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That’s exactly what our Exhibit Program offers, and it’s still open to showcase your startup. 

Here’s what $12,500 buys you: 

• A 6’ x 30″ table in the Expo Hall, which is the highest-trafficked part of Disrupt, where more than 10,000 founders, VCs, and tech leaders come looking for partnerships, investments, and networking. 

• We provide the table, linen, chairs, and signage so you can focus on showcasing your startup — not logistics.

• 10 Disrupt passes, including five all-access Exhibitor-Partner passes and five Expo+ passes, so your whole team can work the floor, not just staff a booth. Those cover nearly $4,000 of the exhibition price by themselves!

• Lead generation through the Disrupt 2026 mobile app, so every conversation turns into a follow-up, not a lost business card. 

• Access to the Disrupt 2026 press list and Silver Tier sponsor branding across the site, app, and signage. 

Joining fellow exhibitors is the fastest, lowest-lift way for a startup at any stage to get in front of the exact room that matters, from investors sourcing deals, to operators evaluating tools, to founders scouting partners. 

There is one catch, though: Tables are limited. This offer ends when the last exhibit table sells out, or on September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT, whichever comes first.  

Book your exhibit table now by heading here. Or, if you’re not ready to exhibit this year, get a Disrupt 2026 ticket here while we’re running a limited-time $400 discount and start planning your presence for next year!

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“I couldn’t get the sentence out of my mouth fast enough: ‘Will you come back…’ ‘Yes.’ I was like, ‘Well, OK,'” Murphy tells The Hollywood Reporter with a laugh. That even included Jessica Lange, who hadn’t starred on his and Brad Falchuk’s hit horror anthology in a series regular role since season four’s Freak Show.

“If she had said no, I probably wouldn’t have done it,” he admits.

But Lange said yes. So did Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Billie Lourd, Frances Conroy, Gabourey Sidibe and Leslie Grossman.

The 13-episode season, which returns Sept. 24 on FX and Hulu (at 6 p.m. PT), is a tribute to the entire series, and will see the returning cast reprising many of their iconic roles. Lange is playing all four of her characters; Paulson is playing six and Peters, five. Murphy has compared the season to the Avengers, saying they all come together to defeat the ultimate evil.

“This season is a tribute to all of the seasons, which we’ll never do again,” he says now of the effort, which included many, many months of writing. “But it was fun. It was like getting the band back together and once they got on the set with me, it was like we never stopped making this. Most of them had accents and they instantly fell back into their characters. It was fascinating and thrilling.”

With Murphy’s latest TV offering, The Shards, now released (we talked about that this week, too), THR pressed the prolific creator on what he’s doing next, which includes the next season in his Monster franchise, The Lizzie Borden Story, him seriously considering rebooting Glee and spilling more details about AHS season 13 — including on Ariana Grande’s exit. He also reveals that he’s already working on season 14 and another untitled adaptation. Mainly, Murphy says he has one thing in mind: “How do I bring projects back to L.A.?”

***

There is a ton of excitement around the upcoming all-star 13th season of American Horror Story. How many more seasons of AHS do you want to do?

American Horror Story is an interesting thing, because some seasons I’m very involved and some I’m not involved at all or some I’m half-way in. Brad Falchuk and I created that show together, and we worked on it this year together. And [showrunners] Ned Martel and Charlie Carver were our lieutenants on the crowd who did a wonderful job.

I have a great passion for that show, and [FX boss] John Landgraf has a great passion for that show. It’s a very important show in my career. It’s something that John said, “As long as you want to keep making them, I’ll keep airing them.” That’s always been the idea behind it, which is very empowering.

Season 13 is not the end; I’m working on season 14 as we speak in terms of, “What’s the idea?” and “Who wants to be in it?”

I loved doing this season because I had not directed an American Horror Story since Freak Show, I think. Not since season four. And I directed the pilot this year and I just love the process of going to all the castmembers, all of whom are very busy, and saying, “Hey, can we get the band back together?”

How did those calls to the AHS cast go?

It all started with Jessica [Lange] because Jessica, after we did the first four seasons, wanted to go off and do different things, which I understood completely. But I reached out to her thinking she would say no, and if she had said no, I probably wouldn’t have done it. She told me a story about how she was doing Broadway last season and she would go out after the show, and there were all of these young people who were there because they all watched her work on American Horror Story. And she was very moved by that. I said, “Well, that’s funny, because my idea is for you to do all four of your favorite characters.” And she said, “Sign me up. I’d love to do it.” I was so grateful.

Sarah [Paulson] and I talked about it. She said yes. Sarah played six characters in the season. With all of the OGs, it wasn’t even a conversation. I couldn’t get the sentence out of my mouth fast enough. “Will you come back…” “Yes.” I was like, “Well, OK.” So before I started writing it, I had all of them — Emma [Roberts] and Evan [Peters] and Kathy Bates; Angela Bassett and Gabourey Sidibe and Leslie Grossman.

We also had a lot of the original costumes still in storage that we got to use. So there are little Easter eggs threaded around in the set decoration where fans can be like, “Wait, wasn’t that in season two?” It was. This season is a thank you to the fans for continuing to watch.

Ariana Grande exited season 13 because of her Eternal Sunshine tour. (She’s since announced a step back from the public eye.) Can you reveal what role you had in mind for her, or is it something you would save for down the line?

I love Ariana Grande. We’re great friends. I had an idea and I came to her and she, very immediately, said, “I’m not sure because I think I’m going on tour.” I don’t think the tour had been announced, and she had obviously just finished the Wicked movie. So when it came time to do that episode, I called her up and she was like, “I don’t know how I’m going to juggle the tour with this.” And I said, “OK, if you can’t, we can push to another season.” She said, “Great.”

You have to be respectful. Who is busier than Ariana Grande? No one. She had told me at the time, “I have this album that’s dropping.” It was really, truly a scheduling conflict. I said, “OK, we’ll kick that can down the road,” and she said, “Great.” Ariana is a big fan of horror. She’s obviously done homages of that in her work; she did Scream Queens for me and loved the experience, and people love her in that show. So I will always work with her.

I love her, and I support her. It was a very big swing, but I might bring that back for another season, per Ariana’s availability. I think the world of her.

You also just dropped your Lizzie Borden series first look. The other Monster cases were clear-cut crimes, while Lizzie was acquitted and the case remains unsolved. She’s also a female serial killer, which is rarer. Did any of that give you pause when tackling this story?

I find that show, which I do with Ian Brennan, to be very interesting because you know that no matter what you do, it’s going to be controversial. That’s baked into the cake. I’m always interested in, not glorifying these characters, but the Monster franchise is only about one thing: Are monsters made, or are they born?

With the Lizzie Borden case, I had a very deep connection to that. When I was in kindergarten, I won first place singing the Lizzie Borden nursery rhyme [“Lizzie Borden Took an Ax…”] in a choral competition, if you can believe that. That was the first thing I ever won. So I grew up with that nursery rhyme. I’m from the Midwest. I thought everybody knew that nursery rhyme, and they did not.

I like investigating that story because, in many ways, you can look at what it deals with women and society and it’s very about today. It’s a very modern story. The story of Lizzie Borden is: Did she do it or did she not? There are many theories. But I think it taps into Victorian America and this idea of, “Why can’t I do this? Why can’t my parents understand me?” I think everyone, male or female, who is a teenager knows about that. And I’m like, “Why can’t we write about that?”

It is an interesting season because it is the Lizzie Borden story, but there are also other female “killers” who I was always interested in exploring. I always wanted to do something about Aileen Wuornos. I’ve always wanted to do something about the Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who Dracula was modeled after. So we are kind of doing this fantasia of women vs. the system, and it’s not what they did, it’s the question of: What made them do it? Why did they do it, if they did it? That’s what the show is about. And it has three really great “monsters” behind it: Lizzie Borden [played by Ella Beatty], Aileen Wuornos and Elizabeth Báthory.

Vicky Krieps plays Báthory, as well as the maid. She plays two parts. And then when I was working on it, there was only one actress who I thought could [play Wuornos], and that was Sarah Paulson. I told her, “I have this thing,” and she’s like, “Oh, God.” Then she read it and said, “It’s going to be hard, but I’ll do it.”

I love the season. Sarah Adina Smith, who directed many of the episodes, is a wonderful female director and I’m going to work with her again on something soon. I thought it was really interesting to explore the themes that are modern.

Some burning questions: What is the status of The Beauty season two? Have you landed on what couple you want to focus on for Love Story season two? And what’s a white whale story you want to tackle next?

Those are all things that I’m considering and thinking about. And trying to figure them out.

You have to figure out what you’re interested in doing next, and I’m lucky enough that I have really great partners who want to do this and that. I haven’t figured it out yet. I have many things coming out between August and Christmas, and I’m sort of plotting out my next two years. I don’t think I’ll ever do as much again as I did this year because I have three young children.

With me, it always starts with the idea: What are you interested in? And sometimes, you work on something and abandon it. We were doing an entire other Monster season — Ian and I wrote two of them. And it didn’t feel right. So sometimes, I work on something and kick the can down the road.

The next thing I’m doing, I start shooting December in Europe — I’ve always wanted to do a vampire story and I always wondered why nobody has made a show about these characters I love [from a book and movie adaptation]. So that’s the next thing I’m going to tackle.

I’m also considering Glee.

How seriously?

It’s something to consider. For many, many people now in their 20s, they grew up on that show and it meant something to them. The music meant something. So, let’s kick it around and see what we get. It’s always about the story for me. What’s the story? Do I want to tell the story now? Sometimes I want to wait.

I’m considering a lot of stuff. To me, it’s always about how the scripts come in and what it costs. You have to be conscious about all of that. But because I have such great partners, I’m able to create things that give thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people jobs. We need to bring production back to LA. We have to figure out: How do we make shows in L.A. so that people who came here and worked here can be with their families and not have to go out of state? I think that caused a lot of difficulties for people, so I’m not thinking about it in terms of projects, I’m thinking about: “How do I bring projects back to L.A.?”

But I am optimist and I love everything I have coming out. I think I’m in a development phase.

***

The Shards releases new episodes Wednesdays on FX and Hulu; American Horror Story season 13 premieres Sept. 24. %!s()

While it’s as-yet unclear who will direct the project now, this bump in the road isn’t the end for Rebirth’s sequel. A script has already been penned by David Koepp, who famously wrote the script for the original Jurassic Park film in 1993 and 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

Rebirth’s stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey are also expected to return, though nothing has been confirmed as of yet, since schedules are reportedly still being worked out. The film famously made Johansson the highest-grossing lead actor ever, launching her over Robert Downey Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson.

It was a hugely profitable flick, grossing over $750 million at the box office, in part due to its massive opening weekend, where it raked up $300 million globally. While the numbers speak for themselves, critics’ opinions were decidedly less positive, with IGN’s Clint Gage rating Rebirth a 5 out of 10, arguing the film “plays it frustratingly safe, falling back on the blueprint of the original film, but not shedding any of the problems with the more recent movies.”

Rebirth was a fairly stand-alone experience, though its ending certainly pointed to a continuation of its story, which took place in the aftermath of the events of Jurassic World Dominion. For now, Universal seems to be moving full-speed ahead as fans await more details.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze. %!s()

“It’s a unique white space,” said Jillian Cueff, Chief Merchandising Officer of Claire’s, who joined the company in January. “There’s no other place to get your ears pierced in the mall. We pierce all of America and Canada, too. It’s our bullseye.”

However, the retail piercing industry has grown more competitive in recent years, with companies such as Rowan and Studs also offering the service. Yet, no one caters to Gen Alpha girls the way Claire’s does with its target age of 10.

“One of the things we want our brand to represent is a playground for girlhood,” said Cueff. “We’re creating a destination for her in the mall. That’s where we started. Piercing is what we’re known for.”

The company has been piercing girls and their mothers for nearly five decades with 131 million ears pierced to date. Cueff said the price remains the same as when Claire’s started. “We’ve elevated the experience, to a clinical level,” she said. “Before, we felt like it was less of an environment girls wanted to be in.”

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Claire’s worked with industry experts on ongoing education and re-certification across stores, enhanced clinical training, FDA‑registered medical devices, and elevated safety protocols. The brand introduced professional instructors who travel across the country to train and support Claire’s store associates. The instructors are called the Piercing Excellence Team.

Styles including single studs and a selection with lab-grown diamonds are new to the retailer, which offers free piercing and aftercare with the purchase of an ear piercing kit starting at $29.99.

A curved purple piercing station welcomes girls with newly added earring bars. “We know this customer loves to explore and touch and feel before they get the piercing done,” Cueff said. “For some our more cautious consumers we have squishies to hold.

“We made a dedicated place for piercing in the store and added selfie mirrors,” she said. “We know she likes to share everything with all of her friends.”

Claire’s consumers love toys, candy and viral products, Cueff said, adding, “We have some third party brands that are in the toy space. It complements that moment with all the things the Gen Alpha girl wants. It’s organized with a little bit more inspiration and surprise.”

Claire’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018. An initial public offering was planned in 2021, but those plans were scuttled in 2023. Last August it closed more that 290 stores, including 234 Claire’s locations and 56 Icing stores as part of a second bankruptcy. There was the subsequent sale of the company for $140 million to private equity firm Ames Watson.

The most recent bankruptcy wasn’t due to declining profits – the retailer said it had doubled profits – but rather a perfect storm of debt, operational decline and structural weakness that made the business untenable.

“I consider myself part of the leadership team and we’re focused on driving revenue and profit,” Cueff said. “This year’s focus is giving our customer that surprise and delight experience every time she comes in. We’re all focused on making sure the customer is at the center of our decisions. We’re excited to create for her.”

The first iteration of the new store elements bowed at a location in Santa Anita, California today.

This summer, the store is a playground geared to Claire’s 10-year-old target customer, a Gen Alpha fan girl. “We have some exciting marketing campaigns that are launching for fall,” Cueff said. “We speak to consumers and have many focus groups. We listen day in and day out to actual customers.”

Claire’s is also focused on increasing style, quality and value. “This customer can make up her mind very quickly,” said Cueff. “We’re making sure we’re delivering on time when she wants it. We’re elevating the trend worthiness across the total store and about 9,000 skus. That’s down from where we’ve been in the past when the store was more disjointed and bazaar-like.”

Cueff is concentrating on Claire’s own stores. “We always have aspirations for opening more stores, but making sure the ones we have are rocking and rolling, is our top priority right now,” she said of the 900-store fleet. %!s()

In a new study published in Nature Food, Baoxiao Liu and her colleagues from Leiden's Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) mapped where agriculture causes the greatest damage worldwide.

Maps show where agriculture causes the greatest damage

Liu and her colleagues combined data on agricultural land, biodiversity and carbon storage with information on different food products. This allowed them to create global maps showing where agriculture places the greatest pressure on climate and nature.

The maps reveal that the impact is highly concentrated: Around two-thirds of biodiversity loss and the loss of natural carbon storage occur on just one-third of agricultural land.

The largest hotspots are found in Mexico and Central America, parts of Brazil, West Africa, India, China and Southeast Asia. "These are mainly regions where agriculture is either very intensive or takes place in ecosystems that naturally store large amounts of carbon and are rich in biodiversity, such as tropical forests," Liu explains. "When these areas are converted into farmland, both values are lost at the same time."

Cattle farming causes the most damage

The researchers not only mapped where the damage occurs but also which food products contribute most to these impacts. Products from cattle farming, such as beef and milk, are among the largest contributors to environmental damage worldwide.

Together, beef and milk account for 41% of biodiversity loss and 29% of the loss of carbon storage caused by food production. "Animal-based products, and especially products from cattle, have a disproportionately large impact," Liu says. "Cattle require large amounts of agricultural land, both for grazing and for growing feed crops."

Targeted measures can deliver major benefits

Previous studies often examined either carbon loss or biodiversity loss, usually at a much coarser spatial scale. This study is the first to map both types of environmental loss simultaneously at a global scale, with detailed resolution and linked to different food products.

"If we target a relatively small share of agricultural land, this can already deliver major benefits for climate and nature," Liu says. Because the greatest losses are concentrated in specific areas and products, targeted measures can have a substantial impact. These could include improving agricultural practices, protecting vulnerable areas and changing food consumption patterns so that less land is needed for food production, allowing areas to recover as natural ecosystems where possible.

"The losses we see also represent potential gains," Liu says. "Agriculture can therefore not only be part of the problem but also offer major opportunities to address both crises."

Publication details

Baoxiao Liu et al, High-resolution carbon and biodiversity mapping shows correlated losses across space and agricultural products, Nature Food (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-026-01387-0

Who's behind this story?

Swati Mestri

Swati Mestri holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering and has worked as a content editor since 2019. She has experience editing research documents across technology, health care, and materials science, and has a particular interest in technology and space. 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 →

Citation: One-third of agricultural land accounts for two-thirds of global impact, study reveals (2026, August 6) retrieved 6 August 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-08-agricultural-accounts-thirds-global-impact.html

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