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Automotive News reports that while Toyota and Nissan's plants, which are located about 93 miles away from the epicenter, weren't directly affected, supply chain issues and safety concerns in the surrounding area led to the decision to temporarily shut down operations. This could mean limited supply of certain Lexus and Nissan models in the United States.

2026 Lexus ES

About 90 percent of Lexus vehicles that come out of Toyota's Miyata assembly plant are exported to other countries, Toyota's website says, including the United States. The ES sedan, RX compact SUV, and UX and NX subcompact SUVs are all manufactured at the Miyata plant and shipped to the United States. Nissan's affected plants produce the Infiniti QX80 and the Nissan Armada, among other vehicles sold in global markets.

Toyota originally suspended operations at its three plants for one shift after the quake on Tuesday. After attempting to restart on Wednesday morning, it announced a suspension until Friday, which will impact production for its engine, hybrid powertrain, and Lexus assembly plants.

Toyota's three-day shutdown applies to all lines and will likely cause around 5200 units of lost vehicle output, according to AN. Nissan's shutdown, which began Wednesday, is less severe and only affects certain lines, though its end date is unknown.

2026 Infiniti QX80

Nissan specifically cited issues with parts availability for its partial shutdown. The Kumamoto area is also home to auto parts manufacturers that supply Toyota and Nissan, and any damages or shutdowns within those companies could have lasting effects on Toyota and Nissan's final output abilities, even with fully functional plants. AN says at least two parts suppliers have already suspended operations.

While Toyota and Nissan's factories appear to be unaffected, supplier shutdowns and nearby infrastructure damage could cause longer-lasting supply and delivery issues. A few days likely won't have a huge impact on vehicle quantities in the United States, but prolonged periods of supply chain issues in the aftermath of the earthquake could be troublesome, especially considering that a substantial chunk of Lexus' U.S. lineup comes from Toyota's Miyata plant.

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Alayna Wilkening grew up reading motorsport magazines and following her grandpa around his Chevrolet dealership's showroom floor. In true Hoosier fashion, her first car was a hot pink custom cardboard "Fiero-vette" for her kindergarten Kindy 500 race. She now autocrosses a 1994 Miata with her dad, which she learned to drive the night before her first event. Alayna went to Indiana University and graduated with a degree in journalism and a minor in graphic design. As a testament to her great taste in cars, her first real one was a metallic orange 2007 Chevy HHR, which she lovingly called "The Dumptruck."   %!s()

For fiscal 2026, Starbucks now expects adjusted earnings per share in a range of $2.55 to $2.65, up from its prior outlook of $2.25 to $2.45 per share.

It now also projects global same-store sales will rise nearly 6% and U.S. same-store sales will climb more than 6%; the company was previously forecasting global and U.S. same-store sales growth of at least 5%.

"This was the quarter our momentum became truly measurable," CEO Brian Niccol said in a video shared with the company's earnings press release.

The coffee giant also reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped analysts' expectations.

Shares of the company jumped as much as 9% in extended trading.

Here's what the company reported for the quarter ended June 28 compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: 85 cents adjusted vs. 66 cents expected
• Revenue: $9.32 billion vs. $9.16 billion expected

The coffee giant reported fiscal third-quarter net income attributable to Starbucks of $1.05 billion, or 91 cents per share, up from $558.3 million, or 49 cents per share, a year earlier.

The company's operating margins expanded to 13.6%, up from the year-ago period margins of 13.3%, thanks in part to tariff refunds. Starbucks did not say exactly how much it received in refunds.

"The refunds we received in Q3 largely offset related tariffs incurred in the first three quarters of fiscal 2026," CFO Cathy Smith said on the company's earnings conference call.

Excluding restructuring costs and other items, Starbucks earned 85 cents per share.

Net sales dropped 1% to $9.3 billion due to the company's sale of a controlling stake in its China business. In November, Starbucks announced it was forming a joint venture with Boyu Capital, which would take over operations in the coffee chain's second-largest market.

Although Starbucks' overall revenue fell, its sales at stores open at least 13 months climbed 7.9%, topping Wall Street estimates of 6%, according to StreetAccount.

The coffee chain reported increases in both transactions and average check, showing that customers are returning to its cafes and spending more on their orders.

Under Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" strategy, the company has focused on improving service and making cafes more welcoming in its home market. To do so, the chain has invested in labor and renovations to its coffee houses, earning some grumbling from investors. But the efforts seem to be paying off for Starbucks, which had seen its sales slump as it lost many of its loyal customers to competitors like Dutch Bros.

The company's North American same-store sales increased 8.1% in the quarter. Traffic to those restaurants jumped 4.5%. With a 3.5% increase in average ticket, customers were also spending more on their orders, paying to modify their lattes and adding food items alongside their drinks.

In addition to improving its operations, Starbucks has also retooled its menu, cutting unpopular items and launching new drinks. Niccol said the chain would test "spritzers" — sparkling versions of its Refreshers — in select markets.

Refreshers have grown to become a $2 billion drink platform for Starbucks and often drive customers to its cafes during the afternoon, helping fuel business outside of the morning coffee rush. In the fiscal third quarter, revenue from Refreshers climbed by a double-digit percentage, executives said.

Outside of Starbucks' home market, same-store sales rose 5.7%. With the formation of the China joint venture, roughly 90% of the company's international locations are now licensed, according to Niccol. The asset-light model is often more attractive to investors, who like the long-term lift to earnings the structure usually brings.

During the quarter, Starbucks opened 175 net new stores and surpassed 1,000 cafe "uplifts," reaching its fiscal 2026 goal ahead of schedule. Starbucks is now targeting at least 1,500 store renovations by the end of fiscal 2026 and accelerating its plans further in the next fiscal year.

The cafe makeovers cost roughly $150,000 on average and result in higher transactions, Niccol said on the company's earnings conference call. The changes vary based on location, but generally customers can expect more seating, warmer lighting and dark wood paneling.

Smith also said that the company is assessing its North American store footprint, which could result in it shuttering more stores. In fiscal 2025, the company's North America footprint shrank by 1% due to closures.

Correction: This story was updated to correct that Starbucks' North American same-store sales rose 8.1%. A previous version misstated the figure. %!s()

They say war never changes. That's especially true for the console war, which has seen its latest development in the form of Halo: Campaign Evolved. For the first time in its 25-year history, a Halo game is officially playable on PlayStation at the same time as its PC and Xbox counterparts. But some players have claimed to see notable differences between these versions.

Developed by Halo Studios and released July 28 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a full remake of Bungie's 2001 shooter Halo: Combat Evolved. It's a beat-for-beat remake, too, rendering in 2026-worthy graphics all sorts of classic features, including weapons like the assault rifle.

That weapon in particular is the crux of the community's latest talking point. Back in Combat Evolved, Master Chief used the MA5B assault rifle, which sported a 60-round clip. But in Campaign Evolved, the base assault rifle is the 32-round MA5C. (Caveat: Once unlocked, you can activate the Magnified skull modifier to switch that back to the classic MA5B.) And some players claim the MA5C is less accurate in Halo: Campaign Evolved on PS5, though they note it fires slightly at a slightly faster rate.

Patient zero here appears to be Reddit user Mikalton, who shared a video on the Halo subreddit of the most riveting thing you can do in a Halo game: standing still and shooting a wall. The left side of the video shows a player firing a weapon aimlessly, with the rifle's recoil causing the targeting reticle to slowly drift from the center of the screen. The other side of the video shows a PS5 player firing the same weapon from the same spot at the same distance; the targeting reticle drifts more than the one shown on the right side. Further sequences in the video show similar instances of PS5 and PC or Xbox players firing at walls, and a close look reveals divergent spreads of bullet holes from each player, though it's not immediately clear which players are on PS5 and which are on PC or Xbox.

Plenty of respondents have speculated as to what's going on here, whether it's a matter of frame rates or other technical issues. (Some pointed out that activating the Magnified skull also has an effect on the weapon's accuracy.) But many players seems to agree: The Xbox version of the assault rifle is superior.

"Ngl, the ps5 one looks like a typical AR, but the xbox/pc one is a freaking laser beam," one player wrote. "Like I'm never use the AR in any halo, but in [Campaign Evolved], Ive found myself only dropping it when it's out of ammo due to how accurate it feels."

Image: Halo Studios/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon

Halo: Campaign Evolved is also the first Halo game in history to be released without a competitive multiplayer mode. Of course, its omission could be due to a wide range of factors. Halo: Campaign Evolved is the first Halo game built on Unreal Engine 5; though it expertly captures the feeling of a Halo campaign, perhaps the developers are still ironing out kinks for competitive play. The studio could also run into roadblocks with spinning up multiplayer on a platform it's never developed for. And there's the fact that, sorry, Halo multiplayer has evolved by leaps and bounds beyond its early days as an MLG mainstay. Would players coming off the generationally terrific Halo Infinite even want to go back to the way things used to be?

Representatives for Halo Studios did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mikalton's clip has nevertheless led some players to surmise that the disparity, however slight in accuracy, however minimally noticeable between different versions of the game, is why Halo Studios declined to include a competitive component. But this line of reasoning is moot thanks to one critical point. If you're using the assault rifle in PvP in the first place, you've already lost. %!s()

For a synthetic tissue or organ to be fully functional, not only must the artificial tissue be constructed, but a vascular network around it also must be created. This network of surrounding blood vessels supplies oxygen and nutrients to tissues; without it, engineering functional artificial organs is impossible. Currently, building this network is a bottleneck in artificial tissue development, and constructing midsize blood vessels, or arterioles, is particularly challenging.

"While numerous methods have shown promise in the synthesis of smaller capillaries and larger arteries, the ability to construct arterioles that provide the link between these systems is an unresolved problem in the development of artificial vascular networks," says senior author Keisuke Morishima. "However, our team has recently developed a method to bridge this critical gap by continuously forming ring structures at meniscus interfaces."

This technique uses an innovative strategy that leverages the surface tension that creates a meniscus at an oil–hydrogel interface in a small channel. The meniscus effect creates a curve in the liquid, similar to the surface of water in a glass. Shining UV light onto this curved surface causes the hydrogel to form a ring-like structure at the channel wall. Repeating this process at precise points along the channel builds a series of rings, gradually forming a hollow tubular hydrogel structure. This approach was successfully used to construct hydrogel structures similar in size and shape to natural arterioles.

Hydrogel tubular structures could be created with controlled lumen sizes and complex geometries, including curved and branched configurations. Multiple materials could be combined in one structure, reducing the material-switching steps and waste of conventional fabrication.

"Such complex architecture would be necessary for the successful creation of a synthetic vascular network," explains Morishima. In addition, a lack of stability has been an issue in the development of softer tubular hydrogels, but the team was able to form tubular structures using softer, biologically relevant hydrogels with good stability. The process could also be automated by combining image processing and synchronized UV irradiation, creating smoother surfaces than previous discrete layer-by-layer fabrication.

"Integrating these hydrogel fabrication systems with precise microfluidic flow control components has strong potential for the easy production of vascular models of living systems—a key step toward the development of fully synthetic tissues," says lead author Yuki Kamiya.

While the creation of fully functional artificial tissues is still a long way off, this research paves the way for creating vascular models to investigate how artificial tissues and organs may one day become a reality. Beyond artificial organs, potential applications include drug discovery, disease modeling, food technology, soft robotics and biohybrid systems.

Publication details

Yuki Kamiya et al, Meniscus‐Guided Interfacial Ring‐by‐Ring Assembly for In Situ Fabrication of Tubular Hydrogels, Advanced Materials (2026). DOI: 10.1002/adma.74064

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: A step closer to artificial organs: UV light shapes arteriole-scale hydrogel vessels (2026, July 29) retrieved 29 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-closer-artificial-uv-arteriole-scale.html

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Cloth was arrested on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He faces seven counts of wire fraud, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Chicago.

In 2024, Cloth stepped down as co-head of C2 Motion Picture Group as he fielded allegations of fraud on a number of projects. The announcement came a week after a Florida jury found that he scammed an investor out of millions of dollars for the production of a slate of movies, including Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Monkey Man and NBA docuseries The Pathway.

Since 2021, he and his former financing company Creative Wealth Media, which declared bankruptcy in 2023, have been named in at least four lawsuit accusing him of shuffling investments around various entities to repay outstanding loans.

From 2019 to 2026, Cloth solicited big-money investments from clients looking to finance films and other entertainment projects with Creative Wealth, according to the indictment. He allegedly secured more than $100 million from an Illinois investment advisor and its clients whose funds were used for other purposes, including the development of a real estate project in Canada. Some of the money was used to repay prior investors, prosecutors claimed.

Creative Wealth was the primary financier for Canadian production and finance company Bron Studios, which had garnered 30 Oscar nominations and six wins across various films it financed or produced before it filed for bankruptcy in 2023. The Aaron Gilbert-led outfit had also been accused of widespread fraud in lawsuits.

Creative Wealth was granted the majority of Bron’s remaining assets, including its stake in several films, in bankruptcy proceedings.

At the time, Cloth attributed investment failures to Bron’s bankruptcy. “We are pleased that the Court recognized how Creative Wealth was affected by Bron’s actions and has decided to award us control of its surviving assets,” he said.

Cloth faces up to 20 years for each count of wire fraud. The indictment seeks the forfeiture of at least $12.25 million. %!s()