What is the significance of the announced Paramount-Warner Bros. deal?We’re at the endgame for the streaming media industry. Netflix has kept growing, growing, growing. Disney bought Fox in 2019 to get scale with its Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN services. And Amazon Prime Video is in the mix because it comes with an Amazon Prime subscription.That left a bunch of smaller players—HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+. Those companies needed to get…
Dr Yige Sun Since 1957, when humanity first placed an artificial satellite into orbit, space has shifted from being ‘the final frontier’ to a critical domain underpinning navigation, finance, weather forecasting, disaster response, streaming and communications. More than 60% of smartphone-enabled services rely directly or indirectly on space-based assets. The global space economy is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, and in the UK alone space activity currently supports…
It revealed four interconnected themes that shaped participants’ experiences:Proactive continuity of care is essential to helping people with dementia retain a sense of identity as the condition advances.Formal support often falls away just as care needs escalate, leaving families feeling abandoned at the most critical stages.Widespread difficulty navigating what respondents see as a fragmented and often bewildering primary care system.Uncertainty across general practice about who is responsible for ongoing dementia…
The University of Oxford has received a further generous £2 million donation from Fondation Docteur Sadok Besrour to strengthen the regional impact of primary care research and education in Tunisia.The new gift builds on the Foundation’s 2025 gift of £8.4m in support of global primary care at Oxford and reinforces the University’s long-standing commitment to advancing global health through research, education and international partnership.Housed in the Nuffield Department of Primary…
Applied to the case of Kosovo, their essence can be summarized as follows: “We will determine whether state A is worthy of sovereignty over territory B, guided by our own notions of what is right.” Awareness of the dangers of this approach was reflected in the split over Kosovo’s recognition not only in the international community as a whole, but also within the Western bloc itself. However, the generally accepted…
Quick Hits The Trump administration released an AI policy framework, largely reiterating the administration’s previously stated policy goals to promote AI. In particular, the framework urges Congress to establish preemption of state and local regulations to promote innovation. The likelihood of these policy goals being fully implemented is uncertain at this time. The “National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence” provides broad, overarching legislative recommendations for Congress for governing the development…
21 March 2026By Martin Bijsterbosch, Diego Moccero, Daphne Momferatou, Marta Rodríguez Vives and Giacomo Pongetti[1] After a decade of Greek recovery, questions remain: Are banks strong enough to support the economy? What can be done to close the gap in living standards? This post explores Greece’s achievements, challenges and lessons on the path from crisis to recovery, and towards resilience.Greece stands for one of the worst economic crises and, at…
Quick Hits The DOL’s new website for the Center for Faith includes resources on preventing workplace religious discrimination and how faith organizations can access federal grants. The website is part of the Trump administration’s focus on addressing religious bias in the workplace. Federal antidiscrimination laws protect all types of religious belief, as well as atheism. The DOL established the Center for Faith in response to an executive order in 2025.…
Pittsburgh has reinvented itself from a steel powerhouse to a hub for health care and education. But the city’s industrial past left a hidden legacy: toxic compounds like benzene and toluene in the soil. While most life can’t survive such a contamination, some microbes adapted to use the pollutants as food. Catherine Armbruster Now, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University are exploring whether these microbes can help clean up what the…
By Sheena Cruickshank, University of Manchester and Jonathan Worboys, for The ConversationA new immunotherapy drug has demonstrated early promise in a recent prostate cancer clinical trial. The drug, called VIR-5500, is a “masked T-cell engager”. This type of immunotherapy ignites our own immune arsenal to fight cancer.In the trial, which is still in progress and has not yet undergone peer-review, patients with advanced prostate cancer who had failed to respond…
Hubris and excess – the Greek tragedians could have thought of no other terms. The core of ancient tragedy is the transition from hubris to nemesis: divine justice strikes down those who have defied the gods. Since his re-election, Trump has displayed a lack of restraint. This was evident in many signs, most clearly in his statement to the New York Times a few days after the abduction of Nicolas…
Quick Hits On March 17, 2026, Washington Governor Ferguson signed legislation that amends the definition of “employers” that are required to comply with the state’s mini-WARN law to exclude Native American tribes. The bill also changes the notices that must contain the names and addresses of employees affected by layoffs. The amended mini-WARN Act also stops disclosure under the Public Records Act of the names and addresses of affected employees.…
In the absence of a profound and coherent revision of the geo-economic approach adopted by the Commission, the deterioration of European security appears to be difficult to reverse. Not due to a lack of values or institutional tools, but due to insufficient strategic rationality in the actions of its main decision-maker, write Pasquale Preziosa and Dario Velo. The geostrategic crisis currently affecting the European Union cannot be understood by resorting…
Quick Hits Artificial intelligence, facial recognition systems, and body cameras on security guards are some of the newer methods retailers are using to prevent crime in stores. Recording audio without consent may be prohibited under federal and state laws. Employees and customers have certain privacy rights where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Retailers are under pressure to balance security concerns, such as preventing theft, with the privacy rights…
In a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers from the University of Oxford and the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Dar es salaam, Tanzania, have shown that a minimally invasive “liquid biopsy” test can diagnose Burkitt lymphoma rapidly and accurately in sub-Saharan Africa, where delays in traditional testing often prove fatal.Despite its aggressive nature, Burkitt lymphoma is often curable when treated quickly, with survival rates over…
The acquisition is expected to help accelerate the development of a new type of targeted treatment for leukaemia, with the potential to improve outcomes for patients. It is also hoped that this treatment could be expanded to other cancers.The scientific foundations of the programmes were built on discoveries made by Oxford researchers including Oleg Fedorov, Cassandra Adams, Gilian Farnie, Kilian Huber and Paul Brennan in the Centre for Medicines Discovery;…
A look at what Google learned when it collaborated with Stanford researchers to find out why some people adopt AI, and some don’t.
The Modelling-Informed Medicine Centre (MiMeC), founded by the biopharma company GSK and the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, will provide a new UK hub for research in the rapidly growing field of data-driven mechanistic modelling.The centre will create computer models or ‘digital twins’ of organs and diseases to better understand how diseases of the lungs, liver, kidneys and cartilage progress, to discover and develop drugs more quickly, and…
Carnegie Mellon University is one of six institutions partnering with the Viewpoints Fellowship(opens in new window), a yearlong, paid leadership program designed to equip students with the necessary skills to productively navigate disagreement, lead constructive dialogue and foster more resilient campus communities.The fellowship is a partnership between the student-founded nonprofit The Viewpoints Project(opens in new window) and CMU’s Civility Initiatives(opens in new window) and Office of Community Engagement and Leadership Development(opens in new window).Through…
They re‑examined data from the SCIL-STROKE trial and discovered that patients who received tPA before IL‑1Ra had significantly lower levels of IL‑1Ra in their blood, suggesting the drug was being broken down.Laboratory research confirmed that IL‑1Ra can be cut apart by plasmin, an enzyme produced during tPA treatment, meaning the anti‑inflammatory drug may be degraded before it can work.Researchers then tested the interaction in a mouse model of stroke, using…
Howie and Harlan discuss the end of flu season, vaccine effectiveness, and the challenge of rebuilding public confidence in immunization. Also: new cholesterol guidelines that push earlier treatment, measles outbreaks and the erosion of herd immunity, a court ruling pausing changes to vaccine guidelines, signs of stabilization at the NIH, new evidence on football and brain injury, and a MedPAC report suggesting Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid. Show notes: Looking…
The fourth distinctive feature of Turkmen foreign policy is the desire to diversify markets for natural gas exports. In particular, in the second half of the 2000s, dependence on Russia as a buyer of Turkmen gas increasingly came to be seen by Ashgabat as problematic. Accordingly, in the mid-2000s Turkmenistan began increasing exports of natural gas to China. However, from the mid-2010s onwards, the geography of Turkmen gas exports began…
Quick Hits The Third Circuit allowed a white police officer’s discrimination lawsuit to proceed, predicting that the Supreme Court of New Jersey would drop the “Background Circumstances Rule” requiring heightened proof for reverse discrimination claims. The ruling reflects a 2025 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that rejected higher standards for majority-group plaintiffs in discrimination cases. A concurrence further criticized the “Background Circumstances Rule” as discriminatory and…
If you are a consumer-facing business in the United States or are in the field of advising them on privacy matters, you are aware of the importance of privacy and data protection compliance. Despite this awareness, too many companies and counsels tend to overlook the need to consider Canadian privacy laws when engaging in cross-border commercial transactions, also overlooking that Québec privacy law has a strict regime comparable to the…
According to established tradition, the Russian-Uzbek conference is held alternately in Russia and Uzbekistan. Since 2019, when the partnership memorandum between Valdai and ISRS was signed, Russian and Uzbek experts have met in Moscow, Samarkand, Tashkent, and Khiva. This year’s venue is the city of Termez, located near the Friendship Bridge on the border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Programme of the Russia-Uzbekistan conference of the Valdai Discussion Cluband the…
China’s global attractiveness is built on a new, win-win type of globalisation based on inclusiveness, completely different from the hegemonic logic of Americanisation, writes Wang Wen. In 2026, the international political research community may not have noticed the popularity of “Chinamaxxing” on social media. This internet neologism, a combination of “China” and the gaming term “maxxing,” has become a new trend among young netizens. Coupled with the fact that the…
Quick Hits USCIS will continue to accept adjustment of status filings based on the Dates for Filing chart in April 2026. EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 categories are current on the Dates for Filing chart for all countries other than India, China, and Philippines (only EB-1 and EB-2 categories are current for Philippines). EB-1 category final action dates advance for China and India. EB-2 and EB-3 categories for India advance significantly…
There are many Canadian tax benefits associated with starting a business in a corporation created under Canadian federal or provincial law, which is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a corporation to qualify as a “Canadian-controlled private corporation” (CCPC): CCPC status is one of the requirements for a corporation’s shares to constitute “qualified small business corporation shares”, which Canadian-resident individuals may claim the lifetime capital gains exemption (LCGE) of…
Professor Edward Harcourt Given the surge of recent interest in AI ethics – which comes on the back of understandable worries about AI itself - most people are now familiar with the term ‘ethics-washing’. Trickling into a linguistic channel already worn smooth by ‘green washing’ and before it of course ‘whitewashing’, ethics-washing means something like this: appearing to take some ethical anxiety about AI seriously and then tactfully dismissing it by…
BackgroundThe Accord of March 4, 1951, was a watershed event in Federal Reserve independence. Such independence is critical to effective monetary policy and improved economic outcomes. Without independence, monetary policymakers will be subject to short-term political considerations, which can lead to higher inflation. One risk is that the benefits of easier policy—higher output and employment—come sooner than the costs in terms of higher inflation. So a short-term perspective can create…
Dr Athol Williams & Professor Mette Morsing, Saïd Business School Dr Williams, a Senior Fellow of Management Practice in Strategy at Saïd Business School and an established South African poet, will use the honorary position to integrate poetry more deeply into teaching and learning at the School. While Poet Laureates traditionally compose and advocate for poetry linked to an institution, Dr Williams intends to extend the role to support leadership…
Life evaluations among under 25s in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have dropped dramatically (by almost one point on a 0-10 scale) over the past decade, while the average for the young in the rest of the world has increased, according to Gallup World Poll data.One international survey of 15-year-olds in nearly 50 countries suggests heavy social media use is associated, on average, with a significant drop…
In Thomas v. EOTech, LLC, the court aligned with Sixth Circuit jurisprudence in holding that judicial enforcement of such agreements would “disrupt the relevant statutes’ carefully integrated and uniform remedial schemes.” For employers with provisions in employment agreements shortening the statutes of limitations for such claims, this decision is a warning to review those documents and reassess the risk of litigation. Quick Hits Agreements that prospectively shorten the statutory filing…
Employers in Ontario are increasingly operating in a termination landscape that feels uncertain. A recent Ontario Superior Court (the Court) decision, Adelman v. IBM Canada Limited (Adelman), illustrates how common‑law notice exposure, discretionary compensation, and equity‑based incentives can intersect to produce significant liability where contractual protections are absent or unclear. While the case involved a senior executive at a large organization, the Court’s reasoning has broader implications for employers managing…
A new study has suggested that the transformation of Twitter into X under Elon Musk marks the rise of a new, illiberal regime of governing social media platforms, which can be controlled by one person and used to push their own political agenda.Alongside researchers from the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Weizenbaum Institute, Dr João C. Magalhães of The University of Manchester studied over 1,500 events to track…
Quick Hits The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, affirmed the trial court’s order compelling arbitration of individual employment claims, finding the parties’ arbitration agreement was governed by the FAA. The court upheld the dismissal of class claims, as the arbitration agreement expressly prohibited class, collective, or representative proceedings. The decision clarifies that parties may voluntarily elect to have the FAA govern their arbitration agreement, regardless of whether the…
In 1789, during the first session of the first U.S. Congress, lawmakers issued a requirement: every bill, order, resolution, or vote must be published in public newspapers. States followed suit with similar laws requiring notifications of government actions in the local papers—typically short announcements about public hearings or possible changes in areas such as construction, taxes, or education.More than two centuries after the passage of that first statute, some policymakers…
The legal rights designed to protect Afro-Colombian communities are not lifting them out of economic precarity - and are leaving them vulnerable to the illegal drug trade and illicit mining as a result - according to new research from The University of Manchester.For decades, Colombia’s Pacific coast has been a battleground for ‘extractive capitalism’ - a world of illegal gold mining, industrial palm oil and drug smuggling. In 1993, a…
At The Check Up, Google announced a $10M investment in clinician AI training and how AI is upgrading Search and Fitbit for better health data.
The Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Innovation Center(opens in new window) (RIC) hummed with energy on Monday as it partnered with Hazelwood Local to host a family-friendly open house. The event, on the heels of the RIC’s opening celebration(opens in new window) last month, showcased robot demonstrations, offered guided tours and built direct connections with CMU to explore programs, relationships and resources.Zoie Pitzarella of Hazelwood watched her 6-year-old son, Kyng, use a video…