Senate Bill 244, a law that invalidates Kansans’ driver’s licenses with updated gender markers and restricts transgender or intersex individuals from using public gendered spaces that align with their gender identity, defines gender as biological sex at birth and allows lawsuits to be filed against transgender people for damages of at least $1,000 if they are suspected of using the wrong public gendered space. After the bill went into effect on Feb. 26, the American Civil Liberties Union and Ballard Spahr LLP, a national law firm, filed a lawsuit against the State of Kansas on behalf of two transgender men who are identified under pseudonyms Daniel and Matthew Doe. A multi-day trial from late September to Oct. 2 challenged the enforcement of SB 244. According to the ACLU, plaintiffs argue that the bill violates transgender Kansans’ personal autonomy and freedom of expression, causes psychological harm and unnecessarily criminalizes transgender individuals. Olivia Purdue, K-State alumna and former Manhattan resident, said it can be argued that the law was too vague and unclear about who the invalidation of driver’s licenses affected. “When the state revoked all the driver’s licenses, it didn’t get all of us, and it didn’t give us any guidance on what to do if you did get the letter, because by the letter of the law and their interpretation of it, you should also have your driver’s license revoked, but if you didn’t get the letter then the state didn’t tell you,” Purdue said. “I know several people who didn’t get the letter. … You can argue a competence claim. This is hard facts on where someone’s legal right to drive sits.” The Kansas Department of Revenue sent a letter to over 1,000 residents with updated gender markers on their licenses to inform them that they were void and that they could face penalties for driving with an invalid license. “[The letter] was postmarked Feb. 23, and they said it goes into effect Thursday, Feb. 26,” Purdue said. “I received it on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 3 p.m. … The only reason I was able to get to the DMV and keep my legal right to drive was because I got off work early and I happened to be checking the mail. I sprinted over to the DMV to get my driver’s license force-reverted.” Purdue is a transgender woman who left Kansas after the enactment of SB 244, following a long history of navigating restrictive legislation concerning transgender individuals. “I joined the military back in 2016 just a couple of years after Obama passed an executive order allowing trans people to serve openly in the military,” Purdue said. “I was on deployment when the Trump administration’s military trans ban first went into effect in 2019. I was able to be grandfathered in by the skin of my teeth while I was deployed, but I saw the writing on the wall.” “ The thing about a gender marker is that it’s the state’s recognition of who you are as a person … it’s like a long-standing humiliation ritual. My hope is that the trial goes our way. What I think the real stakes of this case are is that if this law is upheld, it sends a message to the rest of the states and to our government.” — Olivia Purdue, K-State alumna and former Manhattan resident Purdue went on to experience a series of restrictive laws and their reversal throughout the next six years, including the initial passage of SB 180, which first defined gender as biological sex at birth in Kansas. “At the time, SB 180 was like background information of the continuing rise of fascism at the state level,” Purdue said. “It was kind of one of those things where you go, ‘Oh, Kris Kobach is at it again.’ When I bought my house in 2023, I went over to the DMV to get my address changed. … I open my mail probably about a week later, and I get a driver’s license that says male. … I lived with that for about a year until Kris Kobach lost his lawsuit and the Department of Revenue was ordered to allow the driver’s licenses to change and revert the ones that were force-reverted.” Shortly after the reversal of the invalidation of her updated driver’s license, SB 244 passed, invalidating it once again. “The honest truth is that this was kind of my snapping point,” Purdue said. “I justified staying in Kansas after the first time that my driver’s license got force-reverted for … the fact that I love Kansas. I genuinely fell in love with the state whenever I moved here in 2018 to get stationed in Fort Riley. … I debated it for a really long time, but I ultimately left.” Purdue now lives in Springfield, Mo., and is a certified flight instructor. She said she is “cautiously optimistic” about the results of the trial, and that there is a lot at stake for the rights of transgender individuals in Kansas and the country. “I still have all of my driver’s licenses that the state has flip-flopped with me before,” Purdue said. “The thing about a gender marker is that it’s the state’s recognition of who you are as a person … it’s like a long-standing humiliation ritual. My hope is that the trial goes our way. What I think the real stakes of this case are is that if this law is upheld, it sends a message to the rest of the states and to our government. … What happens is that transphobia becomes established case law. And not just transphobia, but revoking someone’s legal right based off their gender identity. That is a first. The problem with firsts … is it implies a second.” Kris Kobach, Republican Kansas attorney general, is representing the State of Kansas in the lawsuit. The defendant argues there is no presence of infringement on trans individuals’ rights and that the state reserves the right to define statutory terms. Silas Thoennes, senior in political science and president of K-State Young Americans for Freedom, said the invalidation of updated licenses reflects reality. “When it comes to the issue of transgenderism and driver’s licenses reflecting a particular gender, it is our position that the purpose of an ID is to reflect reality … and reality is independent of someone’s subjective sense of what they decide to call themselves,” Thoennes said. “Of course, you have the right in this country to call yourself a woman if you’re a man and vice versa, but we don’t have the ability to change reality. So, it absolutely is a commonsense piece of legislation, and we support IDs reflecting your biological sex and not your subjective sense of identity and gender.” Regarding barring transgender people from using the gendered spaces they align with, Thoennes said YAF supports the restriction for “protecting women’s spaces in a civil society.” During the trial, medical experts testified that the bill causes psychological harm to transgender individuals, especially those who experience gender dysphoria. Thoennes, however, said this argument is more harmful to those individuals. “We wholly reject that it is at all loving or caring with gender dysphoria to affirm delusion and that’s what we would call transgenderism,” Thoennes said. “We have the utmost sympathy and care for people who are going through a mental illness, but we believe the most loving way that we can approach that is to proclaim the truth because the truth is the only thing that will set you free. You will never win a war against reality, and reality says that if you’re a man, you’re a man and if you’re a woman, you’re a woman.” SB 244 is one of many topics adding weight to the upcoming midterms in November. Philip Nel, board member of Indivisible MHK and K-State university distinguished professor, said Indivisible MHK has been working to support candidates that openly condemn SB 244 and support efforts to preserve trans Kansans’ rights. “What Indivisible MHK and what Indivisible National are doing right now is supporting candidates and initiatives that are fighting the attempted authoritarian takeover of this state and of this country,” Nel said. “That is the way to restore the rights of trans people, of immigrants and everyone else the government is currently targeting or will target.” Indivisible MHK has held a town hall series featuring multiple candidates to encourage people to educate themselves on current political issues and to vote in November. “We are doing our best to get people encouraged, give people hope and connect people to others who care and who are worried about the direction that the state and the country might be going in,” Nel said. The final ruling of Doe v. State of Kansas is expected to be available in the coming weeks. If blocked, the bill will not be enforced until a full constitutional lawsuit is completed.

The post Bitcoin Price To $1 Million Before 2050? Binance Founder CZ Says ‘It Will Happen’ Sooner Than You Think appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) believes a $1 million Bitcoin is not a distant dream. Speaking on stage at Bitcoin Asia 2026 in Hong Kong, he said the milestone will arrive well before the 25-year horizon most people use, and he told a room full of Bitcoin loyalists that other blockchains make Bitcoin bigger, not …

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty ImagesSince catching the world by storm with the 2022 horror breakout Barbarian, Zach Cregger has been on a spectacular genre run. Weapons was one of Warner Bros. highest-grossing original films in 2025, and it earned Amy Madigan her first-ever Oscar win for her depiction of the sinister Aunt Gladys (who’s now getting her own prequel spin-off). And just a few weeks back, his Resident Evil reboot shattered the franchise’s financial and critical benchmarks, proving he’s just as skilled at bringing IP to life as he is at crafting original stories.So with three films now under his belt, what’s next? The internet has already been clamoring for a sequel to Resident Evil, and Cregger has also talked about a now-dormant pitch for a DC Comics movie about a random henchman in Gotham City, yet his fourth film will apparently be neither of those. Instead, Cregger is already in pre-production for The Flood, a science fiction film that will mark his first departure from straight horror, and he’s just cast its lead actress.In just four years, Cregger has gone from a small-budget hit to one of the most in-demand genre filmmakers. | 20th Century StudiosAccording to Deadline, Jennifer Lawrence is set to star in The Flood, in the first official casting announcement since the film was announced. Cregger is returning to New Line Cinema, the same WB subsidiary behind Weapons, but in collaboration with Stephen Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, which may indicate how firmly the movie fits in the sci-fi wheelhouse. While plot details are still incredibly light, the film is said to follow “a deep-space captain who leads her crew to investigate a cryptic signal from a distant world, only to uncover an alien artifact that warps time, reality, and their sanity, forcing them into a confrontation with an incomprehensible intelligence."Jennifer Lawrence is certainly no stranger to genre projects — one of her earliest starring roles was in the 2012 psychological horror film The House at the End of the Street, and she was also one of the leads in 2016’s Passengers (a psychological science-fiction drama) as well as Darren Aronofsky’s mother! (another horror film). Her involvement bodes well for Cregger’s script, as Lawrence has talked about being picky with her choice of projects recently. After three very good horror films, it’ll be interesting to see what Cregger brings to the table as he branches out into another genre, one that will undoubtedly require a bigger scale than what he’s worked with before.The Flood is scheduled for a theatrical release on August 11, 2028.

The dungeon crawler Dragon's Tear has been announced for Q1 2027: Dragon's Tear | Official Trailer Lead three Tear hunters in a first-person idle dungeon crawler. Collect monsters' Tears, awaken their powers and wield them in automatic battles. Farm cleared floors while away as you seek the most powerful Tear of all: the Dragon's Tear, said to grant any wish....

Gramercy PicturesThe cinematic movement that would eventually be called film noir doubled as a Trojan horse, showing audiences subject matter and ideas in direct opposition to the conditions imposed by the Hays Code. In the 1940s and ‘50s, when the genre was at the height of its popularity, the Motion Picture Production Code was at the height of its censorial power, forcing filmmakers to work with guidelines that required simple black-and-white morality and forbade on-screen depictions of sex, queerness, and interracial relationships, among other touchy subjects. Noir gave filmmakers an avenue to use implication and symbolism to subvert the Code’s rigidity, and many explored topics subtextually that mainstream films weren’t allowed to tackle directly: female resentment towards the unkept promises of traditional domesticity, institutional corruption, social issues like misogyny and racism. When neo-noir emerged in the ‘70s, it pushed the envelope further, expanding what was acceptable in terms of sex, violence, and transgressiveness. And 30 years ago today, the Wachowski Sisters bridged the gap between the two movements with a film that poked the bear of America’s latent lesbophobia, while also introducing the world to their influential kinetic visual style — and gifting audiences one of the greatest noirs of all time in the process.Much like the characters in Bound are trapped in their own metaphorical prisons, the film also leads you to believe it’s locked in the framework of a traditional noir. Corky (Gina Gershon), our stoic and guarded lead, is hired fresh out of prison to help renovate a Chicago apartment complex, which is where she meets Violet (Jennifer Tilly), the mousy, alluring wife of low-level Mafia money launderer Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). You know from the moment they lock eyes that a passionate affair is brewing, and by the time their mutual lust inspires them to steal $2 million from Caesar’s powerful Mafia friends, you almost feel it coming; it’s familiar by design, a common plot structure for a genre that understands money as the key to freedom from crime or domestic servitude.But Bound isn’t a traditional noir. While films of the past, like Double Indemnity, recognized how discontented a generation of women were with the docile, stay-at-home wife archetype after tasting real economic and social agency during World War 2, they also presented female sensuality as manipulative and dangerous, the birth of the femme fatale archetype. Bound’s lesbian love affair (and the controversial scene in which it’s consummated) represents the exact opposite — Corky and Violet’s queerness is presented as a liberatory escape from the suffocating lives they lead. Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly’s chemistry is the film’s pulsing heart, and the irresistible pull between them lets Corky be lovingly vulnerable while Violet envisions a life for herself beyond the machinations of the men she has to perform femininity for. It’s an on-screen depiction of lesbian intimacy so unarguably positive that it was outright confrontational at a time when America had just legally defined marriage as being “between a man and a woman.”Making your heroes a lesbian couple at a time when gay marriage was widely opposed was a genuinely remarkable statement for a debut feature. | Gramercy PicturesDespite mostly being confined to a claustrophobic apartment complex, Bound’s plotting is explosive and unpredictable. Corky and Violet’s plan to frame Caesar’s rival Johnnie (a pre-SVU Christopher Meloni) goes off without a hitch, but it works almost too well. Soon enough, Caesar is intent on either extracting the truth from Johnnie or implanting a bullet in his brain, two choices that don’t bode well considering that Johnnie is the son of Mafia boss Gino Marzzone (Richard C. Sarafian). The hierarchy of the Mafia is presented as another kind of prison, one where outsized male egos compete to be the alpha, a trap almost as suffocating as the shackles of heteronormativity Violet is trying to escape. In a classic noir, we might follow Caesar as he slowly realizes his beloved has betrayed him, but here, we’re encouraged to root for that betrayal, because the heist symbolically destroys a patriarchal system that still tries to control how women express their identities.Bound was shot by frequent Wachowski collaborator Bill Pope, and it gives viewers a taste of the revolutionary visual style that would soon explode into the mainstream with their collective work on The Matrix. As a once-simple plan is beset by dizzying complications, Pope’s never-stationary camerawork reflects the complex dynamics at play: he presents Caesar’s rising paranoia with a vertigo-inducing tracking close-up, and literalizes the barriers separating Corky and Violet, as well as their unbreakable connection, using erratic inserts of phone lines and grand pass-through shots showing just how close they are despite being in adjacent rooms. Even the film’s single shoot-out sequence reflects a visual approach to action that they’d fine-tune in their follow-up: gun violence as a moment frozen in time, instant death rendered across what feels like an eternity.Bound is proof that, from day one, the Wachowski Sisters had an ingenious visual eye and a disregard for safe, established storytelling methods. It took one of Hollywood’s archetypal genres, a movement that paved the way for modern cinema, and made something truly radical in form and text. Film noir's legacy has always been one of subversion and transgression, and two of the century's most influential filmmakers used that legacy to tell a deeply entertaining, celebratory story of unabashed lesbian romance and liberation.Bound is available on Prime Video.

[SubsPlease] FX Senshi Kurumi-chan - 02 (1080p) [A7262AB4].mkv

Marvel StudiosEver since it was announced back in the summer of 2024, fans have been waiting impatiently for Avengers: Doomsday. The title was actually the result of a last-minute strategy shift after the story needed to break away from Kang the Conqueror and lean heavily on the success of Avengers: Endgame. Just like Endgame, Doomsday is a massive event that will bring all corners of the MCU together, and just like Endgame, Doomsday is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. More than two years later, we’re now only a few months away from the release of Doomsday, so here’s everything you need to know about the movie, from the massive cast to all the big plot theories. When Is The Avengers: Doomsday Release Date? Avengers: Doomsday will premiere in theaters on December 18, 2026. This is technically a delayed release date, as the first iteration of this project, Avengers: Kang Dynasty, was actually supposed to premiere in May 2025. But since Doomsday has been announced, it has progressed on schedule, which is quite the accomplishment in the era of multiple delays for blockbusters like this. Chris Evans is back as Steve Rogers in Avengers: Doomsday. | Marvel StudiosWho Is In The Cast Of Avengers: Doomsday? Jesse Grant/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesAvengers: Doomsday has a huge cast, and the majority of the actors involved were revealed over a grueling hours-long livestream in May 2025. Those actors are the following: Thor (Chris Hemsworth)Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston)Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd)Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal)Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby)Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn)Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)Sam Wilson/Captain America (Anthony Mackie)Joaquin Torres/Falcon (Danny Ramirez)Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan)Cassie Lang/Stature (Kathryn Newton)Shuri/Black Panther (Letitia Wright)Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía)Namora (Mabel Cadena)M’Baku (Winston Duke)Yelena Belova/Black Widow (Florence Pugh)Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour)John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell)Ghost/Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen)Robert Reynolds/Sentry (Lewis Pullman)Xu Shang-Chi (Simu Liu)Hank McCoy/Beast (Kelsey Grammer)Charles Xavier/Professor X (Patrick Stewart)Erik Lensser/Magneto (Ian McKellen)Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming)Scott Summers/Cyclops (James Marsden)Rebecca Romijn (Mystique)Remy LeBeau/Gambit (Channing Tatum)Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.)Is There A Trailer For Avengers: Doomsday? Yes! The trailer rollout for Avengers: Doomsday has been long and fraught, going back to the teaser exclusive to showings of Avatar: Fire and Ash. But as we count down the months until December, we are seeing more and more “traditional” trailers. You can check out the most recent of these trailers below: What Is The Plot Of Avengers: Doomsday? At this point in the wait for Avengers: Doomsday, we have a few clues we can look to when it comes to plot. We even have an official synopsis to start from: “In Avengers: Doomsday, beloved heroes from three distinct universes will be set on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.” Those three universes must be the main MCU timeline, the X-Men timeline, and the Fantastic Four timeline. During the recent re-release of Avengers: Endgame, we got a few extra scenes tacked on at the end, including two involving Loki and the Time Variance Authority, who notice that the multiverse is collapsing. However they are going to collide; somehow, these multiverses invoke Dr. Doom’s wrath. Will There Be A Sequel To Avengers: Doomsday? In a way! When Avengers: Doomsday was first announced back in 2024, it was as the first part in a two-part theatrical event. The second movie, Avengers: Secret Wars, is scheduled for December 17, 2027 — less than a year after Doomsday. We may have been waiting for 7 years for this Avengers movie, but we’ll Avengers: Doomsday premieres in theaters on December 18, 2026.

[SubsPlease] FX Senshi Kurumi-chan - 02 (480p) [921A096D].mkv

Paramount PicturesOnly a handful of movies are iconic enough to not only be known for a single line, but for a line that can instantly place us back in a moment that inspired awe, hilarity, or terror. “Use the Force,” “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” “They’re here,” “It’s Morbin’ time”… even though we probably first heard them out of context, we still know where we were and what we felt when we witnessed them on screen.“Is it safe?” used to be an easy inclusion on that list, although it’s more likely to elicit blank stares today. A staple of turn-of-the-millennium rundowns of the greatest thrillers, villains, moments, and quotes, Marathon Man is starting to slip into obscurity as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. That’s natural, but still regrettable, as the movie was always more than its most harrowing scene.Babe (Dustin Hoffman) is an aloof loner working on his history thesis at Columbia, and who has little to do beyond jog, flirt, and hit the books. Meanwhile, his equally mononymous brother, Doc (Roy Scheider), gallivants across Europe, dodging assassins and arranging clandestine meetings to fulfill his role in a diamond smuggling ring, all while Babe thinks he’s some oil industry bigwig. But if you’ve seen a thriller before, you know what’s going to happen: Doc’s luck runs out on a visit home, and Babe gets swept up in the machinations of his duplicitous colleagues.While Doc is initially presented as a suave criminal, a convoluted plot eventually reveals that he was a federal agent working on behalf of Nazi concentration camp dentist Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier). Szell has been hiding out in South America, and the American government has been helping him smuggle his ill-gotten fortune in exchange for dirt on other fugitive Nazis. But after Szell’s brother is killed in a wild road rage incident, Szell is forced to go to New York City to take control of his safety deposit box, where his paranoia triggers a wave of bloodshed that seriously disrupts Dustin Hoffman’s studies.Part of a parade of ‘70s thrillers that took a cynical view of power in post-Watergate America (aside from All the President’s Men, see Chinatown, Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and the Nazi-based Odessa File and Boys From Brazil, among others), Marathon Man is unusually blunt about the relationship between fascism and state. Doc pokes fun at Babe’s bookish career, but if Doc had read a few history books himself, he would have learned that everyone who thought they could control and manipulate the fascists among them was proven horribly wrong.If you’re familiar with Marathon Man, this is probably the reason why. | Paramount PicturesMeanwhile, Doc’s corrupt partner (played by William Devane, and distractingly to modern sci-fi fans, named Janeway) is happy to abandon America’s ideals and reap the benefits, until violence inevitably comes for him, too. Szell, for his part, is callous but no ideologue; he’s interested only in profit, and he ultimately burns down his entire network on the paranoid false assumption that Doc was possibly plotting to rob him. A half-century later, the echoes of all the bloodshed and destruction wrought by claims of economic anxiety are louder than ever. How many lives and institutions have been destroyed because some tax rates might have been bumped up a smidge?With all that in mind, Marathon Man is still a thriller meant to, you know, thrill you, and while its pace might seem stately to modern viewers, it still largely succeeds. It’s fun to watch Scheider play a cavalier secret agent, and once an overwhelmed Hoffman starts scrambling around grimy 1970s New York, his desperate edge makes a compelling contrast to his composed brother. And for all the potential political analysis, this is still a movie where Laurence Olivier wields a hidden arm-blade like he’s doing Assassin’s Creed cosplay.Dustin Hoffman attempts to go jogging in 1970s New York City. | Paramount PicturesSpeaking of, contemporary critics were split on Marathon Man’s violence, but the shootouts and stabbings won’t make you blink today (as cynical as the ‘70s were, some of its film writing is almost naive in retrospect). That Babe eventually guns down most of his pursuers before forcing Szell to swallow the diamonds he so covets was read by some viewers as a Jewish revenge fantasy; director John Schlesinger and screenwriter William Goldman, adapting his own novel, were both Jewish.But the more credible and interesting revenge comes earlier, when Szell, so sinister for much of the film, is reduced to wandering New York City’s Jewish-dominated diamond district, desperate to sell all that remains of his life to the people he stole from. He’s still dangerous, but he’s ultimately a pathetic figure of the past, one trying to cling to relevance in a world that’s happy to move on without him. Take away a fascist’s power, and all you have left is a miserable whiner.It’s for these reasons, rather than its fading memetic status, that Marathon Man remains worth watching 50 years later. It’s not the decade’s greatest thriller, but it might be the one that remains the most topical. That said, it’s also worth finding out why the movie’s most iconic line haunted viewers for decades. Just make sure you don’t have any visits to the dentist coming up.Marathon Man is available on YouTube.

In our previous blog, we explored why Test and Learn is gaining momentum across government and why learning during delivery is increasingly important when tackling complex challenges. But this raises a practical question: if programmes operate in uncertain environments, how do we decide what is most important to learn? Test and Learn begins by identifying the assumptions that matter most. A theory of change provides a practical framework for making those assumptions explicit and translating them into a focused learning agenda. Why a theory of change is valuable for Test and Learn At the heart of any Test and Learn approach is a simple question: what do we need to know? Test and Learn recognises that programmes do not begin with perfect solutions. In complex and fast-changing environments, delivery contexts evolve, policy priorities shift, and new evidence emerges throughout implementation. As a result, programmes start with informed assumptions about how change is expected to happen. This is where a theory of change becomes valuable. While theories of change are often viewed as planning, accountability, or communication tools, their greatest value for Test and Learn lies in providing a structured way to make assumptions visible. They set out how activities are expected to contribute to outcomes and, crucially, the conditions that need to hold for change to occur. This matters because Test and Learn is fundamentally concerned with uncertainty. If organisations do not make their assumptions explicit, it becomes difficult to understand what should be tested, what evidence is needed, and how delivery should adapt when circumstances change. Rather than treating programme design as a fixed blueprint, a theory of change encourages organisations to think in terms of hypotheses. Assumptions about behaviour, incentives, institutions, partnerships, and context become propositions that can be explored, tested, and refined over time. For this reason, a theory of change provides a natural starting point for any Test & Learn approach. How a theory of change identifies learning priorities In our experience, one of the most valuable aspects of developing a theory of change is not the final product itself, but the process of identifying, prioritising, and revisiting the assumptions that matter most. The development process often reveals that different stakeholders hold different understandings of how change is expected to happen. Assumptions that were previously implicit become visible. Areas of uncertainty become clearer. Stakeholders begin to develop a shared understanding of where the greatest risks and uncertainties lie. This creates a practical foundation for learning. Most programmes contain dozens of assumptions at varying levels of maturity, understanding, and importance. The task is not to test everything. It is to identify which assumptions are most important for understanding whether a programme can achieve its intended objectives. Rather than asking broad questions such as ‘is the programme working?’, organisations can use their theory of change to develop more targeted learning questions: Which assumptions are most critical to achieving outcomes? Which assumptions represent the greatest risk or uncertainty? What evidence would help us understand whether those assumptions hold in practice? The result is a more focused approach to learning, with evidence generation directed towards the questions that matter most for decision-making and adaptive delivery embedded from the outset. Putting theory into practice At Itad, we have applied this approach across a range of complex government-funded programmes. For the UK Government’s Blue Planet Fund, we worked with Defra and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office stakeholders to develop a portfolio-level theory of change that helped identify where key assumptions were uncertain and where learning would be most valuable. For example, the portfolio theory of change highlighted a core area of uncertainty: how and to what extent the individual programmes within the portfolio were contributing to shared objectives. This became a priority learning question that informed targeted evidence generation and helped Defra refine its governance and accountability arrangements to focus on shared outcomes rather than operational compliance. The portfolio theory of change has also provided the foundation for several theory-based evaluative activities, helping test critical assumptions within the portfolio. More recently, Defra has used it to support its portfolio review and rationalisation process, using the theory of change as a framework for aligning programmes around shared objectives and strengthening strategic coherence. A similar approach has been used within the Climate and Ocean Adaptation and Sustainable Transition (COAST) programme. Through a participatory theory of change process, we worked with stakeholders to identify the assumptions carrying the greatest uncertainty and where learning was most urgently needed. As delivery has progressed, learning priorities have evolved. Early learning focused on understanding effective partnerships. Attention then shifted to questions around scaling innovation and, more recently, to clarifying COAST’s role within the wider blue finance landscape. Throughout this process, the theory of change has provided a consistent framework for identifying what matters most at each stage of implementation and ensuring evidence generation remains relevant to programme decision-making. COAST’s recent process evaluation found that programme learning activities provide timely and relevant insights that are actively used to adjust strategies, activities and resource allocation in real time. Combined with a flexible approach to adapting priorities, workplans and budgets, this has enabled programme partners to evolve their activities as they learn what is and is not working. In a Test and Learn approach, the theory of change functions as a living framework that evolves as assumptions are tested and learning emerges. Defra’s Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature (OCEAN) programme provides an example of this in practice. During inception, the theory of change was reviewed collaboratively by Defra, the evaluation team, and the grant administrator to develop a simplified and evaluable pathway with explicit assumptions to test. As evidence emerged through the interim evaluation, programme delivery was adapted and these changes will be reflected in future iterations of the theory of change. This creates a continuous cycle of testing, learning and refinement, ensuring that both delivery and programme strategy evolve in response to evidence. It also creates opportunities for collective reflection on what has been learned, which assumptions remain uncertain, and where future learning should be focused. The takeaway In a Test and Learn approach, a theory of change creates a structured way to identify what matters most, make uncertainty visible and focus learning where it can have the greatest influence on decisions. By making assumptions explicit, helping stakeholders identify where uncertainty matters most, and creating a structured basis for prioritising learning questions, it enables organisations to focus evidence generation on the issues that are most important for delivery and decision-making. When treated as a living framework that evolves alongside evidence and experience, it helps organisations move beyond reporting what happened towards actively improving what happens next. From our experience, this approach works best when organisations: Make critical assumptions explicit. Prioritise learning where uncertainty matters most. Focus evidence generation and learning agendas around decision-making needs. Keep the theory of change under review as learning emerges. When used in this way a theory of change becomes more than a description of how change is expected to happen. It becomes a valuable tool for testing assumptions, generating actionable evidence and supporting adaptive delivery in complex and uncertain environments. To learn more about how Test and Learn approaches can support adaptive delivery and evidence-informed decision-making, contact us or explore the other articles in our Test and Learn series. The post Making assumptions explicit: the role of theory of change in Test and Learn appeared first on Itad.

Another disappointment.

EVERSOLO AMP-F8 CLASS AB POWER AMPLIFIER INTRODUCED WITH 500W BRIDGED OUTPUT Eversolo has introduced the new Eversolo AMP-F8, a new Class AB power amplifier designed to add dedicated power amplification to existing HiFi systems or form part of a larger system. The Eversolo AMP-F8 amplifier uses a Class AB topology and offers both balanced XLR […]

For nearly three decades, the winning supply chain was the most optimized one – built on lean inventory, fewer suppliers, lower transportation costs, shorter lead times, and higher asset utilization. That approach worked well while globalization was expanding, transportation networks were stable, and disruptions were the exception rather than the rule. That operating environment no longer exists. Read also: Supply Chain Leaders Prioritize Resilience and Optionality Over Cost Reduction, DP World Report Finds Today, supply chains are contending with geopolitical friction, escalating transportation costs, tariff uncertainty, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Businesses are shifting from ‘just-in-time’ models to resilience-first strategies to avoid delays and margin erosion – and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming central to that shift, enabling faster planning, smarter sourcing, and more resilient decision-making across increasingly complex global networks. It would be inaccurate, though, to assume AI has become ubiquitous in supply chain management. In a Gartner survey of ~140 senior supply chain leaders conducted in November 2025, only 17% of organizations reported pursuing an immediate, AI-driven redesign of their processes and workflows. The remaining 83% are either applying AI incrementally to specific use cases or gradually integrating it into existing processes. AI adoption is still in its early stages, with considerable room to mature. According to Stratview Research, the global AI in supply chain management market exceeded US$ 6,045 million in 2025, with growth of ~30% projected annually over the next five years. As global supply chains grow more fragile, AI is increasingly viewed not as another digital initiative but as core infrastructure. The clearest message for the industry may be this: a lack of AI literacy is itself a risk. The concern shouldn’t be what AI might get wrong – it should be that competitors adopting it will make decisions faster, cheaper, and more accurately. The Companies Pulling Ahead AI’s value is best measured by business outcomes, not by how many processes it automates. A few examples illustrate what that looks like in practice. Unilever, one of the world’s largest FMCG manufacturers, announced in November 2025 that it had scaled AI across its manufacturing network – deploying autonomous processes, predictive maintenance, digital twins, and AI-powered image recognition to optimize factory operations in real time. Reported outcomes include: A 12% improvement in identifying potential workplace safety risks An 8% increase in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) A 15% reduction in batch cycle time Up to a 20% reduction in manufacturing wastage through AI-driven process optimization Amazon offers a second example, AI has also helped the company address a persistent e-commerce problem: damaged products, which account for an estimated 20% of returns. Using AI-powered computer vision, Amazon now identifies defective items before they leave fulfilment centers. On the warehouse side, its AI-enabled robotic inventory system, Sequoia, launched in 2023, can identify and store inventory up to 75% faster – a direct improvement in supply chain responsiveness. These two cases represent the adopter side of the market – companies embedding AI into their own operations. On the vendor side, the market looks different: Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM, Amazon, and Google collectively control >60% of the AI in supply chain management market. Their edge comes from offering complete ecosystems rather than standalone software – cloud infrastructure, data platforms, chips, and enterprise applications bundled together. Meanwhile, specialists such as Blue Yonder, C3.ai, NVIDIA, and Intel are expanding through focused innovation and strategic partnerships, positioning themselves for the next round of competition as agentic AI and intelligent automation mature. The Next Big Growth Areas for AI AI is being deployed across nearly every supply chain function including fleet management, supply chain planning, warehouse management, virtual assistance, risk management, freight brokerage, etc. However, supply chain planning continues to draw the largest share of investment. Supply chain planning leverages AI to forecast demand, optimize inventory levels, and manage production schedules. Along with warehouse management and fleet management, these three applications are expected to contribute more than 65% of the market’s net sales growth between 2024 and 2030 – a clear signal of where enterprises are directing their AI budgets. Machine Learning Leads the Technology Stack In AI-driven supply chain management, machine learning (ML), natural language processing, context-aware computing, and computer vision represent distinct technology capabilities that address different layers of supply chain intelligence. They process different types of operational data and feed insights into planning, execution, monitoring, and decision-making workflows. However, ML leads AI technology adoption with >45% of total AI in Supply Chain Management market sales between 2024 and 2030. That’s largely because ML highlights nearly every core supply chain function, from demand forecasting and inventory optimization to predictive maintenance, supplier risk assessment, production scheduling, and transportation planning. Every order placed, shipment tracked, warehouse movement, supplier transaction, and production cycle adds to a growing stream of operational data – and ML is built to handle exactly that kind of scale, uncovering patterns humans would miss and improving continuously as new data arrives. From Preliminary to Practice Companies are dealing with shorter delivery cycles, volatile demand, supplier risks, rising cost pressures, and increasingly complex global networks leading to challenging supply chains management. Across manufacturing, automotive, retail, healthcare, other industries, faster response, better decisions, and less manual intervention are become the new standard. This further creates a strong case for technologies that can turn large volumes of operational data into timely, actionable insights. AI is increasingly becoming part of that technology mix. AI in supply chain management allows real-time decision-making, improving forecasting, optimizing inventory, and strengthening warehouse and quality processes through automation and predictive analytics. The reported improvements, including gains in workforce productivity, planning efficiency, logistics costs, inventory optimization, and service levels show why organizations are moving from experimentation toward broader deployment. Integration complexity and data quality remain among the biggest barriers to scaling AI across operations. As these barriers gradually ease, AI is likely to become a more embedded layer of supply chain management. With adoption moving toward larger-scale deployment, Stratview Research expects the global AI in Supply Chain Management market to exceed US$22 billion by 2030. The opportunity ahead is therefore not about replacing supply chain expertise with AI, but about giving supply chain teams better visibility, faster analysis, and stronger decision-making capabilities as the complexity of global commerce continues to grow. Author bio Chandana Patnaik is a Senior Content Strategist at Stratview Research, with experience writing about specialty chemicals, biotechnology, disruptive technologies, and information technology. She regularly contributes to industry publications and blogs, translating complex industry developments into clear, engaging content that helps readers keep pace with what’s changing. The post Beyond Optimization: The Rise of Intelligent Supply Chains appeared first on Global Trade Magazine.

Ranma 1-2 2024 S02 1080p NF WEB-DL DUAL AUDIO AAC2 0 AV1-DBMS

Young expands on the story of Mack Phillips, the grieving father at the center of his blockbuster 2007 novel in a sequel, Return to the Shack (Apiary), set a decade after the events in the controversial first installment.

Global container shipping is facing a capacity problem that has little to do with the number of ships in the fleet. Read also: Container Shipping Rates Edge Higher Amid Global Port Congestion About 12% of global container vessel capacity is currently tied up by port congestion, the highest level in four years, according to C.H. Robinson’s October Edge Report. The logistics company said congestion is particularly affecting East Asia, Northern Europe and the Indian Subcontinent, limiting the amount of vessel space actually available to shippers. “Capacity may exist in the ocean network, but port congestion and steps the carriers are taking to get schedules back on track can change where and when that capacity is actually available,” C.H. Robinson said. The result is a more fragmented ocean freight market as carriers enter the fourth quarter. Asia routes face renewed pressure Trans-Pacific services are seeing capacity adjustments around China’s October 1-7 Golden Week holiday, while services between India and North America continue to face limited space and disruptions involving connections through Colombo. Asia-Europe services are taking a different direction, with freight prices softening as vessel supply improves. At the same time, schedule reliability is deteriorating. Port congestion, vessel bunching, typhoons, Middle East disruptions and restrictions affecting the Panama Canal are creating additional pressure across carrier networks. Recent typhoons in Asia have forced some carriers to skip port calls, while congestion at major transshipment hubs has resulted in missed connections and growing cargo backlogs. The shortage of available equipment is another concern. Containers sitting in congested terminals cannot be repositioned as quickly to markets where exporters need them. Port omissions create new risks For shippers, there is an important difference between a planned blank sailing and a port omission during an active voyage. A blank sailing is usually announced in advance, allowing cargo owners to adjust their plans before containers are loaded. A skipped port, however, can leave cargo stranded after a shipment is already underway. Containers may then have to wait for another feeder service, move through a different transshipment hub or be transferred to another carrier service. That can add both time and cost to an already disrupted supply chain. Golden Week could tighten space further The pressure is particularly noticeable on Asia-North America services. Exporters accelerated shipments ahead of Golden Week, while planned blank sailings are expected to reduce effective capacity into approximately mid-October. That could increase the risk of cargo rollovers when factories reopen and export activity resumes. The strength of the post-holiday recovery will determine how long the pressure lasts. A strong rebound in shipments could keep preferred sailings full and support current freight rates. If volumes return more slowly, available space could improve later in October. Available capacity matters more than fleet size The latest figures highlight a growing issue for global shippers: total vessel capacity does not necessarily equal usable capacity. When a significant portion of the fleet is delayed at ports or caught in disrupted schedules, effective capacity falls even when the global fleet continues to expand. With roughly one in every eight units of global container capacity currently affected by congestion, shippers may need to look beyond freight rates when planning shipments. Port choice, transshipment exposure, container availability and a carrier’s ability to recover disrupted schedules are becoming increasingly important factors in managing ocean freight risk. The post Port Congestion Now Ties Up 12% of Global Container Capacity appeared first on Global Trade Magazine.

Stating the obvious. This is 100% accurate and true.

The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows Episode 11 (Fixed Audio) [BD] [Dual Audio][1080p][HEVC

The action RPG Dadi Kingdom has been announced: Dadi Kingdom | Official Gameplay Trailer | Early Access December 7, 2026 You're the king. Everyone wants something from you, and you've got a sword. Every morning you judge your people: release, gold fine or dungeon? Then you walk out the gate yourself and fight bandits, skeletons and worse....