2025 Japan GP – Red Bull – Max Verstappen – FP1 — Liauzh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Verstappen manager breaks silence on exit clause and Red Bull future
Max Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen issued a statement Thursday breaking his silence on the four-time champion’s future, insisting Verstappen intends to see out his Red Bull contract. ‘Max wants to finish his time with Red Bull. He has a contract until 2028 and would like to fulfil it,’ Vermeulen told OE24. He also addressed the widely-discussed exit clause, adding: ‘The fact that this clause exists doesn’t mean we’ll activate it. We could have activated it in recent years as well, and we haven’t.’ Vermeulen suggested Red Bull’s competitiveness should improve ‘in Budapest and Zandvoort,’ dampening speculation about a mid-season move to Mercedes or McLaren.
Wolff warns Mercedes cannot keep leaving points on the table
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has warned his squad they cannot keep leaving points on the table as the Silver Arrows head into the Belgian Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc’s British GP victory, during a weekend that also proved difficult for championship leader Kimi Antonelli, allowed Ferrari to narrow the gap heading into Spa. Wolff acknowledged the team’s pace has been strong but results have not followed: ‘There is no value in having the pace if we don’t bring home the result,’ he said, adding: ‘We have left too much on the table recently. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again starting this weekend.’
McLaren bring rear-wing and new engine upgrade double to Belgian GP
McLaren arrive at the Belgian Grand Prix with a double upgrade package designed to boost their championship challenge ahead of the summer break. A new rear wing and a third-specification Mercedes internal combustion engine will debut at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend, with a further major upgrade package following at the Hungarian Grand Prix the next weekend. The rear wing targets aerodynamic efficiency gains at Spa’s long, power-sensitive layout, where the Kemmel Straight places exceptional demands on the power unit. McLaren currently sit third in the constructors’ championship, trailing leaders Mercedes as the teams head into the final double-header before the summer shutdown.
Palmer: Russell is ‘lucky’ to trail Antonelli by just 25 points
Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer has claimed George Russell is ‘fortunate’ to trail championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just 25 points heading into the Belgian Grand Prix, citing the Italian’s run of mechanical misfortune. Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Palmer said: ‘George is lucky to only be 25 points away with his level of performance.’ He argued Antonelli has been the stronger driver but has been denied two potential winning weekends by car failures in Barcelona and at Silverstone. ‘Kimi has been unlucky. If his car keeps breaking down, he might not win the championship, but that’s out of his control,’ Palmer added. Antonelli leads Russell 179–154.
Honda warns Spa poses exceptional energy management challenge for Aston Martin
Honda Trackside General Manager Shintaro Orihara warned that Spa-Francorchamps presents one of the toughest challenges on the Formula 1 calendar for Aston Martin’s current power unit, with a new Honda engine still two races away. ‘Spa is the longest circuit on the calendar. The combination of long straights and high-speed corners makes it a very demanding circuit for the engineers. Energy recovery here is quite limited,’ Orihara said. Fernando Alonso has managed just one championship point in nine races this season. Design legend Adrian Newey is working on an AMR26B upgrade package scheduled to debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Cadillac bring upgraded front wing to Spa in bid for maiden F1 point
Cadillac will introduce an upgraded front wing at Spa-Francorchamps as the American F1 debutants chase their first championship point of the season. The team remains scoreless after nine races but team principal Graeme Lowdon pointed to Silverstone as evidence of progress: ‘The British Grand Prix was a very positive weekend for us. We were able to pull away from the back of the grid and race hard against some of the other teams,’ he said. Valtteri Bottas acknowledged Cadillac remains ‘in a little bit of a no man’s land’ but said Haas and Williams appeared genuinely within reach at Silverstone.
Gasly hosts Run for Anthoine tribute at Spa honouring Hubert and van ’t Hoff
Alpine driver Pierre Gasly will host the fourth running of the Run for Anthoine tribute at Spa-Francorchamps on Thursday evening, honouring two drivers who lost their lives at the circuit. The run begins at 18:00 on the Start-Finish straight, making a stop at Eau Rouge to remember Anthoine Hubert — who died in an F2 accident at the Raidillon in August 2019 — and continuing to the Kemmel Straight in honour of Dilano van ’t Hoff, who was fatally injured in a FRECA race at Spa in July 2023. Alpine confirmed all F1, F2, and F3 paddock members are invited to participate in the tribute run.
Ferrari vs Mercedes: The $215m upgrade arms race that could decide the 2026 title
Ferrari and Mercedes are pursuing opposite upgrade strategies under F1’s expanded $215 million cost cap ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, in a tactical divide that could determine whether Lewis Hamilton or Kimi Antonelli wins the 2026 title. Ferrari have brought aggressive upgrades to multiple rounds — including comprehensive front wing, floor and sidepod changes at Barcelona that helped Hamilton end a 686-day win drought — while Mercedes have been more conservative, banking budget for targeted improvements later in the season. The tactical difference prompted a public exchange between team principals Toto Wolff and Fred Vasseur, with Wolff warning Ferrari would run out of funds and Vasseur rejecting the suggestion.
Drivers' Championship — Post-British GP
- 1. K. Antonelli (Mercedes) — 179 pts
- 2. G. Russell (Mercedes) — 154 pts
- 3. L. Hamilton (Ferrari) — 147 pts
- 4. C. Leclerc (Ferrari) — 108 pts
- 5. L. Norris (McLaren) — 97 pts
- 6. O. Piastri (McLaren) — 82 pts
Constructors' Championship — Post-British GP
- 1. Mercedes — 333 pts
- 2. Ferrari — 255 pts
- 3. McLaren — 179 pts
- 4. Red Bull Racing — 128 pts
- 5. Alpine — 60 pts
- 6. Racing Bulls — 45 pts
AI-en-wikipedia-source — Trebol6, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
AIRESEARCH
Thinking Machines Releases Inkling, a 975B-Parameter Open-Weight Multimodal Model
Thinking Machines Lab, the startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, released its first in-house AI model on July 15: Inkling, an open-weight multimodal system. The mixture-of-experts architecture carries 975 billion total parameters but activates only about 41 billion for any given task. Trained on 45 trillion tokens spanning text, image, audio, and video, Inkling reasons natively across all four modalities. The company designed Inkling to give calibrated answers, flag uncertainty, and let users dial thinking effort up or down for speed. Thinking Machines explicitly notes Inkling is “not the strongest overall model available today” and built it to answer directly on topics that may be subject to censorship.
AIREGULATION
China Approves Apple Intelligence Powered by Alibaba’s Qwen AI Across All Apple Platforms
China’s Cyberspace Administration of China approved Apple’s AI services on July 15, enabling Apple Intelligence to launch in the country through a partnership with Alibaba. The deal integrates Alibaba’s Qwen AI model into Apple’s operating systems — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Alibaba confirmed that Qwen would be “integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences” but provided no launch timeline. China is a critical market for Apple; the company reported a 28 percent increase in Greater China sales to $20.5 billion in its most recent quarter. The approval marks a significant expansion of generative AI across Apple’s global device base and ends a lengthy wait for both companies.
INDUSTRYAI
Anthropic and Blackstone Launch $1.5B Enterprise AI Implementation Firm Ode
Anthropic and private equity firms including Blackstone, Hellman and Friedman, and Goldman Sachs launched Ode with Anthropic, a $1.5 billion AI implementation company focused on deploying engineers directly inside enterprise clients. Currently employing 100 engineers, Ode operates on a “Claude-first” principle but will use rival models when the task demands it. The company originated from Blackstone’s experience identifying a deployment gap while rolling out AI across its portfolio, and subsequently acquired AI engineering services startup Fractional AI. Additional investors include Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Leonard Green, and Sequoia Capital. Ode’s bet is that helping businesses apply AI models is the next trillion-dollar category.
SECURITYAI
Microsoft Uses AI to Find a Record 570 Security Flaws in July Patch Tuesday
Microsoft’s July 2026 Patch Tuesday addressed a record 570 security vulnerabilities, with the company crediting AI for discovering many previously unknown bugs. Among the patched flaws were at least two zero-days exploited before disclosure: one allows privilege escalation to system administrator in Windows Server, and another affects SharePoint, which CISA flagged as under active exploitation. A flaw in the remastered Age of Empires II allowed attackers to take over systems via a malicious game invite. Windows chief Pavan Davuluri noted that “as AI helps defenders discover more issues, customers will see a higher volume of security updates included in each security release.”
ROBOTICSINDUSTRY
Toyota-Backed Walden Robotics Emerges from Stealth at $1.1B Valuation
Walden Robotics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup spun out of Toyota Research Institute in January, emerged from stealth on July 15 with approximately $300 million in funding at a $1.1 billion valuation. The seed round was co-led by Deviation Capital and Toyota Motor Corp., with participation from Nvidia, Boeing, AE Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Prologis Ventures, and CoreWeave Ventures. Walden’s robots feature a humanoid torso with two arms and a wheeled base, chosen to ease factory safety certification. Since February, the robots have operated in production manufacturing and logistics tasks at a Toyota plant in North America, moving from first pilot to full deployment in under two months.
HARDWARESOFTWARE
OpenAI Launches $230 Codex Micro Keyboard for AI Coding Agents Amid Apple Lawsuit
OpenAI entered the physical hardware market on July 15 with the Codex Micro, a $230 light-up keyboard co-designed with specialty maker Work Louder to pair with its Codex AI coding agent. The Micro features Agent Keys that display real-time agent status, customizable Command Keys for frequent Codex actions, a joystick for launching workflows, and a dial that controls how much reasoning an agent applies to a task. The launch arrives amid a lawsuit from Apple, filed July 10, alleging that OpenAI deliberately extracted confidential Apple hardware information; OpenAI has denied wrongdoing. OpenAI described the Micro as a limited-run collaboration, signaling it is more proof of concept than mass-market product.
INDUSTRYAI
India’s Emergent Hits $1.5B Unicorn Valuation with $130M Series C for AI Coding Platform
Indian AI coding startup Emergent raised $130 million in a Series C round on July 15, reaching a $1.5 billion post-money valuation — a five-fold increase in six months. The round was led by private equity firm Creaegis, with new backers MNI Ventures-Claypond and Sentinel Global joining existing investors Khosla Ventures, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed, and Y Combinator. The deal brings Emergent’s total funding to $230 million; the company had raised a $70 million Series B at a $300 million valuation in January. Emergent plans to use the capital to improve app success rates and expand support for complex AI agent workflows using local and open-source models.
<div class="fn"> Arduino Due</div> — Simon Waldherr, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
PROJECTHARDWARE
Open-Source AIS Transponder Fits Entire RF Section in the Antenna
The MAIANA project from peterantypas is believed to be the first fully open-source AIS transponder for maritime navigation. Built around an STM32L4 microcontroller and a Silicon Labs Si4460 RF chip, the design uses a Quectel L76L-M33 GPS module with a ceramic chip antenna for position data. Remarkably, the entire RF section fits inside the antenna housing — with a standard Ethernet cable carrying signals down to a small USB decoder box mounted inside the vessel. Published under an open licence, the project gives boatowners and electronics builders a full reference design for legal, self-built AIS transmission and reception.
HARDWAREELECTRONICS
Pinch Squeezes a Full Arduino-Compatible Board into a USB-C Connector
The Pinch board from Solder Party compresses a complete Arduino-compatible development board into the footprint of a female USB-C connector. Powered by a Microchip SAMD11 (ARM Cortex-M0+ running at 48 MHz with 4 KB SRAM and 16 KB flash), it exposes 15 GPIO pins plus SPI, I2C, PWM, and UART — all through a tiny 14-pin edge connector. Native USB support eliminates the need for a separate FTDI chip. Priced at $16 with a September 2026 ship date, the Pinch targets space-constrained embedded projects where even a standard Arduino Nano footprint is too large. Pre-orders are open now.
SOFTWARE3D PRINTING
Zig Becomes a Drop-In C Compiler for Cross-Compiling a Linux 3D Printer
Developer Petabyte successfully cross-compiled busybox for a Flashforge AD5X 3D printer by using Zig as a drop-in C compiler, requiring no modifications to the build system. The printer’s MIPS32r2 little-endian processor uses the nan2008 floating-point ABI — an unusual target most toolchains do not expose directly. The compile command invokeszig cctargetingmipsel-linux-musleabihfwith-mcpu=mips32r2, producing a statically linked binary. One remaining hurdle: the ELF header required a manual patch to set the nan2008 NaN flag. The experiment validates Zig’s cross-compilation toolchain as a practical option for exotic embedded Linux targets.
SOFTWAREPROJECT
DOOM Runs at 0.0001 FPS Inside a 300 MB CSS Stylesheet
Developer Ahmed Amer has built CSS-DOS: a full IBM PC-compatible computer implemented as a 300-megabyte CSS stylesheet that renders inside any standards-compliant browser. The machine emulates an 8086 processor with 640 KB of RAM, a VGA display, and a floppy disk controller — entirely in CSS. DOOM boots and runs at approximately 0.0001 FPS, equivalent to two CPU instructions per second at the emulated processor level. The approach exploits the Turing-completeness of modern CSS selectors and counters. While entirely impractical, CSS-DOS is a striking demonstration of how far the language has evolved from its origins as a simple document-styling tool.
HARDWAREROBOTICS
NVIDIA’s Jetson T2000 and T3000 Bring Blackwell AI to a Smaller Edge Module
NVIDIA has announced the Jetson T2000 and T3000 modules, mid-range additions to its edge AI lineup targeting robotics and industrial applications. The T3000 delivers up to 865 FP4 TFLOPS via a 1,536-core Blackwell GPU, pairs with an 8-core Neoverse-V3AE CPU and 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory at 273 GB/s, and includes a 25 GbE interface. The T2000 scales down to 400 TFLOPS with a 1,024-core GPU and 16 GB LPDDR5. Both measure approximately 50 × 87 mm — roughly half the footprint of the flagship T4000 and T5000. General availability is expected in Q1 2027, with the JetPack 7.2.1 SDK releasing later this month.
PROJECTHARDWARE
OpenStrap Edge Lets WHOOP 4.0 Owners Ditch the Subscription
OpenStrap Edge is a new open-source iOS and Android app that makes the WHOOP 4.0 fitness wearable function without an active subscription. The developer reverse-engineered the band’s Bluetooth protocol and rebuilt the analytics from scratch using published research — no WHOOP servers involved. The app pairs directly to the hardware and computes heart rate, HRV, sleep staging, recovery scores, and strain locally at one-second intervals. Health data never leaves the device. Auto-workout detection, live GPS route tracking, and heart-rate zones are also included. Licensed under MIT and tested against WHOOP 4.0 hardware, the project is available now on GitHub.
ELECTRONICSSOFTWARE
Reverse-Engineering Unlocks RK3576 NPU Support in Mainline Linux
Developer Ga Hing Woo has published patches bringing Rockchip RK3576 NPU support to the open-source Rocket driver for mainline Linux — a significant step for SBCs like the Radxa ROCK 4D. The work required reverse-engineering hidden NPU registers not documented in Rockchip’s Technical Reference Manual. Validated against Linux 7.1-rc5, the patches enable the RKNPU vendor runtime alongside the mainline kernel, yielding Llama-3.2-1B inference at around 13 tokens per second, Qwen2.5-1.5B at nine tokens per second, and MobileNet classification at 169 frames per second. Full integration into the Rocket driver is ongoing, but performance on a stock mainline kernel is clearly achievable.
"Lubinville" film studio and plant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1911 — Unidentified graphic artist, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
BOX OFFICEANALYSIS
Moana Live-Action Remake Bombs at Box Office, Raising Questions About Disney’s Remake Strategy
Disney’s live-actionMoanaremake opened to a disappointing$43 milliondomestically over the July 10–12 weekend, far below projections of$60–$65 million. The global debut reached only $95 million against a $250 million production budget plus roughly $120 million in marketing costs. The result places Moana near the bottom of Disney’s live-action remake track record, hovering just aboveSnow White’s$42 million debut in 2025. Analysts point to timing as a key factor: the film arrived less than two years after the animated sequel Moana 2 and a decade after the 2016 original, offering insufficient nostalgic distance for audiences already subscribed to Disney+.
BOX OFFICE
Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Opens This Weekend Tracking at $200 Million-Plus Worldwide
Christopher Nolan’sThe Odysseyheads into its opening weekend tracking at$200 million-plus worldwide, with domestic projections of$90–$100 million— what would be Nolan’s biggest debut sinceThe Dark Knight Rises($160.9 million) in 2012.Universal Picturesspent approximately $125 million marketing the $250 million production, which starsMatt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron,and Jon Bernthal. The ensemble epic begins a three-week Imax exclusive run this weekend, generating $30–$40 million in advance ticket sales, one of the strongest presale performances in years.
CAMPAIGN
Fans Make Cross-Country Trips to See ‘The Odyssey’ in Imax 70mm as Presales Break Records
The marketing campaign forChristopher Nolan’sThe Odysseyhas sparked extraordinary audience behavior ahead of its opening, with fans making cross-country trips andrescheduling major life eventsto secure tickets to the film’s Imax 70mm engagements. Shot entirely on Imax’s 70mm cameras,The Odysseyis the first feature film produced exclusively in that format. The film set a record forfirst-day premium large format presales at AMC, surpassing any studio title since 2022. The organic fan enthusiasm has effectively extendedUniversal’spaid campaign into a cultural conversation centered on the theatrical experience itself.
STREAMINGAWARDS
‘Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender’ Sets Limited Theatrical Run as Paramount Eyes Oscar Campaign
Paramount Pictureshas set a limited theatrical run forAvatar Aang: The Last Airbender, with the animated feature screening atAMC Burbank Town Center 6andAMC Empire 25in Manhattan from July 24 to 30, three showtimes daily, as it pursues awards eligibility. The film will simultaneously debut onParamount+on July 25, and a special screening is scheduled at San Diego Comic-Con on July 24. Tickets went on sale today at 9 a.m. ET. The film was originally planned for a wide October theatrical release before Paramount shifted it to streaming in December 2025 following an April leak.
ANALYSISBOX OFFICE
Hollywood on Pace for $10 Billion Year as Gen Z Audiences Drive 2026 Box Office Rebound
Hollywood is on pace for a$10 billion domestic yearin 2026, driven by a wave of surprise hits includingProject Hail Mary,Obsession,andBackrooms, alongside a new generation of Gen Z filmgoers discovering cinema as a social event. First-quarter ticket sales rose23 percentyear-over-year, and the 2026 slate now includes 115 to 120 wide releases, up sharply from 94 in 2024. New theatrical distributors are entering the market alongside returning players likeAmazon MGM Studios, which will release 13 films theatrically in 2026, compared with three in 2025. Summer revenues are already tracking near 2019 levels.
INDUSTRY
2026 TV Upfront Market Has Effectively Wrapped as Streaming Commitments Rise and Broadcast Falls
The2026 television upfrontadvertising market has effectively concluded, with the bulk of deals closing before the traditional July 4 deadline, though most major media companies declined to confirm specifics publicly.Fox Corporationdisclosed high-single-digit percentage volume growth across its portfolio, including a double-digit increase forTubiand record volume for sports programming. Industry-wide data shows streaming ad commitments rising approximately 17.9 percent to $13.2 billion, while broadcast primetime fell 2.5 percent to $9.1 billion. Media buyers pushed back on streaming pricing, questioning why upfront commitments are necessary when digital inventory remains abundant year-round.
INDUSTRY
Amazon Closes 2026 Upfront With All Major Holding Companies, Reports Year-Over-Year Ad Growth
Amazonannounced it has closed 2026 upfront negotiations with all major advertising holding companies for the 2026–27 season, reportingyear-over-year growthin volume from both new and returning advertisers.Alan Moss, vice president of ad sales for Amazon Ads, confirmed the company exceeded its volume goal during the market cycle. The result adds to Amazon’s growing position in the premium video advertising space, wherePrime Video’sad-supported tier has become a significant draw for advertisers seeking large-scale streaming audiences. Amazon’s disclosure comes as most other major streamers and networks declined to comment on their individual upfront outcomes.
Dallara IndyCar Factory in 2017 — NaBUru38, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
OVALCALENDAR
IndyCar’s Nashville Race Could Set TV Records Thanks to a World Cup Kickstart
The Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday, July 19, begins at 5:30 PM ET on FOX immediately after the FIFA World Cup Final, a broadcast expected to draw more than 40 million viewers. IndyCar’s Road America race in 2026 drew 1.803 million viewers — a 131 percent increase over 2025 — benefiting from a World Cup soccer telecast immediately preceding the race. Nashville’s placement directly after the World Cup Final on FOX gives the 300-lap, 399-mile oval race a comparable lead-in audience, raising the possibility of new IndyCar television viewership records.
CHAMPIONSHIP
Kirkwood in Championship Hunt: “I Love Where We’re At” Heading into Nashville
Kyle Kirkwood enters the Nashville round second in the IndyCar Drivers’ Championship, trailing Alex Palou by 56 points with seven races remaining. Driving for Andretti Global, Kirkwood has collected seven top-five finishes in 11 races in 2026, including a win at Arlington. He said “I love where we’re at” when assessing the season’s stretch run, expressing confidence in the car’s performance across all track types. Kirkwood cited Nashville, Washington D.C., and Markham as tracks where he is optimistic about the team’s chances as the title battle enters its decisive second half.
OVAL
Fast Facts: IndyCar Returns to Nashville Superspeedway for the 11th Time
Nashville Superspeedway hosts its 11th IndyCar event this weekend, the fourth oval race on the 2026 calendar. The 1.33-mile track in Lebanon, Tennessee covers 300 laps over 399 miles. Among drivers still in the 2026 field, Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden are the only prior Nashville oval winners. Dixon leads the laps-led chart with 248, while Newgarden accounts for 13 of the last 30 oval race wins. Consecutive-start milestones are in play: Dixon will make his 368th series start, Rahal his 268th, and Newgarden his 231st. Practice begins Saturday, July 18, with the race Sunday at 5:30 PM ET on FOX.
OVALDRIVER NEWS
Armstrong Carries Confidence to Nashville, Cites New Three-Year MSR Deal
Marcus Armstrong will contest the Nashville Superspeedway round aboard Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 66 entry after recently signing a three-year extension with the team. Armstrong is sixth in oval points through 2026 and finished seventh at Nashville in 2024. He will transition to the No. 60 car in 2027 after Felix Rosenqvist departs MSR. Ahead of Nashville, Armstrong noted the team is reducing downforce for the oval, saying, “This year we’re actually removing some downforce — I don’t agree with it but the racing is always good side-by-side.” He added the 399-mile race is “going to be a long one.”
DRIVER NEWS
Vanda Pharmaceuticals Signs on to Back Schumacher’s No. 47 for Four Races
Vanda Pharmaceuticals has signed on as a sponsor of Mick Schumacher’s No. 47 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda for four races — Nashville, Portland, Washington D.C., and Monterey. The backing promotes Vanda’s Nereus motion sickness drug. In announcing the deal, Vanda noted that 47 years have passed since the United States last approved a new motion sickness treatment, a figure that aligns with Schumacher’s car number. The four-race partnership gives Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing additional commercial support as the season enters its final stretch, with Schumacher continuing his IndyCar campaign in the second half of 2026.
DRIVER NEWS
Points Leader Palou Participates in RRDC SAFEisFAST Ask A Pro Session
IndyCar points leader Alex Palou participated in the RRDC SAFEisFAST Ask A Pro program on July 15, answering questions from young racing drivers. The Road Racing Drivers Club’s SAFEisFAST initiative brings top-level competitors together with aspiring racers to discuss professional motorsport. Palou, who leads the 2026 IndyCar Drivers’ Championship with 404 points — 56 ahead of second-place Kyle Kirkwood heading into Nashville — engaged with the program’s educational mission ahead of the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix. SAFEisFAST Ask A Pro sessions are published as video segments connecting aspiring drivers with current IndyCar competitors.
Drivers' Championship
- 1. Alex Palou — 404 pts
- 2. Kyle Kirkwood — 348 pts
- 3. Christian Lundgaard — 339 pts
- 4. David Malukas — 338 pts
- 5. Pato O’Ward — 310 pts
- 6. Josef Newgarden — 270 pts
Engine Manufacturer Championship
- 1. Honda — 892 pts
- 2. Chevrolet — 868 pts
BMW M8 GTE – Endurance Race Car – Le Mans 2019 14 55 46 030000 — Pittigrilli~commonswiki, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
WECCALENDAR
WEC Confirms Barcelona and Monza for Second Half as Middle East Rounds Dropped
The FIA World Endurance Championship has confirmed a significant calendar revision for its 2026 second half, replacing the previously scheduled Middle East rounds with two European venues. Qatar’s slot has been replaced by Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, while Bahrain makes way for Monza. The changes bring two of Europe’s most celebrated circuits into the WEC schedule following the series’ summer break, which begins now after last weekend’s Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo. The second half of the season is set to open at the Circuit of The Americas with the Lone Star Le Mans event on September 4–6.
WECHYPERCARANALYSIS
Why Strategic Variation Is Making WEC 2026 a Fascinating Championship Watch
An Autosport post-São Paulo analysis argues that 2026’s varied pit strategy windows are making the WEC one of motorsport’s most tactically compelling championships. The piece highlights how the Alpine No. 35 led the most laps at Interlagos yet was never a genuine victory contender, while the eventual race-winning BMW No. 15 ran in fifth for extended periods as the effective “virtual leader” on strategy. With varying pit stop windows, fuel loads, and tyre management separating manufacturers, the analysis concludes that track position at any given moment tells only part of the story in a season where strategic diversity is reshaping the title fight each round.
GT WORLD CHALLENGEENTRY
Lionspeed Porsche Heads 44-Car Entry for GT World Challenge Europe Misano Sprint Cup
A 44-car entry has been confirmed for the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup round at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, scheduled for July 17–19. Lionspeed heads the entry in Porsche machinery, leading a field that represents one of the stronger Sprint Cup grids of the 2026 season. The Misano Sprint Cup operates under SRO’s standalone Sprint format — distinct from the series’ Endurance Cup weekends — featuring shorter races and a varied driver format across the Italian coastal venue. Multiple manufacturers will be represented across the Balance of Performance grid, with the event completing a busy mid-July sprint on the European sportscar calendar.
IMSASCHEDULE
VP Racing SportsCar Challenge Announces Its 2027 Calendar
IMSA has released the 2027 schedule for the VP Racing SportsCar Challenge, the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship support series. The calendar confirmation, reported by GT Report on July 14, continues the series’ role as an integral support category running at major IMSA event weekends. The VP Racing SportsCar Challenge provides a competitive platform for prototype and GT machinery below the main WeatherTech classes, serving as a development and entry-point series for drivers and teams with aspirations in North American sportscar racing. The 2027 announcement signals continued IMSA commitment to the support ladder structure through the next season.
LMP2TECHNICALWEC
ORECA Targets Q2 2027 Test for New Oreca 09 LMP2 as Gibson Engine Confirmed
ORECA technical director Rémi Taffin has confirmed that the company is targeting a Q2 2027 test window for the new Oreca 09 LMP2 car, which will debut in competition at the 2028 European Le Mans Series. The replacement for the dominant Oreca 07 will feature a new 3.4-litre twin-turbocharged Gibson Technology engine. Taffin told Sportscar365 that despite ORECA’s near-monopoly in LMP2, “nothing is secure” — the new car must earn customer loyalty on its merits. ORECA is simultaneously managing Genesis and Ford Hypercar programmes targeting the 2030 regulations, adding complexity to an already demanding development timeline.
WECHYPERCARFERRARI
Calado Lucky to Escape Damage After Pit Exit Barrier Strike at São Paulo
Ferrari AF Corse’s James Calado was fortunate to continue after striking barriers on the pit lane exit during his opening stint at the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo, with a sponsor bollard draping over the nose of the No. 51 Ferrari 499P. Despite the contact, the team confirmed no structural damage, and Calado — who emerged leading the race at that point — went on to finish second behind the winning BMW No. 15. The team endurance manager described losing “a few years of my life” at the sight of the incident but praised the result as Ferrari’s best Brazilian outcome after two years of struggling with pace around Interlagos, and said the team can now approach the second half with “a fighting spirit.”
IMSATRIBUTE
Motorsport Mourns Former Grand-Am President Tom Bledsoe, Dead at 71
The motorsport community is mourning the passing of Tom Bledsoe, the former Grand-Am Road Racing President, who died at the age of 71. Bledsoe joined NASCAR in 1990 and rose to become Grand-Am’s Chief Operating Officer before serving as President from 2010 to 2012, a tenure instrumental in establishing the organisational foundation that led to the series’ merger into what is now IMSA. IMSA President John Doonan and CEO Ed Bennett issued a joint statement remembering Bledsoe’s “instrumental role in the growth of endurance sports car racing” and crediting him with helping “lay the foundation for the continued success IMSA enjoys today.”
Align Technology logo — Align Technology, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
AI/ANALYTICS
New AI Risks: ‘Cognitive Spoofing’ and Fake Expertise
Dr. David Kirk, chief medical officer at Regard, warns that “cognitive spoofing” — AI projecting the appearance of expertise without the experience and judgment clinicians develop over years of practice — is healthcare's next major AI challenge. The concern: polished AI responses can mask knowledge gaps in trainees, making it harder for attending physicians to spot where instruction is needed. “We have been so focused on AI getting facts wrong that we missed the bigger problem: AI helping people fake expertise,” Kirk said. Patients are also arriving at appointments with AI-generated diagnoses from consumer tools, requiring longer and more nuanced clinical conversations. Kirk calls for continuous AI governance after deployment, with transparency to patients about when AI contributed to care decisions.
INTEROPERABILITY
A Big Challenge for Healthcare AI: Simplify the Stack
Patrice Bordron, chief digital information officer at Community Health Systems in Franklin, Tennessee, argues that interoperability — not AI itself — is “the foundation that enables virtually everything else we hope to accomplish.” Health systems have accumulated sprawling application portfolios that fragment data, duplicate workflows, and expand cyberattack surfaces. Community Health Systems is pursuing an application standardization initiative intended to create a more connected and consistent digital ecosystem. Bordron warns executives against buying another application for every new problem, calling instead for evaluating whether core platforms can fill the gap. His conclusion: “Healthcare's challenge is no longer digitization — it is simplification.”
POLICY
House Ways & Means Markup Targets Prior Auth Abuse, Rural RPM Access
The House Ways and Means Committee marked up a package of health care legislation on July 15. Bills include prior authorization reform for Medicare Advantage — targeting a process where nearly 81% of denied authorizations that are appealed are later overturned — and legislation to expand remote patient monitoring reimbursement in rural and underserved communities. Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) said the bills share a goal to “put the American people in charge of their own health care.” Additional bills address nursing home visitation rights during emergencies, rural anesthesia payment disparities, long-term acute care access, Medicare Advantage insurer financial transparency, and price transparency enforcement.
AI/ANALYTICS
Neko Health Raises $700M to Expand AI Full-Body Health Scans to the U.S.
Neko Health, the Swedish preventive health company cofounded by Spotify founder Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, has raised $700 million in Series C funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners co-led the round, with participation from General Catalyst, Atomico, Lakestar, and investors including Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Neko's flagship product is a 60-minute, radiation-free full-body scan that analyzes skin health, metabolic health, stroke and heart attack risk factors, and pre-diabetes biomarkers, with a physician consultation immediately after. The company plans to expand into the U.S. for the first time, with New York as an initial target. Nilsonne said “the vast majority of our members return after their first scan, and when they do, their health markers move in the right direction.”
AI/ANALYTICS
Lyric Acquires Concert to Expand AI-Enabled Precision Medicine Payments
Healthcare payment intelligence company Lyric has acquired Concert, a precision medicine payment technology company, integrating Concert's policy intelligence into the Lyric42 platform. Lyric helps health plans analyze claims for accuracy and compliance before payment; Concert works with plans, providers, labs, and health tech vendors to manage diagnostic and genetic testing payment accuracy. Ravi Umarji, Lyric president and CFO, said Concert's “ground-up approach to synchronize human- and machine-readable policy will plug into health plan workflows through the Lyric42 platform,” shifting the model “from reactive enforcement at disconnected checkpoints to shared standards.” The companies had an established partnership since 2023.
WORKFORCE
CIOs Explain How IT Departments Are Changing in the AI Era
CIOs at health systems across the U.S. say IT is shifting from software deployment to co-owning clinical outcomes. Tony Damron, CIO and EVP of Pikeville Medical Center in Kentucky, said when his team launched an Epic Ambient AI pilot with roughly 30 providers this summer, the conversation was “how do we redesign workflows and measure impact on documentation burden and patient face-time” — not just deployment logistics. Damron added that governance has become “a core IT deliverable, not an afterthought,” especially at a rural, independent health system without a large data science team. Both Damron and Garrett Olin, CIO of Shasta Community Health Center, cited agentic AI as their boldest bet over the next two years, targeting automation across clinical, revenue cycle, and finance functions.
POLICY
CMS Proposes Medicare Ban on Third-Party Remote Patient Monitoring
CMS is proposing a Medicare payment ban for remote patient monitoring services delivered by third-party vendors, part of the 2027 physician fee schedule released July 14. Under the proposal, only clinical staff employed by the billing practice — not contracted third parties — could furnish RPM services. CMS cited a 2024 HHS OIG report finding 43% of Medicare RPM enrollees in 2022 missed at least one required service component, and noted RPM payments jumped 31% from $408 million in 2023 to $536 million in 2024. The Alliance for Connected Care's executive director warned the proposal “ends RPM, both high quality and low quality.” Comments are due Sept. 14; most provisions would take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
CYBERSECURITY
Hacking Group Claims Billion-Record Breach, Says It Won’t Target Hospitals
A cybercriminal group calling itself The Syndicate claims to have breached Israeli fintech firm Nayax and stolen more than 1 billion payment card records, while telling DataBreaches.net it steers clear of attacking hospitals. “We don't target hospitals or critical infrastructure, anything that directly endangers lives,” the group said, adding its focus is financial services, technology and retail companies with significant capital. The episode adds to a growing catalog of extortion groups publicly describing rules against hitting hospitals and other life-safety systems, even as federal officials and healthcare cybersecurity professionals continue working to disrupt ransomware and data-extortion activity that does reach patient care environments.
EHR/EMR
Nicklaus Children’s $75M Epic Project Isn’t Just About IT
Nicklaus Children's Health System, the Miami-based pediatric system, is replacing its Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) EHR with Epic in a project estimated at about $75 million including training, software, and implementation fees. CEO Matthew Love frames the investment as strategic growth capital rather than a pure IT upgrade. The rollout will affect more than 5,000 physicians, nurses, and staff across three hospital campuses, with a single “big bang” go-live set for May 1, 2027. Love's primary value driver: seamless NICU transfer records. “In the middle of the night, when that baby needs to be transferred out of the NICU at 2 a.m., the electronic health record will be seamless,” he said. CIO Michelle Hurtarte owns the project.
PXL 20231118 150122002 — Voluntour, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
POLICYREGULATION
IRS Moves to Codify Racial Discrimination Ban and Johnson Amendment Rules for Tax-Exempt Private Schools
The Internal Revenue Service has proposed regulations addressing how Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status applies to private schools, according to a report in The NonProfit Times. The proposed guidance—filed with the Office of Management and Budget under Identifier 1545-BS05—focuses on two issues: applying the fundamental public policy prohibition against racial discrimination in determining eligibility for tax-exempt status, and providing guidance on the Johnson Amendment’s statutory bar on partisan political campaign activity by charitable organizations. The proposed changes have not yet been made public, and no implementation timetable has been announced. Both items were included in the Treasury Department’s 2025–2026 Priority Guidance Plan.
FUNDRAISINGACCOUNTABILITY
Corporate Funding to Equity-Focused Nonprofits Falls from 62% to 36%, Benevity Survey Finds
Companies are pulling back from equity-focused philanthropy in 2026 even as overall corporate giving rises, according to Benevity’s sixth annual State of Corporate Purpose report. The share of companies that said they would increase funding for diverse-led, equity-focused nonprofits fell from 62 percent in 2024 to 36 percent in 2026. Funding commitments for international development dropped from 56 to 32 percent, and for crisis response from 58 to 31 percent. Nearly two-thirds of companies changed which nonprofits or programs they funded. Nearly three-quarters of corporate impact leaders said the political and regulatory environment directly influenced their strategy. Corporate giving overall rose eight percentage points year-over-year.
PHILANTHROPY
Foundations Urged to Adopt Outcomes-Based Funding as Federal Cuts Reshape Sector
Foundations face one of the most urgent periods in their history as federal budget cuts, inequality, climate change, and artificial intelligence disruption mount simultaneously, according to an opinion piece published July 14 in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The author argues that the conventional approach of unrestricted grants is insufficient to match the scale of current challenges, and proposes a model combining initial unrestricted funding—giving nonprofits room to develop creative approaches—with outcomes-based awards that reward documented results. Many funders are already increasing annual grant-making budgets, the piece notes, but the structural question of how grants are designed, not just how large, remains underaddressed.
POLICYREGULATION
OMB Grant Overhaul Draws More Than 40,000 Comments as Nonprofit Sector Pushes Back
The public comment period on the federal government’s proposed overhaul of grant rules closed July 13 after drawing more than 40,000 submissions, the National Council of Nonprofits reported. The Office of Management and Budget had proposed sweeping revisions to the Uniform Guidance—the framework governing federal grants and cooperative agreements—on May 29, 2026. The proposal would grant administrators unprecedented discretion to withhold, suspend, or terminate grants, and would prohibit federal awards from funding programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The proposed effective date is October 1, 2026. Nonprofits, state and local governments, and higher education institutions were among the most active commenters.
IMPACT
Community Disaster Fatigue Rises as Repeated Floods Leave Nonprofits Stretched Thin
Nonprofit organizations and emergency management agencies are confronting a growing phenomenon known as community disaster fatigue as repeated flooding returns to the same towns before residents can fully recover, according to a new analysis in Nonprofit Quarterly. Flash floods swept across communities from Texas to Kentucky and through the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast during June and early July 2026. Cocke County, Tennessee, still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s 2024 floodwaters, faced new flooding in June. Tioga County, Pennsylvania, saw early-July flooding in communities hit by Hurricane Debby two years prior. Community disaster fatigue is defined as the deterioration of a community’s ability to function when repeated disasters overwhelm available resources.