contracts and government investment.”
But for all the headlines and TV attention, Colavito doubts that the buzz will last. “It's already fading from coverage,” he says. “This was the kind of thing that has a big publicity campaign leading up to it but then, once people begin to see the actual product, interest falls off rapidly because there is nothing new and nothing convincing in the film. There are a lot of stories but very few facts.”
Joshua Semeter, director of Boston University's Center for Space Physics, has only seen the trailer for The Age of Disclosure and was unimpressed. “I guess the word is disappointed to see that their primary evidence is all of these grainy infrared videos.” he says. “There's a lot of money to be made by keeping things in the spooky category. That's basically what's going on here.”
Semeter, who served on a Nasa team studying the origin of UAPs, believes that the film is unlikely to create a lasting cultural shift or mainstream acceptance of its claims. Instead it is the culmination of a recent period of heightened interest in UAPs.
“We went through a UAP bubble over the past eight years and a lot of this evidence that's being put forth by the aviators is very old evidence from the 2000s. We're at the tail end. This production was an effort to grab the last little bits as we head out of the current UAP bubble.”
The Age of Disclosure was granted a Capitol Hill screening and has broken digital rental records but does it really offer proof of alien life?
It has been hailed as a game changer in public attitudes towards UFOs, ending a culture of silence around claims once dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists and crackpots.
The Age of Disclosure has been boosted in its effort to shift the conversation about extraterrestrials from the fringe to the mainstream with a Capitol Hill screening and considerable commercial success. It broke the record for highest-grossing documentary on Amazon's Prime Video within 48 hours of its release, Deadline reported this week.
But not everyone is impressed by the film's claims that UFOs – now called UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) – are real and that governments have been hiding evidence for decades. Several sceptics have gone online to push back at The Age of Disclosure, contending that it has been over-hyped and fails to present new or compelling evidence.
In their telling, the documentary has slick production values but rehashes familiar, decades-old grainy infrared videos and anecdotal pilot testimonies insufficient to support extraordinary claims of alien technology.
Michael Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, says by phone from Santa Barbara, California: “All we have are blurry photographs, grainy videos and anecdotes from people that say they know somebody who knows something, or they know somebody who said they saw the spaceship, touched the aliens or worked on back engineering the spaceships and so on.
“But if you say, who was this person you talked to? ‘Well, I can't tell you.' Where was the spaceship? ‘I can't tell you.' Do you have any photographs? ‘No, but here's this grainy video of this blob that was taken from a navy pilot 14 years ago off the coast of San Diego. This is kind of weird. It's hard to say what it is but it could be aliens.'”
Shermer, who for 30 years taught college and university courses in critical thinking and has written books including Why People Believe Weird Things, adds: “From a scientific point of view, none of this is valuable other than well, there might be something interesting here, let's go find out. It's no different from the whole search for Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, that whole thing.”
Directed and produced by Dan Farah, The Age of Disclosure asserts an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and secret recovery and reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology. It features interviews with 34 individuals from US government, military and intelligence backgrounds.
They include secretary of state and national security adviser Marco Rubio, senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota and former director of national intelligence James Clapper. Their presence has been seen as giving the film heft and helping reduce the stigma long felt by alleged UAP witnesses.
In an interview last week on Fox News, Rubio was asked about his claim in the documentary that unknown entities have been operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities. He did not attack the documentary or seek to disown his remarks – but he did seek to add some context.
“First of all, I'm not disavowing that,” Rubio said. “It was an interview that was done almost, like, maybe three or four years ago when I was in the senate. So it wasn't recent. The second point I would make, I was describing the allegations that people have come forward with … I was describing what people had said to me, not things that I had firsthand knowledge of in that regard. A little bit of selective editing, but it's okay because you're trying to sell a show there.”
Sceptics argue that UAP sightings are better explained by a combination of misidentification of mundane objects (balloons, satellites, drones), perceptual errors in low-information environments, secret terrestrial technologies and misunderstood optical and sensor phenomena.
Jason Colavito, author of The Cult of Alien Gods: HP Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, comments: “While I can't possibly give a single explanation for UFOs, or categorically say that no UFO has ever been an alien spaceship, every UFO that has ever been identified has turned out to be a prosaic – either natural or human made – object, and there's no reason to suspect that any of the objects seen in that movie are anything but that.”
Colavito was left cold by The Age of Disclosure. “I found the film to basically be an Ancient Aliens episode with better lighting,” he says. “It was a rehash of material that has been used many times before. I thought that it was old stuff in a slick new package. A lot of the people that you saw interviewed have already appeared on Ancient Aliens, on NewsNation and on other platforms saying the same thing.
“The only surprising thing was that they actually went into some of the more extreme and ridiculous pseudoscientific claims they make about how we can't photograph UFOs clearly because they're in a space time quantum bubble that distorts all the light around them so we can't see them. That's obviously an ex post facto explanation. These are things that people who are very smart have fooled themselves into thinking are true in order to justify a belief that they already came into the process holding.”
Colavito notes that the film has had an extensive and expensive publicity campaign including a Hollywood-style premiere. He sees it as part of a sophisticated media campaign aimed at securing government funding for defence contractors and associated thinktanks.
“One of the things that surprised me is how much of the film seemed to be an advertisement for investing in UFO-themed energy research. That's where you have to look into the question of how many of the talking heads in that documentary have government ties, not just that they formerly worked in the government, but that they are currently profiting from the work that they're doing promoting UFOs.
“Luis Elizondo [an author and UAP disclosure activist who also serves as an executive producer on the film], for example, works for a defence contracting company, or at least did until recently, and many of the others also have current or former ties to defence contractors and other businesses and entities that make money from government contracts and government investment.”
But for all the headlines and TV attention, Colavito doubts that the buzz will last. “It's already fading from coverage,” he says. “This was the kind of thing that has a big publicity campaign leading up to it but then, once people begin to see the actual product, interest falls off rapidly because there is nothing new and nothing convincing in the film. There are a lot of stories but very few facts.”
Joshua Semeter, director of Boston University's Center for Space Physics, has only seen the trailer for The Age of Disclosure and was unimpressed. “I guess the word is disappointed to see that their primary evidence is all of these grainy infrared videos.” he says. “There's a lot of money to be made by keeping things in the spooky category. That's basically what's going on here.”
Semeter, who served on a Nasa team studying the origin of UAPs, believes that the film is unlikely to create a lasting cultural shift or mainstream acceptance of its claims. Instead it is the culmination of a recent period of heightened interest in UAPs.
“We went through a UAP bubble over the past eight years and a lot of this evidence that's being put forth by the aviators is very old evidence from the 2000s. We're at the tail end. This production was an effort to grab the last little bits as we head out of the current UAP bubble.”
The Age of Disclosure was granted a Capitol Hill screening and has broken digital rental records but does it really offer proof of alien life?
It has been hailed as a game changer in public attitudes towards UFOs, ending a culture of silence around claims once dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists and crackpots.
The Age of Disclosure has been boosted in its effort to shift the conversation about extraterrestrials from the fringe to the mainstream with a Capitol Hill screening and considerable commercial success. It broke the record for highest-grossing documentary on Amazon's Prime Video within 48 hours of its release, Deadline reported this week.
But not everyone is impressed by the film's claims that UFOs – now called UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) – are real and that governments have been hiding evidence for decades. Several sceptics have gone online to push back at The Age of Disclosure, contending that it has been over-hyped and fails to present new or compelling evidence.
In their telling, the documentary has slick production values but rehashes familiar, decades-old grainy infrared videos and anecdotal pilot testimonies insufficient to support extraordinary claims of alien technology.
Michael Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, says by phone from Santa Barbara, California: “All we have are blurry photographs, grainy videos and anecdotes from people that say they know somebody who knows something, or they know somebody who said they saw the spaceship, touched the aliens or worked on back engineering the spaceships and so on.
“But if you say, who was this person you talked to? ‘Well, I can't tell you.' Where was the spaceship? ‘I can't tell you.' Do you have any photographs? ‘No, but here's this grainy video of this blob that was taken from a navy pilot 14 years ago off the coast of San Diego. This is kind of weird. It's hard to say what it is but it could be aliens.'”
Shermer, who for 30 years taught college and university courses in critical thinking and has written books including Why People Believe Weird Things, adds: “From a scientific point of view, none of this is valuable other than well, there might be something interesting here, let's go find out. It's no different from the whole search for Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, that whole thing.”
Directed and produced by Dan Farah, The Age of Disclosure asserts an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and secret recovery and reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology. It features interviews with 34 individuals from US government, military and intelligence backgrounds.
They include secretary of state and national security adviser Marco Rubio, senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota and former director of national intelligence James Clapper. Their presence has been seen as giving the film heft and helping reduce the stigma long felt by alleged UAP witnesses.
In an interview last week on Fox News, Rubio was asked about his claim in the documentary that unknown entities have been operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities. He did not attack the documentary or seek to disown his remarks – but he did seek to add some context.
“First of all, I'm not disavowing that,” Rubio said. “It was an interview that was done almost, like, maybe three or four years ago when I was in the senate. So it wasn't recent. The second point I would make, I was describing the allegations that people have come forward with … I was describing what people had said to me, not things that I had firsthand knowledge of in that regard. A little bit of selective editing, but it's okay because you're trying to sell a show there.”
Sceptics argue that UAP sightings are better explained by a combination of misidentification of mundane objects (balloons, satellites, drones), perceptual errors in low-information environments, secret terrestrial technologies and misunderstood optical and sensor phenomena.
Jason Colavito, author of The Cult of Alien Gods: HP Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, comments: “While I can't possibly give a single explanation for UFOs, or categorically say that no UFO has ever been an alien spaceship, every UFO that has ever been identified has turned out to be a prosaic – either natural or human made – object, and there's no reason to suspect that any of the objects seen in that movie are anything but that.”
Colavito was left cold by The Age of Disclosure. “I found the film to basically be an Ancient Aliens episode with better lighting,” he says. “It was a rehash of material that has been used many times before. I thought that it was old stuff in a slick new package. A lot of the people that you saw interviewed have already appeared on Ancient Aliens, on NewsNation and on other platforms saying the same thing.
“The only surprising thing was that they actually went into some of the more extreme and ridiculous pseudoscientific claims they make about how we can't photograph UFOs clearly because they're in a space time quantum bubble that distorts all the light around them so we can't see them. That's obviously an ex post facto explanation. These are things that people who are very smart have fooled themselves into thinking are true in order to justify a belief that they already came into the process holding.”
Colavito notes that the film has had an extensive and expensive publicity campaign including a Hollywood-style premiere. He sees it as part of a sophisticated media campaign aimed at securing government funding for defence contractors and associated thinktanks.
“One of the things that surprised me is how much of the film seemed to be an advertisement for investing in UFO-themed energy research. That's where you have to look into the question of how many of the talking heads in that documentary have government ties, not just that they formerly worked in the government, but that they are currently profiting from the work that they're doing promoting UFOs.
“Luis Elizondo [an author and UAP disclosure activist who also serves as an executive producer on the film], for example, works for a defence contracting company, or at least did until recently, and many of the others also have current or former ties to defence contractors and other businesses and entities that make money from government contracts and government investment.”
But for all the headlines and TV attention, Colavito doubts that the buzz will last. “It's already fading from coverage,” he says. “This was the kind of thing that has a big publicity campaign leading up to it but then, once people begin to see the actual product, interest falls off rapidly because there is nothing new and nothing convincing in the film. There are a lot of stories but very few facts.”
Joshua Semeter, director of Boston University's Center for Space Physics, has only seen the trailer for The Age of Disclosure and was unimpressed. “I guess the word is disappointed to see that their primary evidence is all of these grainy infrared videos.” he says. “There's a lot of money to be made by keeping things in the spooky category. That's basically what's going on here.”
Semeter, who served on a Nasa team studying the origin of UAPs, believes that the film is unlikely to create a lasting cultural shift or mainstream acceptance of its claims. Instead it is the culmination of a recent period of heightened interest in UAPs.
“We went through a UAP bubble over the past eight years and a lot of this evidence that's being put forth by the aviators is very old evidence from the 2000s. We're at the tail end. This production was an effort to grab the last little bits as we head out of the current UAP bubble.”
It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi thriller, but a former Russian president insists it is his real life story. Kirsan Ilyumzinov has publicly claimed that he was taken aboard an alien spacecraft while he was still in office, and that some of the most powerful leaders on Earth were aware of similar encounters but stayed silent.
According to Ilyumzinov, the extraordinary event took place in September 1997 while he was president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia. Speaking on a recent podcast, he said the night began in a completely ordinary way.
He recalled returning to his Moscow apartment after work, switching on the television, and preparing to sleep. Then came something he described as a half dream, half reality moment. From his open window, he claimed to see a glowing, translucent tube forming in the air.
'There was something like a translucent pipe glowing, made of some matter,' he said. 'I was invited by them.'
Curious rather than afraid, he said he stepped into the tube and was transported into a vast space that he later understood to be a spacecraft. Inside, he claimed to see beings who looked strikingly similar to humans, dressed in yellow garments, communicating not with speech but through thoughts.
Ilyumzinov described the interior of the craft as enormous, comparable to several football fields. He said the air initially felt thin until one of the beings gestured for him to press on his chest, after which breathing became easy.
'I felt calm. I was not nervous,' he said, adding that the space smelled faintly like the sea or a forest.
He claimed the beings showed him parts of the ship, including large window like openings through which he could see what looked like a fiery planet giving off heat. At one point, he said he asked why they did not reveal themselves to humanity.
Their response, he claimed, was blunt. Humanity was not ready. Comparing humans to ants, the beings allegedly told him that civilisations exist at different levels of development, and that Earth was still too violent and destructive to engage openly with others.
Perhaps the most unsettling detail is that Ilyumzinov says he did not simply imagine the experience. He insists there were witnesses to his sudden disappearance.
His chief of staff later confirmed that when colleagues arrived at his apartment the next morning to take him to the airport, he was nowhere to be found. Phones, clothes and slippers were still in place. The bedroom had been searched repeatedly.
Then, after more than an hour of confusion and even a call to the police, Ilyumzinov allegedly walked calmly out of the bedroom.
'He laughed and said, well, aliens took me,' his longtime aide recalled.
Ilyumzinov himself said he was surprised by how normal he felt afterwards, suggesting the beings may have influenced his mental state to prevent panic or trauma.
The former president went even further, alleging that knowledge of extraterrestrial contact is quietly shared among global elites. He said he discussed UFOs with figures such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Henry Kissinger, and claimed that US and Soviet officials once exchanged information on the subject.
'Henry Kissinger was watching me closely. He was a man of few words,' he recalled of one encounter.
Most explosively, Ilyumzinov claimed that another sitting president of a major nation privately confided in him about a similar alien encounter during a fishing trip, but refused to go public for fear of political ruin.
He suggested leaders like Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping are likely aware of UFO programmes and extraterrestrial presence, but choose silence to avoid public panic and ridicule.
Whether seen as a sincere belief, a mystical experience, or an extraordinary claim demanding extraordinary proof, Ilyumzinov's story has reignited debate about UFOs and what the world's most powerful figures may really know. One thing is certain. When a former head of state says he was taken by aliens while in office, people are bound to listen.
© Copyright IBTimes 2025. All rights reserved.
Tracking comets accurately is hard. A new effort with the U.N. and NASA aims to better chart these visitors using 3I/ATLAS.
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As the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS prepares for its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 19, it's being monitored not just by space agencies but also the United Nations.
The comet, which will come within roughly 167 million miles (270 million kilometers) of our planet, will be tracked by telescopes around the world so astronomers can pinpoint its location and make predictions about future objects like it.
The U.N.'s International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) is about halfway through its 3I/ATLAS observing campaign and expects to publish its findings in a peer-reviewed journal next year, James Bauer, a small-bodies node principal investigator at IAWN and a research professor in the University of Maryland's astronomy department, told Live Science. The network consists of more than 80 observatories and citizen scientists around the world doing active research on near-Earth objects, such as comets and asteroids.
NASA coordinates the IAWN and the network's observing campaigns, Bauer said, and 3I/ATLAS is the first interstellar object to be tracked since the campaigns began in 2017. (Notably, the potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid Apophis was observed by IAWN in 2020 and 2021, and a new campaign is expected between 2027 and 2029 as the asteroid makes a safe-but-close approach to Earth.)
"The idea behind these campaigns is really to strengthen the technical capabilities for measuring sky positions, which we call astrometry, for asteroids and comets," Bauer said of IAWN's work. The investigators will be testing a new astrometry technique to track the pathway for 3I/ATLAS, which can be helpful for determining how to send a spacecraft to a similar comet in the future.
"We want the community to use the latest and greatest techniques," Bauer said. (Bauer also serves as principal investigator for the NASA Planetary Data System's small bodies node, which archives, catalogs and distributes scientific data related to comets, asteroids and interplanetary dust.)
IAWN had been planning an observing campaign like this since October 2024, so 3I/ATLAS was a late-but-fortuitous arrival when it was first spotted in late June. The interstellar comet's upcoming close approach coincides well with the team's planned observing schedule, and because 3I/ATLAS was visible in the network's observatories and of high interest, it seemed like a great fit, Bauer said.
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There are challenges in accurately measuring a comet's position, he noted, such as the changing brightness and the variability in its coma, the cloud of gas and dust that extends around the comet's nucleus and tail as it draws closer to the sun and heats up. These features can inflate the comet's apparent size and make its location harder to pinpoint.
Luckily, although 3I/ATLAS originated outside the solar system, it's showing such classic comet behavior that it is almost a "comet's comet," Bauer said. For example, it includes components like water and carbon dioxide that are behaving similarly to normal solar system comets.
—Mars orbiter narrows down the exact path of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS by 'ten-fold,' surprising scientists
—New NASA, ESA images show 3I/ATLAS getting active ahead of its close encounter with Earth
—Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is erupting in 'ice volcanoes', new images suggest
Community interest has been high. Citizen scientists, observatories large and small, and scientific organizations formed a record 171 campaign participants at the kickoff of IAWN's 3I/ATLAS campaign meeting in October. The mid-campaign teleconference, held Dec. 9 and days before Bauer's interview with Live Science, had 100 campaign participants.
"We've been answering questions from the community — for example, 'How to use the tool? What is the proper format for observing, or for reporting the observations?'" Bauer said.
He said he's grateful for the community's time and interest, as it is helping astronomers refine their ability to report the positions of objects in the sky — including "vigilance" for other near-Earth asteroids and objects that come much closer to our planet.
Elizabeth Howell was staff reporter at Space.com between 2022 and 2024 and a regular contributor to Live Science and Space.com between 2012 and 2022. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022) is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams.
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Watch CBS News
December 15, 2025 / 12:45 AM EST
/ CBS News
Erika Kirk said she and Candace Owens will meet Monday, days after Charlie Kirk's widow joined a CBS town hall and said she wanted Owens to stop peddling conspiracy theories about her late husband's assassination.
Kirk said on X that she and Owens would have a "private, in-person meeting" Monday. She added that they "agreed that public discussions, livestreams, and tweets are on hold until after this meeting" and that she's looking forward to a "productive discussion."
Owens wrote on X that she's "very much looking forward to this discussion."
Erika Kirk sat down with CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss last week for a town hall that aired Saturday on CBS. Weiss asked Erika Kirk what she would want to say to Owens, who has been amplifying conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's assassination.
"Stop," Erika Kirk said. "That's it. That's all I have to say. Stop."
Owens, a onetime friend of Charlie Kirk's and a former employee of his conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, previously compared their relationship to that of a "brother and sister."
The day after his assassination, she posted a lengthy video, saying she wanted him to be remembered for his career and ideas. In the months since, Owens has pushed conspiracy theories about his murder and made unfounded fraud allegations about the finances at Turning Point, which Erika Kirk now runs.
The Treasury Department has since confirmed that none of the tax-exempt entities Erika Kirk oversees are under investigation by the IRS.
Watch Erika Kirk's full CBS News town hall here.
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(00:36)
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