Outside of the entirety of the ocean, the thing that probably scares me most about the things the world produces are natural disasters. You're telling me that sometimes the wind gets so fast it can pick up a dang cow? I'm smaller than a cow! I'd have no chance. And it's this fear that I, and I assume many of you, have that sits at the core of Funnel Runners, an online co-op game where you have to fix up a fan to escape a massive tornado.
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Here's how Funnel Runners works. You find yourself in your average American suburb, with you and up to apparently seven of your friends facing off against a tornado. The devs have previously framed the game as one akin to survival horror, said tornado acting as the evil critter/beastie/figure hunting you down. Fun way of viewing such a thing! The whole goal is exploring the aforementioned city to find all of the prerequisite parts needed to repair your van so you can escape before the tornado gets too intense.
That means finding things like spare tires, oil for your engine, that sort of thing. You have a few tools at your disposal to help you get to the point of full repair too, with small things such as a flashlight for dimly lit buildings, or a radar to track where the tornado (or tornados, as they can multiply) is on the map, or a defibrillator to bring back one of your pals that's about to bite the proverbial bucket. There's a lot to manage, and you're at risk from things like lightning and fire too, not even considering the fact that seemingly entire hurricanes can form.
According to Supernova Studios, the game is technically done and fully playable, opting for an early access release in order to let those that play the game to help shape what's to come. There are plans for new areas, weather events, hazards, mission types, and more complex progression, with the current plan being that the game will be in early access for about a year. If any of this tickles your fancy, you can pick up the game on Steam now.
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Climate lawsuits seeking massive damages from fossil fuel companies increasingly hinge on the question: How reliably can scientists pin specific extreme weather events on human-caused climate change?
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Very confidently for events like heat waves and heavy rainfall—but much less so for others, like thunderstorms and tornadoes—according to a major new report published Thursday by the United States' top science advisory body.
Entitled "Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and their Impacts," the 254-page paper updates a 2016 assessment by the same institutions, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).
"Significant progress has been made over the last decade, with major advancements in methods and modeling that allow for more robust assessments of extreme events," said James Hurrell, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and chair of the committee that wrote the report.
Operating under a charter signed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, the prestigious academies are independent nonprofit institutions tasked with advising the government on scientific policy.
But these are no ordinary times under the administration of President Donald Trump, who has attacked the very idea that burning fossil fuels is warming the planet.
Getting specific
Scientists have no such doubts. They have known for decades that climate change is altering the frequency and intensity of several types of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, heat waves and extreme rainfall.
But the field of attribution science allows them to move beyond detecting broad trends to investigating individual events—what the authors call extreme event attribution (EEA)—which can provide vital information to policymakers.
EEA studies compare an event's characteristics, such as its probability and intensity in the current climate, to a "counterfactual" world without human-caused emissions.
The authors found that EEA capabilities have improved markedly over the past decade, thanks to advances in understanding the physical drivers of events, expanded observational data from satellites and radar, new statistical techniques and better models.
But the gains are uneven, and significant challenges remain for certain types of events. Global models, for example, lack the resolution to capture climate change's impact on severe thunderstorms, even as confidence for hurricanes is higher.
Confidence estimates are also lower for underdeveloped parts of the world, where a lack of consistent, long-term records limits attribution science's reach.
Another emerging field is extreme event impact attribution (EEIA), which studies how far human-caused climate change has shaped the impacts of an extreme event—human health effects or economic losses, for instance. The authors said this subfield has enormous potential but remains in its infancy.
They also called for a common framework for attribution studies, noting that differing methods "sometimes lead to confusion among the public and other stakeholders when studies of the same event produce different results."
Sowing doubt
Still, the results are likely to boost the multitude of lawsuits working their way through courts across the country.
Oregon's Multnomah County, for example, is suing fossil fuel giants for more than $51 billion over pollution that fueled a deadly 2021 heat dome in the Pacific Northwest, during which hundreds died.
Ahead of the report's publication, Republican lawmakers sought to cast doubt on the authors' work, sending a letter in April to the president of NASEM alleging bias and demanding details on the authors' professional ties.
Energy In Depth, an oil industry blog, singled out Delta Merner, a scientist with the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, for criticism in a Jan. 2, 2025, post, and she left the panel the same day.
At the federal level, the Trump administration has sued Democratic-led states pursuing climate damages claims against oil and gas majors and has sought to strike down state "Climate Superfund" laws requiring polluters to pay for the consequences.
Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have introduced the "Stop Climate Shakedowns Act," a bill that would block climate damage lawsuits from proceeding in court—a move critics call a de facto immunity shield for fossil fuel companies.
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SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND - AUGUST 17: A general aerial view of the sixth and seventh holes at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, the host course for the 154th Open Championship (Photo by David Cannon/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
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R&A via Getty Images
A nine-mile stretch of England's Golf Coast is currently the center of the golf world as Royal Birkdale hosts The Open before attention shifts to nearby Royal Lytham & St Annes for AIG Women's Open week. The rare pairing of neighboring venues hosting consecutive major championships gives the R&A an opportunity to market its two biggest events as a single connected commercial showcase.
Rather than treating the championships as separate stops on the calendar, the governing body views their proximity as a chance to extend golf’s global spotlight across the region.
"In a commercial sense and for our fans, it creates an even greater period of attention on both our championships, which enhances storytelling opportunities and provides additional value for stakeholders," R&A CEO Mark Darbon said.
One example was the inaugural Heroes Classic on the Tuesday of Championship week, a new exhibition featuring reigning Open champions Scottie Scheffler and Miyu Yamashita among others that helped bridge the two events.
The strategy ultimately depends on the tractor-beam pull of The Open itself, a championship that has long entranced golf fans with windswept links, cavernous pot bunkers so deep some players have to jump to see out of them, and thick gorse that seems almost to require a sacrifice of golf balls before letting them pass onto the next hole.
Since its founding in 1860, golf's oldest major has built an aura few championships can rival. Once the annual links test is in the books, the R&A hopes shifting the spotlight just 30 minutes down the road to the AIG Women's Open will make the follow-up championship feel less like a siloed event and more like part of a double feature.
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The Other 99%
While ticket odds haven't yet reached Augusta National levels of scarcity, The Open attracted more than one million ballot applications for roughly 300,000 tickets this year, underscoring demand for golf's oldest major.
For the R&A, this creates an evolving challenge: how do they build deeper relationships with the far larger audience that experiences the championship from afar.
"The future isn't simply about accommodating more people on site—it's about creating more value and more meaningful connections with audiences wherever they are," Darbon said.
He said the R&A has recently embarked on a new fan plan for the "other 99%": those who follow The Open through television and digital platforms rather than in person.
"Our focus is on making those experiences richer, more immersive and more personalised. Whether that's through live content, behind-the-scenes access, enhanced statistics, social storytelling or new digital products, the opportunity is to bring fans closer to the Championship than ever before."
While packed galleries will always remain central to The Open experience, the R&A believes its biggest long-term opportunity lies beyond the ropes.
“Attendance will always be important, but digital engagement gives us the ability to reach millions of people globally. That's where some of our greatest growth opportunities exist.”
Double Play
Both championships are also central to the R&A's long-term ambition of bringing 22 million new golfers into the game by 2034. For Darbon, the majors pull double duty as marquee sporting events and also gateways to goosing participation around the world.
“Major championships can provide inspiration. They showcase the very best of our sport and create moments that capture people's imagination. However, inspiration alone isn't enough. Our role is to connect that inspiration with accessible opportunities to play.”
Getting from inspiration into participation is particularly important in the United States, one of the R&A’s priority growth markets. For Darbon, future success means ensuring The Open and the AIG Women's Open become even more established fixtures on the American sporting calendar than they are today, attracting bigger audiences and fostering deeper fan engagement.
If the strategy connects with fans, the R&A hopes the two-week spotlight won't simply produce another pair of major champions. The idea is to broaden the commercial appeal and reach of both events while simultaneously attracting more players to take up the game.
"Ultimately, success isn't simply about numbers," he said. "It's about ensuring that The Open and the AIG Women's Open remain among the most relevant, respected and compelling championships in world sport, while helping more people discover and enjoy the game of golf." %!s()
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 24: Harold 'Hal' Williams attends the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on September 24, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Monica Morgan/WireImage)
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WireImage
Hal Williams, who starred as Officer “Smitty” Smith on the 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son and Lester Jenkins on the 1980s sitcom 227, has died.
Williams’ representative told TMZ that the longtime actor died Wednesday morning from natural causes in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 91.
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Williams appeared as Smitty in a recurring role opposite Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson in hit Sanford and Son in 20 episodes during the six-season run of the show from 1972-77. Williams also reprised Smitty for Foxx’s spinoff series Sanford, appearing in five episodes over two seasons from 1980-81.
He a member of the main cast as Jenkins in 227, appearing in 115 episodes of the series, which ran for five seasons on NBC from 1985 to 1990. Set in an apartment building, the sitcom also starred Helen Martin, Marla Gibbs and Alaina Reed-Hall. The show also launched the career of Regina King, who was part of the main cast in her first screen role.
Williams also appeared in a recurring role as Harley Foster on the TV drama The Waltons from 1973 to 1980 and played Drill Sergeant L.C. "Ted" Ross in Goldie Hawn’s hit film comedy Private Benjamin in 1980.
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LOS ANGELES - SEPTEMBER 1: Private Benjamin, a CBS television sitcom based on the movie of the same name, about life in the Army. September 1, 1982. Los Angeles, CA. Hal Williams (portrays Sgt. Ted Ross). (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
CBS via Getty Images
Williams reprised the role in a spinoff sitcom of the same name from 1981-83, with Lorna Patterson taking over Hawn’s role of Pvt. Judy Benjamin. Williams appeared in all 39 episodes of the series, which ran for three seasons on CBS.
BET paid tribute to the prolific actor in an X post on Thursday, writing, “Today we remember Hal Williams, best known as Officer ‘Smitty’ on Sanford and Son and Lester Jenkins on 227. Before Hollywood knew his name he was working as a corrections officer and postal worker in Columbus, Ohio.
"He bet on himself in his 30s and gave us nearly six decades of warmth, humor, and authenticity across some of the most beloved shows in television history. Williams reminds us that it is never too late to become who you were meant to be.”
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PARSIPPANY, NJ - OCTOBER 29: Howard Platt, Hal Williams and Nathaniel Taylor attend Chiller Theater Expo Winter 2017 at Parsippany Hilton on October 29, 2017 in Parsippany, New Jersey. (Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images)
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Hal Williams Appeared In More Than 70 Screen Roles
Born Dec. 14, 1934, in Columbus, Ohio, Hal Williams’ first credited screen appearance came in the 1970 Burt Reynolds crime drama Dan August.
Williams’ other television credits over his career included numerous guest roles in such series as That Girl, The Jimmy Stewart Show, The New Dick Van Dkye Show, Cannon, Police Woman, Harry O, Gunsmoke, Kung Fu, S.W.A.T., Police Story, Quincy, M.E., Good Times, The White Shadow and What’s Happening!
The actor also appeared in a guest capacity in such series as The Dukes of Hazzard, Gimme a Break!, The Jeffersons, Webster, Hill Street Blues, Night Court, Magnum, P.I., L.A. Law, Tales from the Crypt, Suddenly Susan, Moesha and Parks and Recreation.
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Williams also appeared in an episode of the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, the sequel to the 1977 landmark miniseries Roots.
On film, Williams’ credits included the Clint Eastwood crime thriller The Rookie, the Ashton Kutcher comedy Guess Who and the voice role of the father of Whip (Denzel Washington) in the airline disaster drama Flight.
Hal Williams last appeared in a pair of episodes of the Kathy Bates’ legal drama, Matlock, in 2024 and 2025.
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Keith Thomas has paralysis, but can now move and feel his hands again thanks to a brain implant
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MATTHEW LIBASSI/Feinstein Institutes for Medical research
A man who became paralysed after a diving accident six years ago regained the ability to move and feel pressure in his hands thanks to brain stimulation. Now, researchers have revealed he maintained this ability for months after the stimulation was turned off. This suggests the intervention has caused a rerouting of his neuronal connections through neuroplasticity.
“We turned everything off completely, for many months, and yet he’s maintained these gains,” says Chad Bouton at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York. “That’s unheard of.”
Keith Thomas, 48, was paralysed from the chest down in July 2020. He had no sensation or control over his limbs and had significant muscle wasting, says Bouton.
In 2023, Bouton and his colleagues performed a double neural bypass surgery on Thomas, placing five electrodes into his brain in regions associated with arm movements and feeling. They then connected computer cables to these electrodes, so artificial intelligence could interpret his movement intentions. That information was then wired into electronic splints that stimulated his arms, hands and fingers to carry out his intended movements, enabling him to pick up coffee cups and scratch his face.
To recreate the sense of feeling, the team embedded force sensors into 3D-printed wearable devices for Thomas’s hands and fingers, which sent feedback via electrical stimulation into the brain’s sensory areas.
After conducting a series of experiments – which even involved Thomas feeling objects through another person’s hand – Bouton says the team planned to stop the stimulation for about a month, to test for any lingering effects. “Then we had a fire in the building, and it actually forced us to stop stimulation for even longer than we’d planned, for about three months.”
Thomas has even been able to move and feel sensations through another person’s hand
MATTHEW LIBASSI/Feinstein Institutes for Medical research
The unexpected interruption led to surprising findings: Thomas continued to maintain strength, feeling and function in his hands. “He’s now also controlling individual fingers with even more accuracy, so that’s big,” says Bouton.
In a video interview with New Scientist, Thomas raised his elbows nearly to shoulder level and described feeling “tingling” in his wrist in response to pressure, even when he’s “unplugged from the computer”. “When I first felt it, it was amazing,” he says. “I’m used to it now.”
Sergey Stavisky at the University of California, Davis, says the work suggests that this approach promotes lasting recovery of the nervous system. “The goal is to help the nervous system partially heal so the person can move their own body better,” he says.
“If these improvements persist even when the system is turned off, then the device is doing more than temporarily restoring function,” says Daniel Lu at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It may be helping the nervous system reorganise itself through neuroplasticity.”
This describes the brain’s ability to rewire itself by forming new neural connections, such as after an injury or even in response to a new hobby. “After an injury such as spinal cord injury, those same mechanisms may help restore function by strengthening spared pathways or recruiting alternative circuits, allowing neural signals to travel through networks that were previously too weak to support meaningful movement,” says Lu.
The researchers have observed stronger neural responses in Thomas’s sensory cortex since the intervention.
But this is just a single case report, so it’s unclear how well this approach would work on other people with paralysis from different types of injuries. Charles Greenspon at the University of Chicago says he has spent years working on stimulation to restore touch in people with spinal cord injuries and continues to find that some respond better than others, and some not at all. “And we have no idea why,” he says. “So, the question is: can you replicate it? This is a really ambitious study, but we need to see them replicating their results in more participants before we believe the hype.”
As to Thomas’s future, “at this point now we know nothing’s impossible, or anything’s possible”, says Boulton. “I think it’s possible he will continue to to improve,” he adds. %!s()
