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Created by Timm and Eric Radomski, Batman: The Animated Series is one of the most influential animated shows of all time. It created entirely new DC characters like Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, who would become part of Batman canon, and redefined the backstories of existing characters like Mr. Freeze to turn one-note villains into tragic figures. Caped Crusader, a spiritual sequel from Timm and James Tucker, takes a similar approach to The Animated Series, attempting to redefine those characters yet again, this time through the lens of 1940s film noir. Season 1 largely succeeded, especially in its depiction of Gotham’s deep corruption and its subtle reimagining of Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Caped Crusader season 2 attempts a similar trick and mostly falls flat. Ten new episodes focus on reinventing members of Batman’s rogues’ gallery while putting the spotlight on more minor characters, but few of them truly shine.

The weakest part of Caped Crusader season 2 is Eddie Nygma (Ronan Raftery), which is a problem since he gets more screen time than any other villain. Rather than portraying the brilliant trickster of the comics or even the Zodiac-style serial killer Matt Reeves made him in The Batman, Caped Crusader turns the Riddler into a brutal thug who gets his name not from a love of brainteasers but a propensity to use a Tommy gun to riddle people with holes. The character is unrecognizable aside from his green suit and hat.

In his own movie, Reeves, who is an executive producer on Caped Crusader, showed a talent for stripping away classic gimmicks from both Riddler and the Penguin and leaving behind a rich character with understandable motivations. But there’s nothing to this Riddler, who somehow manages to have a seemingly endless army of goons despite regularly throwing their lives away. The fact that it takes Batman so long to handle someone who is hardly a criminal mastermind is a discredit to the Dark Knight's detective skills.

That’s a recurring problem with the season, where Batman is often more observer than hero. Sometimes that works to create a powerful sense of inevitability, like the standout episode “The Spectral Hand,” which pays off season 1’s plot focused on the corrupt cop Jim Corrigan (Roger Craig Smith) with a twisted ghost story. But a surprising number of episodes play out in ways where Batman’s actions barely matter; the villains mostly just kill each other, creating far too convenient endings instead of what could be thorny conclusions.

All the screentime the Riddler gets leaves other villains underutilized. Caped Crusader revives Freeze’s original name, Mr. Zero, and then makes him extremely unimpressive, as if the series was determined to undo Timm’s own work. Turning Hattie Tetch (Laraine Newman) into a talk show host is a clever twist on the Mad Hatter’s mind control powers reminiscent of Darkseid’s agent Glorious Godfrey, but the series never really focuses on her motivations or the impact of her broadcasts enough to make her feel really threatening. Scarecrow has a great new look inspired by a Black Plague mask, but he’s thinly sketched and his episode mostly focuses on the return of Harley Quinn (Jamie Chung).

Yet for all these failings, Caped Crusader has moments of absolute brilliance. No one can replace Kevin Conroy, but Hamish Linklater nails the transition between the grim, brooding Batman and the artificial, vapid charm of Bruce Wayne. Warner Bros. Animation delivers on both the subtle moments, like Bruce’s eyes narrowing as his persona shifts, and the tense battles where Batman has to use every trick to survive. The moody noir setting, evoking the same Dark Deco style as Batman: The Animated Series, is beautifully realized in the dramatic Gotham skyline and in small details like the ‘40s TV sets.

The true highlight of the season is its spin on Batman’s greatest foe. The Joker (Matthew Needham of House of the Dragon) lurks in the background, building up to something big through little stingers. When he’s fully unleashed in the final two episodes of the season, he’s absolutely terrifying, utterly in control as he executes a complex plan that brings Gotham and Batman himself to the brink of destruction.

Because it was a kid’s show, Batman: The Animated Series couldn’t kill anyone. Caped Crusader has no such restrictions. Oftentimes the series’ body count feels inflated for shock value, but every use of the Joker’s signature toxin is actually horrifying. This Joker borrows some of his love of spectacle from Mark Hamill’s spin on the character fused with the approach to Gotham’s underworld Heath Ledger’s Joker took in The Dark Knight. But Caped Crusader has created a novel spin of the character by zeroing in on his obsession with being Batman’s only true equal as he pushes the hero to his limits.

Image: Prime Video

Those extraordinary episodes are why Caped Crusader deserves to keep going, even if season 2 has more misses than hits. There’s so much promise in the dynamics the show is building between Batman and his allies and enemies, and many villains the series hasn’t had the chance to play with yet. Caped Crusader is never going to be as good as Batman: The Animated Series, but Bruce Timm can sometimes still hit those high notes. When he does, it’s easy to forgive every sour note and just hope for an encore.

All 10 episodes of Batman: Caped Crusader will be released on Prime Video on July 31. %!s()

The letter was sent as the public comment period for the CFTC's first proposed rule on prediction market regulation expired Monday evening. The measure primarily focuses on exchanges' sports offerings.

"The Proposed Rule goes beyond the CFTC's statutory powers, is in tension with the Constitution, and would otherwise be arbitrary and capricious in its current form," wrote the coalition of states attorneys general, led by Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson. "The CFTC should start afresh with its rulemaking and clarify that sports bets and gambling cannot be traded on [designated contract markets], but are instead subject to state law."

Attorneys general representing Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, Missouri and Texas did not sign the letter. 

States and the CFTC have been locked in a jurisdictional battle ever since prediction market exchanges' volumes exploded last year, primarily driven by the popularity of their sports-related contracts. The 2026 FIFA World Cup sent platform volumes to new heights. 

The CFTC — and prediction market platforms — argue that all event contracts are swaps, a derivative that is regulated by the commission. However, states across the country believe that the sports-related contracts look too much like sports betting, which is in their jurisdictional wheelhouse. 

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In June, the commission released a first draft of its proposed rule on regulating prediction markets. The draft focused heavily on the controversial sports-related event contracts, including describing which ones may end up prohibited. 

It also crafted a definition for "gaming," which the commission in the rule said is something done for recreation or to entertain, is governed by rules and is based on measurable outcomes determined by skilled activity during the activity. In its own letter to the CFTC, derivatives marketplace CME Group disagreed with this definition.

"By defining 'gaming' as the sport itself rather than the financial wagering on the sport, the CFTC's definition suggests the [Commodity Exchange Act] is preempting state sports regulations, which is a striking overreach," wrote CME general counsel Jonathan Marcus in the letter. 

The CFTC has used federal preemption as an argument in court proceedings across the U.S. against states to defend what it sees as its exclusive jurisdiction to regulate prediction markets. The commission is in litigation with nine states across the country to defend that belief. 

While the CME is concerned about the federal government regulating sports-related event contracts, the exchange acts as sportsbook FanDuel's CFTC-regulated exchange for its sports prediction markets. 

Meanwhile, prediction market platform Rothera — which launched in June — argued that the commission should adopt the "gaming" definition precisely because it makes it about the activity itself. 

"A definition keyed to wagering, or to 'risking something of value' would, as the Commission recognizes, sweep in every event contract," Rothera CEO Thomas Chippas wrote in a letter to the commission. "Rothera agrees that a definition keyed to 'wagering' should be rejected."

Observers of prediction markets widely agree the Supreme Court will likely have the final say in who gets to regulate sports-related event contracts. Until then, a flurry of other court decisions are deciding the status of prediction markets' offerings.

Those decisions are often yielding diverging results. A Michigan judge in late June blocked platform Kalshi from offering sports bets in the state, while a federal judge in Minnesota on Monday temporarily blocked a statewide ban on prediction markets from taking effect Saturday. 

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment. %!s()

In the days since, much of the West Bank – particularly Nablus Governorate, but also Ramallah and towns stretching as far south as the Bethlehem Governorate – has been sealed off, forcing ambulance crews to navigate lengthy detours and prolonged checkpoint delays to reach hospitals.

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An ambulance trip that normally required Diriya to drive 20 kilometres (12 miles) can now require as much as 100 kilometres (60 miles), by his estimation. And even with prior coordination and permission to pass, it has taken hours at a time for Diriya to pass checkpoints to bring patients to hospitals in Nablus, the closest place offering sufficient medical services for critical cases from the surrounding villages, but which has had its entrances sealed off completely in recent days.

“Even if you’ve coordinated in advance, and they know the same woman is with you – it makes no difference,” said a tired Diriya. “Whether you’re entering Nablus or leaving through the checkpoint, it’s the same procedure every time: inspection, photographing IDs, photographing the ambulance, and then you just wait.”

Waiting at the checkpoints as each precious minute slips away for his patients requiring emergency medical attention leaves Diriya on edge.

“It wears us down enormously,” Diriya said. “Our job is saving people’s lives. Every minute counts for us.”

Early on Monday morning, ambulance driver Bashar al-Qaryuti picked up a six-month pregnant woman from Qaryut, southeast of Nablus, who was severely bleeding. But before they could reach Nablus, the ambulance stopped at Awarta, this time for half an hour. According to testimony that al-Qaryuti gave to Palestinian state news agency Wafa, the soldiers forced him to turn off the vehicle, causing the medical support equipment inside to stop working. The passengers were searched, including the pregnant woman, who was bleeding and in severe pain.

Following the delay, the woman’s unborn baby died before reaching the hospital, leaving the mother, and al-Qaryuti, devastated.

‘Collapsing’ healthcare system

Israel’s illegal settlements have choked Palestinian life in the occupied West Bank in the past few decades, but restrictions have grown on Palestinians since a far-right government came to power in Israel at the end of 2022, and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Even before the de facto lockdown that began on Friday evening, towns and villages in the West Bank have had checkpoints multiply and entrances increasingly sealed off entirely – with fatal results.

On July 5, in Deir Ammar refugee camp northwest of Ramallah, three-month-old Ahmad Zaid stopped breathing, and his family raced to get him past a locked Israeli military gate that has blocked the camp and two neighbouring villages from Ramallah’s hospitals since February.

Soldiers refused to open the gate even after Ahmad’s father carried the infant towards them, pleading to be let through. By the time the family reached an ambulance by another route, it was too late; the infant was pronounced dead en route to a hospital.

Then, on July 18, less than a week before the lockdown began, 30-year-old Sujood Fuqahaa from Sinjil died of cardiac arrest after soldiers would not allow her ambulance to pass while the town experienced a weeklong siege that sealed off all of its entrances. Such recent cases follow two years in which paramedics often reported being stopped on the way to reach injured victims of attacks from Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Adding to such access restrictions is the worsening medical supply shortage across the West Bank, as well as a healthcare system that is barely able to fund itself as a result of Israel’s systemic withholding of tax revenues designed for the Palestinian Authority. “The whole healthcare system is collapsing,” said Imran Anati, a researcher at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

The United Nations has recorded roughly 925 Israeli-imposed obstacles to movement across the territory, affecting an estimated 3.4 million Palestinians. But Diriya and other medical professionals interviewed by Al Jazeera describe the widespread closures that have gripped Nablus since Friday evening as the most severe restriction on movement the area has experienced since October 2023.

“This is another case of collective punishment that Israeli authorities are doing to Palestinians,” said Anati.

The systemic attacks on the West Bank’s healthcare system remind Anati of tactics employed in Gaza. On Friday, Israeli forces entered Nablus Specialised Hospital, where they handcuffed medical personnel in the course of detaining two brothers who had been admitted with injuries from the shooting near Tal, according to Wafa.

The World Health Organization documented 233 attacks on healthcare facilities, workers, and ambulances across the West Bank in 2025 alone.

“The attacks they were doing on medical teams in Gaza, you are seeing them do the same thing in the West Bank,” said Anati.

‘Demoralising’

In Aqraba, a village near Nablus, Dr Ayser Bani Jaber’s small clinic is minimally equipped, so serious injuries or cases are typically transported to hospitals in Nablus.

Until this week.

Bani Jaber described two women arriving within hours of each other early Sunday morning – both in labour, yet both unable to reach Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, the nearest facility equipped for complications. “We as a medical team were genuinely terrified,” he said, listing the array of blood, medication and equipment typically demanded to be on hand for medically safe births.

Lucky for the two babies, Bani Jaber’s wife, Dr Yusra Dweikat, is a gynecologist at Rafidia Hospital. Sequestered at home in Aqraba due to the roadblocks, she came to the clinic shortly after the first woman arrived at around 1am. She determined there was no time to wait, delivering the baby in spite of the inadequate conditions.

The second woman arrived at 3:30am, crying in fear, according to Bani Jaber. Every ambulance crew told the physician that the closures made the trip to Nablus impossible. Dr Dweikat again delivered the baby at the clinic. After the second birth was complete, the mother began bleeding – a complication the clinic could do nothing about, since Aqraba has no blood bank; the nearest one is in Nablus. It took half an hour of calls, coordination, and negotiation before an ambulance was cleared to transfer her to Rafidia.

“Sealing off entire communities while preventing ambulances from reaching patients or evacuating the wounded places civilians’ lives at immediate risk,” Anati said, calling on Israeli authorities to “immediately ensure safe and unimpeded access for ambulances and medical personnel” in line with obligations under international humanitarian law.

After the woman from Qaryut’s miscarriage early on July 27, Diriya suggested restrictions were finally easing somewhat later in the day. But late that night, Diriya relayed another rushed update from the road, sirens audible in the background: another woman had gone into labour and was bleeding.

With Nablus’s checkpoints still closed, he reported, his crew had no choice but to redirect her towards the hospital in Salfit, more than 25km (16 miles) south of Nablus, instead. “She just gave birth on the road, in the ambulance,” he announced, “minutes before we would have reached the hospital.”

Straddling a fine line between life and death amid settler attacks, the Nablus countryside’s sealed villages – and their local paramedics and doctors – are left with few resources. “Providing [sufficient medical assistance] in the villages is just incredibly difficult,” said Bani Jaber. “All of this has a direct bearing on whether the patient survives.”

“Whatever we manage comes down to whatever we can pull together ourselves.”

When Diriya and his kidney dialysis patients were stopped at the Awarta checkpoint all those hours on Friday, he noticed an Israeli ambulance simply passing through the checkpoint. “Israeli yellow-plated vehicles pass through even when the roads are closed,” he commented.

“In our job as paramedics, we serve everyone: Arabs, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians,” said Diriya. “All I care about is giving humanitarian care to whoever needs it. So of course it’s demoralising: I’m stuck waiting for long stretches, while my colleague in another ambulance – because he’s not Palestinian, because he’s Jewish – goes through freely. But I have no freedom at all.

“That does something to you psychologically – it really does.” %!s()

Ancient DNA from South Asia is scarce, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of how the region's populations formed over time. This new discovery is based on an analysis of the remains of 10 individuals excavated from Old Lady Spider Cave, an archaeological site 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) above sea level, in 2021. It lies in a region that has long connected South Asia, Tibet and Central Asia through ancient trade routes.

Decoding the bones

One of the first things the research team did was date the remains using radiocarbon dating. Then they extracted DNA from the bones and tissue and compared it with genome-wide genetic data from thousands of modern and ancient individuals to see which populations they most closely resembled. The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

The researchers discovered that the cave individuals shared a similar genetic profile that is extremely rare today. About half their ancestry was genetically similar to present-day North Indians, while the other half was closely linked to ancient Tibetans.

Next, the scientists used mathematical models to probe deeper into the data, analyzing the size of the DNA fragments inherited from each population.

When different groups mix, their chunks of DNA get chopped up into smaller pieces with every new generation. By measuring the sizes of these South Asian and Tibetan DNA fragments, the models could estimate when the two populations first mixed.

The results showed that this blending process began around 2,800 years ago, roughly 1,300 years before the cave individuals lived. "Our results do not imply that the detected admixture took place in Ladakh," the study authors commented in their paper.

A lost population leaves a legacy

While the findings suggest a previously unknown population, little is known about them beyond what can be gleaned from their DNA. But the DNA also shows that this ancient group didn't vanish. The researchers found evidence that they contributed ancestry to present-day Himalayan populations, including the Minero and Balti people of Ladakh.

"The Old Ladakh population did not completely disappear and instead left a legacy in present-day people."

Written for you by our author Paul Arnold, edited by Lisa Lock, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan—this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly). You'll get an ad-free account as a thank-you.

Publication details

Nick Patterson et al, Ancient genomes from Ladakh reveal 2800-year-old admixture between Tibetans and South Asians, Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeb3636

Who's behind this story?

Paul Arnold

BSc Biology from University of London. BBC documentary producer with world travel experience. Freelances from southern Spain. Full profile →

Lisa Lock

BA art history, MA material culture. Former museum editor, paramedic, and transplant coordinator. Editing for Science X since 2021. Full profile →

Robert Egan

Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing. Well-traveled with unique perspectives on science and language. Full profile →

© 2026 Science X Network

Citation: DNA studies uncover a forgotten population at the top of the world (2026, July 28) retrieved 28 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-dna-uncover-forgotten-population-world.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. %!s()

Some of the more recent launches may be attributed to the rise of AI coding, which has enabled people to ship software more quickly, and allowed novices to participate in the app ecosystem. According to one report, new app launches have soared in 2026, with worldwide new app releases up 60% year-over-year as of the first quarter across both the Apple App Store and Google Play. On Apple’s iOS store alone, that figure was an even higher 80%.

While there’s valid concern that vibe-coded apps in particular could be cluttering the App Store with lower-quality content, there are plenty of interesting apps worth exploring, and those that resonate with consumers will rise to the top. Many also use AI under the hood to perform their magic — they’re just not promoted as being “AI-powered.”

Below is our latest collection of App Store hidden gems, which we’ve added to our Home Screen. You can also visit TechCrunch’s prior app round-ups, like our looks at next-generation social apps, Apple Watch, and iPad productivity tools, and apps for digitally decluttering your life.

Albo

Albo (previously Sortd, but not that Sortd) is an excellent tool for anyone who regularly bookmarks content from social media, then promptly forgets about it. With Albo, the idea is that you’ll instead share the link to the TikTok, Instagram Reel, YouTube video, or other website to the app. Albo will then automatically pull the details from the post and categorize and save the idea for you. That post and its notes will remain available in Albo, even if the original content creator deletes their post or video at some point in the future.

The app works with a variety of social apps, including Pinterest, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Reddit, and Facebook, plus browsers like Chrome and Safari. You can also add screenshots to Albo.

This makes it easy to save any sort of online inspiration for easy access, whether that’s travel ideas, local spots to try, movie or shows to watch, books to read, recipes to cook, or workouts to do. Your collections can also be shared with friends.

Albo hails from the London-based app studio The Feel Good Project, which focuses on tech that makes users feel inspired and satisfied instead of drained by doomscrolling.

The app is free to use with advanced features available via subscription. We didn’t love how heavy-handed it was in pushing the trial subscription during onboarding, however.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Coop

The recent parasite outbreak in the U.S. has people thinking more carefully about where their food comes from. Buying from local growers and bakers may be the safer option — and better for the community — but not everyone has time to make it to the farmer’s market over the weekend.

Coop‘s app offers an alternative through its neighborhood marketplace, where you can buy real handmade and homegrown items from the people near you, even from the farmhouse down the road that offers fresh eggs, or a neighbor willing to barter their items for yours. The idea is to allow commerce to stay local, while helping people turn their own garden, field, or craft into an additional income stream.

On Coop, you can browse and discover nearby sellers, follow your favorites, see how far they are from you, and purchase from them via the app’s Stripe integration. The seller then receives the order and prepares it for pickup.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

PI.FYI by Perfectly Imperfect

A colorful and somewhat chaotic app, PI.FYI, promises to bring back the “old internet,” where you found recommendations through a network of friends, not algorithms. Having emerged from a cult newsletter, the app has been around for a couple of years, but still feels fresh and modern and very much like the alternative to social media it aims become.

In PI.FYI, you can track what you’re into, share your taste, and browse by category or “scenes,” like music, whimsy, retro, and literature, to find your community, read interesting articles, make lists, gather local recommendations, and play games with friends. The app exudes a retro vibe itself, as if it were built when the internet was a little less polished, too.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Lettre

OK, it might not be as fun as sharing a letter via pigeon post, but the app for pen pals, Lettre, also embraces the fun of snail mail in a digital format. This letter-writing app lets you start new friendships with pen pals around the world, discovered through the app, or with anyone whose email address you already know. Unfortunately, letters are sent digitally through the app or email for now, but the company’s FAQ suggests it is considering a postal mail option for the future, which would be so much fun.

Available on iOS only.

Sofa Time

While not a brand-new app, Sofa Time is one of several that is picking up where the recently shuttered TV Time app left off. The app has an easy-to-use, uncluttered interface for tracking the movies and TV shows you’re watching, organizing your watchlist, discovering what to stream next, and getting reminders about new releases.

While Sofa Time’s commenting section doesn’t yet rival TV Time’s forums, the app’s social elements leave room for the community to grow, as it supports the ability to react with a GIF or image alongside your text, and includes built-in translation features to support a global audience.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

ThingsBook

ThingsBook, a new writing-focused app from South Korean internet giant Naver’s U.S. subsidiary, is hardly an indie effort, but it’s an interesting premise for what the future of social media could look like. Instead of doomscrolling, ThingsBook offers a flexible space where you can capture what you care about, whether that’s through journaling, logging ideas, or collecting things like books, travels, meals, hobbies, and goals into structured lists you can revisit and expand.

The company explains that the app’s purpose is not to focus on “fleeting trends” but to become a “living record of who you are and what you love.”

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Pressed Petals

App or artistic project? Pressed Petals is both. An indie effort from designer Cynthia Chen, the app turns the photos of flowers you find on your walks into a pressed specimen, like one you’d find in a “vintage botanical journal.” The app automatically saves the location where you spotted the flower, and the date and time, turning your nature walks into interactive experiences. It also identifies the flower by name, both its scientific name and its common name.

You can try the app to press two flowers for free, then pay a one-time fee of $4.99 to unlock the full experience. This could be a fun app for luring your little ones outside, as it gives them something else to do beyond the hike itself.

Available on iOS only.

Moods Faster

We’re suckers for single-purpose apps that are built well. Moods Faster by Nick Leith is a perfect example, as it offers a way to log your moods for tracking in Apple Health in just two taps — one to select the mood and a second to save it.

You can choose between logging your current mood or your overall mood for the day, and can also optionally add information about the context and emotions you’re experiencing at the time of logging. In the settings, you can pick between different color schemes for your moods, though some are paywalled.

At $1.95 per month, it’s a reasonably priced subscription for anyone who regularly tracks their moods and emotions for mental health purposes.

Available on iOS only.

Activate Fitness

Originally pitched as a way to encourage kids to exercise, Activate Fitness has recently expanded its screen-time-earning app to include the whole family, which, frankly, makes it better. (The kids will just hate their parents for using this otherwise. Plus, it could turn outdoor time or exercise into a dreaded chore in kids’ minds, which defeats the purpose.)

For adults, the app could allow you to accomplish your own personal goals, like no doomscrolling until you get your steps in for the day.

Available on iOS only.

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