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Insight News • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Page 1
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INSIGHT NEWS WON THE MESSENGER AWARDS 2024 F OR THIRD PLACE IN WEBSITE EXCELLENCE, THIRD PLACE IN LAYOUT & DESIGN AND FIRS T PLACE F OR NEWSLETTER EXCELLENCE.
August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026
Vol. 53 No. 35 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
André Cymone returns to the Capri to launch centennial season A
ndré Cymone will return to the Capri on Oct. 3 to open the Capri 100 Season, taking the North Minneapolis stage where he played bass in Prince’s first shows as a solo artist in 1979. The Capri opened in 1927 as a movie house and took the Capri name in 1967. Prince’s solo debut there, on Jan. 5 and 6, 1979, was
a benefit for the theater, with tickets at $4. The building turns 100 in 2027. The concert runs from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Capri Theater, 2027 West Broadway in Minneapolis. Standard tickets are $50 for center-section seats and $40 for side-section seats, sold through the Capri’s event page at thecapri.org/ event/andre-cymone.
The performance will feature music from Cymone’s new studio album, The Resurrection of Funk. The Capri describes Cymone as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and Grammy-winning producer, and as a foundational co-architect of the Minneapolis Sound alongside his childhood friend Prince. The evening includes two additional access options. Mem-
bership in the Capri Ambassadors Circle, with tiers beginning at $500, includes admission to a pre-show reception where Cymone is scheduled to offer remarks on the importance of the Capri’s presence and programming. A late-night postshow gathering for artists follows the concert, with tickets at $100. The concert is the official
opening night of Capri 100, which the theater describes as a year-long centennial celebration honoring a century of local arts culture. The Capri describes itself as a cultural arts center and community hub in North Minneapolis. It is owned and operated by PCYC, a nonprofit agency working in youth and community development.
Page 2 • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Insight News
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Insight News • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Page 3
Insight News
INSIGHT NEWS WON THE MESSENGER AWARDS 2024 F OR THIRD PLACE IN WEBSITE EXCELLENCE, THIRD PLACE IN LAYOUT & DESIGN AND FIRS T PLACE F OR NEWSLETTER EXCELLENCE.
August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026
Vol. 53 No. 35 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Meet members of Minnesota House Representatives at the State Fair
Citizen Journalism University opens 2026 training for community reporters
Fairgoers are invited to weigh in on hot political topics and meet with legislators during their visit to the House of Representatives’ booth at the 2026 Minnesota State Fair. Located in the Education Building, the booth highlight is the informal, unscientific House opinion poll. Nearly 10,000 votes were cast last year. This year, fairgoers can let their opinions be known on a dozen issues, including: prohibiting semiautomatic military-style assault weapons; needing a photo ID to vote; gubernatorial term limits; Operation Metro Surge redress; covering infertility treatment; and increased school funding. Results are scheduled to be on the House website (house.mn.gov) Sept. 8, the day after the fair closes.
Gary’s long blackout raises deeper questions about infrastructure and accountability
By Al McFarlane
Meta has agreed to pay up to US$18 billion over 10 years to settle claims brought by a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general. The states argued that the company deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to hook children into using its
TRAINING
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Credit: senjimbanks/Instagram
Mayor Melton and Senator Jim Banks Talk with President Trump Regarding Federal Disaster Assistance after the storm, Gerber reported. Her search for basic necessities included waiting an hour and 45 minutes in a gasoline line, only for the station to run out.
This is the city the storm found. Census Bureau figures put Gary’s population at 67,289 in 2025, down from 80,294 in 2010, a loss of rough-
ly one resident in six in fifteen years. The city is 76.2 percent Black. A third of its residents,
GARY
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Changes to Facebook and Instagram are key part of Meta’s $18B settlement with the states over harm to teens By Carolina Rossini Professor of Practice and Director for Program, Public Interest Technology Initiative, UMass Amherst
struction in news ethics, working with editors and interacting with sources and community members. The instructors are Scott Winter, senior lecturer and Charnley Projects Professor at the University of Minnesota's Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Jim Pumarlo, a newsroom trainer and former editor of the Red Wing Republican Eagle; Doug Hanneman, retired editor of the Hutchinson Leader; and Lisa Schwarz, director of development and communications for MNI and the Minnesota Newspaper Association (MNA), and a former editor and site leader at the St. Cloud Times and Faribault Daily News. Tuition is $300 per student for returning MNA member publications and $600 for nonmembers. For MNA member news organizations sponsoring a CJU student for the first time, MNI pays half the tuition, reducing the student
Barbados – Julius Garvey, son of Marcus Garvey, joins PM Mottley in the rededication of the Garvey amphitheater
Editor
Gary Common Council President Linda Barnes-Caldwell had her electricity back, but neighbors across the street remained in the dark. Free Press Indiana’s Carson Gerber reported that neighbors carried ice and dry ice to elderly residents to keep medications cold and that some people visited an oxygen-tank filling station three times a day. Barnes-Caldwell worried about residents who had already spent money on hotels and generator fuel with rent coming due. Julene Anderson, 61, was still without power 11 days
The Minnesota News Media Institute (MNI) is preparing its 2026 Citizen Journalism University (CJU) session, a fiveweek online course designed to give community members and newsroom staff a grounding in basic reporting skills. Registration closes Sept. 4. The program meets online from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursdays, Sept. 10 through Oct. 8. Candidates should be at least 16 years old. CJU is aimed at engaged community members who could contribute reporting to local news organizations, as well as early-career journalists, part-time reporters and newsroom employees who handle multiple roles. The program's premise is that news organizations can identify prospective journalists in their own communities and provide them with structured training. The curriculum covers how to find news in meeting agendas, recognize feature-story opportunities, conduct interviews and structure stories. Participants also receive in-
apps, misled the public about the harm and improperly collected data from children under 13. The settlement, announced by Meta on Aug. 26, 2026, ended a federal trial that had barely begun in Oakland, California. The potential financial exposure in the case was enormous, and Meta’s stock price took a hit. The states argued that penalties could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. Against that backdrop, and with a $1.4 trillion question mark hanging over its valuation, Meta settled, al-
Image created with AI
though the company continues to deny wrongdoing. The settlement still requires approval from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez
Rogers.
As a technology poli-
SETTLEMENT
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FDA approves breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug an oncologist explains how daraxonrasib nearly doubles survival
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Photo courtesy NY Carib News
Dr Julius Garvey, son of Jamaican National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey, joined Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley in rededicating the Marcus Garvey Amphitheatre at Queen’s Park, nearly nine decades after his father addressed Barbadians at the historic location. The August 20 ceremony formed part of Barbados’ 2026 Season of Emancipation celebrations and featured the unveiling of a commemorative plaque by Mottley and Dr Garvey. The event also served as a reflection on Garvey’s enduring influence on Pan-Africanism, self-determination and Black empowerment across the Caribbean and beyond. Marcus Garvey visited Barbados in 1937, during a period of significant social and political unrest throughout the Caribbean. He addressed Barbadians at the Queen’s Park Steel Shed, delivering a message centred on Black unity,
self-reliance and collective advancement. The presence of his son at the site decades later added a personal and historic dimension to the rededication. Rodney Grant, Programme Advisor in Barbados’ Office of Pan African Affairs and Heritage and the Division of Youth and Culture, said the occasion was especially meaningful because Dr Garvey could participate in honouring the location where his father once spoke. Grant also highlighted the role of generations of Rastafarians who preserved Garvey’s teachings despite persecution. He said Barbados was now seeking to give greater academic recognition to Garveyism and to examine its intellectual contribution to Pan-African thought. The wider celebrations have also expanded un-
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Business
Africa investment summit puts diaspora capital and dealmaking at center of development debate
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Commentary Two systems of justice: How success makes leaders of color targets By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. Unless you have lived through it, it is easy to dismiss as racial paranoia the wariness and discomfort felt by many successful business leaders of color who have reached the elite ranks of the business world. To outside observers, modern corporate America appears to be a meritocracy where performance dictates how far an individual can rise. Yet history reveals a far more sobering reality: No matter how much success an outsider of color accumulates, his or her place at the top is often accompanied by a question mark – by a lingering sense that acceptance is fleeting and the status earned over decades is more fragile than it appears. Nowhere is that more evident than in moments of crisis and failure. When an established company led by white American executives’ falters, media pundits, investors, business analysts, regulators and other stakeholders follow a predictable script. Their failure is framed as the result of harsh economic cycles, bad timing, changing consumer preferences, miscalculation or bad luck. Rarely is the white executive’s integrity put on trial. But African Americans and other people of color corporate leaders are rarely afforded the same benefit of the doubt when a damaging crisis erupts under their watch. Instead, people are often quick to assume that incompetence, poor
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work ethic, character flaws, dishonesty, or criminal intent was at the root of the problem. The 2008 mortgage crisis vividly illustrated this double standard. Wall Street banks made enormous profits from a housing boom built on risky mortgages. When Americans began defaulting in staggering numbers, millions lost their homes, trillions in household wealth vanished, and the global economy neared collapse. And how many of the overwhelmingly white Wall Street executives behind this scheme were criminally prosecuted? Virtually none. Instead, the financial system received billions in taxpayer bailouts while the institutions at the center of the crisis paid executives lavish bonuses. The double standard hardly ends there. A few years later, global banking giant HSBC avoided criminal prosecution after admitting that its lax controls allowed Mexican drug cartels to launder hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead,
federal prosecutors levied financial penalties against the bank. In the world of high finance, global breakdowns seem to be routinely treated as the cost of doing business. Contrast this grace with the treatment reserved for outsiders who aren’t in the club, usually African American executives or other business leaders of color whose organizations come under strain — whether in municipal services, finance, or manufacturing. The institutional response is too often vilification, press leaks, and the immediate criminalization of business failure. Consider a case I wrote about a few years ago involving Jack Brown III, a visionary African American entrepreneur who built CORE Services Group into one of New York City’s most effective social services providers. Yet when CORE demanded tens of millions in overdue payments from the cash-strapped city for services delivered, city officials launched a campaign of press leaks and innuendo, suggesting
that Brown’s executive compensation was corrupt. It was a classic example of how leaders of color can be character demonized in an instant. More recently, there’s a troubling case in the American heartland involving both the forced liquidation of First Brands Group, an auto parts manufacturer that anchored many communities with jobs, and the unfair aggressive prosecution of its founder, Patrick James. James, an immigrant entrepreneur of color who arrived in Ohio in the 1980s, chose a path modern Wall Street had largely abandoned. Rather than relocating operations and shipping jobs overseas, James entered the struggling world of Midwestern manufacturing and worked to turn it around. Over three decades, he acquired numerous iconic but fading American auto-parts brands — like FRAM, Trico, and Raybestos — bringing them under an industrial giant in a vitally important American industry. As an industry outsid-
Angie Nixon will turn you into a Democratic Socialist if Donald Trump hasn’t already
er with limited access to easy credit from giant mainstream banks, James funded this expansion through high-yield, highrisk private lendersthat resemble the payday lenders found in urban neighborhoods. When the economy faltered — driven by historic interest rate hikes, inflation, and pandemic-era shipping bottlenecks — First Brands’ heavy debt burden became unsustainable. In a fair system, staggering debt during an economic downturn triggers standard Chapter 11 protections: debt is reorganized, ancillary assets are sold, and the company continues to employ thousands. Instead, the private credit lenders who earned lucrative returns worsened the problem. To insulate themselves from their own bad bets, they ran to federal law enforcement, spinning a story of executive fraud out of a complex debt default they helped create. The response from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York was swift. Prosecutors dusted off the “Financial Kingpin” statute, a drug-cartel-era law carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life. Instead of stabilizing the business, court-appointed restructuring advisors collected large professional fees while liquidating plants, firing thousands of American workers, and selling off specialized manufacturing machinery. At the same time, they worked with the government to build an indictment against James, while prosecutors cut off his access to the corporate documents he needed to defend himself, according to
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Angie Nixon. Courtesy of Angie Nixon’s Facebook page.
By Emil Amok Guillermo The midterm elections are more important than ever as we fight back. And we all know “affordability” is the No. 1 issue in the U.S. So, how are you doing? A new survey says that, for a single person, being comfortable in California requires an income of $126,797. Or $302,682 for a family of four. Did those numbers make you uncomfortable? A single person making just $102,794 could be comfortable in Utah. But wouldn’t you rather just look at the Mormon Temple in Oakland from 580? The survey defined “comfortable” as spending 50% of income on necessities, 30% on “like-to-haves,” and putting 20% in savings. Are your percentages way out of whack? Like 100% on necessities? What if the car breaks
down? What if the kids need x, y, or z? What if overtime gets cut back? What if Social Security goes bankrupt? Are you a democratic socialist yet? That’s not where Blues go Red and turn communist. It’s about a government that puts people before profits. And cares for all of us. Not just the billionaires. Angie Nixon In last week’s Florida primary, people around the country saw Florida legislator Angie Nixon win the Democratic U.S. Senate primary with a stunning upset over Alex Vindman. Vindman was well-funded ($16.3 million to Nixon’s $975,000), and well-connected nationally. But Nixon—an African American with state house cred, union organizing experience, and a fighter who was arrested protesting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ redistricting efforts— proved to be unbeatable. She’s officially aligned with the Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA). That means Nixon, 42, believes in universal health care, a/k/a “Medicare for all,” taxing the wealthy, and a minimum wage of $25 an hour. Think back to that comfort level survey. At 40 hours a week, $25 an hour is just $1,000 a week or $52,000 a year. It’s not even half what that survey said was needed for a single person to be “comfortable” in California. We’re forced to get 3-4 low-wage jobs. Nixon and the DSA want to set the floor, so no one sinks into oblivion. Republicans would simply let us all sink. Nixon now goes up against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November. Florida’s Republicans outnumber Dems by 1.5 million voters. And Nixon’s DSA tag makes her a clear underdog, maybe even unelectable. But the Dems are sticking with her. Voters seem to be turning out for someone who
will directly and boldly address affordability. Meanwhile, Trump is turning the Iran War, which has caused the oil price run-up and high inflation, into an economic war on the world. At the same time, he’s declared a tariff war on our good ally, Canada, guaranteed to raise prices on imports to America. That could make Nixon the one in Florida 2026. And it would move Dems closer to flipping both houses of Congress, a vote for super normalcy. Trump is so far down in the polls, he’s resorted to election disruption and voter suppression. But the antidote in Florida at least is Angie Nixon, a woman worth watching, who’ll turn you into a Democratic Socialist if Donald Trump hasn’t done so already. About the Author Emil Amok Guillermo is a veteran journalist, commentator, and comic monologist. He does a micro-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1
court filings. In the end, China has been the real beneficiary of this debacle, quickly stepping in to absorb the domestic market share First Brands once held. In that sense, the destruction of First Brands represents another example of Wall Street undermining Main Street by dismantling an effort to rebuild America’s hollowed-out manufacturing base. Still, there is good reason to believe the ugly facts will finally be heard on the merits rather than through creditor-driven spin. The James case is before U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres – a trailblazing Latina appointed by President Obama and veteran of the New York bench known for her impartiality, deep respect for working people and labor, and refusal to let institutional power tilt the scales. In a courtroom led by a judge who understands the challenges outsiders face, this corporate undoing may finally get the thorough scrutiny it deserves. American democracy can only be sustained when African Americans and other people of color are treated fairly, equality, justly, and equitably. The racial targeting of successful corporate leaders of color must be stopped. Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and Executive Producer of The Chavis Chronicles on PBS TV network across the nation, and can be reached at dr.chavis@nnpa.org.
Contributing Writer Pulane Choane Columnist Haley Taylor Schlitz Distribution Sound Construction Photographer Uchechukwu Iroegbu Roy Lewis - Washington D.C. Artist Donald Walker Digital Producer Jared McMullin Graphic Designer Syed Fahad Fayyaz Contact Us: McFarlane Media Interests, Inc. Marcus Garvey House 1815 Bryant Ave. N. Minneapolis. 55411 Ph.: (612) 695-0417 Member: Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium (MMMC) Minnesota Newspaper Association (MNA)
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Insight News • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Page 5
Credit: gary.gov
Gary Indiana Mayor Eddie Melton - Outage Briefing
Gary From 3 33.1 percent, live in poverty. Median household income is $38,731 and per capita income is $23,453. Just under half of households own their homes, and the median home is valued at $94,700. Nearly one household in five has no broadband subscription. In July, the month before the storm, 1,857 Gary residents were counted as unemployed, a rate of 7.6 percent. Those are the households that lost power on Aug. 11. The derecho crossed from Illinois into northwest Indiana that morning with straight-line winds of 70 to more than 100 mph. A 99 mph gust was recorded at Gary/Chicago International Airport. A National Weather Service damage assessment concluded peak gusts likely reached 100 to 110 mph across northern Lake and Porter counties. Power poles snapped across a wide area, and forested land near Portage lost more than 80 percent of its tree canopy. One person was killed in Gary: an unhoused woman struck by debris during the storm. NIPSCO said the
Settlement From 3 cy and law scholar, I follow with interest the litigation against Meta and other social media companies. The basic contours of this settlement are now public, and I believe they deserve careful attention because of the product design changes it might compel Meta, TikTok and YouTube to make.
What the states alleged
The Oakland case consolidated lawsuits filed in 2023 by 29 state attorneys general following a nationwide investigation that began in 2021. Similar to prior litigation in Los Angeles and New Mexico, the states alleged that Meta engineered features – for example, infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, likes and appearance-altering filters – to exploit vulnerabilities associated with adolescent development and to maximize engagement. States alleged that Meta’s internal research documented links between Instagram use and harms including depression, anxiety and body-image concerns among young people, while the company publicly minimized or concealed those risks. A third set of claims concerned Meta’s collection of data from children under 13 without parental consent, allegedly in violation of federal children’s privacy law. And the states argued that these practices violated state consumer protection statutes as well. That consumer protection claim is particularly important. For decades, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has protected platforms from liability for content posted by their users. But the states sued Meta instead over
storm produced the worst damage in the company’s known history, cutting service to roughly 375,000 customers, about 80 percent of its electric customers, and drawing more than 4,000 internal and contract workers from 14 states. The utility reported 99 percent of customers restored by 5 p.m. Aug. 25. Some Gary residents were without electricity for nearly two weeks. WGN reported that resident Tom Beslic had a tree fall through his roof and did not regain power until 14 days after the storm. “This was the worst damage we have ever seen, and we are grateful for the patience from our customers,” NIPSCO president and chief operating officer Vince Parisi said in the company’s Aug. 25 release announcing that restoration was complete. Insight News asked NIPSCO on Aug. 24 to account for what happened in Gary. Nine questions went to the utility covering restoration priorities, the comparison with neighboring communities and with ComEd across the Illinois line, vegetation management, system condition, and resilience investment in Gary compared with Crown Point, Valparaiso and Munster. NIPSCO acknowledged the inquiry that evening
and asked for the deadline. Insight News supplied an Aug. 25 deadline. At 4:04 p.m. that day the utility responded in full: “NIPSCO continues to work to restore our impacted customers.” Insight News asked whether that was the complete statement or whether material had been cut off. No further reply appeared through Aug. 30. The city was initially silent as well. An Aug. 24 interview request sent to the city’s general press address produced no response. Insight News contacted Chief Communication Officer Steve Segura directly on Aug. 27, and Segura supplied a written response the following day. That response left the central factual question unresolved. According to the city’s internal tracking, approximately 13,000 Gary customers lost power at the Aug. 11 peak. Capital B’s Calvin Davis reported nearly 38,300 utility customers in Gary without power at the peak, nearly 25,000 still without service on Aug. 20, and about 20,000 still out the next morning. The city’s stated peak is therefore lower than the number reported still without service nine days after the storm. The available record does not establish that the figures measure different populations. Insight News asked the city to explain
the discrepancy and, as of Aug. 30, had not received that explanation. Davis reported that NIPSCO described Gary as having the most widespread outage of any community in its Indiana territory, and that NIPSCO executive Melody Birmingham attributed the restoration pace to extensive tree damage, difficulty reaching damaged lines and the severity of the winds. Birmingham also said the disparity was not about race or socioeconomic status. Insight News asked NIPSCO for her full statement and the date and setting in which the race question was addressed. The utility did not provide it. The tree explanation can be tested. Davis reported that work associated with Indiana University researcher Sarah Mincey measured Gary’s average tree-canopy coverage at about 28 percent, against many cities in the 30s and 40s and Hammond at about 16 percent in 2025. Mincey’s explanation, as reported, is that saturated soil and heavy wind can turn a canopy into a sail, and that urban trees contend with rooting space constrained by sidewalks, roads and buried utilities. Gary’s 28 percent does not eliminate trees as a factor. It does show the canopy is not unusually high, which leaves maintenance, grid con-
dition and restoration strategy among the questions still open. Calls for accountability followed. NBC Chicago and The Associated Press reported that Gov. Mike Braun called for an investigation into NIPSCO’s preparation and response. Gerber reported that Gary Common Council Vice President Darren Washington said the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission had approved NIPSCO rate increases twice in five years, and that a two-week restoration delay was unacceptable for a billion-dollar company. WGN reported a class-action lawsuit alleging inadequate vegetation management before the storm, and CBS News Chicago reported that residents were forming a class-action group. Insight News does not hold the complaint and asserts nothing beyond the reported existence of the litigation and the allegation. Federal assistance arrived as Gary moved toward recovery. Gov. Braun requested a major disaster declaration on Aug. 20, and it was approved Aug. 25, authorizing both Individual Assistance and Public Assistance. The city says the approval came within 24 hours of its direct outreach. In its written response, Gary described that approval as a beginning rather than an end, calling for swift release of FEMA reimbursements
for emergency operating costs and for continued state and federal funding to harden the city’s electrical grid against future storms. ABC7 Chicago reported that Indiana was offering some residents emergency grants of up to $5,000 and that NIPSCO announced a $2 million contribution toward recovery. The relationship between the city and its utility carries another layer. CBS News Chicago reported that Mayor Eddie Melton worked for NIPSCO for 15 years in government affairs, community relations and employee engagement before entering the legislature and later winning the mayor’s office, and that he had not decided whether Gary would sue. For Barnes-Caldwell’s neighbors, for Anderson, for Beslic, and for the woman who did not survive the storm, the outage translated infrastructure into medication, oxygen, gasoline, hotel bills, damaged homes and days spent waiting. What the record still cannot answer is why Gary’s restoration took as long as it did, and whether the utility’s maintenance, capital investment and resilience planning gave a city of 67,289 people the protection its residents had paid for. NIPSCO was asked for the records that could answer it. Its response was one sentence.
the company’s own product design, business practices and alleged misrepresentations, not user-generated content. In opening arguments, California’s lawyer compressed the theory into four words, noting Meta’s business model was to “hook” users, “hold” them, “harvest” their data and “hide” the harm. And there was already precedent at the state level, in Massachusetts, of courts allowing this kind of claim to proceed.
What the settlement actually changes
Why the design terms matter more than the money
company has told investors that the settlement will not change its financial guidance beyond a single quarterly expense. More consequential, for Meta and the public, is the requirement to redesign Facebook and Instagram. However, redesign without serious transparency and accountability can quickly become another form of marketing. Meta has promised safety changes before, including teen accounts and expanded parental controls. Verification of the redesign and its real-world impact over time are key. That is where the settlement is both promising and incomplete. An independent auditor will review Meta’s compliance annually, but only for five years, against a 10-year agreement. And Meta has committed to the strongest behavioral terms, the daily time limit and the overnight block, for just five years. It will extend to 10 with stricter defaults only if YouTube and TikTok sign on. Meta has also committed to establish an independent research foundation. And this might address one of the deepest problems in technology governance: Platforms hold the evidence of their own effects, while independent researchers have been locked out. But the strength of these mechanisms will depend on details not yet public. Who selects the auditor? What information can the auditor access? Can researchers independently reproduce findings? What constitutes noncompliance, and what penalties follow if Meta complies with the letter of the agreement while redesigning the product around its edges? Finally, how does the research foundation escape capture by Meta? Technology governance increasingly fails not at the level of rules but at the level of enforcement. There is also some-
thing the settlement forecloses. Trials produce public records, but settlements end the process of producing a record of the evidence. The internal documents and testimony surfacing in Oakland, including evidence about Meta’s own research on young users and its lawyers’ handling of those findings, will now remain only partially visible. The states secured a significant legal resolution, but the public lost part of the record of how we got here.
It is important not to conflate the cases. While the federal case in Oakland was settled as part of the agreement with the 47 states, major cases against Meta remain active. In Los Angeles, a separate California state-court case resulted in a jury finding Meta and Google liable for negligently designing their products in ways that contributed to a teen girl’s mental health harms, with damages of $4.2 million against Meta and $1.8 million against Google. Those amounts look modest until multiplied across the thousands of similar individual claims now pending. Meta is appealing that decision. And in New Mexico, the state pursued its own enforcement action, alleging that Meta endangered children and violated state consumer protection law. New Mexico won judgments against Meta totaling more than $900 million, which Meta is also challenging. Neither of those cases was part of the federal trial, so today’s settlement does not resolve them, nor does it create legal precedent.
approval, teens under 18 on Instagram and Facebook in participating states will get: • a default two-hour daily time limit, cumulative across both apps and across multiple accounts, that only a parent can lift • a block on app access between midnight and 6 a.m. and muted notifications during school hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.), excepting direct messages • usage prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous scrolling • the option of a non-algorithmic, nonpersonalized feed • the ability to turn off autoplay and for parents to set the default to “off” • hidden like counts by default • blocks on cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters • strengthened age-detection systems for under-13 accounts Some of these measures are particularly significant because they change the default experience rather than simply adding another setting that users can choose to activate. This lowers the burden on the user. A safety tool that requires a teenager or parent to find, understand and turn on is fundamentally different from a safety constraint built into the product itself. The agreement addresses the architecture that determines how the product operates. In doing so, it recognizes that Meta shares responsibility for the environment it creates, which is crucial because Meta holds significant power to shape how its products are used.
Meta from bearing those costs alone. Whether that strategy works could matter as much as the settlement itself. Third, federal social media policy in the United States is gridlocked. It took state attorneys general, applying consumer protection law, to produce rules about time limits, product defaults, notifications and design practices that Congress could have debated and enacted years ago. The deeper lesson of today’s settlement is that product design, as a site of legal accountability, is a workable legal strategy. Accountability starts when a company agrees to redesign its product. The settlement gives the states – and the rest of us – a decade to find out whether these changes are real, and if so, if they work for the desired policy outcome. The critical question is whether, throughout that decade, someone independent will have the authority, access and incentives to decide what “work” really means. Disclosure statement Carolina Rossini has received funding from foundations and companies while working at EFF, Public Knowledge, AccessNow and as the co-founder of Portulans Institute and the Datasphere Initiative. She also served as a consultant to philanthropic foundations working in the space of digital rights. She currently has a grant from the IBM Government Center https://www. umass.edu/public-policy/news/ carolina-rossini-awarded-research-grant-ibm-center-business-government. She is a board member of Derechos Digitalis, #IAmtheCode, The Datasphere Initiaitive, Instituto EducaDigital Brazil. She is a member of the IEEE and the Brazilian Bar Association. More info at https://www.carolinarossini.net/ bio
One legal battle, several different cases
The design changes, such as curbing infinite scroll and autoplay, are the substantive core of the agreement. Subject to court
Even $18 billion, spread across a decade, amounts to only roughly 1% of Meta’s expected revenue over the same period. The
What comes next
Three things deserve close attention: First, the implementation details matter. The settlement’s significance depends on what happens after the press releases disappear. Do the new defaults actually constrain use? Are they hard to circumvent across accounts and devices? It is very hard to do age control in technology. And will teenagers simply migrate to other platforms outside the settlement’s reach, or into the direct messages the agreement itself exempts? Second, there is the question of Meta’s competitors. Participating states are guaranteed roughly 70% of the $18 billion, or about $12.7 billion over the decade, while the remaining 30%, about $5.3 billion, is released only if YouTube and TikTok adopt comparable teen protections and make matching payments. Meta essentially structured part of its own penalty as a recruitment device, effectively telling TikTok and YouTube that these rules are coming, and it is better to adopt them together than face the next litigation cycle alone. There is also a clear economic incentive for Meta to try to level the playing field. Because if these measures make Meta’s products less profitable, imposing similar requirements on competitors could prevent
Page 6 • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Insight News
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Bipartisan commission sets timeline for hiring state inspector general By Mike Cook A 2026 law created an Office of the Inspector General. Now, it’s time to determine how to bring about its leader. That task falls to the laps of the bipartisan Legislative Inspector General Advisory Commission, which held its inaugural meeting Wednesday largely to discuss the screening and hiring process. “Minnesota has not had an office like this before. How we build it and who we choose to lead it will define what accountability looks like in the
state for generations,” said Sen. Heather Gustafson (DFL-Vadnais Heights), who was elected commission chair. She and Rep. Matt Norris (DFL-Blaine) sponsored the law to create the office within the state’s executive branch. “This is the sort of thing that we need here in Minnesota to restore that confidence in the accountability of our taxpayer dollars,” Norris said. A recommended candidate or candidates — approved by at least five of the eight commission members — must be named by Jan. 1, 2027, Gustafson said, and the governor must appoint someone by
Feb. 1, 2027. Tasked with overseeing current agency-based inspectors general and investigating credible allegations of fraud or misuse in state-administered programs, the office must be fully operational by Sept. 1, 2027. Per its organizational overview, “The commission must assess eligible candidates based on qualifications, including experience in auditing, financial analysis, public administration, law enforcement, or related fields. “ … Current or former commissioners, agency heads, deputy commissioners or agency heads, governors, or
legislators, and people elected to an office other than governor or legislator, are not eligible to serve as inspector general within five years of their service in those roles.” The proposed recruitment and hiring process calls for the job posting to be finalized by Sept. 1 and posted the following week at the same time an executive recruitment plan is implemented. First-round interviews would take place in the last week of October and second-round interviews in mid-November. Whomever is appointed to a five-year term will be subject to a three-fifths su-
Credit: Michele Jokinen
Rep. Matt Norris, center, speaks with Sen. Heather Gustafson and Sen. Michael Kreun Wednesday before the first meeting of the Legislative Inspector General Advisory Commission. permajority confirmation by the Senate. Rep. Jim Nash (R-Waconia) was named the commission vice chair. “It is time that we put this now in motion, (and) do an excellent job to make sure we
are achieving bipartisanship so that people who have seen the money evaporating from their wallets know that state government is actually looking critically and is going to shut down the fraud we have been so plagued by.”
Minneapolis police investigating three deaths Minneapolis police are investigating three deaths, two of them in South Minneapolis last week, while the city marked the first year of its mobile medical clinic and announced a free nine-part concert series. Minneapolis police said Third Precinct officers responded with fire and EMS at about 6:45 a.m. Aug. 30 to a report of a man down in a yard in the 4200 block of Portland Avenue. Officers found a man dead in the front yard of a residence with an apparent fatal stab wound. Officers secured and canvassed the area, and MPD forensic scientists processed the
scene and collected evidence. Police said homicide investigators are working to determine the full sequence of events that led to the death, and that there have been no arrests. The incident number is 26-249675. Officers responded at about 3:20 a.m. Aug. 28 to a ShotSpotter activation and 911 reports of gunfire in the 2400 block of 18th Avenue South, police said. They found a man in the driver’s seat of a vehicle with life-threatening gunshot wounds and immediately provided lifesaving aid. The man died at the scene. Forensic scientists processed the scene,
and homicide investigators are working to determine the full sequence of events. The incident number is 26-247053. Police asked anyone with information in either case to email policetips@minneapolismn.gov or call 612673-5845 to leave a voicemail. Anonymous tips can go to CrimeStoppers at 1-800-2228477 or CrimeStoppersMN.org. Police said Aug. 27 that a July 8 death in the 1500 block of Nicollet Avenue, first reported as a possible overdose, has been reclassified as a homicide. Officers found an adult man in an apartment who
did not respond to emergency treatment and was pronounced dead at the scene. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner took custody of the body, determined the cause of death to be a homicide, and identified the man as Abdiwahab A. Isse. Police said there have been no arrests and the investigation is active. The city said its Mobile Medical Unit, funded by opioid settlement dollars, completed its first year connecting residents with health care, substance use treatment and other services. Minneapolis said clinic staff had 4,100 interactions with community members at
more than 150 events across the city, including eight emergency deployments. The unit was established to reach people affected by the opioid crisis, people experiencing homelessness and people who are uninsured or underinsured. Residents and organizations can request a visit through a form on the city health department’s website. The city also announced the Family Gathering Concert Series, nine free weekend concerts for young people and families built around live music, dance and creative arts. Minneapolis said the series is funded through the $7 million
Small Business Resiliency Fund and produced with the Minnesota Independent Venue Alliance. It opens Saturday, Sept. 12 at the Hook and Ladder, followed by the Capri on Sept. 19, the Dakota on Sept. 26, the Parkway Theater on Oct. 3, Animales Barbeque Co. on Oct. 10, PILLLAR Forum on Oct. 17, the Green Room on Oct. 24 and the Cedar Cultural Center on Oct. 31, with a Sunday finale Nov. 8 at First Avenue. Most concerts are Saturday mornings. Performer information will be posted on the alliance’s website.
mn.us or by voicemail at 651266-6805. During the State Fair, the Saint Paul Fire Department is providing emergency medical and first aid on the grounds and the police department is handling traffic and pedestrian control outside the fairgrounds. Public Works crews have been patching potholes, sweeping streets and clearing medians. Residents reporting parking vi-
olations or neighborhood noise can call the police non-emergency line at 651-291-1111; noise from a specific business or vendor goes to the city complaint line at 651-266-8989. There will be no city-coordinated garbage, recycling, bulky item or yard waste collection Monday, Sept. 7, for Labor Day. All collection is delayed one day, with Friday routes picked up Saturday.
Saint Paul human rights ordinance turns 38 as city opens 2050 planning process The Saint Paul Human Rights Ordinance marked its 38th anniversary Aug. 30, and the department that enforces it is still taking complaints. Chapter 183 of the Saint Paul Legislative Code bars discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations, among other areas, on the basis of race, color, creed, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, sexual or affectional orientation, age, disability, marital and familial status, and status with regard to public assistance. The city’s Human Rights and Equal Eco-
nomic Opportunity department investigates complaints through its Human Rights Investigative Division. Residents can file at stpaul.gov/humanrights or call 651-266-8966. The city is also opening a two-year engagement process for its 2050 Comprehensive Plan, the blueprint updated every 10 years to guide growth over the following two decades. A kickoff event is set for Thursday, Sept. 17, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Rice Park, 109 W. Fourth St., and will be rescheduled if the weather is bad. A survey and a citywide mapping activity are
open now at engagestpaul.org. A $115,000 Climate Smart Communities Initiative grant will fund climate resilience planning in Payne-Phalen, a neighborhood the city says faces extreme heat, poor air quality and severe weather. Saint Paul is working with the Payne-Phalen Community Council, Environmental Initiative and WSB on a resilience playbook of funder-ready proposals. The city’s forestry office also asked residents to water yard and boulevard trees weekly during the continuing drought. The City Council will
hold a public hearing Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 3:30 p.m. in the third-floor council chambers at City Hall on a University of St. Thomas request for a sound variance at O’Shaughnessy Stadium, 2115 Summit Ave. The university asked for 92 decibels at 50 feet for amplified sound on five Saturdays, Sept. 19, Sept. 26, Oct. 10, Oct. 31 and Nov. 14, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Department of Safety and Inspections will recommend a 90-decibel cap and a 5 p.m. shutoff. Written comments are due by noon Tuesday, Sept. 15, to Contact-Council@ci.stpaul.
Twin Cities community institutions announce fall cultural and wellness programs Community institutions across Minneapolis and St. Paul are offering music, wellness activities, youth programming and community resources as the Twin Cities moves into its
late-summer and fall calendar. The 25th Annual Selby Ave JazzFest is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 12, through Sunday, Sept. 13, at Selby and Milton avenues in St. Paul.
Presented by Walker West Music Academy, the festival will feature live jazz, children’s activities and community vendors. Cory Henry is scheduled to perform, and masterclasses
are planned at the Walker West campus. Also in St. Paul, the Saint Paul Public Library’s Community Resource Outreach Program is scheduled Tuesdays
from 10 a.m. to noon at Rondo Community Library, located inside Hallie Q. Brown Community Center. The program offers mental health professional consultations and community well-
Training
cost to $150. The subsidy is limited to the first 30 students under that first-time sponsorship provision.
MNA also provides house advertisements and sample columns that member publications can use to recruit pro-
spective participants. Registration runs through MNA. Prospective participants can reach Schwarz
at lisas@mna.org or 320-2672942 for enrollment details and availability. Disclosure: Insight
Black Star Line and the Negro World newspaper, he promoted Black economic independence and international solidarity among people of African descent. His ideas have continued to influence political movements, cultural institutions and generations of activists throughout the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and the Americas. The amphitheatre itself had originally been dedicated in November 2024, when Mottley unveiled a plaque marking its opening. The inscription reflects one of the central themes associated with Garvey’s philosophy — that genuine emancipation must involve liberation of the mind as well as the body. Following the rededication ceremony, Dr Garvey participated in a Marcus Garvey Legacy Conversation at the Queen’s Park Steel Shed, the same historic venue where his father addressed Barbadians in 1937. The discussion provided
an opportunity to consider the continued relevance of Garvey’s ideas and the responsibility of younger generations to carry aspects of that legacy forward. The events also formed part of a broader programme marking Marcus Garvey’s contribution to Caribbean history and the global Pan-African movement. For Barbados, the rededication represents an effort to connect a significant chapter of its history with contemporary discussions about emancipation, reparations, identity and the importance of preserving Caribbean intellectual and cultural heritage. With Marcus Garvey’s son standing alongside Barbados’ prime minister at a site where his father once addressed the island, the ceremony offered a powerful link between Garvey’s historic message and its continuing relevance nearly 90 years later. Based on reporting by New York Carib News.
From 3
Barbados From 3 der the Mottley administration. What was previously observed as a single day of activities has grown into an entire week dedicated to examining Garvey’s life, ideas and continuing influence. For members of the Rastafarian community, Garvey remains a foundational figure whose philosophy helped shape movements centred on African identity, liberation and self-determination. Jecoliah Small, representing the Theocracy Reign Order of the Nyahbinghi at Mount Carmel, described his influence as continuing to resonate with contemporary Pan-African and emancipation movements. Garvey’s legacy extends well beyond his speeches. Through organisations such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the
Dr. Julius Garvey
ness initiatives. In Minneapolis, Phyllis Wheatley Community Center lists campus restoration, youth programs and community wellness updates among its activities. Sabathani Community Center lists several wellness programs, including a Healthy Cooking Series for people 55 and older, Accessible Yoga, the Sister Circle Support Group and Senior Wellness Programming. News is a member of the Minnesota Newspaper Association.
Mia Mottley
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Be The Change MN golf tournament brings community leaders, youth together Sept. 12 Be The Change MN will host its 7th Annual Golf Tournament and VIP Networking BBQ Cookout AfterParty on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Theodore Wirth Golf Course, bringing together corporate leaders, community organizations, entrepreneurs, youth and residents for a day centered on relationships and community impact. 150 adult golfers are expected to participate alongside Be The Change MN’s 2026 Community Leaders, a cross-sector group representing professional sports, corporations, philanthropy, healthcare, education, government, media and grassroots organizations. The day also includes a Youth Golf Tournament, Youth Entrepreneur Marketplace, opening ceremony, adult tournament and an evening gathering with food, music and networking. Proceeds from the event support Be The Change MN’s Community Impact Grant Program, which awards grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 to smaller Twin Cities-based grassroots nonprofit organizations serving underrepresented youth. “We are not only celebrating our community; we are investing in its future,” said Dr. John Baker, founder of Be The Change MN. “This event brings together people from all walks
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of life and creates opportunities for relationships that can continue long after everyone leaves the golf course.” The day begins with a Youth Golf Tournament from 9 to 11 a.m., hosted by the Solomon Hughes Sr. Golf Academy and First Tee MN. The program introduces young people to golf through mentorship and greater access while honoring Minneapolis golf pioneers Eddie Manderville and Solomon Hughes Sr. Manderville’s legacy is recognized at Theodore Wirth Golf Course, where the chalet bears his name, while the clubhouse at Hiawatha Golf
Course honors Hughes. Two scholarships will be awarded to graduating high school seniors during the tournament. An opening ceremony from 11:30 a.m. to noon will bring together corporate, professional sports, philanthropic, education, nonprofit and community leaders from across the Twin Cities. The program will include remarks from Baker, recognition of Community Impact Grant recipients, the announcement of two Youth Senior Scholarship recipients and a Community Leadership group photo. Martin Wera of the Minneapolis Parks Foundation will
spotlight investment underway at North Commons and what it means for youth, families and the North Minneapolis community. The Adult Golf Tournament runs from noon to 5 p.m. Approximately 150 golfers, including corporate partners, community leaders, entrepreneurs and residents, are expected to take the course. Teams will be intentionally paired with Be The Change MN Community Leaders to create several hours of cross-sector conversation and relationship-building. Sponsored holes will feature food, community organizations,
local businesses and interactive experiences. The VIP Networking BBQ Cookout AfterParty runs from 4 to 9 p.m. at the Theodore Wirth Golf Chalet and surrounding event spaces. The program includes a pig and chicken roast by James Beard Award nominee Chef Mateo of Krewe Restaurant, music from DJ Walter “Q-Bear” Banks of KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM, and VIP networking throughout the chalet and event grounds. Free line dancing with New Orleans professional line dancer GameOva Skip is also scheduled; the organization lists the time on its
Minneapolis Parks Foundation sets 12th annual Sunrise on the Mississippi The Minneapolis Parks Foundation will hold its 12th annual Sunrise on the Mississippi breakfast fundraiser Wednesday, Sept. 16, at Nicollet Island Pavilion in Minneapolis. The event runs from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the pavilion,
40 Power Street. Guests will mingle on the patio before a seated breakfast with remarks from Minneapolis park leaders and advocates, according to the Foundation's announcement. The Foundation describes the morning as a gath-
ering in support of the Minneapolis park system and the community that sustains it. Proceeds support the Minneapolis Parks Foundation. The Foundation's announcement does not list a ticket price. Reservations and
sponsorship information are available from the Minneapolis Parks Foundation at 612-8222656. Christine Moir is the Foundation's contact for event sponsorships.
B L A N CO & R E P OSA D O 75 0 M L 8 8 P R O O F | 4 4 % A BV 1 0 0 % P U R O D E AG AV E D O U B L E D I ST I L L E D 5 0 % S M O K E D A N D 5 0 % ST E A M E D D I S C OV E R M O R E AT F O R YO U M A S E S P I R I T U !
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website.
A Youth Entrepreneur Marketplace will showcase young local business owners and creators, including Essies Butter, represented by Kamillah and two teen entrepreneurs; Zay Níche Love: Turning Invisible Into Iconic, created by 14-yearold ZaLaya Jahzara, whose artwork, prints and stickers also raise awareness for missing children; Bible Crew, created by 11-year-old Roman Newell; Juicin with Juice, featuring fresh natural watermelon juice from Cairo Newell; and Little Kandakes, created by 12-yearold Kayleigh Thomas. From 6 to 7 p.m., former contestants from NBC’s The Voice — Adam Bohanan, Frankie Torres and Dahlia Jones — will perform live as part of the afterparty. Golfer registration, sponsorship opportunities, volunteer opportunities and tickets to the VIP Networking BBQ Cookout AfterParty are available through www. bethechangemn.com. Be The Change MN is fiscally sponsored by the Minneapolis Foundation, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. The organization connects underrepresented youth and families with resources, experiences and opportunities while strengthening collaboration among corporations, community leaders and grassroots organizations. Its initiatives expand access to education, wellness, mentorship and opportunity.
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Insight 2 Health FDA approves breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug An oncologist explains how daraxonrasib nearly doubles survival
drugs haven’t been able to target this protein, treatment for pancreatic cancer has primarily relied on toxic drugs that act more like blunt instruments than precise tools. Chemotherapy attempts to control the disease through widespread cell destruction, causing significant collateral damage to healthy tissues that lead to side effects.
What is daraxonrasib?
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By Christopher Lieu Professor of Medical Oncology, University of Colorado Anschutz For a long time, the likelihood of surviving pancreatic cancer has been extremely low. For patients who were diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer between 2015 and 2021, about 97% died within five years of their diagnosis. Pancreatic cancer is so deadly in part because there are no effective screening tests, and it rarely causes noticeable symptoms in its earliest stages.
By the time a patient experiences signs, such as jaundice – a yellowing of the skin – or abdominal pain, the cancer has often already spread to other organs. As a gastrointestinal oncologist and researcher specializing in early-phase clinical trials, I have seen the critical need for more effective therapies for patients with pancreatic cancer. For decades, successfully targeting the central mechanism that causes the vast majority of pancreatic cancers was considered impossible. However, that narrative is rapidly changing with a drug approved on Aug. 26,
2026, that can shut down the key protein that drives pancreatic cancer, nearly doubling survival rates for patients with advanced stages of the disease.
‘Undruggable’ tumors
The standard treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer has historically relied on chemotherapy, potent drugs designed to kill rapidly dividing cells. While chemotherapy can slow the progression of the disease, its effectiveness is often limited by the ability of pancreatic cancer cells to develop resistance against these drugs. Pancreatic cancer’s success lies in its genetics. More
than 90% of pancreatic tumors are driven by mutations in a gene called KRAS. This gene codes for proteins that function as switches that turn cell growth on and off. When the KRAS gene is mutated, the switch becomes permanently stuck in the “on” position, commanding cancer cells to multiply endlessly. For decades, scientists considered KRAS to be “undruggable.” The surface of the protein is exceptionally smooth, lacking the molecular pockets that standard drugs require to bind to and turn the switch off. Because existing
A new drug called daraxonrasib offers a critical advance in treating metastatic pancreatic cancer. Daraxonrasib is taken daily by mouth. Instead of binding to KRAS directly, it attaches to a molecule called cyclophilin A in cells that helps fold proteins into their final 3D structures. This protein complex is then able to bind to the active KRAS protein and shut down its ability to signal cancer cells to multiply. The company developing the drug, Revolution Medicines, presented results on May 31, 2026, from its Phase 3 clinical trial of 500 patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who had received prior treatment. Compared to standard chemotherapy, daraxonrasib nearly doubled overall survival from 6.7 months to 13.2 months after diagnosis. Overall, daraxonrasib reduced the risk of death for metastatic pancreatic cancer patients by 60%. The most common side effect is a prominent skin rash, which affected more than 86% of patients in the study. Patients also frequently dealt with stomatitis – painful swelling and sores inside the mouth – as well as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. However, patients taking daraxonrasib were far
New therapies help people with schizophrenia – but access is woefully inadequate By Matthew Kurtz Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior, Wesleyan University It’s common to hear casual descriptions of “schizophrenic” behavior, describing a person oscillating between two extremes. “I really want that luxurious Italian cashmere sweater,” followed by “What am I saying? I can’t even afford a $20 polyester top right now!” I’m a professor of psychology who studies cognition and rehabilitation in schizophrenia, and I have found that these misunderstandings are not limited to the public. Health officials and political leaders who make critical decisions about funding and resources for schizophrenia can also hold these poorly informed views. Better awareness is needed as researchers around the globe are actively studying a suite of innovative, non-drug treatments targeting the cognitive and social challenges common to the disorder. Initial results from this research show great promise for therapeutic benefit. Unfortunately, few people with the disorder ever gain access to these treatments.
What is schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia as it is currently known by specialists was first described in 1899 by Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist who combined several disorders previously thought to be separate under a single label. He called it “dementia praecox,” or early-onset dementia. According to Kraepelin, schizophrenia could be recognized by several key symptoms. One was hearing illusory voices that often commanded the patient to take specific actions like “throw the cup of water you are holding into the
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face of the psychiatrist trying to interview you.” Another was holding strange beliefs, such as “A communication device has been placed inside my brain and is transmitting my thoughts to the police.” Kraepelin also defined the disorder by its trajectory, which he thought was an inevitable worsening of daily living skills over time. Today, schizophrenia in the U.S. is diagnosed using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, or DSM, which is the gold standard for classification of psychiatric conditions. The DSM’s definition criteria are based on many of the same signs and symptoms that Kraepelin described more than 125 years ago.
Troubling statistics
While many of Kraepelin’s observations were spot on, his views on the disorder causing inevitable worsening were incorrect. Studies following people from the onset of symptoms
show that approximately 40% of those diagnosed with the disorder have mild or no symptoms, hold jobs within their community and have significant social relationships for sustained periods of their lives. For the majority of people with schizophrenia, however, the condition is persistent, disabling and isolating. The World Health Organization lists schizophrenia among the top 10 leading causes of disability. Some estimates suggest at least 1 in 5 homeless people suffer from a severe mental illness, often schizophrenia. Other data shows that 15% of inmates in U.S. state prisons have severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia. The public health challenges are vast, and effective treatments are desperately needed.
Overlooked cognitive struggles
Kraepelin alluded to difficulties with concentration in his de-
scription of schizophrenia. But research since the early 2000s has revealed that difficulties in cognitive and social processes are among the most central – yet most overlooked – aspects of the condition. The vast majority of people with schizophrenia suffer from some level of cognitive difficulty: paying attention, like tracking a conversation with a friend; actively retaining information, like remembering a new password while a website’s login page refreshes; or forming new memories, such as what one ate for breakfast, at what time and with whom. These difficulties persist even when the acute phase of illness has passed and the person is stable. Some schizophrenia patients I work with may describe in rich detail how they are the son of Jesus Christ, how their internal organs have been forcibly removed from their body and replaced by someone else’s, or how they will soon part the waters of a local river. When they struggle to pay attention
to my clinical advice or fail to remember something I said just a minute before, I am struck by how cognitive difficulties like memory and attention would be easy to miss in the face of such dramatic symptoms. People with schizophrenia also struggle socially. They are not always able to recognize others’ emotions through facial expressions or tone of voice, place themselves in another’s shoes to understand motivations, or recognize that friends and family are not trying to sabotage their goals.
New treatments, new hope
The good news is that over the past 15 years, mental health experts have developed new therapies to address difficulties with cognition and memory among people with schizophrenia – and scientific studies are increasingly showing that the treatments are effective. One treatment, called cognitive remediation, includes exercises to improve mental sharpness. For example, a per-
less likely to stop treatment due to severe side effects compared to chemotherapy, and they had improved quality of life with reduced pain.
Next steps for daraxonrasib
With the Food and Drug Administration’s August 2026 approval of daraxonrasib, eligible patients will now be able to receive the drug to treat metastatic pancreatic cancer. The approval will provide much-needed, real-world data that may inform medical best practices and future research. Moving forward, we expect to see an increase in clinical trials exploring combination therapies, pairing KRAS inhibitors such as daraxonrasib with other drugs to prevent tumors from developing resistance and to extend survival even further. In addition, there are numerous “next-generation” inhibitors in development that may be more effective while limiting toxic side effects. Daraxonrasib’s approval proves that precision medicine has entered a new era in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. This sets the stage for more personalized, targeted and effective drugs in the future that will provide hope for patients and their families who deserve the best care possible to treat and prevent this challenging disease. Disclosure statement Christopher Lieu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
son may practice remembering the location of items in a refrigerator, with the goal of eventually linking the skill to finding items in a supermarket. In more than 100 controlled trials, cognitive remediation has been shown to improve cognition and function in daily living skills. Other therapies focus on teaching strategies to better understand the emotions and motivations of others and help people with schizophrenia avoid jumping to negative conclusions. For example, a relative’s benign remark about the texture of a turkey dinner at a family gathering might be interpreted by someone with schizophrenia as a statement meant to embarrass them. Training in social cognitive skills makes people with schizophrenia less likely to assume that others are trying to hurt or undermine them. Both cognitive and social cognitive therapies teach people with schizophrenia to think more flexibly and use a broader range of strategies to understand their world. While no therapy is a cure, the new behavioral treatments offer hope even for those with the most severe forms of the disorder. Unfortunately, few mental health treatment centers currently have the expertise or resources to offer these timeand effort-intensive therapies. A 2025 report from the WHO found that roughly two-thirds of people with schizophrenia around the world do not receive any kind of specialized mental health treatment – let alone the novel therapies described in this article. Until these treatments become more accessible, improvements in functioning in mild to more severe forms of the illness will be poorer than they should be, and people with schizophrenia will fall short of their potential for living richer and more satisfying lives. Disclosure statement Matthew Kurtz has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
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Business
Africa investment summit puts diaspora capital and dealmaking at center of development debate The inaugural Africa Business Investment Summit brought African government officials, business leaders and U.S.-based institutional investors to MGM National Harbor in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area Aug. 27–28, placing private investment and diaspora ownership at the center of a broader debate over how African development should be financed. Convened by the Millennium Excellence Foundation under the patronage of His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene of the Asante Kingdom, ABIS drew more than 400 registered delegates, according to The African Dream. Organizers set a mandate of facilitating $500 million in structured capital commitments between African deal originators and U.S. institutional capital during the two-day gathering. No figure for commitments actually closed was available at publication. The summit's framing came as traditional development assistance has contracted. Worldwide official development assistance fell more than 23% in 2025 — the largest annual decline on record, according to the OECD — and bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa fell 26.3% and was projected to fall a further 11.6% in 2026, BlackPressUSA reported. Against that backdrop, organizers emphasized private capital, blended finance, guarantees and domestic resource mobilization. Organizers were presenting approximately $4 billion in African investment opportunities, BlackPressUSA reported, while stressing that the figure represented a pipeline rather than money already committed.
His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene, speaking during the African Business Investment Summit 2026 dation President Nana Agyeman Prempeh told BlackPressUSA before the summit that the program had been built around curated deal rooms, sector-specific investment sessions, government roundtables and private meetings between investors and project sponsors. “Most African investment conferences have been built around panels and photo opportunities,” Prempeh said. “I think it's less a conference and more of a two-day convening designed to move capital, and not just discuss it.” That distinction mattered to the $4 billion figure. BlackPressUSA reported that the pipeline included projects seeking financing and deals already in negotiation. Prempeh said changing regulatory institutions, blended-finance instruments and policy reforms
had altered the risk-return calculation in multiple African markets. The larger financing argument extended beyond foreign investors. BlackPressUSA, citing the Africa Finance Corporation, reported an estimate that as much as $4 trillion in African domestic capital could potentially be directed toward infrastructure if projects achieved the credit quality institutional investors require. Guarantees and other risk-mitigation tools were presented as mechanisms for making projects investable, not as evidence that investment risk had disappeared.
US‑Canada trade war deepens as Trump revives Depression‑era trade tool
a step toward making Canada “the 51st state.” So all in all, perhaps it’s not so surprising that a near deal would collapse into a trade war. In addition, Canada has been unusual in standing up to Trump in this way. The only other country to do that is China, and it’s risky for a smaller country like Canada to retaliate in this way. But Canadians are pretty united in their unfavorable views of Trump, so Carney has a strong domestic position to stand up to him.
Royal leadership and economic sovereignty
Opening the summit, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II argued for an economic framework in which Africans and the diaspora help shape continental development. “Africa must no longer be regarded merely as a continent
By Kent Jones Professor Emeritus of Economics, Babson College The United States and Canada, historically close allies, are moving further into a full-blown trade war with no end in sight. On Aug. 25, 2026, Canada imposed tariffs of up to 50% on hundreds of U.S. goods after the U.S. placed similar, long-threatened levies on Canadian products. It followed the collapse of trade talks that had been inching towards a deal. The next day, U.S. President Donald Trump called Canada “one of the worst countries in the world to deal with.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney claimed Trump was trying to “destroy” his country’s auto industry. Only a few days earlier a deal was reportedly very close. One of the most notable aspects of the collapse in trade negotiations lies in Trump’s unprecedented use of an untested tool in the Tariff Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Economists generally agree that the act’s escalating retaliatory tariffs extended the Great Depression by sparking a global trade war. Amplified by foreign retaliation and falling global gross domestic product, U.S. trade fell by two-thirds from 1929-1932. Smoot-Hawley contains a provision known as Section 338, which provides an
of future potential,” he said, according to The African Dream. “Africa is already becoming a central part of the future global economy, and those who understand this early will position themselves advantageously.” His address called for African governments, diaspora communities and international institutional partners to align capital, policy frameworks and political will. The summit theme, “The Asante Crown Meets the Diaspora,” placed that relationship at the center of the convening. Ghana's Deputy Minister for Trade, Agribusiness and Industry Sampson Ahi, representing the president of Ghana, focused on industrial transformation. “Our ambition is transformation,” Ahi said, according to The African Dream. He described a shift from ex-
porting raw materials toward manufacturing finished products, creating jobs and increasing productivity through Ghana's 24-hour economy program. Organizers' announced speaker roster also included Ghana Vice President Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang; Lagos State Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Joseph Boateng, chief investment officer of Casey Family Programs; Flutterwave founder and CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola; Next Narrative Africa founder and CEO Akunna Cook; Sahara Group co-founder Tonye Cole; Sand Technologies founder and CEO Fred Swaniker; and actor and philanthropist Boris Kodjoe, co-founder of Full Circle Africa.
Credit: MEF
From pipeline to deals
Millennium Excellence Foun-
What’s at stake for consumers and the midterms additional feature: The president may, on his own authority, impose unilateral tariffs of 50% if a foreign country’s policies “discriminated” against the United States. But the section was never invoked, as the damage from the other Smoot-Hawley tariffs was already done. That is, until July 2026, when Trump first threatened the 50% tariffs on Canada for its “discriminatory treatment” of U.S. products. As an economist who has studied trade policy for 49 years, I can explain how the two countries got embroiled in a trade war and what it means for U.S. consumers, companies and the midterms.
Why did the trade deal collapse?
Both sides are finger-pointing at the other over what caused the proposed deal to fall apart during the final days of the trade negotiations. The Canadians were interested primarily in reducing high U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos. They claimed they had a preliminary deal to lower steel and aluminum tariffs from 50% to 25%. In the late stages of the negotiations, however, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was apparently lobbied heavily by U.S. steel and aluminum producers to hold the line on these tariffs. Lutnick was also against reductions in the U.S. auto and truck tariffs and
allegedly withdrew whatever reductions were on the table. As a result, other parts of the deal started to unwind as well. The Canadians had offered to reopen the Keystone oil pipeline deal that had been canceled by President Joe Biden in 2021. But once the deal on lower steel, aluminum and auto tariffs was nixed, Canada pulled the Keystone deal off the table as well. The U.S. had also demanded that Canada reverse the Canadian provinces’ removal of U.S. liquor off their store shelves. Sales of U.S. booze in Canada have plunged as a result. But the lack of progress on the major metal and auto tariffs, combined with a backlash from the Canadian provinces themselves, forced that concession off the table as well.
What tariffs did the US place on Canadian goods?
Canada is a major supplier of goods to the U.S., exporting about US$451 billion in 2025 – ranking second after Mexico. As soon as talks broke off, the Trump administration followed through on earlier threats to impose a 50% tariff on $20 billion worth of Canadian exports, including auto parts, forestry products, furniture, textiles, whiskey and hockey equipment, under Section 338 of Smoot-Hawley.
That’s about 4% of Canada’s exports to the United States.
How did Canada retaliate?
Canada’s Carney responded with his own already prepared list of $20 billion in U.S. imports to face tariffs of up to 50%, targeting products that he surely bets will anger voters in swing states heading into the midterm elections. Examples include Wisconsin cheese, Maine seafood and Kentucky washers and dryers – GE Appliances is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. How did two very close allies get into a trade war? Tensions between Canada and the U.S. and have been high ever since Trump returned to office. He has continually complained about Canada “ripping us off” and being “among the worst countries” in the world to deal with. And he has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the 51st state, an issue that has particularly angered Canadians and served to unite public opinion across the political spectrum against Trump. For Carney, a critical sticking point was the late addition by U.S. negotiators requiring Canadian trade policy to align permanently with U.S. interests. Carney viewed this demand as a transfer of Canadian sovereignty to the U.S.,
Program built around diaspora capital
The first day, organized under “The Vision Day: Unlocking Africa's Century, A Diaspora Mandate,” included sessions on
What does this mean for US consumers and businesses?
The 50% tariffs Trump unilaterally imposed on Canada apply to goods that had previously been exempt from most other tariffs due to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA in 2020. Since tariffs are a tax on the purchaser, U.S. consumers and companies will have to pay 50% more to buy the products subject to the tariffs. Many of the Canadian imports are concentrated in U.S. border states such as Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. Another border state, Michigan, is closely tied to automobile production with the Canadian province of Ontario. In many cases, Canada’s retaliatory tariffs will be felt most strongly in states where Trump’s Republican Party stands to be affected by reductions in U.S. exports that will result from the levies. The political backlash against Trump’s tariffs in the U.S. doesn’t appear to be deterring him from imposing more of them, even as the impact of midterm elections hinges on results in several swing states along the Canadian border.
diaspora engagement, converting remittances into equity and institutional investment, critical minerals, Ghana's commodity-to-value-added transition, fintech and remittance systems, and energy and infrastructure. The second-day program was scheduled to move into sector spotlights covering the creative economy, health and pharmaceuticals, technology, and digital financial services, followed by bilateral investment meetings. No account of that day's meetings, and no tally of agreements completed, was available at publication. Prempeh also framed the investment case directly to Black Americans and the wider African diaspora, pointing to property ownership, business formation and partnerships with African entrepreneurs. His argument treated diaspora participation not only as remittance support but as potential equity ownership and enterprise development. The test now moves beyond the convening itself. Prempeh told BlackPressUSA that the Millennium Excellence Foundation intended to follow deals after the summit by tracking capital ultimately deployed and jobs created over the following six months and year. He did not set a specific dollar amount or completed-deal count that would define success. That leaves ABIS with a measurable question after Washington: how much of the pipeline becomes deployed capital, completed projects, jobs and locally owned economic activity. Editor's note: This account is drawn from three published reports and the summit organizers' own announcement. It principally reflects the perspectives of organizers, royal leadership and government officials. Insight News did not obtain independent assessments from investors, deal originators or diaspora participants, and no reporting on the summit's second day was available at publication.
While the total impact on overall U.S. prices may not be large, the combination of U.S. and Canadian tariffs together could be significant for products that are heavily traded between the two countries, such as Michigan auto parts and New England seafood, as well as in U.S. regions where Canadian market shares are large. U.S farmers and manufacturers may also lose sales to Canada. If Trump’s tariffs remain in place and U.S. importers can no longer absorb the tariff costs and remain profitable, U.S. prices are likely to continue to rise as importers require consumers to pay a larger share of the tariffs. It’s probably unwise to predict what Trump will do with tariffs between now and the midterms or now and the end of his term in 2028. A victorious Democratic Party in charge of the House and Senate could change the political landscape considerably. It’s worth noting that the global trading system that emerged in 1947, from the ashes of war, depression and tit-for-tat trade battles, was purposely designed to eliminate trade wars, since they typically make us all worse off. And the trade liberalization that followed worked, delivering enormous wealth to the U.S. and the world economy in the years since. I believe it would be a shame if we returned to those days, and the unfortunate economic consequences that came with them. Disclosure statement Kent Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Page 10 • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Insight News
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Nearly 100 years ago, Philadelphia’s Inez Patterson integrated pools and encouraged other Black girls to swim too By Samantha Adams Ph.D. in English and Women's & Gender Studies, University of Michigan I first encountered her when my sister and I visited an exhibit at the Fairmount Water Works in 2022 that was called: “POOL: A Social History of Segregation.” In the black-andwhite photograph, a young Black woman named Inez Robie Patterson appeared to be captured right before she dived off the side of a pool wall. Her triceps were flexed, arms straight back with palms facing the ceiling. Her knees were bent, and her toes touched a thin, blacktiled line on the pool deck. Her hair was neatly covered in a white swim cap. Her eyebrows were beautifully thick, and her mouth formed a slight smile. Her white swimsuit had a lifeguard corps insignia, signaling her expertise in water safety. As a Black woman, swim instructor, lifeguard and lifelong swimmer, I found myself drawn to her. My doctoral research in African American literature, history and environmental thought led me to study what I call Patterson’s “aquatic life”: the written and photographic record of her relationship to swimming. I wanted to know: Who was this beautiful Black mermaid, and why was swimming so vital to her? How had she lifted her community? I waded through the digital archive of The Philadelphia Tribune, the city’s oldest historically Black newspaper, to find out.
A role model for Black girl swimmers
Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1911, Patterson’s love of sports began at an early age. As a girl, she excelled in hockey, basketball, and track and field. As a teenager at West Philadelphia High in the
mid-1920s, she sharpened her swimming skills and entered a swim meet at the McCoach Recreational Center – now the Marian Anderson rec center – in South Philadelphia in September 1927. According to The Philadelphia Tribune, she took home six first-place finishes: in the underwater swim, the side stroke, the standing front dive, the running front dive, the swan dive and the front somersault. Camaraderie was a priority for Patterson. Wherever I encountered her in the archive, whether walking through the Fairmount Water Works exhibit or reading old issues of the Tribune, she seemed to be looking forward to the progress being made by Black girl swimmers and the community they formed and shared in the water.
“Up to this time, no colored girls had taken part in any swim meets (at Temple),” Patterson told the Baltimore Afro-American in 1934 about her experience at the university. “The purpose of (the swim meet) was to foster intercollegiate spirit among the students so, ‘Why shouldn’t I go?’ I asked myself. Out of 500 girls present I was the only colored.” These words demonstrate the righteous defiance in her personality and aquatic life. The pool was hers, too. Why shouldn’t it be?
Breaking new barriers
A young sports columnist on a mission
At 18 years old in 1929, Patterson started her Girls in Sports news column in the Tribune, where she encouraged other Black girls to join her in the pool. Although she feared that Black girls in West Philadelphia had little interest in swimming, she soon learned her community had “some young aspirants that show bright prospects in the swimming world.” In October 1929, she wrote: “I want to compliment these ‘little girls’ on their success and I hope they will continue in this comparatively new sport for women.” In other editions of Girls in Sports, Patterson encouraged the Black West Philadelphia community to attend local swim meets and support the girls as they make “wonderful showings” in the water. She also made a convincing case directly to Black girls in West Philly: “There are many reasons why you should join … first of all you have the honor of being a member of the first ‘Colored Swimming Club’ in West Philly High, second, you will learn to swim if you are a beginner, and if you are advanced you
Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Tribune Media Group
A Philadelphia Tribune article from 1942 reports on Inez Patterson becoming the first Black woman to become a U.S. swimming official. will learn life-saving; third, you will develop yourself physically and add another popular sport to your list, and fourth, you can gain athletic credit.” Reading her column, I imagined what it must have felt like to have been a teenage Black girl speaking directly to other Black girls and carving out space for the first “Colored Swimming Club” at West Philadelphia High.
Integrating Temple University’s swim team
After graduating high school, Patterson went on to integrate Temple University’s women’s swim team. She refused to swim during the hourlong “colored” practice time. Being the only Black woman on the team, she insisted on swimming whenever her white teammates swam and being “too busy” to swim during the segregated hour.
As I continued my journey through The Philadelphia Tribune archive, I learned of another local Black woman swimmer: Anne Marques Garrott. Garrott was inducted into the Belmont-Southwest YWCA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989 at the age of 75. An article about her induction detailed how Garrott, like Patterson, insisted upon being in the pool. She entered swim meets “wherever she traveled” and taught naval cadets how to swim at the University of Southern California, despite the pervasiveness of racism at USC against Black swimmers. After crediting her parents for encouraging her to swim, Garrott thanked another mentor: Inez Patterson. She said Patterson “was one of the best-educated Black women I ever met” and also “a powerful swimmer (who) broke a lot of barriers.” Inez Patterson passed away in 1944 from complications of a ruptured pelvic abscess. Though her life was cut short, she made a major impact on Black aquatic culture in Philadelphia. At 31 years old in 1942, she made history once more as the first Black woman – or what the Tribune called a “race girl” – to become a swimming official with the National Section of Women’s Athletics. Black feminist scholar Brittney Cooper writes in
Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center. Temple University Libraries. Philadelphia, PA.
Inez Patterson attended Temple University and was later inducted into their Women’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1987.
“Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women” that to be a “race girl” or “race woman” was to be a Black woman “institution-builder” and “public thinker” who sought the betterment of her people in mind, body and spirit. Patterson’s aquatic life shows us how important the swimming pool was to her and the communities she served, from West Philadelphia High to Temple University, the Southwest Belmont YWCA to the YWCAs in Harlem and Jersey City. One hundred years after Patterson swam at West Philadelphia High in 1926, I make a routine out of waking up early to swim at my outdoor neighborhood pool in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I pull the swim cap onto my mess of curly hair and fix the goggles to my eyes. I inhale and leap into the cold water. I think of Inez Robie Patterson, and I feel gratitude for her defiant dive. Disclosure statement Samantha Adams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
What critics of college athletes making money get wrong about name, image and likeness policies By Brennan Berg Professor of Sport Management, University of Mississippi A lot has changed since college athletes began earning compensation in 2021. A small percentage have become rich due to their talent and marketability. The vast majority, however, have earned much more modest additional income, if any at all. But one thing hasn’t changed: Opponents of college students cashing in on marketing their name, image and likeness, or NIL, still argue that athlete compensation has ended the supposed purity of college sports. The NCAA has a long history of opposing college athletes profiting from their intellectual property. And even President Donald Trump has voiced his concerns, suggesting current NIL policies “could cause serious damage to college athletics” and issuing not one but two executive orders so far in his second term to “save” college sports. However, as a professor of sport management who has been studying name, image and likeness policies since they were implemented in 2021, I believe there are a lot of misconceptions about how they work. Based on my studies – one published in 2023 and the other one published in 2025 – I’d like to set the record straight about a few things.
Brief history of NIL
Starting on July 1, 2021, the NCAA permitted college athletes to earn income through their name, image and likeness. This historic shift reversed the NCAA’s long-established policy that making such agreements threatened athletes’ eligibility. However, this change did not come out of nowhere. Over 30 states had passed legislation that would allow college athletes to monetize and personally profit from their name, image and likeness, which was supported by several court rulings in athletes’ favor. Immediately, athletes began signing marketing agreements with a wide range of businesses, such as Jackson State defensive end Antwan Owens’ deal with 3 Kings Grooming and Auburn quarterback Bo Nix’s with Milo’s sweet tea. Additionally, athletes who had generated a significant following on social media, such as sisters Haley and Hanna Cavinder, were sought after for endorsements and quickly reached agreements with companies such as Boost Mobile and Six Star Pro Nutrition. NIL collectives, nonprofit groups typically funded and run by boosters, alumni or fans, were soon set up to help a school’s athletes get paid sponsorships. This created an unregulated pay-for-play system in which athletes were paid for their talent.
Limited time to earn
One reason college athletes may deserve to cash in while they’re
still students is that their window to profit from their skills will likely be very narrow. For decades, athletes have been told that they will be “going pro in something other than sports” – meaning their main source of income as adults probably won’t be in the NFL or NBA. Of course, the NCAA, its universities, coaches and athletic administrators have been correct to highlight that the chances of an NCAA athlete even competing at the professional level, much less having a long, lucrative career, are quite low – less than 1% in many sports. So it is not unreasonable for college athletes to want to maximize their earnings from their athletic abilities during this short window. In any event, many adults, including college coaches and athletic administrators, seek jobs and careers that maximize their earning potential. It would be irrational, in my view, to contend that college athletes and their families should operate differently. There’s also another truth that’s been overlooked: NCAA Division I athletics have been getting more and more commercialized for decades, with top officials, athletic directors and coaches commanding high six- or even seven- and eight-figure salaries. The notable exceptions are the athletes themselves, who until 2021 got little more than scholarships, even though their talent and work are at the center of the
whole enterprise.
Athletes benefit in more ways than just money
Of course, the major change for athletes in this new system is that they can make money. But that’s not the only benefit they get. In my most recent study, several co-authors and I found that athletic department staff across the country held a positive view of name, image and likeness policies. They told us that their college athletes, as a result of engaging in NIL deals, seem to be maturing more quickly than before, are behaving more responsibly and are often partnering with charities to support worthy causes. With opportunities to earn additional income now feasible, today’s college athletes seem to be more mindful that other organizations are more likely to partner with them if they demonstrate consistently reliable and mature behavior. They have also been able to pursue skills or talents that were previously not permitted, such as starting and marketing their own small business while competing as a college athlete, or obtaining hands-on experience to better understand taxes and other financial matters. Though administrators in our study had some concerns about potential harmful outcomes stemming from name, image and likeness opportunities, such as pressure to excel or unmet expectations, they said they hadn’t yet seen any evi-
Credit: AP Photo/Darron Cummings
Haley and Hanna Cavinder, who played college basketball for the Miami Hurricanes, were among the first student-athletes to sign major deals over their name, image and likeness dence of those harms. Our study also highlighted how economic well-being influences other components of a person’s overall well-being, such as their mental, emotional or social health. So if schools and coaches are interested in ensuring their athletes’ overall well-being, providing them with ways to earn money can play an important part in this. Even relatively small financial gains of a few hundred or a few thousand dollars from branding opportunities can make a profound difference to a young person or their families.
A paternalistic attitude
Hand-wringing about paying student-athletes, in my view, is the result of a historically entrenched paternalistic mindset in college sports. For example, despite most college athletes being 18 to 23 years old and therefore legally adults, broadcasters, coaches and others still often refer to them as “kids.” A 2025 study that analyzed nearly 100 Division I policies found that teams sought to control athletes
and limit their self-determination, such as dictating their physical appearance or when and how they interacted with family and friends. Ultimately, these athletes aren’t kids. They’re adults, the vast majority of whom have a very limited amount of time to earn money off their athletic talent and hard work. While the system governing name, image and likeness could be improved, along with other policies in college athletics, athletes are benefiting in numerous ways beyond the obvious financial gain. If athletes are the central stakeholders of college athletics, and their well-being is the foremost priority of the enterprise, I believe the opportunity for them to capitalize on name, image and likeness should not just be permanently accepted but genuinely celebrated. Disclosure statement The research cited in this article, conducted by me and my colleagues, was funded through a grant from the American Athletic Conference.
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451 W Central Ave
Tin Cup liquors
2000 S. 4th Ave & Franklyn
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5200 85th Ave
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Mount Olivet Baptist Church
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1815 Central Ave NE
7700 Brooklyn Blvd
1125 W 7th St
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Franklin Ave
678 Aurora Ave
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St Albans Church of God in Christ
Hook Fish-chicken
1717 Washington Ave NE 2610 Central Ave NE
983 Central Ave. W
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440 University Ave
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1902 Clinton Ave
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732 West Central Ave
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665 W 7th St
3620 E. 26th St
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608 University
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446 University Ave
2327 Hennepin Ave S
801 E. Lake St
Earth's Beauty Supply
7636 Brooklyn Blvd
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Fit 1st Run
825 E. Lake St
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2448 Hennepin Ave S
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2105 Lyndale Ave
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2547 Hennepin Ave S
Family Dollar
7525 Brooklyn Blvd
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1200 W. Lake St
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1450 W. Lake St
970 University Ave
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401 E. 41st
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3400 Park Ave S
2252 Lyndale Ave S
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756 Snelling Ave
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7410 Brooklyn Blvd
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3740 Chicago Ave
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589 Dale Ave
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3501 Chicago Ave
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1539 University Av
1305 University Ave
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600 Snelling Ave
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Metro T Moble
1440 University Ave
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510 Snelling Ave N.
604 Western Ave
Smoke in the Pit 3733 Chicago Ave
Fasika Restaurant
1685 University Ave
1475 University Ave
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1415 University
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Milburn Clothing
Just Turkey Restaurant 3731 Chicago Ave
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4432 Chicago Ave
730 S. 8th St
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3357 University Ave SE
3800 Bloomington Ave
53 Glenwood
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1345 Hamline Ave
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6975 York Ave
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6905 York Ave
30 Fairview Ave
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6775 York Ave CRYSTAL
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9066 Lyndale Ave S
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9800 Lyndale Ave S
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1823 Nicollet Ave 1845 Nicollet Ave
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A Slice of New York 2407 Nicollet Ave
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56 Ave & Elmhurst
9800 Lyndale Ave S
6401 N 42nd Ave
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2430 Nicollet Ave
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3505 Bottineau Blvd
5937 Nicollet Ave
2607 Nicollet Ave
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Bottineau & 42nd Ave
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W. 66th St Nicollet Ave
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5000 Central Ave NE
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4950 Central Ave NE
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2529 Nicollet Ave
Pancho
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2539 Nicollet Ave
BP Gas
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W. 35th St Nicollet Ave
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5400 Lyndale Ave S
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50th Grant Ave S
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5965 Penn Ave S
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Page 12 • August 31, 2026 - September 06, 2026 • Insight News
insightnews.com
Underwater data centers will accumulate sea life, like this Microsoft data center testing module, which in two years underwater attracted algae, barnacles and sea anemones.
Credit: Microsoft
AI companies look to the ocean as a place to put more data centers By Nir Kshetri Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – Greensboro The artificial intelligence boom is driving unprecedented demand for data centers, raising concerns about their growing energy consumption, water use and carbon footprint. These challenges are making companies look beyond traditional land-based data centers. Some developers are now exploring the ocean as a new location for AI infrastructure in the hopes that underwater data centers could improve energy use and cooling efficiency while using less fresh water and land area than onshore buildings. My research focuses on the societal, organizational and environmental implications of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and the digital infrastructure – including data centers – that supports its development and deployment. I see underwater data centers as a promising new approach for supporting the growth of AI. But moving servers into the ocean does not make other underlying environmental challenges such as energy consumption and carbon emissions disappear. And it creates new concerns about harm to the
marine environment, as well as questions about how these data centers can be regulated – and how companies can maintain and expand them if needed. Whether underwater data centers can become sustainable alternatives to traditional data centers depends on solving these economic, technical and environmental problems.
The rise of ocean-based AI infrastructure
In 2015, Microsoft launched a research project to explore the feasibility, benefits and challenges of underwater data centers. Part of that effort included setting up a waterproof data center on the seafloor near Scotland’s Orkney Islands in 2018. It contained 864 servers and was connected to shore by an underwater cable. After two years, Microsoft reported that the servers in the underwater data center failed at about one-eighth the rate of servers in comparable land-based data centers. The company is still studying the possible reasons but hypothesizes that in a sealed underwater environment the equipment is less exposed to oxygen, humidity and temperature fluctuations – as well as less jostling from people working to replace broken components. However, Microsoft ended the project in 2024 and chose not to build more underwater data centers. The company didn’t say why, but others’
analyses suggest the reasons could include regulatory concerns, including the need for environmental permits, as well as a desire for faster upgrades and replacements for the computer equipment inside. Instead the company has focused on land-based data centers, which can be larger and easier to expand, and also easier to access to repair or replace equipment. Others have moved ahead, though. China built what may be the world’s first wind-powered underwater data center in Shanghai. The facility launched in June 2025 and began full commercial operations in May 2026. The US$226 million project uses seawater as a coolant rather than have to refrigerate fresh water, reducing the electricity required to cool the computers. It uses at least 30% less electricity than traditional data centers, and offshore wind turbines reduce reliance on fossil fuels and cut the data center’s carbon emissions. Japan is testing a different approach: Data centers housed in containers on floating platforms at sea can use seawater for cooling, have unobstructed conditions for solar panels and wind turbines, and reduce demand for land. In 2025, a data center in shipping containers opened on a floating platform near Yokohama. Its power comes from solar panels installed on the same floating
platform, with batteries providing energy storage. The test will continue through March 2027. Singapore is also moving toward commercial-scale floating data centers. In 2026, infrastructure company Keppel began building a four-story floating data center, scheduled to open in 2028. The project will use seawater for cooling, reducing reliance on treated water and improving cooling efficiency. And the fact that it floats means it won’t take up any of Singapore’s limited land availability. In 2025, Ulsan, South Korea, began planning an underwater data center that could house more than 100,000 servers and use 30% less power than land-based centers by using seawater for cooling. In Maine, DeepGreen Western Passage has proposed a submersible AI data center in the Bay of Fundy, powered by tidal turbines designed to harness the area’s strong tidal currents. Land-based data centers could also take advantage of seawater cooling. In Portugal, the SIN01 AI data center in Sines uses seawater from the Atlantic to cool its servers before returning it to the ocean.
The promise of ocean-based data centers
These various approaches offer ways to reduce demand for grid-supplied electricity for powering data centers’ computers and cooling equipment, as
well as using less fresh water. The distance from people’s homes could also be an advantage for data centers in or on the ocean. A Gallup poll in March 2026 found that 70% of Americans oppose building AI data centers in their communities. However, more than half of the world’s population lives within 120 miles of a coast. Underwater could be another way to keep data centers physically close to users for speedy service. Maintenance, though, is a major challenge. If a computer fails underwater, it cannot be repaired or replaced on site. The entire sealed data center module may need to be brought to the surface, even if just one computer needs work.
Can the ocean sustain AI?
The main environmental concern about ocean-based data centers involves the seawater used for cooling. Discharging warm or hot water can potentially affect oxygen levels, pH and marine life in the surrounding waters. That heat is already apparent at the few seaborne data centers now operating. HiCloud, the engineering contractor for China’s Hainan underwater data center, has reported a temperature increase of less than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the seawater near the facility. SIN01 in Sines, Portugal, also returns seawater about 1 C warmer.
‘Eyes on Cuba’: a conversation about humanitarian conditions facing Cuba in midst of crippling U.S. blockade By Carla Thomas and Ken Epstein Community members gathered last weekend for an “Eyes on Cuba” conversation with two representatives of the Cuban embassy in the United States, focusing on the terrible suffering inflicted on the Cuban people by the intensified U.S. blockade and also discussing the historic connections between Black freedom movements in the U.S. and struggles for justice in Cuba. Held in downtown Oakland Saturday, Aug. 22, at the office of Oakland Rising, the event featured presentations by representatives of the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C., First Secretary Sulia Páez Chacon and Second Secretary Gabriela Castillo, who spoke and answered questions about the harsh realities of conditions on the island, with a population of about 11 million, while also highlighting the historic resilience and perseverance of the
Cuban people. The gathering was held in honor of the annual commemoration of Black August, a month of remembrance, education, and reflection on Black resistance, political prisoners, liberation movements, and the continuing pursuit of justice. For more than 60 years, Cuba has faced a blockade designed to cripple its economic growth and overthrow its government, going back to the 1959 revolution against the colonial regime imposed by the U.S. But the recently intensified blockade has cut off the island’s fuel supply, creating an energy and humanitarian crisis that is strangling the country. With the lack of oil previously supplied by Venezuela and the U.S. threat of high tariffs on countries that dare to ship petroleum to Cuba, the impact on water, sewage, healthcare, food, and medical supplies has been devastating for the country, according to the speakers. “There are 100,000 patients now waiting for health-
Many marine species depend on stable water temperatures for breeding, feeding and migration, raising concerns that heat released by multiple underwater data centers could create localized thermal pollution and alter marine ecosystems. And the ocean is already under pressure. UNESCO, the United Nations agency for international cooperation, including in conservation, estimates that about 60% of marine ecosystems are already degraded or used unsustainably. The ocean is already warming along with the atmosphere, without additional waste heat from data centers. That additional heat is already threatening coral reef and mangrove ecosystems, seagrasses and other aspects of the marine food web. As that warming continues, ocean waters will be less useful for cooling electronic equipment in some regions. Underwater data centers could help AI grow while easing some of the pressure on land, energy and water. But the real test is whether the ocean can become AI’s next computing frontier without becoming its next environmental problem. Disclosure statement Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Credit: Ken Epstein
Speakers from the Cuban embassy First Secretary Sulia Páez Chacon (left) and Second Secretary Gabriela Castillo shared the harsh realities caused by the U.S. blockade that has intensified dramatically this year.
care services,” said Chacon. “There are 32,000 pregnant women whose care has been disrupted. This is criminal and a collective punishment. This is genocide – If this blockade continues, it will lead to a silent Gaza,” said Castillo. Organizers framed the conversation around humanitarian conditions, international solidarity and the importance of building connections among Black communities across national borders. The speakers shared that the country now experiences 12-48-hour blackouts that affect the transportation of goods, hospital services, and even people’s sleep patterns. “This is impacting the lifesaving (kidney) dialysis services, special needs kids lacking hearing aids, and even supplies crucial for fixing machinery such as ultrasound machines,” said Castillo. “Cuba is a Black country,” said Castillo. “Even if you are blond-haired and blueeyed, your genetic heritage is African.”
Cuba has long held a unique place in conversations about race, revolution and international Black solidarity. Its history has intersected with African liberation movements, anti-colonial struggles and debates about social equality throughout the Americas. “Eyes on Cuba” offered participants an opportunity to explore those connections while discussing the current crisis. “We have 7,000 containers of supplies already paid for by Cuba, but the companies now refuse to send the shipments for fear of U.S. sanctions on their countries,” said Chacon. Chacon and Castillo spoke about how the country has rebuilt itself since the 1990s and created healthcare and education systems so robust that they rival and even surpass those of many so-called advanced countries. “We are from a generation born in crisis, and we rebuilt, but today the pressure we are under is extraordinary,” said
Chacon.
Castillo explained that the relationship between Cuba and the U.S. government “has always been very complicated.” “(But) the relation between the people of Cuba and the people of the U.S. is something that we cherish, that we carry in our hearts, that is way older than the Cuban revolution itself: the cultural ties, the social ties, historical ties, the political ties. We’ve always had a lot in common.” Castillo said that the blockade on Cuba is more than economic; it seeks to erase the people’s identity. There are, she said, worldwide disinformation campaigns against Cuba and its people, “mainly centered in the lie that Cuba is a threat to the U.S. “ The mainstream media says that “Cuba is a country on the brink of collapse, that our government is not competent enough to run the economy,” she said. “But they almost never say that the root of everything
is the blockade. They don’t say that despite the hard situation right now, the country is not paralyzed. We have reorganized the whole economy.” “For many young people, for Black people in Cuba as well, if it weren’t for the revolution, we wouldn’t be here,” said Castillo. “My grandmother from my father’s side, when the revolution triumphed, was 12 years old, and she was cleaning houses with her mom. She only had the possibility to study through elementary school. (After the revolution), she had the possibility to go to high school, and because of the revolution, she was able to study at the university and become a professional. I think that most of us in Cuba have the same story.” At the close of the event, speakers recommended that, for more information, people watch the recently released documentaries on Cuba, “Teresita’s Dream” and “Cuba After Castro.” Local organizers will schedule follow-up discussions to plan solidarity actions.